Breakpoint

Martin de Porres was born in Lima, Peru, in 1579 - the illegitimate son of Don Juan de Porres, a Spanish nobleman. His mother, Ana Velázquez, was a freed African slave from Panama. When Martin was born with his mother's dark skin and features, Don Juan denied he was the baby's father. Don Juan abandoned Martin, his sister, and his mother while Martin was still a boy. Martin grew up in poverty and, because he was of mixed race, suffered social stigma. He attended school for two years until the age of 12, before apprenticing as a barber-surgeon. He learned to cut hair, bleed patients (in keeping with current medical practice), and to prepare and administer medicines. As a boy, Martin developed an active prayer life. He spent many nights praying to devote himself more completely to God. At 15, Martin committed his life to serve the church. Because Peru banned descendants of Africans and Indians from joining religious orders, Martin approached the Dominicans of the Convent of the Holy Rosary in Lima, asking to simply be a servant at the Convent. Initially, Martin worked menial jobs, helping in the kitchen and performing manual labor at the monastery. He cleaned the rooms of the Friars, earning the nickname "saint of the broom." He continued developing his prayer life and spiritual practices, receiving recognition for his humility, which enabled him to ignore insults he received for his mixed-race ancestry. Martin's diligence and spiritual growth attracted the attention of his superiors in the convent, earning him greater responsibility. When the leadership disregarded the law and invited him to become a lay brother in the convent, he refused the offer several times, thinking himself unworthy of the honor. Eventually, when ordered to accept the position, Martin reluctantly agreed. As a lay brother, many offices within the convent opened to Martin. He continued to work in the kitchen, but with his background in medicine, he also became the convent's barber and began serving in the infirmary. Martin was skilled as a healer and, unlike many in his profession, treated everyone with dignity, whether rich or poor, Spanish or native, free or slave. At one point, Martin took in a beggar covered with ulcers, putting the man in his own bed to care for him. When one of the brothers in the convent rebuked Martin for this, he replied, "Compassion, my dear Brother, is preferable to cleanliness." When an epidemic broke out in Lima, Martin focused his care on the Holy Rosary's sick but also had great compassion for the broader community. Fearing the epidemic would spread to the brothers, the head of the Dominicans in Lima forbade Martin from taking in more people. Martin sent the sick to his sister's house in the countryside and cared for them there. Martin's godly character, humility, and work in the infirmary birthed various stories of miracles. Whatever we make of these reports, there is no doubt of his compassion and skill as a healer. Martin also cared deeply for animals. He refused to eat meat and set up a shelter for stray cats and dogs at his sister's house. Because of his remarkable rapport with animals, images of Martin often depict him holding a broom, with a dog, cat, and mouse eating out of a shared dish at his feet. Martin's humility and frugality led him to wear his habits until they were completely threadbare, except for one fresh habit in his trunk, for his burial. During his lifetime, Martin was considered a living saint. After his death, many miraculous healings were attributed to him. Through discipline in prayer and faithful service, and by avoiding distractions, he strove for faithfulness, not success. Throughout his life, Martin exemplified Paul's words to the church in Corinth: "Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."

On Saturday Night Live last week, in a sketch featuring "Goober the Clown," Cecily Strong ridiculed Texas' heartbeat law. Strong told her abortion story using "fun clown stuff" like balloon animals, a squirting flower, and a clown costume. The intent, I think, was to portray abortion as no big deal, not as dark and scary as it's made out to be, and to suggest that women shouldn't be forced to talk about it. But the sketch came across awkward and sad. Perhaps Strong's parody was actually rooted in her own deep pain. But if it's really no big deal, why wouldn't people be more excited about the freedom abortion supposedly brings? Perhaps the pain so many women feel after abortion isn't just from social stigma or new laws, but because of what abortion is: an act of violence perpetrated on both mother and child... which is why abortion is no laughing matter.

In 1974, philosopher Robert Nozick proposed a thought experiment he called "the experience machine." He hoped to challenge hedonism, the belief that the highest good in life is finding the most pleasure. Imagine a machine, Nozick said, that would simulate in our brains all the best experiences we could imagine. Nozick took for granted that, ultimately, people would choose the real experience over the machine-generated one. He believed people want to do things, not just have a fake experience of doing things. He also believed people were still hungry for a reality bigger than any man-made experience machine could provide. "We learn that something matters to us in addition to experience by imagining an experience machine and then realizing we would not use it," Nozick wrote. Apparently, Nozick never met Mark Zuckerberg. A few weeks ago, the billionaire founder of Facebook announced the company's new venture, "Meta." The idea is to create a world of simulations in which people can, broadly, live their lives. Zuckerberg imagines that, using VR technology, people would be able to "go to the office" or "visit family and friends" or do almost anything in simulated or half-simulated places. We could make digital offices, and buy digital art to "hang" on our digital office walls. We could buy digital clothes to wear to these digital offices, and once everyone else is using the "meta," we can meet them in some digital place without ever leaving home. According to the team at Facebook, it will be at least a decade before technology enables the launch of their metaverse, but Zuckerberg seems pretty confident that, all things considered equal, people will prefer it to the real thing. And, if anyone has the resources (not to mention a built-in base of ready-and-willing customers) to pull something like this off, it's Facebook. Of course, technological advancement is not inherently bad. In fact, this sort of technology is only compelling because of the technological habits we've already embraced, some good and some not-so-good. For example, the same technology that allowed us to work from home during the pandemic also tempts us to replace in-person relationships with online ones. One glaring problem with the metaverse idea is that it encourages us, at least implicitly, to forget our bodies. This is something made possible by a pre-existing condition. One irony of the sexual revolution is that by making bodily pleasure a central object of our worship, we treat the body as if it can be remade and molded into whatever our minds choose. In such a world, it's essential to remind each other that we are not just minds or feelings. Our bodies are much more than mere tools that serve or get in the way of our experience of the world. We worship as bodies and with our bodies. We serve others as bodies and with our bodies. And we make new people who are, in no small part, bodies - with our bodies. God secured our salvation by becoming flesh. Discernment on this front is crucial because culture often changes subtly. The metaverse isn't going to be theoretical one day and then a full reality the next. If it happens, it will be by degrees, and the process of acceptance is already in place: Technology makes something more convenient. We embrace it. Before long, what was convenient becomes unavoidable, and then necessary. Even if we personally opt out of the thing, it can still become an essential part of the cultural waters in which we swim. You may not have a Facebook account today, but Facebook is an integral part of how the worlds of commerce, politics, education, and, to a degree, even personal relationships, now work. If we're closer to plugging into Nozick's "experience machine" today than we were in 1974, it's not because we're somehow dumber. It's because the machine is being built a component at a time, and we find each part enticing and helpful. The tragedy is waiting to question each component of the machine until the day we wake up and find we're already plugged into it. Through this process, Christians need to stay consciously embodied. That doesn't mean we eschew every new technology. The key is to use technology in service to our flourishing as embodied souls, and to make sure we don't let that technology redefine what it means to flourish.

John and Shane discuss a recent article in The Atlantic by Peter Whener about the abandonment of Jesus' teachings by evangelicals. The listener asks how Christians should respond to these claims. John also answers a question about the Christian perspective with climate change and how Christians can respond to claims that they are responsible for deterioration in the environment. Shane then asks John why the term "virtue signaling" is cringe-worthy before John is asked to explain the relationships with the words worldview, epistemology, and theology.

In 2017, Yale researcher Michael Kraus discovered that the best medium for communication was voice-only. Scientists have a couple of theories as to why. First, voice-only is just less distracting. Especially in the age of Zoom, virtual communication means bombardment by images, web problems, and front-facing cameras. All of these make it harder to focus on people - and therefore empathize with them. But second, whereas visual clues can be misleading, it's harder for speakers to disguise how they're feeling in the tone of their voices. This suggests it's the tone we use, not our facial expressions, which are our biggest non-verbal giveaways. That lines up with how Scripture tells us to advance the Gospel, sharing the good news "with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander." The beauty of the Gospel is that it doesn't just train our minds how to think, but our hearts how to feel. Christ's love lets us love others, in what we say as well as in how we say it.

Last week, at 34-years-old, baseball great Buster Posey retired. Drafted by the San Francisco Giants, he went on to help win three World Series. Retiring means leaving a $22 million paycheck on the table, and likely a multi-million-dollar extension to keep him in the Bay area for the rest of his career. Instead, the future Hall of Famer has exchanged his cleats and catcher's mitt for bibs, highchairs, two sets of twins, and family life. Many have noted Posey's healthy perspective on the game, which Posey credits to, among other things, Bible studies and chapel services. Because his identity is found in things bigger than his sport, he's been able to battle through hitting slumps, poor play, and injury. For example, in the press conference announcing his retirement, Posey talked about how his love of baseball came from his family. In his experience, the game united generations. When the Atlanta Braves won the Pennant a few decades ago, he shared the experience with his grandfather. At the same time, the reason the game had that kind of impact on his family because of the kind of family it was. Posey has described how much he admires his grandmother, appreciates his uncle, a pastor in Georgia, and finds inspiration from a relative who was a chaplain at Duke University. The faith formation he received as a young boy formed how he approached the game of baseball. This identity was further galvanized in 2011, when he broke his leg in a collision at home plate. Though the injury ended Posey's season on the diamond, it ushered in a new season at home. In August of that year, he and his wife Kristen welcomed twins to their home. Because of the injury, Posey was present for their birth. In the following season, Posey won a second World Series ring, this time with National League MVP honors. He earned another ring in 2014. Then, at the start of the 2020 season, shortened by the pandemic, Posey opted out of playing. Instead, he and his wife adopted a second set of twins, making them a family of six. Posey described that time at home during Covid using two interesting and "churchy" words: patience and forgiveness. How many guys have the patience or forgiveness required to choose daily life with a family of six over playing in the major leagues? What Posey experienced at home in 2020 must have done something to him. Something having to do with his choice to leave a career of fame, riches, and admiration in the Bay area for a life requiring more patience and more forgiveness in rural Georgia with a family of six. In the third century, Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, wrote that Christians don't "speak great things, but we live them." This kind of transformed life, shaped by the work of Christ, is, according to Cyprian, enabled by cultivating habits in patience and repentance. For Cyprian, these habits included avoiding idolatry, learning Holy Scripture, studying and accepting the teachings of Jesus, memorizing Bible passages, fostering a culture of peace, learning faith by doing, imitating role models, and addressing practical issues from a Christian perspective. In his book, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, Alan Kreider describes how this kind of Christian patience, cultivated in habits of living and empowered by Christ, fermented into the kind of transformative energy that changed the world around them. Perhaps something similar has happened for this thirty-four-year-old former Giants catcher. More than merely deciding to focus on his family, avoid injury, and live his best life now, we're seeing the trajectory that results from a life in which the calling to be a father is taken seriously, faithfulness is chosen over success, and character is shaped by the patient forces of family life. This kind of decision is never made in a vacuum; it results from the kind of discipleship that leads to what has been called "long obedience in the same direction." Buster Posey has chosen a life of forgiveness and patience over a career in major league baseball. His kids, his community, and his soul will be better because of it.

I heard recently of a retired nurse with a great tagline: "Everyone should have a job they truly hate, so that when they get a job they love they can actually appreciate it." America is going through what's being called the "Great Resignation," which is partly due to a bad understanding of work. On one hand are workaholics, enslaved to jobs as a source of meaning and identity. On the other hand are the perpetual adolescents, unwilling to commit to serious labor, and hoping the perfect job will just fall in their laps. Ironically, both attitudes come from the same wrong idea: treating work as our ultimate source of identity. A Christian view of work is better. Work isn't something to worship; it is one way we can worship our Creator. It's a way we give to the world, not just take from it. Seeing work as worship redeems even the most menial, thankless or toilsome jobs. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters."

Last month, the Washington Post editorial board called for the U.S. government to intervene in Haiti. What this nation has endured in the last year alone is hard to fathom. High profile kidnappings, political violence including the assassination of its president, devastation from natural disasters, gang violence, new allegations of horrific abuse by U.N. troops… the list seems unending. Some nations achieve a level of stability that allows them to navigate crises like these. Haiti hasn't. In fact, its instability seems to make it a breeding ground for more calamity. The overall lack of long-term, measurable results from the now billions in foreign aid that have been poured into Haiti suggests that the problem isn't merely a lack of funding. Haiti occupies the western half of the island of Hispaniola. Claimed by France in 1665, the island's natural productivity helped make it one of the wealthiest colonies in the French Empire. By the 1780s, Haiti exported 60 percent of the coffee and 40 percent of the sugar consumed in all of Europe. Haiti's colonial masters were able to achieve such growth through slavery. The approximately 40,000 slaves that arrived on the island of Hispaniola each year made up more than one-third of the total Atlantic trade. Slave treatment was so brutal on the island that most slaves didn't live to see their 21st birthday. In 1791, Haiti became the site of "the largest and most successful slave rebellion in the Western hemisphere." Famously, the revolt kicked off with Vodou ceremonies, in which the inhabitants pledged themselves to the animistic religion. Thus, the Vodou belief system became part of Haiti's national identity. The Haitian Revolution was a long, bloody affair. Though successful in overthrowing the heavy hand of France, by the time it was over, much of the country's infrastructure and plantations had been destroyed. Haiti officially declared independence on January 1, 1804, becoming the second republic in the Western hemisphere after the United States and the first black republic in the world. However, the country faltered in the years that followed. Crippled by an assassination, the young republic descended into a political rollercoaster, fracturing and reuniting from the 1820s until today. Often, Haiti was exploited by foreign powers, who sought to pillage the nation through "Independence" payments or occupation. Today, Haiti's chaos seems perpetual, and our news cycle does little to humanize what's happening on the ground. Over $13 billion in aid has been poured into the island nation since 2010, and yet the need for disaster relief not only remains, it seems endless. After the recent kidnappings of 17 missionaries there, some Christians are even questioning the wisdom of engaging in dangerous missions in such an impoverished and volatile country. Before a question like that should be asked or answered, the reasons for Haiti's plights need to be understood. It is precisely here that Westerners have to set aside sentimentality and cultural relativism and accept that Haiti's problem isn't a lack of money or natural resources. Haiti's cycle of political corruption and dependence, together with animistic beliefs that date back to the country's founding, are. Back in 2010, my friend Darrow Miller of The Disciple Nations Alliance argued compellingly that Haiti, at root, has a worldview problem, both in the brutality Haitians suffered as slaves and the Vodou beliefs that marked its successful revolt. This week, Darrow joined Shane Morris on the Colson Center's Upstream podcast to further explain how Haiti's traditional worldview sees the universe as capricious rather than orderly and filled with unloving gods who need to be placated, showing the difference a worldview makes. These beliefs lead to "a culture of bribery and corruption," and "feed an attitude of hopelessness and despair." When fatalism reigns, from a worldview reinforced by a seemingly unpreventable string of national bad luck, people seek merely to survive the whims of droughts, earthquakes, and floods, rather than prepare for them. The reason that billions of dollars of aid, food, and well-meaning infrastructure work and missions have made little difference in the long run in Haiti is that the problem isn't, at root, a financial one. Too many of her citizens do not think of the world as a place that could improve, or their nation as one that could ever heal. But that does not imply, on any level, that we should give up; or that Christian missions there should stop. It simply means that we must do the work with our hearts as well as our heads. Worldview matters. Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims. Haiti is proof that these phrases aren't merely slogans. They are true for people and communities, for individuals and entire nations. We can only help nations like Haiti by considering the power of worldview, not just our wallets. International intervention and foreign aid are often required to lift nations out of such deep despair. Long-term stability, however, requires a change of heart and mind, and a different way of seeing the world and our mission to it.

A recent study in Scientific American highlighted how and why people jump to conclusions. One experiment involved participants watching fish being pulled from two ponds and asked to make determinations accordingly. Some participants made snap judgments after seeing only one or two fish, while others watched more patiently. It turned out that those who drew the quickest conclusions with the least data were also the most likely to believe baseless things in other parts of life. In other words, their habits of thinking kept them from the truth. As Proverbs 18 says, "To answer before listening— that is folly and shame." Jumping to conclusions is a universal cultural trait; we all do it. But Christians who love the truth and know its importance must think differently. This is especially true online, where algorithms are designed to feed our biases and our outrage. Proverbs is right: we should listen first, always ask questions and think critically, and only answer when we know.

One of the most common reasons that people give for rejecting Christianity, organized religion, or the church is hypocrisy. "Too many people," we hear, "say one thing and live another." This is the concern tackled in the latest What Would You Say? video, hosted by my wife, Sarah Stonestreet, also of the Strong Women podcast. Here's part of the transcript of the video: Have you ever met someone who claims to be a Christian but doesn't act like it? Maybe they are even outspoken about what the Bible says or why a particular point of Christianity is true, but their lives contradict the way Christians are called to live. This sort of religious hypocrisy is damaging to the church and hurts people. So, the next time someone says, "I don't go to church, because the church is full of hypocrites." Here are three things to remember: Number one, a concept like hypocrisy requires a standard of morality or moral conduct with which a person generally agrees, but fails to act accordingly. Every person has some kind of standard by which they make moral judgments. We use these moral standards, even if they are inconsistent or not fully thought out, to guide our everyday actions and thoughts when our actions contradict the moral standard to which we profess we act hypocritically. Christians have a clearly defined moral standard which is found in the very nature of God and revealed in his word. Our standard is God's own perfect goodness. This brings us to point number two. Jesus condemned religious hypocrisy. "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye," said Jesus, "and pay no attention to the plank in your own? You hypocrite! First, take the plank out of your own." Jesus also warned that hypocrisy defiles a person, and is utterly detestable to God. Point number three: whether or not Christianity is objectively true does not rise and fall on the subjective experiences of human beings. Paul, the apostle, said that if we have knowledge, but don't speak it in love, we come across as an annoyance to the world, and Jesus actually prayed for us that we would reflect the profound reality of God's sacrificial love for humankind. When we fail to fulfill those teachings, it prompts skepticism about our message of unconditional love. However, through this objection, we have a unique opportunity to say "Yes, the church is full of hypocrites." That's actually one of the reasons why Christ offers forgiveness and salvation because none of us are thoroughly good. Rather we all live in the tension of the goodness of God's redemption and the destructiveness of our own sin nature. So, the next time someone says, "I don't go to church because the church is full of hypocrites," Remember these three things. Number one: hypocrisy requires a moral standard. Number two: Jesus condemned religious hypocrisy. Number three: the behaviors of the believers are not the litmus test for Christianity. That's just a snippet of our latest video in the What Would You Say? series, powered by the Colson Center. If you're not already subscribed, sign up at www.whatwouldyousay.org.