Breakpoint

The world is a better place because of what Jesus did in the life of Chuck Colson, the founder and namesake of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Though many in younger generations aren't as familiar with Chuck's Born Again story, his legacy is one we are proud of and committed to stewarding for the glory of God. Tomorrow, October 16, would have been Chuck Colson's 90th birthday. His legacy continues, not only in the ongoing work of the Colson Center, but also the continuation of Prison Fellowship, especially the Angel Tree ministry. Here's why that ministry is so important, direct from our founder, Chuck Colson: There are few things that thrill me more at Christmas time than Angel Tree! When I went to prison [in 1974], my greatest concern was not for myself, but for my family. I and other inmates anguished over ways to show our families we still loved them. That's why, when Prison Fellowship staffer and ex-bank-robber Mary Kay Beard began Angel Tree [in 1982], I knew immediately that we could reach those families who suffer so much at Christmas. Since that beginning, Angel Tree has brought the message of Christ's love to millions of prisoners' children through volunteers who deliver gifts to them on behalf of their incarcerated parents. Every year, Patty and I bring gifts to one or two of these children. For me, it just wouldn't seem like Christmas without Angel Tree. The same is true for a young man named Robert. At 10, Robert watched his dad handcuffed and driven away to prison. To keep the family afloat, Robert's mom packed up and moved them from their comfortable home in the country to a gang-ridden urban neighborhood. As she struggled to put bread on the table, she warned her children that Christmas might not look like much that first year without their dad. On Christmas morning, Robert woke up to find a bare room and his mother crying on the couch. He went over to her and wrapped his arms around her. He told her that he did not mind that they didn't have any gifts; that they were not all that important. But her tears were tears of joy. She told Robert to go look out on their front porch. There he saw gifts piled high, some with labels with his dad's name on them. They were Angel Tree gifts, given by volunteers from a local church. But Robert did not know that at the time. All he knew was that his dad loved him and remembered him. Robert and his family began attending the church that had been so generous. And when Robert's father was released from prison, he began attending the church as well. Over the next few years, Robert dabbled in gang activity and even dropped out of high school, but through it all, the church was there supporting his family and reminding him of Christ's love. Robert became a committed believer and eventually signed on as the youth pastor of that same church. And every year, he and his wife sign up to purchase gifts for Angel Tree children. Doesn't that give you a marvelous picture of what the Advent season is really all about? God entered into our darkness with light in the form of His Son, Jesus Christ. And that light, the Light of the world, changes us and enables us to spread the light to others. That was Chuck Colson, sharing about Angel Tree, a ministry dear to his heart. In remembrance of Chuck's 90th birthday tomorrow, would you consider participating in the ministry of Angel Tree? To learn more, please visit www.angeltree.org.

Last week, Olympic silver medalist Elinor Barker revealed she's expecting a baby and was, in fact, pregnant while cycling on the British women's team in Tokyo. Barker's happy announcement comes in the wake of an amicus brief signed by 500 female athletes, asking the Supreme Court to keep abortion legal because without it, they argue, women athletes wouldn't be able to reach their full potential. Barker joins a growing group of women with winning records who make the claims in the amicus brief seem, well, false. In announcing her pregnancy on social media, Barker thanked other athletes who are also moms. "Because of these women and many others," she wrote, "I didn't doubt the future of my career for one second." Whose testimony seems more compelling: 500 women claiming it can't be done, or a woman who's not only tried, but succeeded? The deeper question is what takes more courage: earning a silver medal in cycling while pregnant, or signing an amicus brief?

Remember the three weeks of lockdown in order to "flatten the curve?" A year-and-a-half later, after life put on hold— delayed graduations, conferences, wedding celebrations, and even funerals—coming out of this society-wide limbo has many feeling downright giddy. Writing recently in the New York Times, Soumya Karlamangla described how, when the pandemic rules began to loosen, she experienced "a small burst of joy." Every return to some old, familiar activity, from hugging people to getting haircuts to wandering the aisles of grocery stores, became "almost wondrous" to her. At least for a while... But then, she admits, the feelings began to fade. Now, Karlamangla has some advice for people looking to preserve that "post-lockdown feeling": practicing the lost art of gratitude. "Once a day, stop and appreciate what you're able to do now that you weren't last year. You can make a mental note, tell your partner, text your friend or write it down in a journal. The method doesn't matter, as long as you're making a deliberate effort to acknowledge that things have improved." She cites scientific evidence of the physical and mental health benefits of cultivating gratitude, including better sleep and higher levels of happiness. "Feeling thankful for the little pleasures in our lives," she concludes, "can add up to make us happier people overall." Precisely because the pandemic was so disruptive to normal life, our emergence from it provides incredible opportunities for embracing this kind of gratitude. Reading this helpful and encouraging piece reminded me of a particular phase in the history of business books when authors were telling employers and employees they could find meaning in their work by thinking of it as a calling, rather than mere employment. The problem with that advice was if we truly are called to work (and I think we are) who is calling us? Many of these books failed to address that important detail. In the same way, if we are to be grateful (and we are), to whom should we be grateful, exactly? Karlamangla never specifies, but with Thanksgiving on the horizon, along with all of the seasonal talk of counting blessings and being thankful for friends, family, and good health, it's worth thinking about. After all, we are years into the trend of spending the day after "giving thanks," trampling security guards for iPhones, toys, and flat-screen TVs. Maybe thanking no one in particular isn't really gratitude. Scripture is clear about who deserves our gratitude. In the first chapter of his epistle, James writes, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." God deserves our final gratitude... not the universe or the government or our "inner light." Even the good gifts of other people's time and help and love point, ultimately, to God. And, of course, God doesn't owe us any of these good gifts, nor could we ever deserve them. As Paul told the men of Athens at the Areopagus, God "is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything. Rather, He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else." Paul's statement might have come as a surprise to Greek ears. In his book, Gratitude: An Intellectual History, Peter Leithart describes how, in the ancient mind, gratitude was like a circle. If you received a gift, you had an obligation to return the favor. For much of the Greek world, this was how politics worked—a system of favors and repayments we today might describe as "bribery." By introducing the idea of gratitude to a Giver so generous that no one could ever repay their debt, argues Leithart, Christianity radically altered this cycle. Gratitude, it turns out, really can change the world. Yes, practicing gratitude is extremely good for humans, even those who don't believe in God. For that reason alone, we can hope that Times readers take Karlamangla's advice seriously. But for Christians, gratitude is no mere mental health strategy. It's a profound way of telling the truth: to ourselves, to others, and to the whole world.

A mother writes in saying, "to my daughter, (Ed Oxford's ideas) is a perfect example of how to have it both ways," looking at the modern issue of homosexuality for Christians. Oxford's idea is that homosexuality was translated as "child-abuser" and other things prior to the 1980s. After the 1980s the translation changed because the issue became more prevalent in culture. A mother writes in to have an understanding of how to respond. Following that, another listener asks if we should use plural pronouns to define God. John and Shane expound on a recent BreakPoint commentary, providing a foundation to not only refer to God but to also speak confidently in our current cultural moment. To close, a writer shares an experience she had in a Bible study. The leader mentioned a "mixed-orientation" marriage. The Listener knew the term was problematic, but struggled to identify what it was about the term that made it untrue. John and Shane explore the definition and explain the worldview underpinnings that highlight the image of God and the details surrounding gender and identity terminology that shouldn't be compromised. -- Resources -- The Moral Vision of the New Testament Richard B. Hayes | Harperone | 1996 The Bible and Homosexual Practice Robert A.J. Gagnon | Abingdon Press | 2002 Does the Bible Say Gays are an "Abomination"? Sean McDowell | Youtube | September 27, 2021 God's not "They": Divine Pronouns Matter John Stonestreet & Tim Padgett | BreakPoint | October 4, 2021

According to the Associated Press, African scientists have developed the first malaria vaccine, and the World Health Organization has approved it. This is huge. Malaria is one of the deadliest scourges of tropical environments; it still takes the lives of more than 400,000 people each year, many of whom are children living in Africa's poorest regions. Our very ability to achieve medical breakthroughs like this points to our God-given design and role in the created world. God didn't place Adam in the Garden of Eden to lounge about, but to work. Human beings were to "tend the Garden." Since the fall, our calling has included using our God-given abilities to push back against death and disease, frustration and toil. In an atheistic worldview, a disease like malaria isn't something wrong, just something that is. And if humans are mere animals, not image-bearers, we are basically victims of the natural world, not stewards. It turns out atheism just isn't big enough to explain all that humans can do.

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature," wrote Karl Marx, "...the opium of the people." Decades of often painful historical experience has proven his observation both right and wrong. Believing in God does ease pain and suffering of faithful followers, but he was wrong in thinking that religion, especially Christianity, leaves them with nowhere else to go from there. A recent article in The Economist put it this way: "Religious belief really does seem to draw the sting of poverty." Although there is a correlation between poverty and decreased mental health, the article highlighted German sociologist Dr. Jana Berkessel's recent findings that religion significantly mitigates this effect. A variety of similar studies confirm this. Regular attendance at religious services consistently correlates with longer life spans, stronger immune systems, and lower blood pressure, as well as decreased anxiety, depression, and suicide. Kids raised in religious households have a lower incidence of drug addiction, delinquency, and incarceration. They're more likely to graduate high school. In short, the nearly unanimous scientific consensus is that religious belief is good for you. Of course, Marx's point was that these benefits only serve to keep people content in their chains, and to keep them distracted so much by the next world that they do nothing to change this one. Many critics today take the critique even further. Religion, especially Christianity, has not only been used to pacify people in their oppression, but is the very source of it. Of course, the charge that Christianity has been co-opted, corrupted, and weaponized to justify all kinds of abuse, conquest, and enslavement, is undeniable. At the same time, it's also undeniable that Christianity has been a global force for the kinds of goods now so pervasive, it's hard to even imagine the world without them. Many of the rights and principles we consider to be naturally occurring features of the world only came to be by the influence of Christianity. In the ancient pagan world, violence, rape, infant exposure, and prostitution were rules, not exceptions. Almost immediately, Christianity began to revolutionize pagan ethics, particularly in its view of the poor and the outcast. Roman Emperor Julian famously wrote that when the "impious Galileans support not only their poor, but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us." To a world with no reason to believe in the equality of all people, Christianity taught that "there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." This belief was grounded in the Christian view of the human person, which had no parallel in the ancient world and which created an explosion of literacy, social mobility, and human rights that we now take for granted in the modern world. Christianity's unique contributions in humanizing the modern world is yet another reason to not simply lump all "religious beliefs" into the one blanket category. All religions are simply not the same, not in substance nor impact. Economist Robin Grier, for example, conducted a cross-national survey of 63 formerly European colonies. She found that, across the board, Protestant Christianity, in particular, was "positively and significantly correlated with real GDP growth," and that "the level of Protestantism is significantly related to real per capita income levels." A National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) paper found that only certain religious beliefs—notably beliefs about heaven, hell, and an afterlife—are linked with economic growth. In other words, it's not just about having a "religion," but about what your religion teaches. Consider Africa. A recent paper from NBER analyzed educational outcomes among religious children. Though Africa is becoming increasingly religious across the board, the paper found that in many countries, "primary school completion for Christians was more than double that of Muslims or Africans adhering to local religions." Christian communities far outpace others when it comes to intergenerational educational growth. Writing in 1843, Karl Marx couldn't have anticipated how thoroughly science would analyze his claims about religion. He'd likely have been among the modern theorists surprised that the world is becoming more religious, not less. As one writer with The Brookings Institute put it, "While weak state structures collapse and aid agencies switch priorities, one group of actors persist against all odds: religious institutions." Of course, this isn't why anyone should believe the truth claims of Christianity. They should be believed if they are true. At the same time, the fact that Christian belief has been an educational, social, and economic ladder for millions suggests these beliefs ought to be taken seriously.

Last month, 26-year-old Heidi Crowter lost a legal case against the British government, in which she claimed that UK abortion laws unjustly discriminate against people with Down syndrome. Most abortions are legal in the UK only before 24 weeks, with an exception in cases of "physical or mental abnormalities" that would leave the baby "seriously handicapped." This includes children with Down Syndrome, who can be terminated right up to the moment of birth. Heidi and 40,000 other UK citizens with Down syndrome, object. And they should. In some European nations, as many as 96 percent of children with the condition are aborted. Last week, an article in the UK Telegraph asked, "Could this be the last generation of Down's syndrome children?" As Heidi put it after the court's decision, "We face discrimination every day at schools, in the workplace, and in society. Thanks to the verdict, the judges have upheld discrimination in the womb, too." For all the talk of equality these days, entire classes of people are being eliminated. Followers of Christ need to defend these image-bearers.

In a recent article in The Atlantic, Emma Green writes that "a third or more of Americans younger than 45 either don't have children or expect to have fewer [children]." This is, of course, not really new news. Birth rates have been falling for years, for various reasons. What's notable in Green's article is the somewhat new reason younger Americans claim they are choosing childlessness: because they are "worried about climate change." Well-known figures including politician Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, entertainer Miley Cyrus, and royal family member turned Hollywood celebrity Prince Harry have all publicly expressed their so-called "climate anxiety" and concluded that fewer kids is better. In Britain, a new movement of women has launched a "birth strike," refusing to have children until the climate crisis ends. "Climate anxiety" assumes three things. First, it assumes that climate change is happening, which seems to be clear enough. Second, it assumes that the way the climate is changing is not only remarkable, but also catastrophic. This is far less certain, given the limits of what we know about the history of past climate changes. Third, and even less clear, is the assumption that climate change in our time is human-caused. Even if each of these assumptions is granted, refusing to have children in response raises the obvious question of whether fewer kids would actually solve the problem. Many experts say, "Don't buy it." While it's true that each new human being brings a certain amount of carbon emissions into the world, even some scientists concerned about catastrophic climate change think that "reducing population is not the way that we're going to solve the climate crisis." On the contrary, dramatic social and economic consequences result once the fertility rate drops below replacement levels, as has happened across most of the Western world. Far from having too many kids, most Western nations have been in a population decline for so long, they've reached crisis levels where, among other things, there won't be enough working adults to support an aging population. Many of our wrong-headed reactions to "climate anxiety" are rooted, it seems, in Paul Ehrlich's infamous and disastrous predictions in The Population Bomb. Back in 1968, Ehrlich declared that, due to overpopulation, ""the battle to feed all of humanity is over," and humanity lost. Hundreds of millions of people, he wrongly predicted, would starve to death in the next few decades. Ehrilch was not only wrong, he was dead wrong. In the words of Smithsonian Magazine's Charles C. Mann, the book created "an anti-population-growth crusade that led to human rights abuses around the world," including China's one-child policy and forced sterilizations in countries like Mexico, Bolivia, and Indonesia. Like all bad ideas, Ehrlich's had victims. Ehrlich's worst idea is that people were the problem to be solved. Instead, since his predictions were made, even as the population continued to grow, rates of starvation-level poverty around the world plummeted. As it turned out, people were the solution. Scientists, farmers, and policymakers did what people do: they innovated, created, imagined, and solved problems. So, instead of an apocalypse, the late 20th century saw a revolution in agriculture and the most significant decline in world hunger in human history. Perhaps, we should apply that historical knowledge to today's crises. What if the kids and their carbon outputs aren't the problem to be solved, but instead the very ones to solve whatever climate change problems we face? This is already happening in some ways. Though far less than in 1600, there are billions more trees today than 100 years ago. The North American Forest Commission reports that annual tree forest growth in 2020 was 380 percent greater than in 1920, with no signs of slowing down. Imagine if the generation of 1920 had simply stopped having children! This is not to say that trees are the answer to climate change, or that humanity can solve every problem. Among the effects of sin is the human ability to harm the world, even on a dramatic scale. At the same time, God created humans with an incredible capacity to steward the world, and adapt as necessary to survive and thrive. Christianity offers something climate-anxious secularism doesn't and, in fact, can't. The Christian worldview tells us what human beings are, and what they are for. We're not random products of a cosmic lottery with margins so thin that we put our own future existence at risk simply by existing. We have purpose and capacity that a secularist framework cannot explain. Any philosophy that treats children like consumer goods must be rejected. Children are not just something we order when we feel like it, and cancel if we don't. Every child is a brand new portrait of the God Who created and continues to oversee this world. God hasn't given up on the world, and neither should we. In fact, especially in uncertain times, Christians should follow His lead and continue to create, innovate, and even have babies.

A new treatment for depression is undergoing clinical trials at Johns Hopkins. Early results suggest that the two doses of the active ingredient psilocybin, a main ingredient of the hallucinogenic drug known as "magic mushrooms," significantly reduced symptoms of major depression in adults. Some of our most effective treatments come from unorthodox sources. The heart drug Wayfarin, for example, was originally derived from rat poison. Aspirin is taken from willow trees. So, we shouldn't rule out psilocybin's valid medical uses too quickly. On the other hand, covering up symptoms of depression isn't really treating it, much less curing it. Mental illness can have chemical, psychological, physiological, relational, and spiritual causes, or even all of the above. Manipulating brain chemistry is a shortcut that can miss the bigger picture of who we are and what healing looks like. We cannot medicate away our need for purpose, belonging, love, or forgiveness. The best treatments will always see people in the fullness of who they are, made in the image and likeness of God.

Increasingly, when confronted with a person who experiences gender dysphoria, doctors and psychologists are allowed to offer only one diagnosis: the patient is transgender. As recently as a few years ago, this was a mental disorder diagnosis, and steps would be taken to align the mind with the body. Today, it's just the opposite. Gender dysphoria means being born in the wrong body, and treatment is to align the body with the mind. This is the expected diagnosis and path of treatment even when the patient is a child. All voices, even the most qualified voices, that dare to be critical of this way of treating gender dysphoria are silenced. No dissent is allowed. Dr. Allan Josephson is the former head of child and adolescent psychology at the University of Louisville. In 2019, he was effectively fired for participating on a Heritage Foundation panel where he questioned gender transition for minors. With the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom, Dr. Josephson is suing the university, but his situation highlights the experience of other scientists who reject current transgender medicine as premature and irresponsible. One critic, who served as an expert witness in Josephson's case is Dr. James Cantor, a Canadian clinical psychologist with a history of taking unpopular stands. Following a new "policy statement" by the American Academy of Pediatrics regarding gender transition in minors, Dr. Cantor published a "fact check" calling out what he saw as the Academy's "systematic misrepresentation" of the medical literature. "Not only did AAP fail to provide compelling evidence" for claiming that gender-dysphoric minors should be immediately and unquestioningly transitioned, Dr. Cantor argued, but "AAP's recommendations are despite the existing evidence." To be clear, Dr. Cantor is no religious fundamentalist. He describes himself as a gay atheist who isn't afraid "to barbecue sacred cows." Like Josephson, he too has faced backlash for challenging the dominant transgender narrative, specifically from a scientific perspective. Last year, Cantor was booted from an online forum of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality for questioning the case for gender transition of minors. He resigned in protest, concluding that the Society had "ceased to be a scientific organization." Dr. Cantor is reacting to what he thinks is a breakdown of the scientific process and a substitution of ideology for evidence. He described this breakdown recently in an interview on the Upstream podcast with my colleague Shane Morris: "We're no longer allowed to discuss the issue itself. And in this case, [it is] the solid science that over and over again is getting silenced because it's not matching up with what makes people feel good." Cantor understands that, after puberty, around 80 percent of gender dysphoric children spontaneously revert to identifying with their biological sex. He also notes that despite all of the false certainty proclaimed about the condition, transgender identity itself is still poorly understood. In many cases, Cantor believes, it is almost certainly the result of other mental health issues not being treated, like borderline personality disorder. Because of this, he especially opposes the common practice of threatening parents of gender dysphoric children with the possibility of suicide, calling it "essentially emotional manipulation." In the conversation with Shane, Dr. Cantor compared the way gender dysphoria is dominating the mental health conversation, particularly when it comes to children, with the 1980s and 90s, when a craze over repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse swept the field. It was eventually rejected as pseudoscience, but not before it wrecked countless lives and families. In fact, Cantor thinks that the demographics of people who thought they had been abused as children are "very similar" to patients now being held up in support of childhood gender transition. "That era," warns Cantor, "did not end well…And here we go again. We didn't learn a thing." Because science advances based on self-correction, criticism, and dissent are vital for fixing bad theories and identifying mistaken assumptions. On the transgender issue, more than any other right now, dissenting voices are silenced. Though such scientific malpractice is reversible, for those whose identities, lives, and very bodies are now being experimented on, much of the damage will be permanent.