Breakpoint

Recently, the US Census bureau reported, somewhat diplomatically, "It's clear that in an unprecedented environment, families are seeking solutions that will reliably meet [the needs] of their children." That's an understatement. The New York Times reports that just last year, more than 1 million children did not enroll in kindergarten. The impact of learning loss from missed school time has parents worried across every grade. After years of the nationwide percentage of homeschool families hovering around 3.3 percent, that number jumped to 11.1 percent in the fall of 2020. If all of this means a renewed emphasis on parental involvement, that's a good thing. Whether homeschooled or otherwise, involved parents consistently predict far better educational outcomes for kids. Which makes sense, because parents are the primary, God-given guardians of their children's future. Education begins in the home. Or, as Tina Windebank put it over at Citizenlink, "Relax! Your kids are already homeschooled."

Last week, professor of religion Mark Silk suggested that we should use the pronoun "they" when referring to God, instead of "He." Writing over at Religion News Service, Silk offered a couple of "textual" arguments to support his admonition, but his primary aim was to update our God-talk with what he called "the imperative of gender-inclusive language." Silk isn't the first to suggest something like this. And, it's not strictly accurate to say his ideas promote gender inclusivity. Calling God "she" or "her" or "Mother" was a way to dismantle the patriarchy not so long ago, but, in this cultural moment, the call is to de-gender God altogether, along with everything else, including us. Silk's best theological argument is that Elohim, a common Old Testament word for God, is plural. However, while Elohim is technically plural, so are the Hebrew words for face, panim, and Egypt, Mizraim. No one suggests that plural pronouns are required for these words. This grammatical quirk of Hebrew isn't as significant as Silk makes it. The more significant problem with Silk's idea is that by abandoning biblically gendered language, we abandon the words God chose to describe Himself, and this alters our understanding of God. While God doesn't reveal himself as "male" in an embodied gendered sense (like humans), God does uniformly use masculine terms to reveal Who He is. He acts like a mother, according to a few passages in Holy Scripture, but He reveals Himself as the Father throughout Holy Scripture. This may not seem like a big deal. Some will argue that God is a big boy and can handle being called "her" or "zhe" or "they." Plus, others add, God is infinite, beyond our comprehension. He can't be bothered by pronouns. To that, I reply, No way. Call your spouse by the wrong name, and see if it matters. Describe your wife as you want her to be, not the way she is... what will she say? Tell her you love her for characteristics that she does not have, and see how that goes over. Our experience tells us that language matters, especially descriptive language that someone uses to define oneself. As a person, who God reveals Himself to be matters… a lot. Things that do not matter to objects do matter to persons. Rocks and trees and books don't care how they're addressed - they don't care about anything! Animals will get used to whatever you call them most often, especially if you have food. But persons care how they're addressed. This isn't a weakness; this is the glory of being a person. What's more, without the personness of God as the foundation of our own personness, the things we most value about being human would be lost to the cold calculus of cause and effect. God isn't a force or an energy with no opinion of what we think about Him. God is a person, with specific characteristics. God is not a nebulous blob to be molded according to our wishes. God is infinite, but He is not indefinite. He makes Himself known as a God of justice, holiness, compassion, and love. These are defined realities of his character. It is not for us to decide which parts of His self-revelation are passé. We call God "Him," because God calls Himself "Him." We can wrestle with why, but the reality is that He calls Himself "Him" in a language in which He could've easily called Himself "it" or "her" or "they." Our perceptions of God should be shaped by what God has revealed about Himself, not by our cultural "imperative of gender-inclusivity." Ironically, when we say things like "let's not limit God with our categories," especially when dealing with categories He Himself introduced to the world, we do what we claim we are trying to avoid: we limit God with our own culturally constructed limits. When we take away the boundaries He has revealed, we bind Him within our limited imaginations. As a result, we are left with a god created in our own image, who always agrees with us, and never challenges the idols of our hearts. Christianity is fundamentally a revealed religion. If God exists, our knowledge of Him is wholly dependent on the knowledge provided by Him. To refrain from calling Him "Him" because of some kind of culturally conditioned mood we're in is to speak of Him in a way other than what He has revealed. The Bible's gendered language is no accident of history. Rather, it tells us significant things about God and His attitude toward His Bride, the Church. It is not coincidental that our lives are given to us as gendered beings; rather, it reveals aspects of the greatest love story in human history. God is the Father, Christ is the Groom, and the Church is His beloved Bride, for whom He conquered death itself.

John and Maria discuss a popular movement that's gaining momentum in how young people build community. Relational minimalism cuts out people who are viewed as toxic, and it's problematic for our sense of unity. Maria shares her thoughts on the media and culture frenzy surrounding Britney Spears. She shares some insight from Neil Postman regarding how we worship pop-culture and lose our bearings in the process. John then introduces a false report that the world is being cured of Down Syndrome. New reports mask the fact that the world's way of resolving it is through abortion, which is misleading about what is actually happening. -- Story Mentions in Show -- Relationship Minimalism? Why Downsizing Other People Won't Make You Happy In the article, Logan documents a growing group of young people practicing "relationship minimalism." Inspired by home organizing coaches like Marie Kondo, these mostly urban, single adults are not only clearing their lives of excess stuff; they're tossing out excess people. For example, 20-something YouTube star Ronald Banks says that living a minimalist lifestyle with only a few sets of clothes, simple furniture, and bare minimum electronics prompted him to go the next step and ditch meaningless relationships, too. Or, as he called them, "emotional clutter." BreakPoint>> Crowd Gathers Ahead of Britney Spears Conservatorship Hearing A group of Britney Spears supporters gathers near the courthouse where her conservatorship hearing is scheduled. Patrick Healy reports for the NBC4 News at 11 a.m. on Wednesday Sept. 29, 2021. NBC LA>> Britney Spears' conservatorship judge is facing death threats; Los Angeles Sheriff says they are 'monitoring' Britney Spears' conservatorship judge has been hit with a wave of death threats on social media as the singer's battle to remove her father from the 13-year-long order rages on in court. Fox News>> Could this be the last generation of Down's syndrome children? 'I had this vision of someone with a pudding-basin haircut following me round the supermarket. I thought I'd never go on holiday or have any sort of life ever again.' So says 42-year-old actor Rebecca Hulbert of her initial reaction when her angelic-looking two-year-old The Telegraph>>

Arizona Christian University created a stir last week when it released its annual American Worldview Inventory, conducted by George Barna. The results were disappointing. Out of 176 million Americans who identify as Christians, just six percent hold a recognizably Christian worldview. The most troubling finding was that a majority of self-identified born-again Christians don't believe in the Holy Spirit as a "real, living being." Instead, they identify Him as "a symbol of God's power, presence or purity." This, of course, directly contradicts the fundamental creeds of the faith, which identify the Holy Spirit as a Person - "the Lord and giver of life," Who "with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified." Scripture, too, is clear that the Holy Spirit is a "Who," not a "What," the "helper" and "comforter" promised by Christ before His ascension. The fact that so many Christians don't understand this shows how much work we have ahead of us. We're going to need some help from the very God too many of us have forgotten.

In the 19th century, India was coming to grips with the modern world. British companies, like the East India Company, aided in modernizing India through trade, and British missionaries like William Carey helped modernize India through culture formation. Arguably the most creative interaction with the west happened in Bengal through the work of Christian missionaries. For example, when Krishna Mohan Bannerjee was a child, he attended the School Society Institution started by David Hare, a watchmaker from Scotland. Though Hare's faith commitments are unknown, he was concerned about social welfare in Bengal and started several noteworthy schools in the area. Hare recognized Bannerjee's potential and pushed him to continue his education, first in Pataldanga, and eventually at the newly founded Hindu College (now Presidency University) in Kolkata. Bannerjee thrived at Hindu College, where the atheist headmaster, Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, advocated for free discussion and debate on any and every issue and profoundly influenced Bannerjee. When his father died of cholera in 1828, Bannerjee was forced to support himself through manual labor, and yet, still excelled in his studies. After graduating from Hindu College in 1829, Bannerjee got a job teaching at David Hare's school. In 1829, Scottish missionary Dr. Alexander Duff noticed that Christian missions in India had only reached the lower castes. Duff proposed a new mission strategy of offering education in English in the sciences and biblical studies to help upper-caste Hindu students see the contradictions in their own beliefs and move toward Christianity. Like so many others, Duff connected Western learning and success with Christianity. He believed that making Western learning and the Bible available would inevitably lead to conversions. Bannerjee not only began to attend Duff's lectures, he even visited Duff's house for serious discussions about religion and philosophy. In 1832, Bannerjee converted to Christianity. The conversion came at great cost: Hare fired Bannerjee from the school, Bannerjee's wife was forced to return to her father's home, and a firestorm erupted in the local press about Hindu College. Ironically, Bannerjee's conversion was blamed on the atheist, Derozio, and the popular headmaster was forced out. Bannerjee moved to the Church Missionary Society School, where he served as headmaster. He studied theology at Bishop's College and became the first Indian ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church in Bengal. Before long, Bannerjee became the foremost Indian apologist of his day. Prior to 1865, Bannerjee followed the lead of Duff and other missionaries in seeing Hinduism as nothing but superstition and idolatry that needed to be destroyed. However, his entire approach to apologetics eventually changed, and he began to argue that Christianity was actually the fulfillment of Hinduism. He noted how sacrifice was the most important ritual in the earliest forms of Hinduism. Further, he showed from the Vedas, the Upanishads, and other Hindu writings that Prajapati, the Lord and Supporter of Creation, sacrificed himself to save humanity, and did so by taking on a mortal body. This, Bannerjee argued, prefigured Jesus' incarnation and sacrifice on the cross. Bannerjee's efforts to find a doorway from Hinduism to Christianity grew out of his love for his country and his culture. He wanted to reconcile Christianity and modern education with Indian culture. In keeping with this goal, he became heavily involved in a wide range of social organizations in Bengal and worked for social reform. He opposed the caste system, polygamy, idolatry, the sale of girls into marriage, and sati, the practice of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. He also supported the education of women, seeing it as a yardstick for measuring the social progress of a country. Beyond his work as an evangelist and apologist, Bannerjee was a critically important figure in the Bengal Renaissance, bringing modern ideas of scholarship and social justice to India, and developing an approach to Christianity that honored Indian culture while remaining firmly anchored in the British evangelical tradition. He was a remarkable example of contextualizing the Gospel to India, and applying the biblical worldview to all areas of life. For Bannerjee, this started in school, inspired by a teacher who taught students to desire wisdom, seek truth, and follow honest inquiry. Eventually, this pointed Krishna Mohan Bannerjee to love God with all his mind, and to love his neighbors as himself.

A Minneapolis ballot initiative would replace one of the city's largest police departments with a new "Department of Public Safety." While not doing away with police officers entirely, the initiative would reduce the number on patrol and outsource many police duties to unarmed community safety officials. Not everyone is on board. Minnesota Public Radio reports that, while the majority of voters are in favor of some reforms, few want fewer police officers. This is especially true for African-American voters, "75 percent [of whom] said the city should not cut the police force compared to 51 percent of white voters." The average Minneapolis resident sees the obvious: violent crime is spiking. The number of homicides in Minneapolis doubled from 2019 to 2020, and 2021 is on track for another record-breaking year. James Madison said that "if men were angels, no government would be necessary." Justice and respect of citizens require an accurate understanding of human nature. Without it, we either swing toward severity or fall toward foolishness.

The Christian commitment to advancing education is part of the historical record. While not wholly consistent in every time and place, the Christian view of life and the world (especially its view of a created, ordered reality and the divine imprint on every human person) has been history's most fertile ground for advancing learning and knowledge. In a Christian worldview, the value of education isn't merely utilitarian. Instead, it grows from the rich soil of Christian beliefs: in a God who wants to be known, Who created an ordered and knowable universe to be stewarded by humans, to whom He gave the ability to learn and the capacity to use knowledge in His service. That worldview framework has been uniquely fruitful for advancing education, even (and perhaps especially) at times of civilizational crisis. For example, during the decline of the Roman Empire's authority in Western Europe, education went into sharp decline. Centuries worth of accumulated knowledge and learning were at risk of being lost forever, except In Ireland, where monks preserved learning that they'd later reintroduce to Europe. Irish monks viewed the preservation of literature and knowledge as part of their task as Christian scholars and clergy. More than merely preserving learning, they innovated in the methodology of education. Up to this point, the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew languages were written in an unbroken stream of letters with no capitalization, punctuation, or word spacing. The Irish changed that and, in doing so, made writing a primary method of learning. The Irish also had a hand in the recovery of education on the European continent in the late 8th and early 9th centuries. Having built an empire, Charlemagne realized that he desperately needed educated officials to govern it. So, he searched for the best scholar in all of Europe to head his educational reform program and found the Irish-trained Alcuin of York. Alcuin reintroduced liberal arts as the foundation for education in Europe. He started schools in monasteries, cathedrals, and even the palace itself. Alcuin also oversaw the systematic copying and preservation of any and all ancient texts that he could find. In fact, many of the oldest copies of classical works still in existence today date from copies produced under his direction. Within a generation or two after Charlemagne, however, all but the monastic schools had collapsed. Then, around the year 1000, Europe experienced a significant turnaround. As the population grew, cities were founded, and government became more centralized, there was a greater demand for education. Because rural monasteries were more concerned with the training of monks than educational needs in the cities, urban cathedral schools were reestablished. This led to a tremendous expansion of education, and a great deal of new, creative scholarship. The result is what medieval historians call the Renaissance of the 12th Century. As cities grew and bishops took on more administrative duties, they could not devote the resources necessary to continue the cathedral schools, so these schools spun off into universities. The first was the University of Bologna, founded around 1150 and focused primarily on law. The University of Paris was founded around 1200, with other universities following. The liberal arts continued to be the foundation of the curriculum, with advanced study available in theology, law, and medicine. Because logic was the foundation of the scholastic methodology used in these schools, the works of Aristotle, translated from Arabic texts in Muslim Spain, were particularly important during this period. Along with great scholastic theologians like Thomas Aquinas, medieval thinkers like Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon helped lay the intellectual foundations for the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Christian advancement of education also happened elsewhere. In the late 14th through 16th centuries, the Brethren of the Common Life provided basic education for students in the Low Countries and most of Germany. Their goal was to equip the population to read the sources of the Christian faith. By training students such as Erasmus, Gutenberg, and Luther, the Brethren of the Common Life helped lay the foundation for the Protestant Reformation. History is replete with these stories of the impact Christianity had in advancing education. The question for us in our civilizational crisis is, will we follow suit? There's never been a greater opportunity for Christians to take the lead in education than in our current cultural moment. We've seen a dramatic shift in public confidence in the existing systems over the last several years. Parents are looking for new educational solutions for their children. The Colson Center is heavily invested in training educators, especially in this current cultural crisis, by equipping homeschool parents as well as Christian school leaders and other leaders in educational innovation. If you would like to join us, every gift given to the Colson Center this month will go to support the Colson Center's work in supporting educators with a Christian worldview. To learn more, visit us at BreakPoint.org.

This week John and Shane discuss adoption, ranging from embryo adoption to same-sex adoption. A listener asks how adoption supports God's family structure and what the role of it is in God's redemption. Another listener writes in noticing a movement to single-parenthood in their region. The listener asks how to move forward with friends, when those friends are offended by Scripture. Later, John and Shane consider how and when to use modern quotes in BreakPoint and when to use Scripture. John gives a listener perspective on why we use quotes so often, and how we consider using Scripture in specific situations. To close, John and Shane explore a question asking for clarity on marijuana. John provides good context into the difference in medical marijuana and recreational marijuana.

In mid-September, an organization called "TwoDadsUK" held an exhibition called The Modern Family Show in London. It was a trade show to sell fertility services for LGBTQ people. One vendor's floor-to-ceiling banner announced,, "The New Face of Surrogacy!" next to a photo of two men embracing. No woman. This is an example of marketing being more about the audience than the product. . The audience are those who've intentionally chosen a sterile union, but who now demand the product, which is a child. The development and birth of a child requires a woman's womb, hired out as a means. Because no one wants to think about that side of this industry, all we see is the happy audience, as if the woman doesn't exist. She does. Women aren't machines, babies aren't products, and no one is entitled to a child at the expense of a woman whose physical labor and emotional pain are left out of the glossy photographs used for the sales pitch.