Breakpoint

According to the U.S. Department of Education, since the start of the pandemic, more than 1.5 million students have left traditional public schooling. Many parents are realizing, some for the first time, that students aren't learning what their parents thought they were learning. As one former college professor noted, if you haven't been in education in the past three years, it's almost unrecognizable to what you experienced growing up. This has led to incredible growth in the number of home schooling families and record enrollments for nearly every Christian school that I know of. Part of the Colson Center's calling as a worldview-equipping institution is to serve Christian educators by equipping them to think and teach from a Christian worldview. We invite you to partner with us as we serve Christian education in this strategic moment by training Christian educators. To learn more about our work in Christian education, and to support it, visit www.breakpoint.org/september.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, were chosen to grace the cover of the 2021 edition of "Time100: The Most Influential People of 2021." After publicly cutting ties with the British royal family several months ago and moving to America, the couple described the whole ordeal in a televised interview and, as a result, made this year's list. Many people have strong opinions about Harry and Meghan's decision to leave Buckingham Palace; I don't. My knowledge of British royalty is limited to the few seasons of "The Crown" I watched with Sarah before we canceled our Netflix subscription. What does interest me, however, is how their decision, which has been widely hailed as "brave" and "authentic," mirrors something increasingly popular among modern young adults: cutting so-called "toxic people" out of their lives. It's also notable how quickly friends, relatives, and neighbors can be labeled "toxic" simply by holding different political, moral, or religious beliefs. Recently, a psychologist specializing in family therapy told the Atlantic that his practice is flooded with older parents mourning estrangement from their grown children, and with grown children angry and hurt by conflicts with their parents. Apparently, when it comes to family fractures, the royal family is far from exceptional. In fact, according to a recent piece by Sarah Logan in The Guardian, you don't even have to be "toxic" to find yourself cut out of a loved one's life. It's enough that you don't "spark joy." 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." Young adults like Banks are all about cutting ties. As Logan put it: "If the city they live in no longer sparks joy, they move." Some keep apartments so sparsely furnished that guests can't even sit down or have tea. One YouTube minimalist quoted in the article refuses to have a mirror in her apartment because, in her words, "Why would I try to impress people that I don't even like?...I'd rather be alone than with people who make me feel alone." Not to be too "judgy," but that doesn't sound much like joy. This kind of utilitarian attitude toward other human beings is not only sad, it's also darkly ironic given our culture's epidemics of loneliness and suicides. Behind these cultural crises are a growing group of young people who think of relationships as dispensable and people as furniture. As the Director of Research and Public Education at the Council on Contemporary Families put it, "Never before have family relationships been seen so interwoven with the search for personal growth, the pursuit of happiness, and the need to confront and overcome psychological obstacles." Anyone willing to walk away from parents, friends, or even an entire city, just because they don't "spark joy," fundamentally misunderstands the purpose and functioning of relationships. People are not consumer goods to be rummaged through, tried on, and returned if they no longer fit. If anything, we need to be around people who rub us the wrong way or who demand something from us instead of serving our therapeutic goals. That's part of what the Church is for! It's a redeemed community united not by hobbies, career goals, or personality traits, but by allegiance to a Lord whose love transcends all of this. In the context of such relationships, the Bible says that "iron sharpens iron." Anyone who's ever banged two pieces of metal together knows that sparks will fly—and not always sparks of joy! But in God's eyes, and in the eyes of the author of Proverbs, the results are worth the friction. No, we're not called to put up with just anything, without limit. Sometimes there are situations in which cutting people out of our lives is necessary and wise. Contrary to what these relationship minimalists believe, our personal happiness is bound to our relationships but is not bound by them. In an age marked by historic loneliness, "relationship minimalism" sounds like a poor way to love both our neighbors and ourselves.

More than 500 female athletes signed an Amicus brief last week asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule against a Mississippi law that bans abortions after about 15 weeks of pregnancy. Signed by female Olympians, soccer and basketball and swimming stars, the brief failed address the critical questions of the humanity and moral status of children in the womb. Instead, the athletes focused on how abortion restrictions "harm" them. Their approach is typical of the kind of arguments being made against the Texas law, and abortion restrictions in general. These arguments depend upon a number of faulty assumptions which, like the humanity of babies in the womb, are left unsaid. First, the brief claims that without abortion, female athletes would be "compelled" by the state to "carry pregnancies to term and to give birth." Implied here is that abstinence is too preposterous a proposition to even be considered as an option. Even if ideological and moral considerations are left aside, that's simply illogical. The U.S. government doesn't force anyone to make children, or to engage in the kinds of sexual activity that leads to pregnancy. Also, according to the attorney who filed the brief on behalf of the athletes, the right to kill unborn babies is absolutely necessary in order for women to be able to "realize their full athletic potential." Even if we set aside the degrading tyranny of low expectations assumed in that statement, implied here is that it's impossible for women who become mothers to also be successful athletes. That's simply not true. Allyson Felix is the most decorated American track star in history. In 2018, she was effectively dropped by her sponsor, Nike, after refusing to terminate her pregnancy. She was picked up by another sponsor and, despite a challenging pregnancy, went on to win both gold and bronze medals in Tokyo, while her two-year-old watched from home. Pregnancy and parenting does, of course, disrupt life in many profound ways. Still, scores of women have been successful as athletes and, for that matter, in business, education, science, finance, politics, and countless other areas, while also being mothers. Even so, abortion advocates often pit a woman's body as an obstacle to her success as a woman. This makes it all the more strange that so many of the athletes who signed this brief, claiming to support women's sports, publicly advocate for allowing men to participate in women's sports. A few months before signing this brief, U.S. soccer player Megan Rapinoe wrote an Op-Ed in the Washington Post in which she opposed restrictions on males competing against females. Unlike abortion restrictions, allowing men in women's sports is unfair and unsafe for women. In fact, it eliminates any logical ground for gendered sports leagues in the first place. Perhaps the most problematic part of this brief is its subtext that competing in sports is as important for human flourishing as creating and bearing children. For athletes to assert that they must have the right to kill their unborn children in order to compete is to suggest that competing in a sport is of greater value than the life of another human being. While courageous and talented athletes like Allyson Felix disprove this point practically, Scripture counters it ontologically. Men and women were made to image God and, as the Westminster Catechism puts it, to glorify and enjoy Him forever. Competing in sports is one way humans can enjoy and glorify God, but that's only because enjoying and glorifying God is what humans are for. Watching Michael Jordan play basketball in the 90s, Serena Williams serve a tennis ball in the 2000s, or Simone Biles tumble across a balance beam today unfailingly elicits awe and wonder. These various physical talents reflect and portray the deep value that humans have, but they are not the source of that value. Human value is God-given and therefore intrinsic to who we are. This brief implies that something we do, competing in sports, carries more value than who we are, valuable image bearers of God. If that is true, what of the rest of us with more, shall we say, limited athletic abilities? Simply put, this Amicus brief gets everything exactly wrong. It's wrong to suggest that the ability to bear children is somehow a bug, not a feature, of the female body. It's wrong to suggest that children are a hindrance to athletic success, as if they were a sprained ankle or broken hockey stick. And it's wrong about who women's sports are for, what they are for, and what they portray about human value. When a sports league pressures women to violently inhibit their body's natural functioning, it ceases to be a women's league at all. Instead it becomes a pretend-men's sports league which encourages women to compete as long as they aren't too much like women. It disregards those women who do compete - and win - while being and becoming mothers. And it belittles the beauty and design of women's bodies, which are strong enough to do more than one thing, like jump a two-meter high bar or run 400 meters in 53 seconds and also carry, bear, and raise children.

John and Maria visit on changes in the education landscape. They discuss the power of technology to not only inform our understanding of the world, especially in education, but how technology forms us. They consider the addictive nature of technology and how it can be associated with increasing numbers in things ranging from facial tics to gender dysphoria. Maria then asks John's perspective on China's crackdown on technology, especially for adolescents. China is limiting video game access for young people, and Maria asks if this is right, knowing the impact of technology on teens, or if this is an infringement on the family sphere. To close, Maria shares an amicus brief filed by hundreds of women who are opposing the Mississippi abortion law. The brief states that limiting access to abortion will infringe on the rights and progress of women in society. Maria pulls the veil back on the brief, showing the way the arguments fail to recognize the strength and opportunity women have. -- Stories Mentioned In-Show -- The Cost of Digital Addictions? In a recent Wall Street Journal article, psychiatrist Anna Lembke offered a stark warning: our favorite technologies are "drowning us in dopamine." Dopamine is the brain's natural feel-good chemical. It rewards us when we do enjoyable things like connect with friends, laugh at a joke, or eat a taco. Today, that powerful reward cycle is being hijacked by digital technology.BreakPoint>> You Are What You Binge Pediatricians are growing increasingly concerned about an explosion in facial and vocal tics in teenagers, especially teenage girls. According to the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society, case numbers in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and Australia have skyrocketed over the last year. They've even called it a "parallel pandemic" alongside COVID-19. A UK journal has reported similar findings.BreakPoint>> College and the Decline of American Men In yet another indicator that they are not ok, men in America are abandoning higher education in record numbers. According to the Wall Street Journal, at the end of the 2020 academic year, the percentage of male college students dropped to just over 40 percent. Soon, if current trend lines continue, one expert predicts, for every man who earns a college degree, two women will earn a degree.BreakPoint>> Leaving Church The pandemic policies, social unrest, and political division that's left so much of our culture on edge have created quite a bit of tumult for churches, too. A few weeks ago, in a blog at Mere Orthodoxy, Pastor Michael Graham offered a new way to categorize how Christians are reorganizing amidst the chaos.The Point>> Learning Loss From Covid-19 Like most of the damage from this pandemic, the key factors for education were pre-existing conditions. Students already accustomed to facing challenges can grow more resilient in adversity. Students whose education was already more than information transfer were able to build curiosity in new ways. Parents who accepted that their kids' education was primarily their responsibility made necessary pivots.BreakPoint>> China's New Video Game Restrictions Are About Far More Than Kids' Habits China has twice as many gamers as the U.S. has people—some 700 million of them. That ubiquity, especially among young people, has worried China's central government. So at the start of this month, it banned people under 18 from playing video games for more than three hours a week. They could only play from 8 to 9 p.m. on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. But it's not just video games. The government has gone after tutoring companies and big tech players in this "season of crackdowns," in an attempt to bring these sectors more in line with what they perceive as socialist values and to strengthen control over Chinese society and the Chinese economy. Slate>> More than 500 female athletes file amicus brief against Mississippi abortion law More than 500 of the U.S.'s most prominent professional female athletes filed an amicus brief on Monday that voices their opposition to a Mississippi law that prohibits abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Hill>> -- Recommendations -- Louise Penny>> The Third Education Revolution with Vishal Mangalwadi Most recently, Vishal has written The Third Education Revolution, in which he traces both the history of the Christian promotion of education around the world and the opportunity we have in front of us right now. Here's a segment of that interview with Vishal Magalwhaldi BreakPoint Podcast Special>>

Most likely, Tsuda Umkea's father regarded her as expendable. He was so angry when his second child was a second daughter, he stormed out of the house. Still, during Japan's rapid modernization campaign in the late 19th century, he had become interested in the education of girls, and especially the possibility of girls studying in Western countries as exchange students. So, when that opportunity arose for his six-year-old daughter, he volunteered Umkea, known as Ume, to go. Ume ended up in Washington, DC, in the family of Charles Lanham, the secretary of the Japanese legation to the United States. Lanham and his wife had no children of their own, but treated Ume as if she were their own child. After about a year in their home, she asked to be baptized. When she returned to Japan in 1882, she had nearly forgotten the language and was shocked by the inferior status of women in Japanese culture. At the time, Japan was experiencing a backlash against Western influence, and a resurgence of very traditional Neo-Confucian ideals. Seeing this, she decided that she would never enter a traditional Japanese marriage, but only one built on mutual love and respect like she'd seen in America. Ume was soon hired as a tutor to the children of Itō Hirobumi, soon to be prime minister of Japan. In 1885, she began teaching at a school established by the Imperial Household to educate its daughters in traditional manners and customs, to prepare them to be wives and mothers. Troubled, Ume began to think that her own "unique destiny" was to improve educational opportunities for Japanese women. In order to do that, she needed more education. And so, she returned to the United States. Ume attended Bryn Mawr College from 1889-1892. There, she studied English literature, German, philosophy, and biology. She also attended St. Hilda's College, Oxford University. She did so well that Bryn Mawr offered her a fellowship to pursue an advanced degree. She refused, intent on returning to the royal family and Japan in order to improve women's education. The only school at that time that provided higher education for women in Japan was the Tokyo Women's Normal School. Ume decided that others needed the same opportunity she'd had abroad. She began giving public speeches about the subject and, with the help of some Quaker friends, raised $8,000 to provide scholarships for Japanese women. In Japan, Ume resumed teaching, while writing and lecturing about the status of women. In 1900, realizing that girls would never be given the same opportunities as boys in existing schools, she resigned from her post and established Joshi Eigaku Juku, or The Women's Institute for English Studies. Following the example of Bryn Mawr, which insisted that students meet the same standards demanded by Harvard, she determined that her school would follow the standards of the very rigorous and prestigious Tokyo University. The school focused on liberal arts and discussion of contemporary topics, with the goal of developing students' personalities and encouraging creativity. Ume had to work very hard to support herself and fund the new school. In addition to teaching at her own school, she took jobs at other schools, tutored daughters of friends, and engaged in fundraising. Her efforts paid off when, in 1903, the school was approved as a vocational school by the Ministry of Education. Under Ume's leadership, the school's standards were so rigorous that, in 1905, it became the first school in Japan whose graduates did not need to take government examinations in order to obtain a teaching license. Ume's unrelenting efforts to support her school and promote women's education took its toll on her health. She suffered a stroke in 1919, and retired to a cottage in Kamakura. She died in 1929. After her death, the Women's Institute for English Studies was renamed in her honor, eventually becoming Tsuda College in 1948. It is the oldest and most prestigious private women's college in Japan, with over 27,500 graduates now active in all walks of life. Like other educational reformers of the period, Tsuda Umeka recognized the central connection between Western learning and Christianity. Her concern for women's education was born from her childhood experience in America, and the influence of the Quakers. Her sense of personal calling was born out of a recognition of the inherent connection between Christianity, education, and the value and potential of women, a potential that the dominant worldview of her native culture lacked. Hers is one more example of how the Christian view of life, the world, and the human person has inspired, informed, and energized education across the globe.

Pediatricians are growing increasingly concerned about an explosion in facial and vocal tics in teenagers, especially teenage girls. According to the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society, case numbers in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and Australia have skyrocketed over the last year. They've even called it a "parallel pandemic" alongside COVID-19. A UK journal has reported similar findings. A significant majority of these young patients report spending a lot of time on social media; particularly a corner of TikTok where influencers with, who themselves have tics, share their stories and show their tics on the platform. According to researchers in the UK, the TikTok videos bearing the hashtagchannel #tourettes boastedhad 2.5 -billion views as of last February. Doctors say that neurological scans of teenage girls with what they called "functional tic-like behaviors" don't show the same signs common withas Tourette's Syndrome. While Tthe tics are real and uncontrollable, they are but not neurological, but . Rrather, they are learned over a screen. These types of phenomenaon, known as "social contagions" or "mass socio-genic illnesses," have baffled psychologists for decades. A few years ago, jJournalist Lee Daniel Kravetz published a book called Strange Contagion. Inin this book,which he told the story of a phenomenon atdescribed a Palo Alto high school where, inover the span of just six months, five students committed suicide, all on separate occasions, all by jumping in front of a train. School shootings can follow a similar pattern: the first is widely reported, and within weeks there's another, and then another. Wall Street Journal reporter Abigail Shrier described a similar phenomenon in her book, Irreversible Damage, about teenage girls with "sudden-onset gender dysphoria." One girl identifies as trans, and suddenly, severalmany others have joined hertoo. Like the "functional tic-like behaviors" currently alarming researchers now, social media has playedplays a big role in each of these examples. Whether it manifests as gender dysphoria, violent behaviors, or facial tics, there's something about us - especially our younger selves - that is so vulnerable to suggestion and pressure, even to the point of causing hurting ourselves harm. The reality of social contagions reveals something about how God made us. To put it as simply as possible, we're impressionable people. Proverbs, especially Cchapter 4, repeatedly alludes to this. Chapter 4 We are warnsed against following "the path of the wicked." We are told, "Above all else, (to) guard your heart" because everything about us "flows from it." Though we like to think of ourselves as primarily rational creatures, making decisions by carefully and objectively considering all sides, we are far more driven by what we desire than by what we think. angle of an issue. God gave us hearts that are often shaped in ways and by forces beyond our awareness.of which we aren't always aware of. Marketers know this. We want to wear what others are wearing, and economic considerations go right out the window. Influencers know this. Popular cultural idioms become part of our vocabulary because of them. The fact that there even is a category of people in our culture called "influencers" pretty much says about all we need to know. Before the Fall, Scripture describes how God "walked" with Adam and Eve in the Garden. The idea of "walking" emerges again in Proverbs. Out of the Garden, we are warned against "walking" with the wicked. Apparently the problem is not that we are impressionable. The problem is not that our hearts were made to be formed and shaped by others. We were, in fact, made to become like God, by walking with Him. We were to be formed by Him. In a fallen world, that very good way God made us can instead allow us to be twisted us into the image of something corrupt, foolish, or sinful. Anxiety-induced behaviors like the tics inflicting teen girls aren't sinful, but they do illustrate the power of suggestion and the way we were made. The most obvious strategy in light of that would be to dramatically limit social media exposure. In healthy communities, there is support and sharing ofabout struggles, but social media doesn't come with any safeguards, especially for teens. Digital community is not real; . Iit's more of a performance art in front of strangers. Physical community is real, or at least should be, especially in the context of families and churches. If we are potentially impressionable to the point of harm, then we're also impressionable to the point of health. Opposite of the wicked man, Psalm 1 says, is the one who "meditates on the law of the Lord day and night." This is because the Word of God is living and active. And it's also because our hearts are shaped by what we binge.

John visits with Vishal Magalwhaldi, author of several books, including The Book That Changed Your World, and most recently The Third Education Revolution, in which he traces both the history of the Christian promotion of education around the world and the opportunity we have in front of us right now.

Some people think that Christian interest in education is only instrumental. In other words, we start schools so that we can tell our kids about Jesus Christ and how to become Christians. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that, but the Christian understanding of education goes much deeper. Throughout human history, wherever the Church has gone, education has followed. This is because of how Christianity understands life and the world, particularly the nature of reality itself and the human person. Education doesn't make sense in a worldview that is only about survival. In a worldview that is only about survival, education is only utilitarian. But with a worldview that says that the world itself came from a first cause that is intelligent, reasonable, knowable, and - this is important - wants to be known, there is solid grounding for actual knowledge, and therefore education. Christianity says that God has made us in his own image. In other words, not only is God knowable, but humans are knowers. So, the act of learning is nothing less than, as Johannes Kepler put it, thinking God's thoughts after him. Knowing God's world leads to knowing God, and knowing God is what life is all about. This week, on a very special edition of the Breakpoint Podcast, I spoke with one of the most outstanding leaders in education in the Christian world, Vishal Magalwhaldi. He's the author of several books, including The Book That Changed Your World, and most recently The Third Education Revolution, in which he traces both the history of the Christian promotion of education around the world and the opportunity we have in front of us right now. Here's a segment of that interview with Vishal Magalwhaldi In a biblical worldview, Satan is out to deceive the nations, that's Revelation 20. The church is out to disciple the nations. God says to Abraham, "if you follow me, I will bless you. I will make you a great nation." But how would Abraham become a great nation? God says in Genesis 18: 18-19 that Abraham would become a great nation because he would instruct, he would teach, he would command, he would disciple his children. And his household is a blessing and is non-ethnic. So, it was by teaching them to walk in God's ways that Israel would become a great nation and Israel would become a light to the nations. Nations would flock to the love of God to learn to bring peace. So from the very beginning of the calling of Abraham to follow Him is a teaching of education. In India, 100 years ago, a carpenter, or a fisherman, or a shepherd did not go to school. But what you find in the New Testament is a tentmaker writing, a shepherd writing, a fisherman writing. Where did they learn to read and write? They'd entered the synagogue. The priest, on the sabbath, was the teacher. He was a master educating others during the five days of the week, or whatever. Every child has to be educated. God has given his law, and is saying, "You make copies of them." They complained, "We don't have pen and paper." God says, "Don't complain, don't make excuses. You write it on your doorpost, you write it on your walls. You teach your women to learn to write as they're stitching their clothes. They must write them in your clothes." The objective is, if you're meditating upon the law of God, day and night, you're not just memorizing, but meditating. It is written on your heart. You can't reform a nation if there is no objective written text with which you can critique your teachers. Martin Luther critiqued universities, he critiqued the church, and said this is what God says: the church needs to reform. So, the written Word is people becoming people of the book. And this was key to the opening of the Western mind. That was a portion of my conversation with Vishal Magalwhaldi, one of the great education leaders of our day. To hear the entire conversation, go to www.breakpoint.org and click on the Breakpoint Podcast, or search for the Breakpoint Podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts from the Colson Center.

The pandemic policies, social unrest, and political division that's left so much of our culture on edge have created quite a bit of tumult for churches, too. A few weeks ago, in a blog at Mere Orthodoxy, Pastor Michael Graham offered a new way to categorize how Christians are reorganizing amidst the chaos. Long gone are the days when believers automatically joined the church down the street. Even denominational loyalties, theological convictions, and worship styles are not as important as they used to be. More and more often, suggests Graham, church shoppers are prioritizing political and social convictions. And the shopping process itself involves a kind of spy-craft, with phrases like "social justice" or "the sanctity of marriage" seen as stealth signs of belonging to one side of the aisle or the other. Of course, the risk of judging an entire congregation or denomination wrongly via this process is dangerously high. Not only does the "aisle" metaphor fail to acknowledge that a spectrum of views exists on many issues, especially the most controversial, but the so-called "aisle" itself is too often being drawn with only political concerns in mind. Not to mention most buzzwords are left undefined, and therefore unhelpful. In short, the "fracturing of evangelicalism" currently happening is mostly not good. As the wider culture fractures in a million ways, the Church should look different. When it doesn't, our witness suffers. Leaving churches over politically charged disagreements, without taking the time to explore the motive, practices, and beliefs behind them is just not biblically permissible. Leaving a church should be a last resort, like the choice to break up a family, not a knee-jerk response, as if we're disgruntled shoppers. Of course, even a quick look at the motives, practices, and beliefs of some church leaders, congregations, and denominations will reveal problems that must be addressed. If Samuel John Stone were writing his great hymn today, there's more than enough consumerism, celebrity-ism, Christian Nationalism, and cultural Marxism afflicting the church to inspire these same mournful words: Tho' with a scornful wonder,men see her sore oppressed,by schisms rent asunder,by heresies distressed,yet saints their watch are keeping,their cry goes up, "How long?"And soon the night of weepingshall be the morn of song. Driving past six churches, some big and shiny, to find one faithful to the Gospel is a tragic reality for many. Christians will find help in the various metaphors Christ gives for His Church: the "Household of God," a husband and his bride, a "body" with many members and functions, a flock of sheep guarded and shepherded by Christ, and even brothers and sisters. Though living into these Biblical metaphors is incredibly difficult, especially at a time when political and ideological divisions are breaking even the bonds of family, it's not difficult to see that a different metaphor is dominating our approach to church. In short, Christians today approach churches primarily as consumers. We're too picky when it comes to where we worship and why. We want the songs we like, and the preacher that "speaks to us." However, consumerism is a problem for church-goers, because it is first a problem for churches. Pastors face enormous pressure to fill pews and minimize conflict. Often, they are hired for their fidelity to the Scriptures and tasked with discipling a congregation, but are evaluated by completely different metrics. If you "give the people what they want," it will rarely be the hard truth of the Gospel. In this, "evangelical fracturing" is not new, but it is saddening. In the past, God has used "fracturing" to accomplish a "pruning." It is His church. He will protect it, even from itself. May it be so today, too. For as much time and effort we spend evaluating a church we plan to leave or join, we should spend at least that much on evaluating the motives and the criteria we employ in leaving or joining a church. Churches that misuse or rewrite the Bible, that choose the approval of men over God, or that serve temporal power more than the Kingdom of God should be left. At the same time, the biblical metaphors matter. We are family, not isolated gatherings of consumers. Issues matter because truth matters and morality matters, not because they are political hot buttons. We are employed by Christ for His Kingdom, not for protests, extra-biblical theories, or deconstruction. More important than finding a church we like is that we are the Church He leads, seeking first His Kingdom and righteousness. With that in place, we can trust that anything else will be added, as God is willing.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, psychiatrist Anna Lembke offered a stark warning about our favorite technologies. Dopamine is the brain's natural feel-good chemical. It rewards us when we do enjoyable things: connect with friends, laugh at a joke, eat a taco. Today, that powerful reward cycle is being hijacked by digital technology. Technology is designed to be addictive. With every tap, click, and like, our brain chemistry, which is supposed to spur us on to action, is instead keeping us on our phones. As Lembke writes, "The quantity, variety, and potency of [these highly addicting] behaviors has never been greater." We've been warned, but it's not clear that a society in which the average adult spends around eight hours a day interacting with a screen of some kind will actually listen. I'm as guilty as the next guy, but the consequences aren't just personal. As Lembke reports, the self-reported happiness of nations in which these digital technologies are most widespread is declining. A few years ago, an article in The Economist described the rising numbers of young men who were opting out of the workforce in order to play video games. While there's something sad about young men choosing to invest so heavily in a fantasy world while ignoring the real one, the question is why? At least part of the answer is that their hearts and minds had been cultivated to pursue immediate gratification. Though such short-sighted decisions will inevitably reduce their long-term happiness, if Dr. Lembke is correct, they're not capable of thinking that way. Not only has a generation of young men not been cultivated toward long-term, cause-and-effect thinking, they've actually been cultivated for short-term dopamine fixes. In Brave New World, one of the most haunting books of the last 100 years, Aldous Huxley describes a dystopian world where pleasure, rather than pain, has finally enslaved humanity. Drugged into perpetual bliss, most people live lives of cheap hedonism. In the process, they lose those things that make life meaningful, like real connection, perspective on suffering and purpose that is bigger than physical desires. Years later, in the Introduction to Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman summarized what Huxley got right. People, he said, would "love their oppression, (and) adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think." Contrasting Huxley with George Orwell's dystopian vision of state oppression, Postman wrote: "Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture… In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us." How can it be that in a society with more income, resources, and leisure time than ever, people are less happy? How is it that the most connected generation in human history is ravaged by loneliness? Why can't a generation that (Covid aside) has seen the greatest medical advances and reduction of diseases of any era ever stop the pandemic of so-called "deaths of despair." Secularism offers very little that can counter the consequences of unchecked hedonism. After all, if we're not hurting anyone, why shouldn't we spend our time in digital fantasies? If there's no bigger purpose to life, why shouldn't young men pursue video games instead of jobs, a wife and a family? If there's nothing more to God than what He can do for me, what purpose is greater than our own immediate fulfillment? A secular culture lacks any incentive to break out of our digital cages and into the real world. The real world is more vibrant, more painful, and more meaningful than any digital counterfeit. It's filled with image-bearers, not mere images. Our actions have consequences, without an easy restart button. We are able to love and serve a God who is actually there, in a world that actually exists, by following the beautiful, paradoxical call of discipleship: "Come, take up your cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will find it." This way of the kingdom, this joy of the real world, is far better than a dopamine fix.