Breakpoint

Like many of you, I remember exactly where I was on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. I was preparing to teach a class of college freshmen on the topic of Christian worldview. Obviously, my teaching plans for that day changed, but I also had a very real example of how significant worldview is to understanding the world around us. I remember the chaos, I remember the confusion, I remember thinking this had changed our world forever, and it did. Those of us who were alive and old enough realized that this was an event of national significance - as serious as the attack on Pearl Harbor or the assassination of JFK. Yet I've talked to so many parents and grandparents over the last several months who have realized that 9/11 is not a part of the story of this emerging generation. It's a distant memory. It's distant history now. Of course, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, the assassination of JFK, and the moon landing are all distant history for my generation as well. But we were a different type of citizenry. We were citizens who had a shared national memory. That's something that many in the emerging generation simply do not have. I've been looking for resources to help teach the younger generation about 9/11. That's why I'm so excited for my friends at Drive Thru History. This week they will be releasing their special called 9/11: A Drive Thru History Special. You can watch it today at 9 p.m. Eastern time on the Drive Thru History YouTube channel, or you can see it Saturday at 1 p.m. Eastern on the Breakpoint Facebook page. Many of you are familiar with Drive Thru History and the tremendous job that they do making history come to life. The 9/11 special is also hosted by Dave Stotts and provides a historical overview of that eventful day. Through incredible video footage and narration, you'll walk through the events of 9/11 with highlights on the stories of terrorism and the face of such great evil. The team over at Drive Thru History was kind enough to give us a sample of the premiere special that they will be airing for the public later today and this weekend. Here's a transcript of a segment of the video. -- The September 11 strikes against America, often referred to as 9/11, were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic group al-Qaeda. Four passenger airliners that had departed from airports in the northeastern United States were hijacked by 19 Islamic terrorists. Two of the planes were crashed into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. A third plane was crashed into the US Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane, heading towards Washington D. C., crashed into a Pennsylvania field after the passengers fought back against their hijackers. According to scholars, 9/11 ended up being the single deadliest terrorist attack in human history. There were 2,977 killed, over 25,000 injured, and more than $10 billion dollars in property damage. It was also the single deadliest incident for U.S. emergency personnel, with 343 firefighters and 72 police officers killed that day in the tragic aftermath of 9/11. It took 99 days for the New York City Fire Department to finally extinguish the smoldering fires at the World Trade Center complex. Then, it took another 160 days to finally declare the cleanup and recovery operation over. In the end, about two million tons of tangled steel and rubble were removed from the site. Next came the process of healing and restoration through designing and building an appropriate structure to memorialize the event while functioning as meaningful office space for economic renewal in lower Manhattan. The iconic replacement was finally approved and constructed on the 16-acre site. One World Trade Center. In the months after 9/11, we came together as Americans like I've never seen in my lifetime. First responders were applauded. Churches were packed. Radio stations played patriotic music. Sports stadiums honored the fallen. The military was revered. American flags flew on homes, schools, and businesses everywhere. Indeed, 9/11 was tragic, but I've never seen such American patriotism, unity, and resolve. While the country processed its grief, it also came together across religious, political, and ethnic divides. We were all just Americans. Yeah, September 11 is a day to remember an attack on our homeland, an attack on our freedom, an attack on our very worldview. It's also a day to remember our fallen Americans and our selfless heroes. It's a day to remind the new generation to stay vigilant in defending our country, our liberty, and our way of life. Once a year on the anniversary of 9/11, a special tribute in light fills the Manhattan skyline. Two massive beams of light stretch toward the heavens symbolizing the fallen twin towers. It's a profound way to remember the day we will never forget. -- That was just a small taste of 9/11: A Drive Thru History Special. It's being released today at 9 p.m. Eastern on the Drive Thru History YouTube channel. It will also premiere on the Breakpoint Facebook page this Saturday at 1 p.m. Eastern. Just come to www.breakpoint.org where you can find a link to view the video.

John and Shane talk through the challenges in reasoning through the pro-choice stance in the face of Texas' new heartbeat bill. John also answers a question on a recent commentary dealing with Millennials. The listeners asks how to communicate the goodness of the Gospel to those who might have a taste for it. To close, John and Shane go point-by-point through a series of statements a Christian school administrator is fielding in Australia. The listener's school is considering how to process sexual orientation and gender identity at their non-denominational school. The listener notes that many teachers haven't been able to process all of the points before the conversation rose. John and Shane provide resources and a step-by-step response to the points listed below: The Bible's authors only wrote to their particular context and knew nothing of what us contemporaries now understand about human sexuality, The word 'homosexuality' is a recent, Victorian-era invention inserted into scripture to condemn all same-sex sexual activity when that was not the original intent, The word/s used in scripture to denote homosexuality actually only condemn exploitative sexual practices, not same-sex sexuality between consenting adults, The story of Sodom and Gomorrah denotes God's judgment on the people of those cities due to their lack of hospitality rather than the practice of homosexuality, and Jesus said very little about sexuality anyway. -- Resources -- Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage Sean McDowell & John Stonestreet | Baker Books | 2014 The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation, A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics Richard Hayes | Harper | August, 1996 Holy Sexuality and the Gospel: Sex, Desire, and Relationships Shaped by God's Grand Story Christopher Yuan | Multnomah | 2018 The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics Robert Gagnon | Abingdon Press | 2002

How did things in Afghanistan change so dramatically, seemingly overnight? How did a decades-long, frustrating stalemate become the greatest American foreign policy debacle in 50 years? A nation is left asking, "What went wrong?" The most immediate explanation is the way the withdrawal was handled, from pulling out troops before evacuating citizens and allies, to abandoning the Bagram Air Base. These details and others are hard to explain. A common, longer-view explanation is that the War in Afghanistan ultimately failed because the United States shifted focus from fighting terrorism to nation-building. Nation-building can be formally defined as "the process through which the boundaries of the modern state and those of the national community become congruent." In practice, nation-building is far more complicated. Attempting to rebuild essential cultural and institutional elements of another country rarely goes well. America's view of nation-building tends to change. In defending his recent decisions, President Biden has spoken derisively of nation-building, even saying that it "never made sense" to him. Yet, that claim was fact-checked by the Washington Post: apparently, he was for it until he was against it. Many condemn nation-building, not so much because it's wrong as because it's impossible. Cultures run too deep, they say, to change from the outside. No weapon or army is stronger than a people's will to resist. Just consider Afghanistan (twice), Vietnam, or the collapse of European empires. On the other hand, it's also true that national borders can change, languages do shift, religions reform, and whole civilizations rise and fall. In recent years, powerhouses like Germany and Japan each went from global menace to responsible neighbor. India, Korea, Taiwan, Dubai, and Singapore have changed dramatically in just a few generations. Cultures do change. Not always and not easily, but they can and do change. Others see nation-building as necessary and good policy. A century ago, energized by victory in the first World War, President Wilson predicted a new dawn, made possible by good ol' American can-do spirit, in which democracy would break out over the globe and the world would be transformed into our own image. Instead, the world descended into totalitarianisms, Left and Right. Despite these historical realities, the temptation to engage in nation-building has proved hard to resist. In the wake of the Cold War, the first President Bush talked of a New World Order. President Clinton intervened everywhere from Haiti to Somalia to the Balkans. And, most famously, moved by the horrors of 9/11 from quasi-isolationist to interventionist, the second President Bush worked to remake the Middle East along Western, democratic lines. None of these actions, to put it mildly, went as planned. The historic, tribal, ethnic, sectarian, and religious realities of Middle Eastern life held far more power than Western notions of human rights and economic progress. If non-interventionists see cultural traits as immovable, always-interventionists see them as merely cosmetic, about as enduring as a new coat of paint. Every society, however, is built on and around ideas, many of which are so deeply ingrained, either by history or religion or both, that they go unspoken. Changing them is not impossible, but it is also not easy. In fact, the faltering state of freedom in the Middle East is as much a failure to know our own history and ideas as it is a failure to know theirs. The blessings we enjoy, like free elections and free markets and free speech, didn't come from nowhere. They came from a thousand years or more of cultural development, from kings and battles, revolutions and rebellions, ideas and new ideas, power struggles and false starts. In other words, politics alone cannot nation-build. In western culture, certain ideas about human nature, derived from Christianity, have played an essential role. Biblical concepts about the image of God and original sin enabled thinkers (who were also influenced by the Enlightenment) to craft a style of government that saw both citizens and the state as dignified and liable to corruption. Though Voltaire and even Jefferson may have ignored the source of these principles, and though, in practice, the inconsistent application of these principles led to grave evils and injustice, neither the Declaration of Independence or Declaration of the Rights of Man would have come to pass without Christianity and the Bible. Without them, in fact, the democratic project simply cannot endure, as demonstrated by our failed attempts at nation-building around the world.

There is a pandemic that has lasted far longer than COVID. It's also been more deadly. It's more difficult to treat, and there's no vaccine for it. Masks are ineffective in stopping it and may actually make it worse. America's pandemic of despair shows up most obviously in the mounting number of suicide and suicide attempts. According to the Centers for Disease Control, suicide rates are higher today than at any other time since the Great Depression. Unless one takes into account just how different our world is today, it's impossible to grasp what that data point really means. Today, we have emergency rooms, a much better knowledge of poison and poison control, better technologies, and emergency medications like NARCAN. These incredible, life-saving medical interventions mean that a large percentage of patients who attempt suicide survive. But adjusting for these medical advances, we are likely living through the worst suicide crisis in our nation's history. This is a crisis that is, at its root, fueled by despair. Hopelessness afflicts individuals and entire communities. Deeper than economic hardship or access to firearms and opioids, we have created, to borrow words from my friend Matthew Sleeth, "an unlivable society." Loneliness and isolation are the norm, and they pre-existed this Coronavirus. Matthew's latest book is the most direct, helpful, and clarifying book for Christians on this topic of suicide. It's called Hope Always: How to Be a Force for Life in a Culture of Suicide. In it, he combines his first-hand knowledge of America's suicide crisis as an emergency room doctor with statistical insights, a biblical overview of the topic, and an incredible amount of wisdom. His conclusion is nothing less than a calling. When it comes to addressing this culture-wide pandemic, if not the church stepping up, who will? Scripture, as Dr. Sleeth points out, says a great deal about suicide, and therefore has a huge role to play in preventing it. From the beginning, Satan tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden to, in effect, kill themselves. Ever since, demons, both literal and figurative, have been whispering lies and words of despair into human ears. Throughout the book, Sleeth threads an important needle. On the one hand, he argues against a materialistic view of suicide. Humans are, he argues, the only creatures that knowingly take our own lives. Thus, this terrible decision has an irreducible spiritual component. On the other hand, Sleeth warns Christians not to ignore the very real medical and mental health factors that drive people to self-harm. By holding together the material and moral sides of suicide, Sleeth addresses the issue from the best foundation available: who humans are as image-bearers of God. Thus, Sleeth makes clear why Christianity has proved to be the most powerful and effective response to those whispering demons that call us into the darkness. Near the beginning of Hope Always, Sleeth tells an especially touching story of two patients from his time as an emergency room physician. The first was an able-bodied young man, full of promise, who chose to shoot himself in the temple. The other was a joyful, wheelchair-bound man, slightly older with a permanent neurological injury, who had come in for a minor infection. A nurse asked Dr. Sleeth if he recognized the patient. "It's the man you saw last spring who shot himself." The two patients, as it turns out, were the same person. As the young man's parents later told Dr. Sleeth, after surviving his suicide attempt, their son had found a reason to live. In their words, "He got his faith back," and his faith had given him fresh hope. (This kind of powerful storytelling, born in his wealth of experience, is just one example of Matthew Sleeth's compelling writing style.) To be clear, having a Christian faith is no guarantee that, ultimately, the demonic voices will go away, or won't steal, kill, and destroy a life. Still, especially in this area, only the Church is properly grounded in both Scripture and science. Only the biblical vision of the imago Dei, of our creation and fall, can address the fullness of the human condition. In light of this, I say with Matthew Sleeth, if not the church on this issue, then who? Come to BreakPoint.org and we'll tell you how you can get a copy of "Hope Always." And be sure to check out Matthew Sleeth's outstanding interview with Shane Morris on our Upstream podcast, and his incredible talk at the 2021 Wilberforce Weekend.

One of Christianity's greatest strengths is its explanatory power. Christianity can explain the human experience and the human condition far better than any other worldview. This is true when it comes to humanity's created goodness, as made in the image of God. It's also true of its explanation of what's wrong with the world and the human heart. It's especially true when it comes to explaining human activity and ability, such as artistry, athleticism, and work. Today, on a special Labor Day edition of BreakPoint, I was reminded of how Chuck Colson described Christianity's unique perspective on the human reality of work. -- Fashion magazines are aghast over the latest fashion craze: work clothes. Carharrt hunting jackets are the rage on the streets of London and New York. Blundstone boots, until recently worn only by sheep farmers and miners, are now counted as hip footwear. The workwear craze actually has a long tradition in America. Back in 1946, a magazine called The American Weekly celebrated Labor Day with a cover photo of a worker standing astride the world in overalls and boots. That's actually not a bad image to take with us from Labor Day—a tribute to the fundamental dignity of the worker. Christians have a special reason to celebrate Labor Day. We worship a God who labored to make the world—and who created human beings in His image to be workers. When God made Adam and Eve, He gave them work to do: cultivating and caring for the earth. In the ancient world, the Greeks and Romans looked upon manual work as a curse, something for lower classes and slaves. But Christianity changed all that. Christians viewed work as a high calling—a calling to be co-workers with God in unfolding the rich potential of His creation. This high view of work can be traced throughout the history of the church. In the middle ages, the guild movement grew out of the church. They set standards for good workmanship and encouraged members to take satisfaction in the results of their labor. The guilds became the forerunners of the modern labor movement. Later, during the Reformation, Martin Luther preached that all work can be done to the glory of God. Whether ministering the Gospel or scrubbing floors, any honest work is pleasing to the Lord. Out of this conviction grew the Protestant work ethic. Christians were also active on behalf of workers in the early days of the industrial revolution, when the factories were "dark satanic mills," to borrow a phrase from Sir William Blake. Work in factories and coal mines in those days was hard and dangerous. Children were practically slaves and were sometimes even chained to the machines. Then John Wesley came preaching and teaching the Gospel throughout England. He came not to the upper classes but to the laboring classes—to men whose faces were black with coal dust, women whose dresses were patched and faded. John Wesley preached to them—and in the process, he pierced the conscience of the whole nation. Two of Wesley's disciples, William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury, were inspired to work for legislation that would clean up abuses in the workplace. The British parliament passed child labor laws, safety laws, and minimum-wage laws. Here in America, we've lost the Christian connection with the labor movement. But in many countries—from Canada to Poland—that tradition still remains. So go ahead, let your kids wear hunting jackets and Blundstone boots, as long as workwear is the fashion. But this Labor Day, remember that labor derives its true dignity as a reflection of the Creator. And that whatever we do, in word or deed, we should do all to the glory of God. -- That was Chuck Colson talking about the Christian vision of work. It is an appropriate topic, especially today. For all of us at the Colson Center, as you gather with friends and family, and maybe and fire up the grill for the last time this summer, happy Labor Day.

John and Maria start the show discussing the disillusionment of millennial evangelicals. They ask if the way we've done church has led to the rise in Evangelical evacuation in young people. John asks if this is because we have a bigotry in low expectations. Maria then asks John for further explanation in his recent commentary on Isaiah 6. The commentary was sparked from President Biden's speech last week where he took Isaiah 6 out of context. John then offers an explanation on the new heartbeat bill in Texas that significantly restricts abortion. The law faced last minute challenges from pro-choice advocates, but the courts didn't vote to pause the law. Maria asks John for further context on what this specific law means and if its framework is extrapolated how that could impact religious freedom with other laws. To close, Maria asks John to comment on litigation many states have taken up against the Biden administration. The concern is how LGBTQ and sex discrimination protections that are expanding and having an impact into schools. Maria then brings up a recent piece done by ESPN that highlights gradeschool and junior high athletes who identify as transgender in states that have restricted policies to protect sports from blurring lines in who an can compete based on gender identity. -- Story References -- BreakPoint Recap The Disillusion of Millennial Evangelicals Though Gen Z-ers have all but replaced Millennials as the dazzling object of scrutiny and cultural analysis, it's not because Millennials are no longer struggling. Rates of addiction, depression, burnout, and loneliness are all disproportionately high among the demographic born between 1981 and 1996. Since 2013, in fact, Millennials have seen a 47 percent increase in major depression diagnoses.BreakPoint>> President Biden and Isaiah 6: It's Not Really About 'Here Am I, Send Me' President Biden certainly isn't the first President to misquote Scripture for political ends, only the most recent. Last week, in a speech responding to the terrorist attack on the airport in Kabul, Biden quoted from Isaiah 6:8, when the prophet answered the Lord's call by saying, 'Here am I send me!" It was odd. It was out of place. And, it was inappropriate. Even worse than blurring the line between America and the Kingdom of God, the President used Holy Scripture to deflect from his own responsibility for this disaster.BreakPoint>> Supreme Court Hears Texas Heartbeat Bill Case and Let's it Stand Supreme Court Upholds New Texas Abortion Law, For Now The U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday night refused to block a Texas law that amounts to a ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The vote was 5-4, with three Trump-appointed justices joining two other conservative justices. Dissenting were conservative Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's three liberal justices. NPR>> Media fear the worst after Texas abortion law: 'Who is gonna invade Texas to liberate women and girls' The media meltdown over a Texas law banning abortions after six weeks stretched into its second day with no end in sight Thursday, with analysts comparing the measure to slavery, terrorism, and the end times. FoxNews>> Psaki shuts down male reporter's abortion questions: 'You've never faced those choices' White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday responded to a male reporter who pressed her on President Biden's support for abortion by saying the reporter has "never faced those choices." The Hill>> Transgender Athletes Debate Hits New Level 20 states, including Tennessee, sue over Biden administration school, work LGBTQ protections. Attorneys general from 20 states sued President Joe Biden's administration Monday seeking to halt directives that extend federal sex discrimination protections to LGBTQ people, ranging from transgender girls participating in school sports to the use of school and workplace bathrooms that align with a person's gender identity. The Tennessean> ESPN Makes Claim That Young transgender athletes are caught in middle of states' debates Julie has been to legislators' offices. She sat across from elected officials, arguing on behalf of her daughter. Stephanie usually wants to come, but Julie thinks she's too young. In one official's office, Julie noticed a photo on his wall of his kids playing soccer at a park where she has often watched Stephanie play. "You know, there's a good chance your daughter has played against my daughter in soccer," she said to him. "You would have no idea. She's just like any other little girl." ESPN>> -- In Show Recommendations -- The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Podcast Christianity Today | 2021 Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and What Justice Gorsuch Hath Wrought John Stonestreet & Shane Morris | BreakPoint This Week | June 19, 2020 Why Asking Kids to Announce Their Pronouns is a Big Deal John Stonestreet & Maria Baer | The Point | August 30, 2021 Rescuing the Victims of the Sexual Revolution John Stonestreet | BreakPoint | March 8, 2021 -- Recommendations -- Adventures in Odyssey>>

From the beginning, proponents of the sexual revolution have wrapped themselves in the mantle of science, especially social science. For example, in the 1950s, the "Kinsey Reports" helped normalize a range of sexual behaviors. They were also the source of the still-often-quoted "statistic" that 10 percent of people are same-sex oriented. Both that figure and the methodology behind Kinsey's "research" has long ago been discredited. Still, that 10 percent number has stuck in many people's heads. A new wave of studies in recent years paints a rosy picture about the benefits of medical transitions for people with gender dysphoria. So much so that, as Paul Dirks recently wrote at Public Discourse, "lifelong experimental medicalization, sterilization, and complete removal of healthy body parts . . . is no longer a rarity. It is the recommended treatment for gender dysphoria." But what if these studies are like the Kinsey Reports? What if they reflect the bias and agendas of the authors rather than reality? Given what is at stake, this a vitally important question, especially since social science itself is in the midst of what's called a "replication crisis." In other words, when other researchers try to replicate the findings of studies in the social sciences, they often cannot. This failure of replication even includes studies that are regarded as canonical in some fields. So how can we distinguish between solid research and what won't withstand further scrutiny when it comes to the so-called "settled science" of gender transitioning? Paul Dirks' Public Discourse article, "Transition as Treatment: The Best Studies Show the Worst Outcomes," sums up the results of his deep-dive into the research. Dirks defines "best studies" as those that have followed people who underwent medical transition for the longest period of time. "It is well recognized in the literature," Dirks states, "that the year after medical [gender] transition is a 'honeymoon period, which 'does not represent a realistic picture of long-term sexual and psychological status.'" Yet most of the popular gender transition studies are limited to just a few years following medical transitioning. Other studies that support medical transitions fail to follow up with as much as half of the original participants. That's well beyond the threshold of reliability. Many of the studies, Dirks states, are "fraught with . . . design problems," such as "small sample sizes, short study lengths, and enormously high drop-out rates," to name just three. The problem is so bad that one systematic review of the literature, "rated only two out of twenty-nine studies as high-quality." In contrast, the best-designed and most rigorous studies, whose results are most likely to stand up over time, found that medical transition was not the solution to the patients' problems, especially in the case of male-to-female transitions. They reveal much higher mortality rates due to increased rates of suicide, AIDS, drug abuse, and even cardiovascular disease. Another high-quality study found a 7-fold increase in suicide attempts and a nineteen-fold increase in completed suicides after transitions. Even when the findings are adjusted for pre-existing psychiatric problems, which are often treated as unrelated to the gender dysphoria, there was still a three-fold increase in psychiatric hospital admissions. In other words, when it comes to medical gender transitioning, "the best studies show the worst outcomes," and the current use of shoddy social science to support medical transitioning is not only misleading but dangerous. In this case, as is common in the social sciences, especially throughout the history of the sexual revolution, ideology is overwhelming truth-finding. Too many researchers think they know what the data should tell us, so they, at times unconsciously and at times consciously, design their studies to make sure that it does. Sadly, the consequences of their failure are far worse than professional embarrassment or tarnished reputations. In this case, the consequences can be permanent and even deadly.

Though Gen Z-ers have all but replaced Millennials as the dazzling object of scrutiny and cultural analysis, it's not because Millennials are no longer struggling. Rates of addiction, depression, burnout, and loneliness are all disproportionately high among the demographic born between 1981 and 1996. Since 2013, in fact, Millennials have seen a 47 percent increase in major depression diagnoses. For their part, evangelical Millennials are in a season of deconstruction and deconversion, or reeling from the many influential and high profile leaders that have recently either left the faith or fallen from grace. Disillusionment is now a dominant feature of this group that was once convinced it could change the world. In his influential book The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt uses a rider and an elephant to illustrate moral psychology. The rider represents intellectual reasoning. The elephant represents immediate perceptions, intuitions and instincts. Most modern people, Haidt argues, think that their own moral frameworks are derived from objective, rational reasoning. In other words, it's the rider who tells the elephant where to go and what to eat. In reality, however, moral decisions primarily come from our gut instincts, and we use intellectual reasoning to justify those decisions. Or, back to our metaphor, the elephant wants bananas, and the rider explains why bananas are good after the decision to get bananas has already been made. If Haidt is right, we can better understand the beauty and power of Christianity. To borrow his metaphor, Christ speaks to both the rider and the elephant. "Like newborn babies," the Apostle Peter tells us, "crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good." Christianity is not only ultimately true, it is also ultimately satisfying. It is satisfying, in fact, because it is true. This provides a helpful lens by which to understand Millennial deconstruction, deconversion, and disillusionment. What if a generation of Christians have been taught to crave the wrong thing? Recently, my friend Sean McDowell described a conversation he had with a deconverted evangelical. He was surprised to learn that this skeptic first started to doubt his faith at a Coldplay concert. Though there are plenty of anti-Christian bands, Coldplay isn't one of them. The lead singer didn't challenge anyone's faith or any particular truth claims from the stage. However, the concert produced in the skeptic so many of the feelings he had always associated with worship. The stadium of people singing in unison, the strong emotion elicited by lyrics and melody, and the unifying cultural grandeur of it all felt a lot like, well, church. But then, what had this former believer been experiencing all those years? It suddenly seemed possible that Christianity was just another man-made phenomenon, enjoyable and moving but not really true. You know, like a Coldplay concert. What if we are seeing the fruit of a generation that was sold endless attempts to make Christ cool and likable, worship relevant and hyper-emotional, and Christian morality more about politics and cultural influence than obedience to God? And what if this generation has now found those experiences elsewhere? What if all of the trendy marketing, political capital, and massive concert experiences inadvertently taught a generation to love the glamour and the feelings, but not Christ? If there's any truth to this analysis, there is also consolation. Many Millennials are discovering that there are no better answers "out there," either. Yet, like all human beings, they still crave the truth, depth, and beauty found only in the Gospel. Chuck Colson kept a plaque on his desk that read: "Faithfulness, not success." Having climbed the heights of worldly success, he knew that nothing in this life could ultimately satisfy. Forced to reckon with how empty it all was, he encountered Jesus. As he wrote in Loving God, God doesn't want our success; He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements; He demands our obedience. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of paradox, where through the ugly defeat of a cross, a holy God is utterly glorified. Victory comes through defeat; healing through brokenness; finding self through losing self. Culture - even Christian culture - comes and goes. The eternal truths of Christ are forever. And they are enough to satisfy a drifting generation.

John and Shane answer questions from listeners ranging from how Christians should define persecution in a desire to fulfill a Biblical call to encourage the saints to how a public counselor can represent Jesus while honoring her call as healthcare provider. Shane also asks John to comment on the history of the United States of America and how it bodes for those who have been mistreated during it's history.

President Biden isn't the first president to misquote Scripture, only the most recent. He did it by quoting Isaiah 6:8, when the prophet answered the Lord's call with, "Here am I. Send me!" This reference was made in a speech responding to last week's terrorist attack at the Kabul airport. It was odd. It was out of place. It was inappropriate. In doing so, the President not only blurred the line between America and the Kingdom of God, he deflected his own responsibility for this disaster onto "God's will." Of course, the service and self-sacrifice of our military should always be recognized and honored. And it's completely appropriate, as many members of our armed forces surely do, to see military service as one's service to the Lord. For believers, every calling, if legitimate and done as to the Lord, is sacred. But how we carry out those callings - or as in this case how we order others to carry out theirs - is on us, not God. Still, in his misuse of Scripture, President Biden joined not only a long line of presidents (especially the previous two), but plenty of pastors and other Christians, as well. I've lost count of the number of mission conferences I've attended in which the words, "Here am I, send me," were plucked from the middle of Isaiah 6, printed on banners, and hung around the church. The intent of encouraging people to respond to God's call on their lives is noble. However, to miss the full context of the story is not only to miss the significance of Isaiah's famous words, but to miss details that are particularly relevant for our cultural moment. First, the recent death of King Uzziah puts it in the context of a national crisis. Not only had Uzziah reigned over the kingdom of Judah for 52 years, but he had been, at least for the most part, one of the few good kings. When God allows Isaiah (who may have been a cousin of Uzziah) to see Him, He is showing Isaiah that even though the earthly king is dead, the True King of the universe is not. God's status remains unchanged. Even the most chaotic cultural moment does not alter the rule and reign of Christ Jesus. We would do well to remember that, too. Second, Isaiah's answer was not so much courageous or heroic as it was grateful. The key point of this passage is not what Isaiah said at all. It's what God did. Immediately after Isaiah saw the Lord, he said, "Woe is me!" This could be very roughly translated as, "uh-oh… I'm dead meat." After all, the central feature of God's presence described here is God's holiness. Isaiah is not special. He's a sinner like the rest of us and, as such, cannot survive in the presence of God's perfection. The whole scene is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis's, The Last Battle, where the soldier who had spent his life serving the false god Tash sees Aslan and, sure of his impending death, thinks to himself, "Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him." Isaiah has something of the same response. But when Isaiah predicts his ruin owing to his unclean lips, God spares him: He orders coals from the altar to touch his lips, cleansing him from his impurity. I suppose even a prophet can have a dirty mouth, but only mercy from God Himself can make any of us presentable to Him. Having thought that his life was over only to have it spared by God, what else will Isaiah say when the question is asked, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" What's too often missed, especially when we fail to read beyond Isaiah's response to the rest of the passage, is what God is calling Isaiah to do. "Go, and say to this people: 'Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' 10 Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." In a word, God is sending Isaiah to fail. Isaiah the prophet, whose job it was to speak for God, is told that the more he speaks for God, the less the people will listen. The more he speaks, the more their hearts would grow harder and harder. To which Isaiah asks a question of his own (a good one, in fact): "How long, O Lord?" I think it's safe to assume Isaiah may have been asking for some degree of assurance that, eventually, they would listen. Like any committed communicator, he wants to know he is being heard. God's reply? "Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, 12 and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land." In other words, Isaiah, you're going to speak, and they aren't going to listen. And this is going to go on and on until it's all over. The next chapter isn't repentance for Judah. It's captivity. "For us there is only the trying," said T.S. Eliot. "The rest is none of our business." Any result of our work, when done for the Lord, is up to God. In a Biblical framework, success is defined by faithfulness. Nothing more, nothing less. In Hebrews 11, the "hall of faith" passage, Isaiah makes a cameo appearance. It's near the end, when the author admits to running out of time. In his list that starts with miracles and victories and, without breaking stride, shifts to sufferings and defeats, the author includes "they [who] were sawn in two." According to Jewish tradition, Isaiah spoke as commanded. The people, as predicted, eventually became so enraged with him, so tired of what he was saying, that they stuffed him into a hollow log and sawed him in half. But, the author of Hebrews continues, he was one "of whom the world was not worthy." I can't imagine any more important truths to sustain Christians in this cultural moment, than to know that the King of the universe is still on His throne, and that God in his mercy forgives our guilt that is before him. And any results or successes we might achieve come from His strength, not our own. This is why the context of Isaiah's words is absolutely essential, whether quoted by pastors or by presidents.