Breakpoint

Freedom is not just a governmental endeavor; it is an image-of-God reality. One that we citizens have a responsibility to defend, retain, to advance, and support. Not only here in America but also around the world. Ambassador Sam Brownback is doing incredible work in this field. John discusses the issue of freedom worldwide, how governments around the world need to be called to account and held accountable for their work in recognizing and protecting Freedom. Samuel Brownback is an attorney, politician, and diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom from 2018 to 2021. He is now the leader for the International Religious Freedom Summit (https://irfsummit.com/)

The greatest enemy of freedom can be freedom. One of the most important observations that I gleaned from one of Os Guinness's books is that celebrating the acquisition of liberty and freedom (what we celebrate this weekend is our acquisition of freedom) is typical in the world's history. But what is really unusual is sustaining freedom. When freedom becomes not a freedom for good, truth, or justice but a freedom from — freedom from restraint, from consequences, from any rules or responsibilities — then freedom devolves into license, and license can actually put us in slavery to our own passions and desires. This misguided definition of freedom presents a challenge to one of the core freedoms of the American experience and one built into human beings by God as our Creator: the freedom of religion. Recently, I spoke with former Senator and former Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback, about the issue of religious freedom. He has been at the forefront of advocating for religious freedom not only in the United States, but especially around the world. As Islamic radicals in Nigeria clamp down on Christians' freedom there, and so many scenarios like this around the world, here is Ambassador Sam Brownback in his own words about religious freedom. An edited audio transcription of our interview follows: Most of the world's population lives in a country of significant religious persecution. It actually gets worse than that. The Chinese government now is standing up and saying it has an ideology that should legitimately compete with U.S. democracy, Western democracy, and capitalism on the world stage. China says that theirs is an equally viable system that people can adopt. They put forward an authoritarian, mercantilist type of system yet they say it's equal to democracy and free market capitalism. There is now a competing globalized system that goes right at the heart of religious freedom. It says the State controls this space and we say no, God controls this space because it's a human right; it's the dignity of the individual. I think the Ambassador is dead right here. We don't oppose foreign governments like China because of their progress, or their economic power, or their rising military might. We oppose their system of governance because it is frankly dehumanizing. What's happening right now to the Uyghur population is nothing short of genocide. We are responsible to defend not only religious freedom in America, but to defend it around the world — anywhere that our influence stretches. In fact, we have a responsibility to defend religious freedom in America because America is one of the few nations in world history with both the core beliefs and the capacity to expand religious freedom around the world. We believe as Christians that religious freedom is an image-of-God issue. It's not a political one. In fact, Ambassador Brownback believes that, too: I see religious freedom as God's freedom to us. He gave us the right to do with our own soul whatever we choose. And He knew ahead of time that if we did do that, He would have to send His Son to clean up the mess. And He still did it. He did it knowing how much it would cost Him. So, there must be something extraordinarily precious about this particular liberty given to humanity, such that we should not allow any government to interfere with it, and everyone should be allowed to freely exercise it. It's about a common human right and one that I believe was given to us by God. The American founders in particular saw its preciousness, and the need for it, and went so far as to protect it at the first order. We must protect this right first. Freedom is not just a governmental endeavor; it is an image-of-God reality. One that we citizens have a responsibility to defend, retain, to advance, and support. Not only here in America but also around the world. Ambassador Brownback is doing incredible work in this field. Listen to my full conversation with Ambassador Brownback on the Breakpoint podcast. The conversation will also be posted on Breakpoint's Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram pages, as well as on breakpoint.org. Incidentally, on July 13th through 15th in Washington, D.C., Ambassador Brownback will join with 70 different organizations, including the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, to host the International Religious Freedom Summit 2021 (IRF). IRF is the most comprehensive event to date on the status of religious freedom around the world. For more information visit irfsummit.com.

John and Maria start by making sense of the tragedy in Miami. With the Champlain Towers collapse there are many questions. John discusses a few ways to consider tragedies, and how Christians can respond with a worldview large enough to hold the brokenness we're experiencing. Maria then shares a commentary she wrote related to Gwen Berry, an athlete who recently turned her back to the American flag while standing on the podium during Olympic trials. John highlighted the importance of protecting liberties to dissent, even when dissent seems egregious to unity and the purpose of the Olympics. John provides clarity on a recent letter sent from the IRS to a Christian organization that was seeking tax exempt status. The letter essentially told the organization they can't receive the status due to their practice of communicating a voting guideline that aligns with a religious perspective. Maria then shared new data that shows a striking rise in deaths to young people. The data highlighted that the rise in deaths was not related to the Coronavirus. John outlines a few key points to help Christians not only think well on the issue, but potentially stand in support of young people who are suffering in light of the pandemic. To close Maria shares how a recent beauty queen, Miss Nevada, is actually a biological male. The man identifies as transgender, competing in the beauty pageant and taking the next step in the competition to Miss America. -- Story References -- The Champlain Towers, a Condominium Highrise, Collapsed Last Friday The northeast portion of the building, facing the beach, fell to the ground, while other units were left standing. But after days of intensive searches, the scene appeared quiet on Thursday, with cranes frozen above the rubble. The silent scene froze heroes who are digging through rubble working to find the over 100 people still missing. New York Times>> Why You're Free to Hate America Last week at the U.S. Olympic Trials, an American hammer thrower turned away from the flag while the United States National Anthem played. Gwen Berry later told reporters that the national anthem "doesn't speak" for her. BreakPoint>> IRS Denies 501(c)3 status to Conservative Group in TX The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has denied tax-exempt status to a Christian group in Texas on the grounds that "the bible [sic] teachings are typically affiliated with the [Republican] party and candidates." The Texan>> Young American Adults Are Dying — and Not Just From Covid Nearly 19% more Americans died in 2020 than in 2019, according to data that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is the biggest such increase since 1918, when deaths rose 30%. Bloomberg>> Transgender woman wins Miss Nevada USA pageant, "making history" A transgender woman has been crowned Miss Nevada USA — for the first time in the pageant's history. NY Post>> -- Cites and Recommendations -- Overwhelming Majority of Americans Support Religious Freedom, Oppose Key Provisions of Equality Act - Summit Ministries Survey - https://www.summit.org/about/press/new-poll-overwhelming-majority-of-americans-support-religious-freedom-oppose-key-provisions-of-equality-act/ Wilberforce Weekend Online Common Sense - Thomas Paine John Adams - HBO Series on Former President John Adams The Patriot - Roland Emmerich Directed Movie Liberty's Kids - Children's Series on America Hamilton - Broadway Musical

Chuck Colson would often say that the greatest gift Christianity gave the world other than the message of salvation is the idea of the image of God. It is important for Christians to know and understand the image of God for three distinct reasons. First, the image of God has been among the most consequential ideas in all of human history. Even atheists like Friedrich Nietzsche or the modern-day philosopher Luc Ferry, have acknowledged that our ideas about human dignity, human equality and human value were not present across cultures and civilizations, but were introduced to the world in Christianity. Why? Because of its core belief that humans were made in the image and likeness of God. Second, the image of God is central to a truly Christian worldview. Scripture has been given to us in a grand, sweeping narrative: the story of creation to new creation, from the heavens and earth to the new heavens and new earth. And one of the central characters in the Christian story is the image of God. We see this right away in Genesis 1, in which God creates the heavens and the earth; then He creates His image bearers to rule over them in His place and for His glory. Finally, the image of God is critical if we are going to understand the issues and challenges of our day. The most significant challenges we face in our culture are not fundamentally moral ones. We do face moral challenges but the ones we face are the fruit of the problems, not the root. It's the effect, not the cause. At the root of the issues of our culture has been a dramatic shift in how we think about the nature and value of the human person. At the recent Wilberforce Weekend, Rebecca McLaughlin talked about the significance of the image of God. This idea is in all of human history. She referenced the Declaration of Independence, went on to highlight how the image of God directs our hearts to freedom, and how the greatest freedom ever won is the freedom we find in Christ. Here is an edited excerpt of Rebecca's talk: John [Stonestreet] brought up that time when your country threw my country out. And I just want to say, I find that offensive, especially as I live in Boston, and I drink tea. I have it rubbed in my face day after day. So, if you guys could just leave it at that, I would appreciate it! In all seriousness though, I am going to bring us back again to the Declaration of Independence because I enjoy the pain. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal. Now, people often talk about the New Testament as if it condones and justifies slavery, and I can understand why they do. Slaves are addressed in the New Testament because they were part of the early Church. In fact, from very early on, Christianity was mocked as being a religion of slaves and women and little children. Slaves are given instructions about how to live for Jesus in the condition that they find themselves. We look at Paul's letter to Philemon and think, okay, the Apostle Paul wrote a letter sending an enslaved person back to his master. Of course, that means the Bible condones slavery. Right? Not if you read the letter. Paul sends Onesimus back and tells Philemon to receive him as a brother. That's not all. Paul tells Philemon that Onesimus is his very heart. He loves him that much. He tells him to receive him back as he would receive Paul himself, his most respected mentor. In the New Testament there are ways that we are called to relate to each other as fellow image bearers of God, which is a radical undermining of the idea of there being masters and slaves. There were those whose lives were valueless and could be exploited by the more powerful. We see that in Jesus' own life as He takes on the slave role himself and dies a slave's death for us and for every enslaved person in history. As Christianity starts to work its way through the West, we see slavery being progressively abolished. One of the earliest explicit arguments against slavery comes from Gregory of Nyssa in the fourth century. He asks, how much does rationality cost? How many obols (currency at the time) did you pay for the image of God? How many staters did you get for selling the God-formed man? It's ridiculous. It is absurd for somebody to think that he can own another human being who has been made in the image of God. We're celebrating Wilberforce Weekend and it's right and good that we look back to folks like William Wilberforce, whose Christian faith drove him to fight tooth and nail against the evils of slavery. But we have to recognize as well that if Christians had truly believed that black people were made in the image of God, just as much as white people were, that Africans were made in the image of God, just as much as Europeans were, there wouldn't have been anything to abolish at that point. It's right for us to look back at the heroes of the faith, who fought for biblical values when it comes to human equality and who fought against slavery. But we must also reckon with the sins of our same sort of spiritual ancestors who didn't. Because the imago Dei had to kill slavery twice. And just as a disproportionate number of folks in the early Church were enslaved, people who are clinging on to Jesus — who died a slave's death for them — so Jesus has been calling enslaved people to himself through the centuries. To hear Rebecca's full talk, and gain access to the entire library of presentations about the image of God, visit wilberforceweekend.org.

From its earliest days, wherever Christianity has spread, hospitals have followed, particularly for the world's poor. Although most Christians who served the poor by healing the sick remain largely unknown, José Gregorio Hernández is an exception. He is a major figure in the history of Venezuela and is remembered today, both for his medical skills and his generosity to the poor. Yet, for all his ability and eventual fame, he almost missed out on serving God in this way, ironically because he wanted to serve God. José Gregorio Hernández was born in the town of Isnotú, Venezuela, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. His parents owned a general store, and his father was an amateur physician. People would come to him for treatment, and he would diagnose their illnesses and prepare medicines for them. He was particularly skilled with herbal remedies. By all accounts, his skills were highly regarded in the area. Perhaps inspired by this example, his son decided to pursue a medical career. José received his degree in 1888 from the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. Once he was licensed as a physician, the Venezuelan government helped him pursue advanced studies in Europe. He traveled to the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where he studied bacteriology, microbiology, histology, and physiology. When he returned to Venezuela, he became one of the principal doctors at the Hospital José Maria Vargas. Despite this early professional success, however, Dr. Hernández was not entirely sure about his vocation as a physician. He believed that in dedicating his life to serving God, his only choice was to join the clergy as a monk or a priest. A calling could only be to the cloister. This idea led him twice to attempt to become a monk. In 1908, he spent ten months in the Monastery of Lucca in Italy before his frail health forced him to return home. Then in 1913, he returned to Italy to continue his preparations for the cloister in the Latin America Pio School in Rome. Once again, however, poor health forced him to return to Venezuela. Even as he took these trips to Italy, Hernández continued to practice medicine in Caracas. He became known as the "doctor of the poor." He responded to any call for help, whether the patient was rich or poor. He treated the poor for free and sometimes even bought medicine for them with his own money. Along with practicing medicine, Hernández taught advanced medicine through his hospital in Caracas. This led him to publish The Elements of Bacteriology in 1906. He also continued his medical research., making important discoveries about the effect of malaria. His publications were not limited to medical topics, however. In keeping with his theological and philosophical interests, he published The Elements of Philosophy. In 1919, after attending Mass one day, Hernández stopped at a pharmacy to buy medicine for one of his patients. Cars had only recently been introduced to Caracas, and there were still very few of them on the streets. Perhaps for this reason, Hernández did not look as he walked around a tram and stepped into the street. He was struck by a car, thrown to the ground, and hit his head on the stone curb on the street, killing him instantly. News of his death spread across the city. So many wanted to show their respects that newspaper accounts said that nearly every flower in the city was picked for funeral bouquets and wreaths. At the funeral, tens of thousands of people filled the square around the cathedral, and when his body was going to be placed in the hearse, a spontaneous cry rose from the crowd, "Dr. Hernández is ours!" The people took up the coffin and bore it on their shoulders to the cemetery, and his memory lives on among the people of Caracas to this day. This was a life worth celebrating. He was a wonderful example of a Christian who lived out his faith sacrificially, using his considerable gifts to help the poor and to advance medical knowledge and education. His dedication and desire to serve God informed his work as a physician and his service to the poor. Yet, we also need to remember the mistake he almost made. God gives each of us a unique calling and purpose for our life, a calling that is as true out "in the world" as much as it is for those in professional ministry. For most of us, serving God and following His call means not becoming part of the clergy but working in the "secular" realm where our gifts can do the most good for our neighbors. Changed this sentence's scope from let's not make his mistake to let's remember that he almost made a mistake. Changed sentence for logical coherence.

Michael Craven joins John on Ask the Colson Center to discuss a myriad of topics. They discuss how a professional can retain credibility in their field in the face of woke courts and cancel culture. They also answer a question on how the church can care for the culture without swinging the pendulum into Critical Race Theory. Michael goes on to ask John if Christians should retire and if Christians should preach the simplicity of the Gospel to the culture rather than engage in culture wars.

Like his democratic predecessor, President Biden has prioritized LGBTQ rights in both the domestic and foreign policies of the United States. The administration's priorities were made most obvious in early June when an enormous rainbow flag was hung outside the U.S. embassy to the Vatican. While "trolling" the Roman Catholic Church isn't usually a diplomatic priority, officials made their intentions clear by tweeting: "The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See celebrates #PrideMonth with the Pride flag on display during the month of June. The United States respects the dignity and equality of LGBTQI+ people." The number of letters in that acronym continues to grow, but that shouldn't be confused with a unified movement. These are movements, plural, all made possible by what sociologist Peter Berger has called "modern man's perpetual identity crisis." And these movements based on fluid categories of sexual and gender identity are themselves suffering identity crises. A week after the Embassy to the Vatican flew the flag of virtue signaling, the gay news site "Them" announced that the Pride flag was updated in order to be even more inclusive. The new design features a purple circle on a yellow triangle in order to include intersex people (the "i"), pink and blue chevrons to represent transgender people, brown and black chevrons for LGBTQI+ people of color, and white chevrons for asexual individuals. All of this is overlaid on the original rainbow to form the new tincture-violating "Progress Pride Flag," that is even more representative than was intended. The clashing of colors is appropriate for the inherent contradictions of the movements represented, such as including intersex individuals alongside of those who identify as transgender. "Intersex" refers to a physical ailment, a quantifiable medical condition that afflicts a small segment of the population. To represent that biological characteristic on the flag of a movement that rejects the relevance of any biological characteristics to gender is flat-out incoherent. And then there's the ever-escalating conflict between the T's with the L's. Given the history of lesbian activism and its connection with second wave feminism, many of the "L's" are having difficulty with the men who appropriate the experiences, the struggles, and the sports teams of women. Understandably so. Given all that is interfering with the unity of these movements, a booklet provided by the Leicester Fire Brigade (UK) may be the only way forward. The booklet was filled with flags, 20 pages worth, each representing a particular gender or sexual identity, most I'd never heard of. The booklet has since been deleted for not accurately representing the fire house's "ongoing commitment to the LGBT+ community." Exactly how the booklet failed or what it ever had to do with fighting fires isn't clear. The flag problem reflects an ever-growing jumble of contradictory claims about sex, gender, and psychology, all of which lacks any uniting principle other than an opposition to what came before. There's no end to be found, and I mean that in two ways: First, the "plus" sign at the end of the acronym is an open invitation to ever more identities, with no end in sight; second, a movement built on deconstructing what came before has no end — in the sense of no telos. There is no clear, unifying purpose or goal to these movements, or for people taken captive by it. This provides both a challenge and opportunity for Christians, who can offer a compelling vision of human value, human dignity, and even diversity. In fact, the Progress Pride flag and its acronym are, in many ways, a poor parody of the unity and diversity central to the biblical story. In the beginning, God separated day from night, heavens from the Earth, land from sea, animals from humans, and the woman from the man. The diversity in the created order was intentional, but not as an end in itself. All that He made served a unity of purpose: to honor and please God who is Himself a Unity in Diversity, Three in One. The New Testament also speaks of one body with many parts; diversity united under Christ. We are one house that God builds out of many stones, with Jesus as the Chief Cornerstone. In the Church, one people is formed from Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. In the New Heaven and the New Earth (a beautiful reversal of Babel), people of every tongue, tribe, nation, and language are described as unified before the throne of God. All attempts at inclusion, without the larger context of a unifying shared humanity, lead to incoherence. But this incoherence is an opportunity for Christians to offer a better vision of our purpose, our value, our gendered bodies, and our sexuality. In a culture running out of colors and letters, it's a vision that is badly needed.

China's next great leap forward could be forced procreation, and it's animated by the same ideas that energize so much of the West. In 1957, Chinese dictator Mao Zedong told a Yugoslav official that his nation did not fear a nuclear attack: "What if they killed 300 million of us?" he said. "We would still have many people left." Recently, China announced a revision to its infamous one-child policy, instituted by Mao's successor. Married couples can now apply to have up to three children, an increase from the more recent limit of two. On the surface, the policy change might appear to be a significant improvement on Mao's 1957 statement — at least in terms of human dignity. In fact, it is not. Both these stories reflect what happens when a society rejects the core Christian idea of the image of God. Mao's callous suggestion that there were plenty more Chinese to replace the dead ones is the obvious one. That contempt for image bearers was central to Mao's worldview. By God's grace, his theory about China's ability to survive a nuclear war was never tested. But what of his willingness to sacrifice tens of millions of Chinese on the altar of his ideological ego? That's a matter of historical record. Mao's great leap forward, his attempt to transform Chinese society economically and politically, resulted in the slaughter of as many as 55 million people. Mostly through famine brought on by his reckless policies. His successors continued to treat the Chinese people as disposable ends to ideological means — from the one-child policy to the genocidal campaign against the Uyghur minority, to the crackdown against Christians. People there exist to serve the State, not the other way around. The second rejection of the image of God is in the recent announcement about the increased family size. It's not due to some newfound appreciation for family life or the dignity of children. Rather, as the New York Times reported, this new policy is a desperate attempt to avert a demographic crisis that jeopardizes China's economic future, as well as the Communist Party's increasingly precarious hold on power. As The Times ominously predicts, it's not clear that relaxing the policy further will pay off. After all, people responded coolly to the initial expansion of the policy back in 2016 that allowed couples to have two children. What happens if this new attempt at social engineering fails? Gordon Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China, recently raised the horrifying specter of mandated procreation. Writing in Newsweek and quoting Reggie Littlejohn of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, Chang asked whether Beijing will turn to force pregnancy since coercion is at the core of its population control policy. That possibility cannot be dismissed. Chang stated that forced procreation has been on the mind of Chinese officials for years. China's fertility crisis and gender imbalance pose existential threats to a regime willing to respond in draconian ways. The monstrous behavior of the Chinese government is well known and well documented, but our increasingly secular Western world has also proved to miss the point from whence it comes. The same Western corporations that bow to China, particularly media and entertainment, breathlessly promulgate Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale thesis. But in the real world it's never pro-lifers that treat women as mere breeders or babies as mere commodities. It's unrestrained governments that see image bearers as economic units. And unrestrained consumers who see other image bearers as useful means to accomplish the ends of their sexual lifestyles. In fact, it is the same bad ideas that drive the behaviors of China's ruling elites and Western individualists. The same basic contempt for the sanctity of human persons. The same basic rejection of the image of God. In his book A Brief History of Thought, atheist philosopher Luc Ferry rightly noted that the only source for human dignity, universal human rights, and human history is the Christian vision of the imago Dei. "Christianity was to introduce the notion," wrote Ferry, "that men are equal in dignity, an unprecedented idea at the time, and one to which our world owes its entire democratic inheritance." This notion, he said, is the direct result of the unique vision of the human person that's only found in Christianity. Thankfully most people will never take it as far as Mao and his successors. But there are many regimes and many people operating out of a similar world view. At the very least these days, we live as if Christian ideas about human dignity are true. Jettisoning the only worldview that has ever made these ideas possible, how long can the charade last? That is anyone's guess. We do know how the world will look when the charade is up.

Chuck Colson often observed that politics is downstream from the larger culture. In other words, the way culture thinks eventually leads to the political outcomes that we see and trouble us today. So many of the recent policy decisions of the Biden administration reflect that in real time. Recently at Wilberforce Weekend, my friend Professor Carter Snead gave special insight into how culture is impacting law. Specifically when it comes to the laws that govern reproductive behavior in American culture. He gave a number of strong examples. Below is an edited transcript of a portion of his talk: One of my favorite novelists, Walker Percy, said that everyone has an anthropology; there is no not having one. If a man says he does not, all he's saying is that his anthropology is implicit. It's a set of assumptions he has not thought to call into question. Everyone has an operating definition of what a person is, and what constitutes human flourishing. And that's true of the law as well. Why is that? Because law at bottom is about, and for, the protection and flourishing of persons. And therefore, because it's about protecting and promoting the flourishing of persons, it has to rest on a usually undeclared vision of what and who a person is and what people need. The richest way to understand, critique, or support the law is to drill down and ask: Is it the case that the law gets the question of who we are and what our flourishing is correct or not? And if it doesn't, then the law is built on a false understanding of human nature. And the law is not true, just, good, or humane. The case of assisted reproduction is something that I grapple with in my book (What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics ). The first question is: What vision of the flourishing of the human person anchors American law and policy relating to assisted reproduction? The answer is that the primary feature of the law of assisted reproductive technology (ART) in the United States is the absence of law. ART is regulated as the practice of medicine, which moves through a path of licensure and certification to the front-end. But pretty much anything goes. There's basically no limit in law in the United States about how you can try to make a baby. What is the theoretical underpinning of this landscape? The architect of the American legal landscape of assisted reproduction was a University of Texas law professor named John Robertson. He was the chairman of the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. He defined his view in his 1994 book, Children of Choice, stating that the choice to pursue or avoid procreation is essential to self definition, pursuit of desires, and self expression. This became the ethical core of the legal landscape for its assisted reproductive technologies. And, if you look at the anthropological meaning of this landscape, you see that persons are conceived of as individuals pursuing an identity-defining plan. The goods at stake are: privacy, choice, rational mastery and bargain for exchange. What's missing is embodiment (especially involving procreation), vulnerability, dependence, finitude, relationships among the generations, reciprocal indebtedness, unchosen obligations to vulnerable others, tolerance of disability or imperfection, openness to the unbidden, and the very terms "children, parents and family." These are understood through the lens of will; a project to be freely chosen, constructed or rejected for our own purposes, sometimes with the aid of technology. And the child in this picture — to the extent that the child in the picture at all — is the object of the parents' will. The child is a product or a vessel to be accepted or rejected. I am not speaking of the ideas, feelings, or desires of people seeking fertility care. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what the law assumes people to be and to need. The paradigm of parenthood — as we who are parents, and those of us who desire more than anything in the world to be parents understand it — is that a child is a gift. So, how do we embrace forms of procreation that embrace a child as a gift? That is how we should measure the law, policies, and practices of assisted reproduction or any form of science, medicine, or biotechnology that touch and concern human beings. Because as human beings, we are made for love and friendship. To hear Professor Snead's full talk, and all talks from the recent Wilberforce Weekend (all concerning the topic of the image of God), as well as special bonus content that's only available online, register for Wilberforce Weekend Online for only $49 at wilberforceweekend.org.

John and Maria discuss the Christian worldview response to the receding coral reefs around the world. They provide a strong framework for the Christian worldview when looking at issues dealing with the environment. They also talk about a new Netflix TV show called Sexy Beasts. After explaining the masked dating show, John provides context for the problems inside the show related to progress in the sexual revolution. Maria also shares the story of a Colson Fellow who stood in a pro-choice rally to oppose a supposedly compassionate view of abortion. Maria charts her story, highlighting how God is bringing the Colson Fellow to a worldview engagement that gives hope. -- Resources -- Story Links: A Colson Fellow Finds Worldview Foundation for Apologetic Ministry Kirsten's story about speaking up at a pro-choice rally is the stuff of movies. It's also the stuff of ordinary Christians everywhere who choose to join in God's story, in the time and place where He has put them. How Dads Change with Fatherhood Recent discoveries suggest that dedicated fathers, like dedicated mothers, undergo dramatic hormonal and neurological shifts upon the arrival of a baby. Some experts now even think that those shifts and the father-child bond that creates them begin even before birth. Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its corals since 1995 Australia's Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals since 1995 due to warmer seas driven by climate change, a study has found. Scientists found all types of corals had suffered a decline across the world's largest reef system. The steepest falls came after mass bleaching events in 2016 and 2017. More mass bleaching occurred this year. Covid Treatment Stopped Dead Kory was referring to an FDA-approved medicine called ivermectin. A genuine wonder drug in other realms, ivermectin has all but eliminated parasitic diseases like river blindness and elephantiasis, helping discoverer Satoshi Ōmura win the Nobel Prize in 2015. As far as its uses in the pandemic went, however, research was still scant. Could it really be a magic Covid-19 bullet? 'Sexy Beasts' Is Coming To Netflix Sometimes, a trailer drops that instantly catches the attention of one's Twitter feed, and I started seeing discussions of Sexy Beasts as soon as Netflix put the spot out there. And that makes sense, since it opens with a scene where a woman wearing a panda head talks to a man made up to look like a bull with Carrot Top's hair. Resources Mentioned: Do Father's Matter Scott Raeburn Treatment of Transgender Students in Virgiinia Public Schools Honestly Podcast by Bari Weiss DONATE TO JACK PHILLIPS