Breakpoint

Michael Craven joins the BreakPoint Podcast to bring a few questions from the Colson Fellows. The Colson Fellows is a 10 month worldview training program that equips participants with analytical tools to understand and lead in culture. Today, John and Michael answer a heartfelt question where one listener seeks understanding on how she can know she's really worshipping God. John and Michael provide definition inside our current culture context to give footing for confidence in worship that rests in the finished work of Christ and invites followers to participate in praise-giving acts. A timely questions from a Colson Fellow asked how Christians should respond to conspiracy theories. John and Michael give perspective, highlighting that it is a challenge to understand which way is up in the current culture climate. In answering this and another question related to how we should spend our time as believers in Jesus, John points listeners to consider the practices of living a quiet and committed life.

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon is a small village in south-central France. Back in 1940, the total population of this area, including the surrounding villages was only about 5,000. Sill, under the leadership of their Protestant pastor André Trocmé and his wife Magda, the residents of these villages were responsible for saving up to 5,000 Jews from deportation to Nazi concentration camps during World War II. In late January, Eric Schwam, a survivor, passed away at age 90. According to a BBC article, Schwam, a native of Vienna, arrived in Le Chambon in 1943, a refugee along with his mother, father, and grandfather. Schwam survived the war, and eventually returned to Austria to live a quiet life. However, he never forgot the people of Le Chambon. In fact, he left the town more than $2 million in a bequest. As Dr. Glenn Sunshine described in a BreakPoint article from a few years ago, in the winter of 1940, after the defeat of France, a Jewish woman fleeing the Nazis knocked at the Trocmé's door, seeking help. Magda attempted to secure false papers for her, but the mayor refused to help. He feared that if the Germans found out anyone in Le Chambon was helping Jews, the entire village would suffer. This did not dissuade Magda and André. In fact, according to Sunshine, "Pastor Trocmé began to exhort his congregation to shelter any 'People of the Book' that were fleeing Nazi persecution, telling them, 'We shall resist whenever our adversaries demand of us obedience contrary to the orders of the gospel.'" The members of his church responded, volunteering to hide Jews. When more Jews arrived in Le Chambon, André would announce the arrival of "Old Testaments" and ask if any in his congregation would be willing to take them. There was never a lack of volunteers. Eventually, the townspeople created an underground network to help Jews travel safely across the Swiss border. Local officials caught on and tipped off the Germans. They searched Le Chambon but found nothing. Finally, the officials demanded that Trocmé stop any and all activities that provided help for the Jews. His response was blunt. "These people came here for help and shelter. I am their shepherd. A shepherd does not forsake his flock. I do not know what a Jew is. I only know human beings." Eventually, André was arrested and sent to a detention camp. He was released after ten days and spent the rest of the war underground. Le Chambon's rescue operation continued, even without him. What the people of Le Chambon did was, as Dr. Sunshine called it, "a conspiracy of goodness." An untold number of lives were saved by their courageous actions. In fact, not a single Jew was caught in Le Chambon during the entire war. Why did these French Christians risk so much? In a post-war documentary, one villager said, "We didn't protect the Jews because we were a moral or heroic people. We helped them because it was the human thing to do." But of course, we have to ask ourselves, why did so many others refuse to help? André Trocmé died in 1971. His wife Magda died in 1996. Both were named as Righteous among the Nations by the Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Memorial Authority in Jerusalem. A final, fascinating element of this story is that the residents of Le Chambon were descendants of French Protestants known as Huguenots, who were themselves victims of savage persecution at the hands of the French Catholic monarchy during the 16th and 17th centuries. A method of survival used back then played a major role in the 20th century work to protect Jews. Dr. Sunshine describes it this way: In the area around Le Chambon, the Huguenots made secret rooms similar to the priest holes in England, and secret paths through the mountains to Switzerland to smuggle pastors and Bibles into France. Even after Protestantism was legalized, the people of the area kept the locations of these rooms and paths secret since they never knew when they would need them again. Providentially still available, the rooms and paths were put back into service to save the Jews from the Nazis. Dr. Sunshine's entire article, part of his ongoing series "Christians Who Changed the World" is available at breakpoint.org.

A colleague of mine, while looking for Civil War artifacts near his home, once found a brass button from a Union Army uniform. What made his discovery even more amazing was the bright blue jacket thread still attached to the button, even after 150 years. That's pretty impressive. What about finding threads dating back 3,000 years? But imagine these are not connected with an event everyone believes happened, like the Civil War, but with events secular scholars often doubt. Even better! That's the latest chapter in the ever-growing saga of "Super Cool Discoveries from Israel." Recently, researchers in Israel's Timna Valley, while exploring a copper smelting camp site at a place known as "Slaves' Hill," unexpectedly found "three pristine fabric samples dyed true purple." The color is commonly called "royal purple" because it was worn almost exclusivity by royalty. The researchers were surprised, and not only because they were looking for metal and not fabric. Though, previous to this, no textiles predating the Romans had ever been found in the region, radiocarbon dating suggests that these fibers could be "tightly dated" to the late 11th and early 10th centuries before Christ, placing it during the reigns of David and Solomon. Making this story even more significant, is that further tests indicate that the dye from these textile samples were produced from a particular Mediterranean mollusk known as a murex. In the ancient world, dye made from this mollusk, because it came from "hundreds of miles away in the Mediterranean [around Italy] and was extremely valuable," was the kind used to produce royal purple. Just finding 3000-year-old purple-dyed textiles would be the discovery of a lifetime for most archeologists, or at least "very exciting and important," as Naama Sukenik of the Israel Antiquities Authority put it. But the date of this find and its "mollusk connection," point to the existence of the United Monarchy described in the Bible. These ancient fabrics are evidence that the sophisticated and hierarchical society described in the Old Testament actually existed, a society wealthy enough to import luxuries from the other side of the Mediterranean. Or, as the online magazine Inverse put it, the findings could be evidence that "the United Monarchy in Jerusalem is not necessarily just 'literary fiction.'" Keep in mind that, until recently, many scholars remained unconvinced that figures like David and Solomon even existed. However, archeological finds over the past three decades have all but rendered that position untenable. Even so, prominent scholars continue to insist that many of the Old Testament stories, from books such as Samuel or Kings, are embellished tales, similar to the nationalized propaganda found in Greek and Indian epics. Sure, there may have been a "David" and a "Solomon," these scholars concede, but they were more Iron Age tribal chieftains than rulers of the kind of expansive and elaborate state described in the Bible. However, neither the dye used in these fabrics unearthed in the Timna Valley, nor the ancient, sophisticated copper production operation where they were found, suggests just "local tribal chieftains." A few more discoveries like this one from the Timna Valley will render these skeptical views as untenable as doubting David's existence. In fact, other discoveries in the area, like a 3,000 year old house, also support the Biblical account of how advanced the United Monarchy was, as opposed to the impoverished imaginations of the skeptics. The pace at which archeological findings from Israel are now coming in and the picture they paint of that part of the ancient world is stunning but also familiar to anyone who has read the biblical text. On the other hand, those who insist that the biblical accounts are "literary fiction" are increasingly being forced to rethink their own stories.

Social Justice is making claims that are turning America's streets into war zones. Some of these claims refer to a "color blind upbringing", where an individual raised in a community predominantly homogenous in ethnicity is an example of "white privilege" and therefore a form of racism. Thaddeus Williams has written an important book, "Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth". Dr. Williams is an Associate Professor of Theology at Biola University. Dr. Williams loves enlarging students' understanding and enjoyment of God while teaching Theology 1 and 2 courses at Biola University. He also teaches History of Atheism, Introduction to Philosophy, and Biblical Literature in the secular college context. He has taught theology internationally, including seminaries in Nepal and Francis Schaeffer's L'Abri ministries in Switzerland and Holland. Dr. Williams is a frequent guest speaker at churches and conferences, in addition to serving as a teaching pastor at a local church. His academic works include Love, Freedom, and Evil (Rodopi, 2011), used in seminaries around the world and currently being translated to German, and his recent popular publication, The Exchange (AIMBooks, 2012). His research interests include the Trinity, divine and human agency, dialogue with atheists and theology of culture.

One of the more memorable lines written by C. S. Lewis has to do with whether or not a sense of morality is innate to human beings. "Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him, he will be complaining, 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson." Our culture in particular is full of demands for justice, of all kinds: social justice, economic justice, LGBTQ justice, environmental justice, racial justice, even "reproductive justice." At the same time, it's not always clear what is meant by justice. Too often, demands for justice are undergirded by radical views about right and wrong, about fairness, about the human person, and—thanks to the wide application of critical theory—about power dynamics. Demands for justice may be getting louder and louder, but that doesn't mean we are making progress as a society. The only worldview framework solid enough to ground human dignity and justice in human history is Christianity. True justice is a matter of honoring God and honoring the image of God inherent in every human person, and is grounded in God's love for humanity, our love of God, and our love of neighbor. Too many Christians, concerned by words like "justice" and "social justice" being wrongly used, have abandoned them altogether. I've heard from many of them, and, while I share the concern about the wrong worldviews being smuggled into the Church and culture through these words, we must not abandon ideas that belong to God. "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what the Lord requires of you, to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God," wrote the prophet Micah. In Matthew 7:12, Jesus said, "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." Starting next Tuesday, I will be hosting a four-week short course, taught by Dr. Thaddeus Williams, assistant professor at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University and the author of an outstanding new book, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth. If you've struggled with what it means to follow our Lord Jesus as a champion of what is true and good, without embracing or advancing the bad ideas of "wokeness" and critical theory, join us for this short course. In his book, Williams writes, "The problem is not with the quest for social justice. The problem is what happens when that quest is undertaken from a framework that is not compatible with the Bible. Today many Christians accept conclusions that are generated from madness machines that are wired with very different presuppositions about reality than those we find in Scripture." This short course will run four consecutive Tuesday evenings starting February 16th through March 9th. Each session begins at 8PM and runs till9:30PM Eastern Time, and features a dedicated Q&A time, where you can interact with Dr. Williams. If you have to miss a live session, a recording of each session is provided to everyone registered for the course as well as handouts and other resources. In fact, the first session, which will take place on February 16th, is being offered at no charge. However, because space is limited, you have to register at BreakPoint.org/Williams. That's BreakPoint.org/Williams. Dr. Williams's topic for Week 1 is the connection between social justice and our view of God. The topic for Week 2 is how ideas of social justice impact the community. Week 3's topic is how our ideas of social justice are shaped by our views about sin and salvation, and the final week will take a deep dive look at the tribalism that is preventing true reconciliation and justice today. Please join us February 16th for our four-week short course, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth with Dr. Thadeus Williams. Register atBreakPoint.org/Williams.

One of the more memorable lines written by C. S. Lewis has to do with whether or not a sense of morality is innate to human beings. "Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him, he will be complaining, 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson." Our culture in particular is full of demands for justice, of all kinds: social justice, economic justice, LGBTQ justice, environmental justice, racial justice, even "reproductive justice." At the same time, it's not always clear what is meant by justice. Too often, demands for justice are undergirded by radical views about right and wrong, about fairness, about the human person, and—thanks to the wide application of critical theory—about power dynamics. Demands for justice may be getting louder and louder, but that doesn't mean we are making progress as a society. The only worldview framework solid enough to ground human dignity and justice in human history is Christianity. True justice is a matter of honoring God and honoring the image of God inherent in every human person, and is grounded in God's love for humanity, our love of God, and our love of neighbor. Too many Christians, concerned by words like "justice" and "social justice" being wrongly used, have abandoned them altogether. I've heard from many of them, and, while I share the concern about the wrong worldviews being smuggled into the Church and culture through these words, we must not abandon ideas that belong to God. "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what the Lord requires of you, to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God," wrote the prophet Micah. In Matthew 7:12, Jesus said, "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." Starting next Tuesday, I will be hosting a four-week short course, taught by Dr. Thaddeus Williams, assistant professor at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University and the author of an outstanding new book, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth. If you've struggled with what it means to follow our Lord Jesus as a champion of what is true and good, without embracing or advancing the bad ideas of "wokeness" and critical theory, join us for this short course. In his book, Williams writes, "The problem is not with the quest for social justice. The problem is what happens when that quest is undertaken from a framework that is not compatible with the Bible. Today many Christians accept conclusions that are generated from madness machines that are wired with very different presuppositions about reality than those we find in Scripture." This short course will run four consecutive Tuesday evenings starting February 16th through March 9th. Each session begins at 8PM and runs till9:30PM Eastern Time, and features a dedicated Q&A time, where you can interact with Dr. Williams. If you have to miss a live session, a recording of each session is provided to everyone registered for the course as well as handouts and other resources. In fact, the first session, which will take place on February 16th, is being offered at no charge. However, because space is limited, you have to register at BreakPoint.org/Williams. That's BreakPoint.org/Williams. Dr. Williams's topic for Week 1 is the connection between social justice and our view of God. The topic for Week 2 is how ideas of social justice impact the community. Week 3's topic is how our ideas of social justice are shaped by our views about sin and salvation, and the final week will take a deep dive look at the tribalism that is preventing true reconciliation and justice today. Please join us February 16th for our four-week short course, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth with Dr. Thadeus Williams. Register atBreakPoint.org/Williams.

One of the more memorable lines written by C. S. Lewis has to do with whether or not a sense of morality is innate to human beings. "Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him, he will be complaining, 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson." Our culture in particular is full of demands for justice, of all kinds: social justice, economic justice, LGBTQ justice, environmental justice, racial justice, even "reproductive justice." At the same time, it's not always clear what is meant by justice. Too often, demands for justice are undergirded by radical views about right and wrong, about fairness, about the human person, and—thanks to the wide application of critical theory—about power dynamics. Demands for justice may be getting louder and louder, but that doesn't mean we are making progress as a society. The only worldview framework solid enough to ground human dignity and justice in human history is Christianity. True justice is a matter of honoring God and honoring the image of God inherent in every human person, and is grounded in God's love for humanity, our love of God, and our love of neighbor. Too many Christians, concerned by words like "justice" and "social justice" being wrongly used, have abandoned them altogether. I've heard from many of them, and, while I share the concern about the wrong worldviews being smuggled into the Church and culture through these words, we must not abandon ideas that belong to God. "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what the Lord requires of you, to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God," wrote the prophet Micah. In Matthew 7:12, Jesus said, "Whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." Starting next Tuesday, I will be hosting a four-week short course, taught by Dr. Thaddeus Williams, assistant professor at the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University and the author of an outstanding new book, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth. If you've struggled with what it means to follow our Lord Jesus as a champion of what is true and good, without embracing or advancing the bad ideas of "wokeness" and critical theory, join us for this short course. In his book, Williams writes, "The problem is not with the quest for social justice. The problem is what happens when that quest is undertaken from a framework that is not compatible with the Bible. Today many Christians accept conclusions that are generated from madness machines that are wired with very different presuppositions about reality than those we find in Scripture." This short course will run four consecutive Tuesday evenings starting February 16th through March 9th. Each session begins at 8PM and runs till9:30PM Eastern Time, and features a dedicated Q&A time, where you can interact with Dr. Williams. If you have to miss a live session, a recording of each session is provided to everyone registered for the course as well as handouts and other resources. In fact, the first session, which will take place on February 16th, is being offered at no charge. However, because space is limited, you have to register at BreakPoint.org/Williams. That's BreakPoint.org/Williams. Dr. Williams's topic for Week 1 is the connection between social justice and our view of God. The topic for Week 2 is how ideas of social justice impact the community. Week 3's topic is how our ideas of social justice are shaped by our views about sin and salvation, and the final week will take a deep dive look at the tribalism that is preventing true reconciliation and justice today. Please join us February 16th for our four-week short course, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth with Dr. Thadeus Williams. Register atBreakPoint.org/Williams.

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris talk about the craziness surrounding the stock of Game Stop. Beyond the stock price and the short sells, what was motivating the mass of people to purchase the stock and send it through the roof? Anger? Greed? Revenge of the little guys against the hedge funds? Was it a generational conflict? And what does this say about the state of our culture and society in 2021? John and Shane share their thoughts from a Christian worldview perspective. Also in this episode: The Biden Administration's new Secretary of Education is firmly committed to allowing biological boys to compete against girls in scholastic athletics. How has the acceptance of anti-reality transgender ideology reached the highest levels of government? Are the President's executive orders a foretaste of the coming Equality Act, which would severely restrict religious freedom and bestow new rights on the LGBTQ movement? John and Shane finish the broadcast with their weekly recommendations: N. T. Wright's How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels, and the 2021 Wilberforce Weekend.

Nature documentaries like the BBC's "Planet Earth," "Blue Planet," and most recently, "A Perfect Planet," are amazing masterpieces of modern videography, displaying creation in detail and majesty. Every creature soaring through the sky, or streaking through the deep, or thundering over the savannah exhibits power, beauty, and unmistakable purpose. David Attenborough's grandfatherly narration and Hans Zimmer's moving musical scores only add to the childlike awe these films induce. All of which makes it even more odd when Attenborough declares that all of this glory lacks purpose, or that it arose by chance and natural selection, and that none of it bears witness to any meaning or Mind beyond itself. A recent article on atheism, also from across the pond, reminded me of this contradiction. In The Guardian, Harriet Sherwood described a new project from the University of Kent that seeks to discover whether disbelieving in God makes people less spiritual overall. According to the project's authors, atheism "doesn't necessarily entail unbelief in other supernatural phenomena." Nor do unbelievers lack for a sense of purpose, despite "lacking anything to ascribe ultimate meaning to [in] the universe," In the article, Sherwood profiled several unbelievers, from an agnostic to a "free thinker" to Positivist pastor and Satanic priest (who makes it clear he doesn't believe in a literal Satan). All of them insist that life can be deeply meaningful and even moral without God. "We can determine for ourselves what is meaningful," said one. "The meaning of life," suggested one woman, "is to make it the best experience you can, to spread love to those around you." "Beauty and tradition are at the core of my philosophy," said another. One self-identified atheistic Jew explained, "Being part of a religious community offers music, spirituality and relationships…it reminds me I'm on a journey to understand myself better and motivates me to help others." Hearing outspoken unbelievers proclaim that meaning and morality aren't accidents is about as jarring as hearing David Attenborough proclaim that the world's most amazing creatures are accidents. There is an inability of atheists to let go of the transcendent. In his book, "Miracles," C.S. Lewis wrote about the passionate moral activism of a famous atheist of his day, H.G. Wells. Moments after men like Wells admit that good and evil are illusions, Lewis said, "you will find them exhorting us to work for posterity, to educate, to revolutionise, liquidate, live and die for the good of the human race." But how do unbelievers, "naturalists" as Lewis calls them, account for such ideas? Certainly, nature is no help. If thoughts of meaning and morality find their origin in arrangements of atoms in our brains, then they can no more be called "true," Lewis observed, than can "a vomit or a yawn." Lewis concludes that when Wells and other unbelievers say we "ought to make a better world," they have simply forgotten about their atheism. "That is their glory," he concludes. "Holding a philosophy which excludes humanity, they yet remain human. At the sight of injustice, they throw all their Naturalism to the winds and speak like men and like men of genius. They know far better than they think they know." I'd love to ask the people behind masterpieces like "Planet Earth," or the unbelievers profiled in The Guardian, about this contradiction. Years ago, I had a similar conversation with a woman I was seated beside on an airplane. She had very strong moral opinions about all kinds of things, but scoffed at me, "How can you believe in God!" I gently asked her why she believed in right and wrong. It was a fun conversation, and it made me realize that it is possible to affirm the human gut-level intuition about beauty and wonder and morality, while questioning where all of those things come from. And if you haven't read Lewis' masterful book "Miracles," add it to the list. If it's been a while, it's worth revisiting. Fair warning: unbelievers should beware. As Lewis himself said, "A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading."

Three years ago, 110 Nigerian schoolgirls were abducted by terrorists from Boko Haram. After a month of negotiations with government authorities, 109 were returned to their families. The girl who was not returned was also the only Christian, 14-year-old Leah Sharibu. According to Boko Haram (or, as it calls itself, the Islamic State West African Province), Sharibu refused to convert to Islam, their precondition for her release. A few months later, Boko Haram announced that Sharibu and Alice Loksha Ngaddah, a Christian nurse kidnapped in March 2018, would be enslaved for life. The last time the world heard from Leah, she begged to be "treated with compassion" and asked "the government, particularly the president, to pity me and get me out of this serious situation." Three years later, Leah remains a prisoner, a "captive for Christ." Leah's case is only one example of the kind of violence and oppression Nigerian Christians face every day, especially in the country's mostly Muslim north. For years, Boko Haram and Muslim Fulani militants have killed, raped, kidnapped, and sought to "cleanse" parts of northern Nigeria of its Christian population. The extent of violence has been vividly brought to life in an interactive calendar published by the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON), which tracks how many Nigerian Christians were killed, violated, injured, or abducted on any given day since Christmas of 2019. The scale is stunning. The extent of what's been dubbed the "Silent Slaughter" of Nigerian Christians has prompted observers both inside and outside of the country to call it "genocide." However, because the response of the Nigerian government ranges from indifference to possible complicity, the best chance for relief rests on the efforts of Christians and other concerned people will organize, agitate and, most of all, pray. Last year, the International Committee on Nigeria hosted a virtual summit to bring awareness to the crisis there. I was privileged to join former NFL star Benjamin Watson, former U.S. Representative Frank Wolf, and then-Representative Tulsi Gabbard on a panel for that event. In addition to the tremendous work of ICON, there is also the aptly named LEAH Foundation. Named for the young girl still held by Boko Haram, "LEAH" is an acronym that stands for "Leadership," "Advocacy," "Empowerment," and "Humanitarian." This advocacy for girls like Leah and others who have been attacked and/or kidnapped by groups like Boko Haram is incredibly important. As Open Door's most recent report highlighted, sexual violence, including abduction, is the chief threat faced by Christian women around the world. The LEAH Foundation is also working to establish places where girls like Leah can, when released, find a home, provisions, and an education. But first, Leah must be freed. To mark the upcoming third anniversary of her abduction, the LEAH Foundation is launching a seven-day campaign to draw international attention to her story, and to the plight of Nigerian Christians. The campaign will run from February 13th to 19th and is built around prayer and a livestream event. Each day's prayers will focus on specific issues. For instance, on the 13th, the prayers will be centered on Leah's family. The following day, we will pray for her to be encouraged. Other days, we will pray that world leaders will act, for the defeat of terrorism in Nigeria, and, of course, for other girls in captivity. The campaign will culminate on February 19th with a three-hour streaming event on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Or, if you come to BreakPoint.org, we'll link you to it. "Three years is too long." The indifference of much of the world to the abduction and enslavement of Leah and to the ongoing violence in Nigeria must stop. Come to BreakPoint.org, and I will link you to the LEAH Foundation's 7 Days of Prayer.