Breakpoint

In a recent video that went viral, a 60-year-old New York trash thrifter shared how he makes a living reselling and recycling trash in the Big Apple. From bottles alone, he makes $400 to $800 a week, plus another $1000 from things he resells. He’s found gold, cash, diamonds, and Cartier watches ... all in the trash.  But his best find was Jesus Christ.   As the interview goes on, the man shares how after being involved in human trafficking and drug markets, he lost everything—his wife, his kids, and 10 years of his life in prison. In 1993, three ladies from the Bronx came to his prison to preach the Gospel. It was then that he met the Lord and gave his life to Him.  Just as this man now repurposes trash, the Lord repurposed this man, trashed by sin and shame, for His glory. “I don’t deserve it,” he said, “but I thank God for his grace.”  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Recently, the U.S. Senate held a closed-door meeting with the biggest names from the world of big tech, such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg. Senate leadership informed the media that the purpose of the meeting was to have a conversation about how the federal government could “encourage” the development of artificial intelligence while also mitigating its “risks.”  Given that focus, it’s more interesting who wasn’t invited than who was: no ethicists, philosophers, or theologians, nor really anyone outside the highly specialized tech sector. For a meeting meant to explore the future direction of AI and the ethics necessary to guide it, nearly everyone in that room had a vested financial interest in its continued growth and expansion.   Thirty years ago, in his book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, cultural critic Neil Postman described how technology was radically reshaping our understanding of life and the world, both as individuals and societies. Too often when it comes to new technologies, we so mix “can” and “should” that we convince ourselves if we can do a thing, we should.   The shift toward a technocratic society redefines our understanding of knowledge. Technical knowledge takes priority over all else. In other words, the how is revered over the what and the why. In the process, things are stripped of their essential meaning. The distinction between what we can do and what we are for is lost. Technocratism also comes with a heavy dose of “chronological snobbery,” the idea that our innovations and inventions make us better than our ancestors, even in a moral sense.  Another feature of a technocratic age is hyper-specialization. In higher education, students are encouraged to pursue increasingly detailed areas of study. The result is those who can do, but most have not truly wrestled with whether they should. Downstream is one of the corruptions of primary education, in which elementary and secondary teachers spend a disproportionate amount of their preparation on education theory and pedagogy rather than on the subject areas they need to know. In other words, they study the how far more than the what and the why.  Of course, those who are researching, inventing, and developing AI should be invited to important meetings about AI. However, questioning the risks, dangers, or even potential benefits of AI requires answering deeper questions first–questions outside the realm of strict science:  What is the goal of our technologies? What should be our goal? What is off limits and why? What is our operating definition of the good that we are pursuing through technology? Where is the uncrossable line between healing and enhancement, and what are the other proper limits of our technologies? What are people? What technocratic challenges have we faced in the past, and what can we learn?   The questions we commit ourselves to answering will shape our list of invites, among other things. The presidential years of George W. Bush are mostly defined by his handling of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and subsequent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. However, he also faced a specific challenge of our technocratic age. How he handled it is a model for the technocratic challenges of today.  A central issue of Bush’s second presidential campaign was embryonic stem cell research. Democratic vice-presidential candidate John Edwards promised that if John Kerry became president, “people like [actor] Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again.” Bush strongly opposed the creation of any new stem cell lines that required the destruction of human life, including embryos. His ethical clarity was due in part to remarkable work done by the President’s Council on Bioethics to develop an ethical framework for promising technologies.   In fact, their work led to an incredible volume of stories, poetry, fables, history, essays, and Scripture. Published two years into Bush’s first term, Being Human is unparalleled in its historical and ideological depth and breadth. Chaired by renowned bioethicist Leon Kass, the Council consisted of scientists, medical professionals, legal scholars, ethicists, and philosophers. The title Being Human points to the kinds of what and why questions that concerned the Council, before dealing with the how.   Historically, President Bush’s position on embryo-destructive research has been thoroughly vindicated. The additional funding committed to research into adult and induced pluripotent stem cells produced amazing medical breakthroughs. But none of the promises of embryonic stem cell therapies ever materialized, even after his Oval Office successor reversed Bush’s policies, rebuilt the Council around only scientists and medical researchers, and released enormous funding for embryo-destructive research.   Of course, had the utopian predictions about ESC materialized, the killing of some humans to benefit others would still have been morally reprehensible. Ends do not justify means. This is an ethical observation, not a scientific one.  What we “should” or “shouldn’t” do with AI depends heavily on the kind of world this is and the kinds of creatures that human beings are. If, as some have argued, AI is to be accorded the same dignity as human beings, then replacing humans in entire industries and putting tens of thousands out of work is not morally problematic. If human beings are unique and exceptional, and both labor and relationships are central to our identity, the moral questions are far weightier.  This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Greg Koukl, author of Street Smarts, tackles Christianity's toughest challenges using questions. Topics include the challenges of evangelism in a hostile culture, challenging assumptions and addressing social issues, reconciling desires with a good God, the conflict between science and the Bible, the rise of the religiously unaffiliated, and the power of questions in engaging conversations.

Based on media reports, you might think the ocean is basically dead from pollution. But rumors of the ocean’s demise are greatly exaggerated.  Recently, a colleague from Florida received an email from a Christian mom: My son Christopher, 11, used to be super interested in SCUBA diving. But this morning he revealed that he thinks there’s no point because the oceans are full of trash and there’s nothing beautiful to see anymore.  So, my colleague, who loves to SCUBA dive, sent underwater photos of sharks, fish, and coral reefs. Apparently, Christopher has changed his mind.  There are real environmental problems we ought not minimize, but one of the mistakes of modern environmentalism is a relentless doom and gloom that treats humans as a parasite and disease. This attitude only discourages future generations from caring or, in this case, even looking.    Humans were created to steward God’s world. When we see what He’s given us, the response tends to be gratitude and hope, not gloom and doom. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Research consistently shows that young people who wait until after the wedding have a better chance for a stable, fulfilling, happy marriage. They also do not have to worry about sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. Though this does not fit with contemporary assumptions about human beings, obedience to the Lord’s loving plan always works best, and brings incalculable benefits into our lives.   While we may or may not hear this kind of moral clarity in church, it’s been quite a while since the government has admitted the negative consequences of unmarried sex, particularly for teenagers. However, a 2016 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated clearly that young people who are virgins register much higher in nearly all health-related behaviors than those who are sexually active. These behaviors included everything from using seat belts to avoiding drug abuse, eating a healthy diet, going to the doctor, exercising, and avoiding riding with a driver who’s been drinking. In addition, one finding that the media did not mention at the time is that while sexually inactive teens are healthiest, sexually active homosexual and bisexual teens fared significantly worse than their sexually active heterosexual peers.   At the time, the CDC conveyed the blockbuster conclusions of their report as drily and bureaucratically as possible: “Significant health disparities exist.” A summary of the CDC study provided by Focus on the Family clarified just how significant these disparities are.   First, smoking. The study found that sexually active heterosexual teens were 3,300% more likely to smoke tobacco products daily than their virgin counterparts. “Same-sex/bisexual-active” teens were 9,500% more likely to smoke daily than the virgins.  Second, drug abuse. The study found that sexually active heterosexual teens were 500% more likely to have ever injected a non-prescription drug than the virgins, while a whopping 2,333% of the “same-sex/bisexual-active” teens were more likely than the virgins to have done so.  Now, as Focus noted at the time, correlation is not causation. The research did not prove that abstinence causes other healthy habits. However, the very fact that the CDC noted a relationship between sexual behavior and other habits is more than a little significant. Though the CDC would never put it this way, the summary offered by Focus on the Family was clear and succinct: “The sexual choices and values our young people hold have real-life consequences far beyond sexuality itself.”  Parents who care about the health and well-being of their children should especially take note of this data and have confidence that they can make a difference for their child. Researcher Mark Regnerus highlighted in his book Forbidden Fruit that the intensity of teens’ religious beliefs is more important when it comes to sexual activity than exactly what religious beliefs they claim.  The first thing, then, for parents to care about is our kids’ faith. A strong, informed, and vital relationship with Jesus will help them resist the kinds of temptation and peer pressure—sexual and otherwise—that assault them every day at school and online.  In other words, worldview matters. The CDC report demonstrates there are consequences for a secular worldview that sees bodies as something we “own,” something external to who we are, something we use (or abuse) depending on our desires, our will, or our “identity.”  The Christian worldview, in sharp contrast, teaches that our bodies are integral to who we are, both in how humans were created and in that Christ took on flesh to make all things new. The extent that we and our kids truly embrace this will determine how we treat our bodies and the bodies of others.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org This Breakpoint was revised from one originally published on December 9, 2016. 

After a military junta seized power in 2021, the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar has seen an escalation of violence, ethnic conflict, and religious persecution. With a long history of internal conflict, observers have long hoped for democratic reform and increased freedoms. That now seems more improbable than ever.  The country’s ruling junta is waging war against an opposition government consisting of multiple ethnic groups. Civilians are caught in the crossfire, and the religious—especially Christians—are convenient targets.  Though the brutality of Myanmar’s government is not restricted to only Christians, they have endured a heavy share of the violence. In the western state of Chin, the junta military has destroyed over 85 churches by arson, ground artillery, and even air strikes.   Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Myanmar, that God would bring courage and swift and just resolution to this conflict.   For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Pixar’s Wall-E has proven to be among the most profound and prophetic films of the last 20 years. After hopelessly polluting the Earth and leaving an army of robots to clean up the planet, humans now live aboard a giant ship built by a company that promises to take care of all its passengers’ needs. Thus, humans are left with nothing to do but amuse themselves and eat a lot.   Many Christians wrote off the Pixar classic because of its hyper-environmentalist message. However, the film’s commentary on human exceptionalism and vocation, specifically the inability of our machines to do our most important work for us, was spot-on. In the world of Wall-E, human beings have a purpose, or a telos that cannot be reduced to maximizing comfort, safety, and convenience.   In the biblical account of reality, humans exist to glorify and love God, and to serve as His special representatives and co-rulers in creation. Human inventions should help towards achieving those ends, extending our abilities, and mitigating the effects of the Fall. Wanting to replace ourselves with our devices assumes that humanity is the central problem of the world that needs to be solved.  Recently in First Things, Matthew Crawford argued that an anti-human worldview like the one parodied in Wall-E now dominates our tech and governing classes. Those who are behind everything from smartphone apps to pandemic policy share a basic belief that human beings are inferior to machines. We are, as he puts it, “stupid,” “obsolete,” “fragile,” and “hateful.”   Crawford opens his essay with an example of a driverless car created by Google that froze at a four-way stop. Apparently, the drivers around the car didn’t behave as it had been programmed to expect. However, rather than admit the limits of the car’s “artificial intelligence,” one Google engineer remarked that what he’d learned from the incident is that humans need to be “less idiotic.” The premise is that humans are not the crown of creation but problems to be solved.   Of course, it is quite possible that, once they’ve worked out all the bugs, driverless cars will lead to less accidents and road deaths. However, one of the bugs to be worked out are the programmers who hate humans, which makes the point of this essay ring true. So much of our high-tech culture, from the social media algorithms that tell us what we want to the transhumanist fantasies about uploading our consciousness to computers, assumes that humanity is an obstacle to be overcome.  Much of our public life also assumes the basic idiocy and inadequacy of humans: take health officials more concerned with controlling people than limiting the spread of a virus or legislation quashing parental rights in order to “affirm” gender-confused minors.   C.S. Lewis saw this impulse decades ago and recognized how it would grant growing power to certain people over and above others. In his masterpiece The Abolition of Man, Lewis warned of those he called “conditioners,” who considered themselves above such common human frailties. Of course, as Lewis pointed out, the conditioners are also human, but in denial that they too are vulnerable to the same frailties as everyone else. Their danger lies in the fact that they are oblivious about their frailties, especially their moral frailties.   It is good that humans have bodies that limit us to one location and the need for food, sleep, and friendship. These limits are part of our design. Because we are designed, we must be guided by values and not merely algorithms. It is good that we take time to learn, to appreciate beauty, to feel wonder, and to have burning questions about what is behind all that we see. God made us this way, so that, eventually, our seeking would lead back to Him. Though He intends to redeem us from the ravages of sin, He never intends to optimize us into efficient machines. Apparently, He considers being human as something “good,” even “very good.” So much so, in fact, He took on flesh Himself.   Wall-E got it (mostly) right. Technology is good but needs a telos—a purpose for existing. That purpose cannot be to replace, transcend, or circumvent God’s good design for human beings.   In short, technology and public policy should be human-shaped, not the other way around.   This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute recently released abortion estimates for the first six months of 2023. Using these numbers, media outlets quickly announced that pro-life laws after the demise of Roe have been ineffective. Ironically, abortion proponents lament restricted access to abortion while claiming pro-life laws don’t work.  However, according to Dr. Michael J. New of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, these numbers “reflect a great deal of potential variance.”   "[T]hese new abortion estimates are based on samples of abortion facilities, not comprehensive surveys. ... For Georgia, their upper abortion estimate is over 80 percent higher than their low estimate. For Florida, their upper estimate is more than 11,000 abortions higher than their low estimate. This much variation raises serious questions about the accuracy of their estimates."  According to Dr. New, “plenty of reliable data collected since the Dobbs decision show that thousands of lives have been saved by strong state-level pro-life laws.”   So, as always, we should stay the course and not be discouraged by the latest alarm-seeking headline. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that to deny a church “an otherwise available public benefit on account of its religious status” is to violate the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution. In that case, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, a Missouri church that operated a licensed preschool and daycare facility, applied for state “funds for qualifying organizations to purchase recycled tires to resurface playgrounds.”   Trinity Lutheran met all the qualifications of the program, but the state informed them that a grant would violate a state constitutional provision that “no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, section or denomination of religion.” Trinity Lutheran sued, claiming that because of the Free Exercise clause in the First Amendment, a government benefit cannot be withheld solely because of religion. In his majority decision, Chief Justice Roberts agreed, writing, “the exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand.”   The Trinity Lutheran case was only six years ago but, in a case of “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it,” Colorado is the latest state to “forget” something about which the Court has been very clear.  This is the inaugural year of Colorado’s Universal Preschool Program, which funds 15 hours of preschool per week for every child in the state. To be a part of the program, the state is requiring that preschools sign a “service agreement” that includes a commitment to “not discriminate” on the basis of sexual orientation or so-called “gender identity.”  In August, the Denver Catholic Archdiocese, which operates 36 preschools and serves 1,500 kids a year, filed a lawsuit, noting that this “service agreement” would force them to hire teachers and administrators who do not hold to their faith commitments. Not only is this a case of “Trinity Lutheran all over again,” but it is another chapter in the never-ending story of public officials pressuring Christians to keep their faith out of public life.   Recently in Massachusetts, state officials denied an adoption license to a Catholic couple, claiming their faith made them “unsupportive” of transgender ideology. The state of Oregon similarly denied an adoption license to a young, widowed mother because she would not commit to taking a hypothetically gender-confused child to a gender clinic.    Years ago in a Breakpoint commentary, Chuck Colson described the jury selection process in the trial of Jack Kevorkian, the doctor accused of helping at least 27 of his patients kill themselves. Kevorkian’s lawyer attempted to bar anyone who said their Christian faith forbids suicide from serving on the jury, claiming that belief made them unfairly biased.  "Religion has been increasingly relegated to the private sphere. Christians are welcome to participate in public life only if they leave their faith at home … [but] [t]he logic of Kevorkian’s defense attorney could be applied to any criminal trial. If potential jurors can be excluded for believing that assisted suicide is immoral, what will be the next step? Will the attorneys of accused murderers be permitted to exclude jurors whose religion teaches that life is sacred?"  More than 25 years later, that dismal hypothetical seems less hypothetical. As the Colorado, Massachusetts, and Oregon stories reveal, some public officials are so hostile to the Christian faith, they would rather allow children in foster care to sleep on office floors in government buildings and remain in juvenile detention facilities than go to a home with religious parents.  Of course, there must aways be moral restrictions around who can and cannot adopt children and operate a preschool. Restrictions are necessary to protect children. However, some states are now operating from a moral framework that is exactly backward. The biblical woes against those who call right wrong and wrong right apply as much to government programs as they do to individuals.   It is a grave mistake to use irrational and false moral claims as the basis for these moral restrictions. In this upside-down world, children must be protected from religion rather than ideologies that threaten their minds, hearts, bodies, and most importantly relationships. Claiming to protect children, they are instead put in danger, subject to irreversible physical, psychological, and emotional damage.  Given how clear the Supreme Court has been about states discriminating against religious institutions, I suspect the state of Colorado will be forced to change this policy. Given how willing the state of Colorado is to defy clear Court teachings and target people of faith, I suspect they will resist for as long as possible. In the meantime, children will suffer because of the state’s bigotry. If people of faith are told they “need not apply” for adoption licenses, preschool programs, serving on juries, feeding the homeless, advocating for the preborn, or caring for the sick and dying, who do they imagine will take their place?  This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

The podcast discusses the Anglican Diocese of Sydney's refusal to comply with potential legislation in NSW, Australia regarding counseling individuals to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. It explores the relevance of concupiscence to same-sex attraction in Christian doctrine and emphasizes the importance of God's help in living according to His ways.