Breakpoint

Several years ago, Max McLean and the Fellowship for Performing Arts staged The Most Reluctant Convert, a play about the life of C.S. Lewis up to his conversion. During the Covid shutdowns, that production was made into a film that received strong reviews. Now, McLean and FPA are offering a follow-up stage production dealing with Lewis’ life post-conversion.   Although Further Up and Further In includes some biographical information, such as the writing of The Problem of Pain and the recording of the BBC talks that were later published in Mere Christianity, this new production takes the much more challenging route of exploring the different aspects of Lewis’ ministry. Not surprisingly, much of the production is focused on his apologetics.  In his day, the great challenge to Christianity was materialism, the idea that everything is just matter and energy. Lewis responded to this by tracing out the implications of that view and showing its utter implausibility. He notes that scientists “observe the behavior of things within the universe. They cannot make statements about things beyond the universe.” Any time a scientist does that, for example by proclaiming that matter and energy are all that exist, he is no longer doing science.  Even more, Lewis says, if materialism is true, there is no reason to trust the scientist doing science. After all, he rightly observed,   "If the materialist view is true, our minds must in reality be merely chance arrangements of atoms in skulls. We never think a thought because it is true, only because blind Nature forces us to think it. We never do an act because it is right, only because blind Nature forces us to do it."   This argument, which can also be found in slightly different form in the work of Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, is a powerful response to atheism. If atheism is true, any foundation for trusting science or human reason is undermined.  Rather than defend a particular denomination of Christianity, Lewis believed that “the only service [he] could do for [his] unbelieving neighbors was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians and at all times.” This led him to write The Problem of Pain and from there to do his broadcast talks for the BBC. As a result, he began receiving massive numbers of letters. Though he dismissed some, he felt obligated to respond to any serious inquiries received. Some evenings after work, Lewis wrote up to 35 letters.  Much of Further Up and Further In is adapted from volume two of Lewis’ collected letters, a 1,152-page tome. Through an adaptation of some of these letters, we see his work as an evangelist. For example, in the play, a young atheist contacts Lewis with questions, and Lewis responds. After a series of exchanges, the young atheist decides to take the step of committing himself to Christ. Lewis responds with advice on how to grow in faith and hang on to it through doubts. In the end, Lewis argues, “It all hinges on Jesus. If His statements are false, Christianity is of no importance. If true, it is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”   As a literary scholar, Lewis anticipated the argument that the Gospels cannot be trusted, pointing out that the Gospels include statements that would hardly be expected if they were made up by people trying to prove the divinity of Jesus. Rather, the difficulties that they pose are solid evidence for the truthfulness of the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’s teaching.  Toward the end of Further Up and Further In, the character of Lewis turns his focus to Christians, offering advice on temptation (something he had discussed in The Screwtape Letters), the crucial importance of prayer, the Second Coming and the end of the world, and heaven. Much of this advice remains as helpful today as when he first offered it.  Once again, Max McLean and the Fellowship for Performing Arts show why Lewis’ popularity and value have endured. Further Up and Further In is currently on tour. How Lewis engaged the materialists of his time is a model for engaging people today who, though coming from a different worldview, seem just as unable to acknowledge the reality that God has made known in His world.  This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Recently, the FDA approved a brain-implanted computer chip, developed by Elon Musk’s company Neuralink, for human trials.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Holocaust-era movie eerily resembles the expansive loosening of euthanasia laws in the name of human dignity.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

John and Maria look at several recent Supreme Court decisions that move the court to the right and what is driving the recent claims that adults have a right to have children? For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

While some 74% of Americans believe race and ethnicity should not be considered in college admissions, others are lamenting the Supreme Court decision to end affirmative action as an inevitable catastrophe. In the words of one headline in The Atlantic, “Elite Multiculturalism Is Over.”   However, the question so rarely asked is, “Did affirmative action even work in the first place?” Back in 2004, renowned economist Thomas Sowell—a 1958 Harvard grad—set out to answer that question, surveying educational systems around the world. Sowell not only concluded that affirmative action was ineffective, he likened it to a wrong medical diagnosis and prescription:  "False beliefs are not small things, because they lead to false solutions. In the field of medicine, it has long been recognized that even a false cure that is wholly harmless in itself can be catastrophic in its consequences if it substitutes for a real cure for a deadly disease."   In other words, good intentions aren’t enough. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

New from the Colson Center!  Interested in the What Would You Say? video project? Subscribe to be notified when new videos are released at whatwouldyousay.org/subscribe. Watch the latest release and explore the full on-demand library! ____  Following the lead of the province of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick became the second jurisdiction in Canada to adopt a policy of “presumed consent” for organ and tissue donation. Instead of willingly opting in to be an organ donor, residents 19 years and older, with limited exceptions, will be opted in by default.   While many see this as a solution to the perpetual demand for transplant organs, laws like these treat the ethics of organ donation as a settled matter while treating humans and their bodies as means to other ends. Even more, considering Canada’s policy of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), this step will corrode the already thin ideas of “autonomy” and “consent” while incentivizing a utilitarian view of human nature.  For context, Canada has already experienced a dramatic expansion of MAID toward not only those facing a terminal medical diagnosis but also for those suffering from mental illness deemed “grievous and irremediable” (those who suffer solely from mental illness will not be eligible until 2024). In 2021, assisted deaths rose by 35%, reaching over 10,000, or 3% of all deaths in the country. Opponents of MAID, including virtually every disability rights group in Canada, continued to warn that a so-called “right” to die will inevitably devolve into a duty to die. People are seen, both by themselves and by others, as burdens using precious resources better spent on those with better prospects for a “better” life.   These warnings were, to put it mildly, ignored. As numbers climb, so do stories of pressure and coercion. Consider the Canadian veteran suffering from PTSD who was offered MAID instead of treatment last year.   The presumed consent of the New Brunswick law adds a perverse incentive: the immense value of organs for transplant. The mismatch between supply and demand, not to mention what balancing that mismatch would mean, has always dominated the ethical conversation about organ donation. Currently, over 4,300 Canadians are waiting for an organ transplant, and as a government website states, hundreds “will die waiting. ...”   Canada’s end-of-life policies already incentivize death. If donors request death, not only is the difficulty of obtaining consent more easily settled, so is the issue of preserving organs. Law professor F.H. Buckley explained in the Wall Street Journal,   "Last year … two Canadian medical researchers and a Harvard bioethicist argued that [waiting until the patient is declared dead] could reduce the quality of donated organs. A superior model, they suggest, could be to kill the patient by removing his organs. After all, the best organs come from live people, like those who donate one of their kidneys. ...   [B]y linking assisted suicide and organ harvesting, it ratifies the premise that euthanasia can help create a more efficient organ supply chain. … Where euthanasia is legal, the temptation to link the time of death and the demand for organs may similarly become too strong to resist. On a slow day there’s no hurry, but when a patient [who] is waiting for a heart is in the next hospital room, you’d expect greater pressure to euthanize a patient. ...  Medical professionals should not be given the incentive to see their patients as sacks of valuable organs rather than as human beings." The farther the medical world moves from its founding principle of “Do no harm,” the more harm is done. Take for instance China, where one top transplant doctor admitted that “effectively 95% of all organ transplants were from prisoners.” As unthinkable as it sounds, experts warned that these prisoners were likely executed by the means of “organ removal.”    Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement and vocal opponent of euthanasia, was deeply influenced by Christianity. She once wrote, “The question of how one feels about so-called ‘rational suicide’ is, I believe, ultimately governed by the question of how much faith one has in human nature.” Powerful market incentives will only worsen an already epidemic disregard for human life. For Canadians, “presumed consent” is another stage in the downward spiral of a culture of death. If it continues to spread, there will be no opting out.   This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

One of the great and mostly unsung heroes of medicine was Cicely Saunders, the British nurse and social worker who effectively invented palliative care as we know it. A fierce opponent of euthanasia, she was convinced that easing suffering encompassed looking after the physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of a patient.   She worked tirelessly against outdated methods of pain management, including the idea that existing pain medication should wear off before more is administered. For her efforts, she was made a Dame of the British Empire, and of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II.   Recently in the New Atlantis, physician Matthew Loftus argued that the modern approach to the end of life is “ending the suffering by eliminating the sufferer.” Cicely lived by a different creed: “[W]e will do all we can to help you not only to die peacefully, but also to live until you die.”  Increasingly, how Christians deal with dying will reveal what we really believe about life.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

New from the Colson Center!  Interested in the What Would You Say? video project? Subscribe to be notified when new videos are released at whatwouldyousay.org/subscribe. Watch the latest release and explore the full on-demand library!  ___ Dr. Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, released a book earlier this year with a bombshell piece of advice: Go outside!  Recently, Dr. Keltner spoke to The New York Times about the book, entitled Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it can Transform Your Life. He recommended “awe walks,” intentional time spent outside and focused on nature. This, Keltner says, can inspire awe, “that complex emotion we experience when encountering something so vast that our sense of self recedes.” Awe has measurable psychological and even physical benefits, including reducing anxiety, depression, and even inflammation.   So, go outside and think of something other than yourself. Not exactly rocket science, or anything new for that matter, but great advice, nonetheless.  In Keltner’s words the goal of making our “sense of self recede” is quite counter-cultural. For decades, the dominant ideas in psychology and most of the social sciences have been that the self is the highest priority and that self-expression, self-discovery, and self-actualization (or “living authentically”) are the keys to the meaning of life and the only ways to be happy. The fruit of this poisonous tree is the rigid dogma of the late sexual revolution: Our “self-expression” is our true self, and all of reality must bend to accommodate it.    This makes this “new” science, that true satisfaction comes when our “sense of self recedes,” so shocking to read in print. It’s in turning outward and upward, not inward, that we find the most joy, contentment, and meaning.  For evidence that Dr. Keltner is really on to something here, we only need look at the University of Oklahoma women’s softball team, who just won their third consecutive collegiate World Series title. Throughout their impressive winning streak, they were often criticized for excessive celebration. These celebrations of great plays or big wins are in stark contrast to the trash-talking and chest-thumping endemic in high-level sports, including this year’s women’s collegiate Final Four.  When an ESPN reporter asked the OU players how they maintained their joy amid fierce competition, team captain Grace Lyons replied: “Well, the only way that you can have a joy that doesn’t fade away is from the Lord. And any other type of joy is actually happiness that comes from circumstances and outcomes.”   Her teammate, Jayda Coleman, said: “[W]e want to win. But it’s not the end of the world [if we lose] because our life is in Christ. And that’s all that matters.”  Joy, in other words, comes from looking outward and upward, not inward. The beautiful world God created is a source of joy because it draws us outward. To paraphrase something John Piper once said, most people don’t stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon and think, “Wow, I am awesome.” Ultimately, starry nights, clever animals, and beautiful sunsets direct our thoughts upward.   It’s an incredible gift of God that His handiwork points us to Him.  After all, beautiful things mean more when we know and love the person who made them. Something store-bought cannot compare to something made by someone who had us in mind while making it.  In the same way, the creation reveals that God loves us and that He made the world with humans in mind. “Awe walks” are therapeutically helpful because of what is true about the world, about the God who made it, and about ourselves. In contrast, the inward turn that has marked our culture and is largely taken for granted these days as the key to our identity and the meaning of life has only left us more lost, confused, and depressed.  In other words, go outside. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

On this special edition of Breakpoint, John Stonestreet interviews Paul Fitzpatrick, President of 1792 Exchange. They discuss freedom of religion and enterprise and moving "woke" corporations back to neutral.  For more resources on how to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit https://breakpoint.org/. _ 1792 Exchange is a non-profit organization whose mission is to develop policy and resources to protect and equip non-profits, small businesses and philanthropy from “woke” corporations to educate Congress and stakeholder organizations about the dangers of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) policies, and to help steer public companies in the United States back to neutral on ideological issues so they can best serve their shareholders and customers with excellence and integrity. Learn more at https://1792exchange.com/about/. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org  

A Harvard Business Review article once advised: “Forget PowerPoint and statistics, to involve people at the deepest level you need to tell stories.” Those hoping to defend innocent life should take note.  A few weeks ago, a powerful story went viral on social media. A young father holding his infant daughter posted a confession, “God please forgive me: see the beautiful soul I wanted to abort.”   Of course, there are millions who have gone forward with that terrible choice and who know the full regret of abortion. The Silent No More Awareness Campaign is the place where these stories are told. “I didn’t defend the life of my own daughter based on misinformation, selfishness, fear, and shame,” one man admitted, “I let her die to an abortionist knife, and I died the same day.”   These stories are hard to hear and harder to tell, but they need to be told. When hidden, people are enslaved to guilt and shame. As Jesus said, “the truth sets us free.”   For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org