Breakpoint

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! __   In 1792, a group of New York bankers gathered by a famous tree on Wall Street and signed the landmark “Buttonwood Agreement.” Against a backdrop of speculation and deceit, the document signaled a return to openness, fair dealing, and integrity among New York’s financial sector. Eventually, the Buttonwood Agreement became the basis for the New York Stock Exchange.   Today, corporate America faces a different crisis of values. Spurred on by the push for so-called “environmental, social, and governance principles” (ESG) a decade ago, a huge percentage of top corporations are now committed to an increasingly radical progressive agenda. This agenda is forced on employees and customers and anyone whom these corporations do business with, from vendors to HR firms to investment portfolios to every small business along the supply chain. The “Pride Month” fiascos of Bud Light and Target exemplify just how allegiant some corporations are to this agenda, completely misunderstanding their consumer base.  Recently, I spoke with Paul Fitzpatrick, president of the 1792 Exchange. Their vision is to steer public companies back toward a commonsense vision of the workplace. In our conversation, which airs as a special bonus episode of the Breakpoint podcast, Paul and I discussed how ideas long entrenched in the university and in the arts reached corporate America and have disenfranchised people of faith and moral conviction.  Corporations impact what we see, how we entertain ourselves, how we feed ourselves, how we clothe ourselves, and how we fund our businesses. And so, they  can either put gas on the fire of something good or put gas on the fire of something bad.   Part of the issue, Paul explains, is how progressive groups targeted corporations after the financial crisis of 2008-09.   Remember how unpopular they were after the ’08-’09 crisis? And taxpayers bailed them out, and everybody on the right and the left were mad at corporations. … So, here they are, Wall Street is very unpopular … and they’re looking for a way to cozy up and get basically the Occupy Wall Street folks and Congress off their backs, and to some extent conservatives. But at the same time, the left is looking for a way to leverage corporations. You had said they already captured academia. We already talked about the media. But they were moving to capture corporate America.   Activists pushed corporations to get on the so-called “right side” of certain social issues.   You’ve got the Human Rights Campaign coming in saying, hey, you know, you got 100% last year. We want you to get 100% this year. So, what you need to do is … have a DEI curriculum—diversity, equity, and inclusion training for all your employees, whether you have 100 or 100,000 employees.  In the end, freedom of expression has been stifled in the workplace. Even small businesses face enormous pressure to comply with the demands of a few powerful entities.   If you have a business and you are a supplier to a major company that has signed on to the progressive agenda and all those areas we discussed, they could demand that you have certain hiring practices, which many do if you’re going to get a 100% score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which 842 companies did by the way recently, you have to mandate in your supply chain that the LGBTQ agenda and hiring is adhered to. As far as internal corporations, there’s no question we’ve seen examples of employees being fired for taking political or ideological positions outside of work.    The 1792 Exchange is working to shift the conversation by educating consumers and stockholders, supporting private businesses and business leaders, and exposing the coercive tactics of these few powerful groups. Their Corporate Bias Ratings tool reviews over 1,500 different companies, scoring them on how well they respect viewpoint diversity. Learn more about their work at 1792exchange.com, and listen to a special Breakpoint bonus episode with Paul Fitzpatrick at breakpoint.org or wherever you listen to podcasts.   Safeguarding and advancing freedom of conscience in the workplace benefits everyone.   This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Can a Christian be patriotic?  Years ago on Breakpoint, Chuck Colson pointed out how Americans used to openly embrace the Christian traditions and values that shaped our Republic. In that culture, it was easy for a Christian to be a patriot. Perhaps too easy. Vibrant, biblical faith could degenerate into a civil religion where the country’s wellbeing and the expansion of God’s Kingdom were synonymous.  But today, many Americans have rejected the religious values that informed our society.  Where along this range of attitudes is true Christian patriotism?  Well, first, we mustn’t deify our country. We don’t wrap the flag around the cross. Our citizenship is in heaven, and that’s where our ultimate allegiance is.  But as Chuck said, we can’t love mankind in the abstract. We can only really love people in the particular, concrete relationships God has placed us in—our family, our church, our community, and our nation.  So, celebrate this July Fourth by thanking God for calling us into His Kingdom and allowing us to live in—and yes, love—this land of liberty.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org This Point was last published on July 3, 2020.   

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! -- The year before he died, Chuck Colson delivered a Breakpoint commentary on the July Fourth holiday in which he reflected on our national identity. Specifically, he recognized that the only way to ground the ideals found in the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal” and possess “certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” is if we are indeed “endowed by their Creator.”    The stunning clarity of the Declaration of Independence in stating that our rights are ultimately granted by God and not the state is something too often forgotten today, if not entirely dismissed. Here’s Chuck Colson reflecting on this important truth:    The great British intellectual G.K. Chesterton wrote that “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on [a] creed.”   Think about that for a moment. Other nations were founded on the basis of race, or by the power of kings or emperors who accumulated lands—and the peasants who inhabited those lands.   But America was—and is to this day—different. It was founded on a shared belief. Or as Chesterton said, on a creed.   And what is that creed that sets us apart? It is the eloquent, profound, and simple statement penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence:   “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”   I’ll never forget when I graduated from Brown University during the Korean War. I couldn’t wait to become a Marine officer, to give my life, if necessary, to defend that creed. To defend the idea that our rights come from God Himself and are not subject to whims of governments or tyrants. That humans ought to be free to pursue their most treasured hopes and aspirations.   Perhaps some 230 years later, we take these words for granted. But in 1776, they were earth-shaking, indeed, revolutionary.   Yet today, they are in danger of being forgotten altogether. According to Gallup, 66% of American adults have no idea that the words, “we hold these truths,” come from the Declaration of Independence. Even worse, only 45% of college seniors know that the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are proclaimed in the Declaration.   As America grows more and more diverse culturally, religiously, ethnically, it is critical that we embrace the American creed. Yes, America has always been a “melting pot.” But what is the pot that holds our multicultural stew together? Chesterton said the pot’s “original shape was traced on the lines of Jeffersonian democracy.” A democracy founded on those self-evident truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence. And as Chesterton remarked, “The pot must not melt.”   Abraham Lincoln understood this so well. For him, the notion that all men are created equal was “the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”   So go to the Fourth of July parade. Go to the neighborhood barbecue and enjoy the hot dogs and apple pie.   But here’s an idea for you. Why not take time out at the picnic to read the Declaration of Independence aloud with your friends and neighbors.   Listen—and thrill—to those words that bind us together as a nation of freedom-loving people: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”   These are the words that Americans live for—and if necessary, die for.   Chuck Colson’s words are just as true and relevant today as when he said them, and perhaps even more important for us to understand.   From all of us at the Colson Center, Happy Fourth!   For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

This June, the 2023 Special Olympics World Games were held in Berlin, Germany. Some 7,000 athletes from 170 countries took part in the annual celebration of people with disabilities, people often dehumanized and marginalized.   The Special Olympics were founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. She was inspired by her sister Rosemary, who lived with intellectual disabilities her entire life. Shriver started the first special Olympics in 1962 as a summer camp in her backyard. The competition grew, and her efforts earned her admiration and the honor of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.   Some years ago, New York Times opinion writer Ross Douthat described Shriver as a “different kind of liberal,” who “saw a continuity, rather than a contradiction, between championing the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed and protecting unborn human life.” That consistency, he thought, was in large part due to her upbringing in the Church, specifically what she learned there: that all people are made by God in His image. 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!   _   On Friday, the Supreme Court delivered a smashing victory for free speech. Lorie Smith is the founder of 303 Creative, a graphic design company that, among other services, creates custom websites for weddings. Concerned that a Colorado law would force her to design websites for same-sex weddings or take on other projects that would violate her deeply held religious beliefs, Smith filed a pre-enforcement challenge, asking the court to weigh in on whether the law violated her freedom of speech and conscience.  The state decided that Lorie did not have the right to choose which messages she uses her talents to express. It even forbade her, for example, from posting a notice on her website stating she is unable to create websites that express messages contrary to her Christian beliefs, including websites that promote abortion services, celebrate same-sex marriages, or advance a transgender ideology. In July 2021, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Smith and for the state of Colorado.  Friday, on the last day of the 2023 docket, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision and ruled in favor of Lorie Smith. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch, explained:   The First Amendment’s protections belong to all, not just to speakers whose motives the government finds worthy. In this case, Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance. ... Consistent with the First Amendment, the Nation’s answer is tolerance, not coercion. The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. Colorado cannot deny that promise consistent with the First Amendment.  Kristen Waggoner, general counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom who argued the case before the Court, described the win in a press release:  This is a win for all Americans. The government should no more censor Lorie for speaking consistent with her beliefs about marriage than it should punish an LGBT graphic designer for declining to criticize same-sex marriage. If we desire freedom for ourselves, we must defend it for others.  It’s not yet clear what implications this decision will hold for others, such as Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips, who are being forced to choose between their businesses and their deeply held religious beliefs. However, unlike the 2018 Masterpiece Cakeshop case, this decision was far broader and clearly dealt with questions of speech, conscience, and government coercion. In the Masterpiece case, the Supreme Court smacked down the state of Colorado for showing clear and extensive animus toward Jack’s faith. The state civil rights commission responded by not only showing similar animus again, but by also allowing and enabling another citizen to harass Jack Phillips, beginning on the same day that Jack’s first case was approved to be heard by the Supreme Court, and continuing today.  Already, voices as significant as dissenting Supreme Court justices and major media outlets have reported that, in the 303 Creative decision, the Court has allowed business owners to refuse service for LGBTQ people. That is simply not true. In fact, Justice Gorsuch specifically said as much in his majority opinion.   Justice Sonia Sotomayor, however, repeated that falsehood anyway before articulating a revisionist history of LGBTQ rights. For example, she repeated falsehoods about the murder of Matthew Shepard, wrongly claimed that the Colorado law did not affect Lorie Smith’s rights “in any meaningful sense,” and neglected the condition established by Smith that she would not refuse service to anyone because of their sexual orientation.   To the dissent, Justice Gorsuch retorted in the majority opinion, “It is difficult to read the dissent and conclude we are looking at the same case.”  Lorie Smith never asked for the right to refuse service to a particular group of people. She asked not to be forced to produce speech that she did not agree with. That’s what the Court affirmed on Friday. It is important that, whenever possible, all Americans who are concerned about the rights of conscience, including the freedom of speech, correct the falsehoods about this decision.  As Lorie Smith said in ADF’s press release,  This is a victory not just for me but for all Americans across our great country—for those who share my beliefs and for those who hold different beliefs. Whether you’re an LGBT graphic designer, a Jewish calligrapher, an Atheist speechwriter, or a pro-life photographer, the government shouldn’t force any of us to say something we don’t believe. I love people and work with everyone, including those who identify as LGBT. For me, it’s always about what message is requested, never the person requesting. I hope that, regardless of what people think of me or my beliefs, everyone will celebrate that the court upheld the right for each of us to speak freely.  Congratulations to ADF and to Lorie Smith.  This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Heather Peterson.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

John Stonestreet takes a first look at the new decision from the U.S. Supreme Court siding with 303 Creative in Colorado. The mainstream media says Christians and Muslims are competing for followers in Africa.   — Recommendations — What Would You Say?: Is the Bible Still Relevant? To Be a Woman: The Confusion Over Female Identity and How Christians Can Respond by Dr. Katie J McCoy Section 1 - 303 Creative SCOTUS Ruling 303 Creative v. Elenis Section 2 - The Competition for Believers in Africa is Transforming Christianity and Islam  The Wall Street Journal Section 3 - College Loan Forgiveness SCOTUS Ruling Section 4 - US Companies are Talking Less about Pride Month  "In landmark case, Supreme Court rules LGBTQ workers are protected from job discrimination" NBC News For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

For a moment last week, Russia seemed headed for a coup or even civil war. After months of complaining about mistreatment by Moscow, the Wagner mercenary group marched on the capital. Then came dueling speeches by Wagner’s leader and Russia’s president, elites fleeing en masse, and an armored column outside the city.   Then suddenly, it stopped. Each side stood down. Even now, days later, it is not clear what exactly happened or what will happen next.   The whole bizarre scene offers important lessons about the human condition, and especially politics. We may think that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but, as in this case, sometimes he’s still an enemy. Just because a guy is on our side doesn’t mean he’s good, or that we are and aren’t bad guys too.   What happened in Russia is an extreme example to be sure, but we should be careful to see our political leaders through a biblical lens, not political pragmatism.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Recently, a school district near Salt Lake City, Utah removed the Bible from elementary and middle school libraries. Though it quickly reversed course and returned it to the library shelves, the original decision was made in response to a complaint that the Bible contains pornographic content, and that certain parts are too “violent or vulgar” for young children. Meanwhile, school districts across the country require LGBT content, much of it grossly explicit, in elementary school classrooms as well as libraries. Some even refuse to allow parents to excuse their children from such content.  It is, to put it mildly, upside down to silence the Bible in order to “protect” children while forcing radical ideas about identity and sexuality on them. Though the Bible speaks plainly about the violence and barbarity of fallen humanity (see the final three chapters of the book of Judges, for example), it is not gratuitous. More importantly, the Bible portrays evil as evil, rather than celebrating the brokenness under the guise of “authenticity,” “autonomy,” and “diversity.”  Eliminating the Bible from education also ignores the crucial impact the Bible has had on the world, especially in shaping Western culture. On one hand, this is simply part of the wholesale condemnation of Western culture so common today. However, even if the Western heritage in the sciences, technology, human rights, freedom, and the arts are downplayed or ignored, at least some knowledge of the Bible is basic to knowing human history at all. Put differently, to assume that the Bible is no longer relevant to the modern world is to misunderstand both the Bible and the modern world.  The latest episode of the Colson Center’s What Would You Say? video series offers a response to the claim that “the modern world has moved beyond the Bible.” Here’s a sample:    The Bible’s positive influence on the world as we know it has been so profound and so thorough that it’s easy to forget just how much it has shaped our understanding of science, morality, politics, literature, music, language and so many other aspects of life and culture.   Every video in the What Would You Say? series offers thoughtful, reasoned, and reliable answers to common cultural questions. This video explains how the Bible shaped Western culture, how the Bible’s description of reality provided the grounding for modern science, and why there will be a growing demand for the Bible as more and more people come to faith around the world.   For example, there is a reason that the scientific revolution did not emerge out of other cultures. Despite the common narrative that Christianity is anti-science, science requires a consistent natural order, something described from the very beginning of the Bible:   The Bible describes a world that was made by God to be intelligible and orderly. Philosopher of science Stephen Meyer says, “Because we have an intelligence that has, as its source, the intelligence that built the world, we can understand the world….”  This is why we expect consistency and order in nature. And why we expect, as humans, to be able to study and comprehend that consistency and order.  In fact, the biblical description of reality provided the impetus for most arenas of learning and academic study, including history, medicine, math, and sociology. After all, learning requires that humans are knowers, that they are able to learn, and that the world is knowable. Most worldviews simply cannot ground these assumptions.  Other videos in the What Would You Say? video series, which has now garnered over two million views, address questions about science, apologetics, sexuality, race, politics, and more. These videos are for parents to watch with their kids, teachers to use in class with students, and in small groups and Sunday School classes, too. New videos, each addressing a different question, will be added every couple of weeks. Please visit whatwouldyousay.org, or search for and subscribe to the What Would You Say? channel on YouTube. And please share these videos with friends, family, and on social media.  This Breakpoint was co-authored by Michaela Estruth.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

This week is the anniversary of two dark and pivotal cases in U.S. Supreme Court history. In June 2013, the high court ruled in United States v. Windsor that the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 violated Due Process. This essentially made the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges judgment, which redefined millennia of law on marriage, inevitable.  Justice Anthony Kennedy unwittingly defined our chaotic age in the majority opinion for Obergefell when he declared, “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.”  This idea—that people can freely craft their identity independent from nature, science, and reality—is behind so much of the moral confusion of the last few years. But it has certainly not led to the “liberty” that Justice Kennedy promised. This is the opportunity for Christians to point not only to an abstract moral position, but to reality itself and to the God who made it.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Few subjects seem less political than math. There is little room for subjective judgment because its truths are universal. No matter what you look like or where you’re from or how you feel about it, two plus two will always equal four, and the area of a circle will always be π r². Math is so objective, in fact, some scientists have theorized that prime numbers could offer the basis of communication with supposed intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos.   However, even if aliens know that math has no racial or gender bias, some educators on Earth seem to think otherwise. Even amid plummeting math scores in the latest Nation’s Report Card data, a growing chorus of progressive voices insists that racism and sexism are the biggest problems we face in how to teach math.   A couple years ago, in an article in the Scientific American, Rachel Crowell complained about the racial and gender disparities among those who make a career out of mathematics. She pointed out, for instance, that “fewer than 1 percent of doctorates in math are awarded to African Americans” and that only 29.1 percent “were awarded to women.” More mathematicians, she writes, have been pushing to discuss these issues and “force the field to confront the racism, sexism and other harmful bias it sometimes harbors.”  Though, undoubtedly, examples of identity-group bias in all fields exist, Crowell chose to root her complaint in intangibles: Math doctorates are not “earned” or “received” or “completed;” they are “awarded,” a word choice that not so subtly reinforces her conclusion that something about math education is racist.  Writing at Newsweek, Jason Rantz cited examples of public schools teaching students that math itself, and the way it has always been taught, is oppressive. In Seattle, recently introduced guidelines for K-12 math teachers in several pilot schools claim that “mathematical knowledge has been appropriated by Western culture” and that “math has been and continues to be used to oppress and marginalize people and communities of color.”   In 2021, Oregon’s Department of Education introduced a new toolkit called A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction, created by what Rantz calls “a coalition of left-wing educators.” The toolkit promises “an integrated approach to mathematics that centers Black, Latinx, and [m]ultilingual students in grades 6-8.” It also warns teachers that “[t]he concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,” and that “[u]pholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.”  This ideological trend in which everything is read through lenses of oppression and victimhood is not isolated in extreme, left-wing enclaves but has become widespread in education. Given the “Critical Theory mood” inflicting Western culture today, it is only likely to grow in the coming years.  One of the many problems with this obsession with racism and oppression in math is that it inevitably leaves students worse at math. In the case of the Seattle pilot schools, for example, performance among black students in the state math exam plummeted after implementing the woke curriculum. Bad ideas with good intentions are still bad ideas. In an effort to empower students, they are instead radically disempowered.   The wonder of mathematics lies precisely in its objectivity, as Melissa Cain Travis describes in Thinking God’s Thoughts, in the miraculous way that math corresponds to and describes the world around us. In her book, Travis chronicles how the beauty and objectivity of numbers led 16th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler to discover the three laws of planetary motion and to correctly describe the structure of our solar system. Kepler, as much a student of God as he was a scientist, believed that the truths of numbers were eternal, existing eternally in the mind of God and structuring all of reality. Our minds—as beings made in God’s image—are uniquely suited to unlock those mysteries.   Students who are taught that answers to algebra problems depend on the color of their skin and that calculus professors are oppressors are not only not going to unlock the mysteries of the universe, but they will also believe what is not true about who they are and the world in which they live. Woke educators may hope to liberate students. But by depriving them of objective truths they are subjugating them to bad ideas. It’s a tragically ironic and disastrous miscalculation.  This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris.  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org