The top baby names for 2021 are now posted. You've got the "Let's be different" parents spelling "Jaxon" with an X or every vowel with a Y, and Disney fans naming their kid "Raya." Of course, there's the gender-neutral fad with nature words like "River" and "Willow." Some are claiming "Ezra" is also gender-neutral, but I doubt the Old Testament prophet would agree. Still, it is interesting how many Biblical names keep cropping up. According to one list , seven of the top ten boy names this year ...
Nov 22, 2021•1 min
There's been a transformation in how our culture talks about sex. Since the 1960s, under the banner of so-called "sexual liberation," the dominant message in movies, television, politics, and even advertising was that sex needed to be set free from traditional and repressive rules. The symbols of this liberated sexuality were naked or nearly naked bodies—usually female bodies. More recently, some of the women who were reduced to mere bodies under the guise of liberation have come forward to reve...
Nov 22, 2021•5 min
John and Maria consider the long legal battle endured by Barronelle Stutzman. They highlight her faith convictions and discuss how this offers encouragement for Christians to live their faith in culture, following her example. Maria then asks John to explain why he highlighted the story of Ernie Johnson this week, after the passing of Ernie's son, Michael. John explains how Ernie's faith commitment is an inspiring lesson for Christians to simply and confidently trust the Lord. John also explains...
Nov 19, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Drug overdose was the eighth leading cause of death in the United States last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control . From May 2020 to April 2021, an estimated 100,300 Americans died from an overdose. That's a roughly 30 percent increase over the year before, and officials believe this year could be even worse. Experts point to a few things to explain the deadly spike, including the flooding of the drug market by the extremely potent and dangerous synthetic opioid Fentanyl. But the ...
Nov 19, 2021•1 min
For almost ten years now, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the State of Washington have targeted an elderly, small-town florist named Barronelle Stutzman. The case began when Barronelle declined to serve a long-time customer's gay wedding. A few months ago, Barronelle, now 77, filed a request for a final rehearing of her religious liberty case with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of her business, Arlene's Flowers. This week, the ACLU offered, and Barronelle accepted, a five-thousan...
Nov 19, 2021•6 min
Last year, the Loudoun County (VA) school board informed teachers they must refer to students by their preferred pronouns, and allow students to use restrooms that align with the gender they self-identify as. At a public school board meeting, gym teacher Tanner Cross publicly informed the board, out of love for his students, he could not comply . The board immediately retaliated by suspending him . Cross, with the assistance of the Alliance Defending Freedom, filed for a temporary injunction. He...
Nov 18, 2021•1 min
Back in 2016, my then BreakPoint colleague Eric Metaxas did something we don't typically do on this commentary. "We don't usually wish people a "Happy Birthday!" on the air, but I'm going to make an exception in this case. On August 7, one of the most inspiring and just downright likable people in American sports turned 60, Ernie Johnson of TNT. If you are unfamiliar with Johnson's work and his story, let me fill you in. Most people who have heard of Johnson know him through his work both as an ...
Nov 18, 2021•6 min
Listeners write in this week asking how they can support students who are in public schools, what are the best C.S. Lewis books to introduce a new Lewis reader, and what resources are best for a small church youth group to teach worldview with. Additionally, John and Shane answer how to present worldview and apologetics in a personal way in a person's "voice", and how the image of God was marred after the Fall.
Nov 17, 2021•59 min
A California couple is suing a fertility clinic after discovering they gave birth to someone else's daughter. Apparently, there was a mix-up during their in vitro fertilization procedure in 2019. After a DNA test proved the mistake, the couple returned their baby girl to her genetic parents in return for their genetic daughter, whom they'd never met. It's a mind-boggling story about a tragedy made possible by a culture quick to accept technology based on if we can do something instead of whether...
Nov 17, 2021•1 min
Last week, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced the "Pride Coalition." The coalition is a partnership with the " Log Cabin Republicans ," an organization that describes itself as "LGBT conservatives and straight allies who support fairness, freedom, and equality for all." Although many find the move disheartening, it will only shock those who haven't been paying attention. Al Mohler once described the relationship between Republicans and evangelicals as a "marriage of convenience," ...
Nov 17, 2021•5 min
Young pro-choice writer Kathleen Walsh recently published a conversation about abortion she had with her mom. The exchange, which ran at "The Cut," is both fascinating and frustrating. Walsh's mom gets right to the point—the fact that the unborn are babies: "Whether you want it or not," she says, "doesn't change what it is." Walsh insists that "because it's in my body, it's still a part of me…it's not a person. It's a theoretical person." Her mom points to her daughter's own time in the womb: "B...
Nov 16, 2021•1 min
November marks a pair of important anniversaries, bookends to one of the darkest periods in human history. In the first week of November ( often dated as October by the older Julian calendar ) 1917, Russian revolutionaries under Vladimir Lenin overthrew the moderate socialist government of Alexander Kerensky and established the first Marxist regime. Almost precisely 72 years later, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was torn down , symbolically taking with it a diabolical worldview that had tr...
Nov 16, 2021•5 min
According to a recent article in The Economist , the digital revolution is poised to "up-end the practice of macroeconomics." With so much life lived online, it's now possible to know nearly everything about an average person's consumer behavior - from the amount of produce they buy to what they are watching on Netflix. The technical term for this is " econometrics ." In the extreme, it treats people like predictable robots. With enough data, the theory goes, we can reliably predict consumer beh...
Nov 15, 2021•1 min
Certain lifestyle choices strongly correspond to long-term success: staying in school; avoiding pregnancy outside of marriage; regularly attending church ; and abstaining from drug abuse, heavy drinking, and risky sex. Decades of research show these choices correlate with physical health, economic prosperity, and personal happiness. They also correlate more with the traditional and religious sides of the values aisle. Tech billionaires, Hollywood celebrities, and CEOs of megacorporations like Di...
Nov 15, 2021•4 min
Certain lifestyle choices strongly correspond to long-term success: staying in school; avoiding pregnancy outside of marriage; regularly attending church ; and abstaining from drug abuse, heavy drinking, and risky sex. Decades of research show these choices correlate with physical health, economic prosperity, and personal happiness. They also correlate more with the traditional and religious sides of the values aisle. Tech billionaires, Hollywood celebrities, and CEOs of megacorporations like Di...
Nov 15, 2021•4 min
John and Maria discuss a recent commentary on Haiti before exploring an article by Trevin Wax on the lean toward politics by progressive Christians. That discussion leads into a new development from the Republican National Commitee to create a "Pride Coalition". John shares the challenges this brings to the Christian worldview of politics.
Nov 12, 2021•1 hr 7 min
I recently watched a video of Pakistani tribesmen trying cheesecake for the first time . I know that might sound random, but it was kind of awesome. Though "diversity" has morphed into an ideologically loaded buzzword, it was God's idea first. But His idea wasn't moral or cultural relativism. It was the beauty of difference, anchored in eternal, created truths about how He made us. In Amos 9:7, God asks the Israelites, "Are not you the same to me as the Cushites? [Did] I not bring Israel up from...
Nov 12, 2021•1 min
Martin de Porres was born in Lima, Peru, in 1579 - the illegitimate son of Don Juan de Porres, a Spanish nobleman. His mother, Ana Velázquez, was a freed African slave from Panama. When Martin was born with his mother's dark skin and features, Don Juan denied he was the baby's father. Don Juan abandoned Martin, his sister, and his mother while Martin was still a boy. Martin grew up in poverty and, because he was of mixed race, suffered social stigma. He attended school for two years until the ag...
Nov 12, 2021•4 min
On Saturday Night Live last week, in a sketch featuring "Goober the Clown," Cecily Strong ridiculed Texas' heartbeat law. Strong told her abortion story using "fun clown stuff" like balloon animals, a squirting flower, and a clown costume. The intent, I think, was to portray abortion as no big deal, not as dark and scary as it's made out to be, and to suggest that women shouldn't be forced to talk about it. But the sketch came across awkward and sad. Perhaps Strong's parody was actually rooted i...
Nov 11, 2021•1 min
In 1974, philosopher Robert Nozick proposed a thought experiment he called "the experience machine." He hoped to challenge hedonism, the belief that the highest good in life is finding the most pleasure. Imagine a machine, Nozick said, that would simulate in our brains all the best experiences we could imagine. Nozick took for granted that, ultimately, people would choose the real experience over the machine-generated one. He believed people want to do things, not just have a fake experience of ...
Nov 11, 2021•5 min
John and Shane discuss a recent article in The Atlantic by Peter Whener about the abandonment of Jesus' teachings by evangelicals. The listener asks how Christians should respond to these claims. John also answers a question about the Christian perspective with climate change and how Christians can respond to claims that they are responsible for deterioration in the environment. Shane then asks John why the term "virtue signaling" is cringe-worthy before John is asked to explain the relationship...
Nov 10, 2021•55 min
In 2017, Yale researcher Michael Kraus discovered that the best medium for communication was voice-only. Scientists have a couple of theories as to why. First, voice-only is just less distracting. Especially in the age of Zoom, virtual communication means bombardment by images, web problems, and front-facing cameras. All of these make it harder to focus on people - and therefore empathize with them. But second, whereas visual clues can be misleading, it's harder for speakers to disguise how they...
Nov 10, 2021•1 min
Last week, at 34-years-old, baseball great Buster Posey retired. Drafted by the San Francisco Giants, he went on to help win three World Series. Retiring means leaving a $22 million paycheck on the table , and likely a multi-million-dollar extension to keep him in the Bay area for the rest of his career. Instead, the future Hall of Famer has exchanged his cleats and catcher's mitt for bibs, highchairs, two sets of twins, and family life. Many have noted Posey's healthy perspective on the game, w...
Nov 10, 2021•4 min
I heard recently of a retired nurse with a great tagline: "Everyone should have a job they truly hate, so that when they get a job they love they can actually appreciate it." America is going through what's being called the " Great Resignation ," which is partly due to a bad understanding of work . On one hand are workaholics, enslaved to jobs as a source of meaning and identity. On the other hand are the perpetual adolescents, unwilling to commit to serious labor, and hoping the perfect job wil...
Nov 09, 2021•1 min
Last month, the Washington Post editorial board called for the U.S. government to intervene in Haiti. What this nation has endured in the last year alone is hard to fathom. High profile kidnapping s, political violence including the assassination of its president , devastation from natural disasters , gang violence, new allegations of horrific abuse by U.N. troops … the list seems unending. Some nations achieve a level of stability that allows them to navigate crises like these. Haiti hasn't. In...
Nov 09, 2021•6 min
A recent study in Scientific American highlighted how and why people jump to conclusions . One experiment involved participants watching fish being pulled from two ponds and asked to make determinations accordingly. Some participants made snap judgments after seeing only one or two fish, while others watched more patiently . It turned out that those who drew the quickest conclusions with the least data were also the most likely to believe baseless things in other parts of life. In other words, t...
Nov 08, 2021•1 min
One of the most common reasons that people give for rejecting Christianity, organized religion, or the church is hypocrisy. "Too many people," we hear, "say one thing and live another." This is the concern tackled in the latest What Would You Say? video, hosted by my wife, Sarah Stonestreet, also of the Strong Women podcast. Here's part of the transcript of the video: Have you ever met someone who claims to be a Christian but doesn't act like it? Maybe they are even outspoken about what the Bibl...
Nov 08, 2021•4 min
John and Maria discuss how the Governor race highlights more than how one political party can win future elections. John shares how worldview is underneath the movement in Virginia politics and how looking to the future we shouldn't look through a political lens but one that understands the human person. Maria asks John to provide a more in-depth understanding of school and what the role of education is in society. To close, Maria and John revisit a handful of commentaries for the week. First, t...
Nov 05, 2021•59 min
On Tuesday, Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated incumbent Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor race. The issue that gave Youngkin the edge was education, something that Republicans in Virginia typically do not perform as well on. Things have apparently changed in the Commonwealth, however, after a year and a half of school shutdowns, heated disagreements over masking policies, debates over whether Critical Theory should be taught in the classroom on issues of race and LGBTQ, a horrific cover-...
Nov 05, 2021•5 min
According to a new report from the China Tribunal , the Chinese government is harvesting organs, essentially running a "kill to order" business of conscience dissidents from inside the Fulan Gong sect and Uyghur prison camps. They then remove organs from the dead. The scale is stunning. Last year, China reported 20,000 organ transplants to the World Health Organization. Critics think the number is closer to 100,000. The numbers are staggering, but this is something that's been widely reported si...
Nov 05, 2021•1 min
