Christian history is full of incredible stories: Origen, Augustine, Wilberforce, Joni Eareckson Tada, Hudson Taylor… In fact, any life lived for Christ, is historic, significant, and inspiring. Success is never guaranteed, but we can be faithful. Each week, I hear from followers of Christ committed to living for Christ in this cultural moment, also an important time in history. In fact, a recent email just blew me away: "I found your podcast about one year ago, and it has been quite influential ...
Dec 08, 2021•1 min
President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act, which passed in the U.S. House last month, is expected to be passed by the Senate before Christmas. Adding this big-ticket "social spending and climate" bill to the trillions already passed in the name of COVID relief certainly won't thrill fiscal conservatives. Depending on which version passes, about $360 billion dollars would be added to the federal deficit. The plan is being hailed as good for families, since it extends the enhanced child tax cred...
Dec 08, 2021•5 min
John and Shane respond to feedback and a question on why culture blames the church for a myriad of social, cultural, environmental, and many other ills. They then explain a few resources to help listeners think well on the topic of sexual immorality after fielding a question in response to a recent commentary. To close, John explains the idea of Sphere sovereignty.
Dec 07, 2021•59 min
On Black Friday, a surrogacy agency in Ukraine called BioTexCom offered a fun new deal : three percent off your next baby. The discount, according to the ad, applied to hiring Ukrainian women to be surrogate mothers, to IVF, or whatever mixture thereof. If the name BioTexCom sounds familiar, it's because this is the agency saddled with nearly 100 stranded babies in a Kiev hotel, to be cared for by a handful of nurses, at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. That happened because the babies leg...
Dec 07, 2021•1 min
Women in Afghanistan have been barred from participation in civil society. There are families hunted for their involvement with the U.S. military, and brothers and sisters in Christ have been tortured and killed for their courageous faith. Any faith in early signs of Taliban moderation was misplaced; all skepticism was well-founded. We have the testimony of many who've endured similar oppressions in the past. This can point us to what is true and good amid evil. For example, Hunayn ibn Ishaq was...
Dec 07, 2021•5 min
Recently, a Switzerland-based euthanasia clinic posted that , going forward, anyone seeking so-called "death with dignity" must be fully vaccinated first. It isn't quite as crazy as it sounds. They aren't saying you have to be healthy before they kill you. Instead, they're taking precautions for the sake of the people who provide "assistance in dying." They don't want patients infecting the medical professionals tasked with killing them. Even so, there's plenty of tragic ironies here. For two ye...
Dec 06, 2021•1 min
William Blake said, "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees." Recently, David Books of the New York Times quoted Blake as he described the importance of imagination. Advances in neuroscience, he argues, have highlighted the ways our imaginations are tied up with our perceptions of reality. This includes the moral imagination as well, both personally and collectively. Our imagination also affects our ability to empathize with others. When we are able to imagine the lived experience of...
Dec 06, 2021•6 min
This week, the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) canceled all tournaments in China. The move was a protest against the Chinese Communist Party's censorship of missing tennis star Peng Shuai. The unprecedented move will likely cost the organization hundreds of millions in revenue. But, it's also the right move. Peng Shuai went missing after publicly claiming that she was sexually assaulted by a high-ranking government official. After a flood of international alarm, China finally produced rudimenta...
Dec 04, 2021•1 min
John and Maria revisit the oral arguments for the Dobbs v. Jackson from the Supreme Court earlier this week. John shares insight from Ryan Anderson, who recently explained the impact of this case on the BreakPoint Podcast. Maria then reports on the school shooting in Oxford, Michigan. She briefly tells a story being reported of a father whose son was killed in the shooting. The father reportedly told a friend when the two couldn't locate his son that, Tate, the son, is the kind of person who wou...
Dec 03, 2021•1 hr 2 min
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments from Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health , the most significant challenge to Roe v. Wade to date. The anticipation surrounding Dobbs , on both sides of the abortion issue, has been palpable. And, what happened at the Supreme Court on Wednesday did not disappoint. Today, on a very special edition of the BreakPoint podcast, John talks with Dr. Ryan Anderson, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) located in Washington, D.C. about th...
Dec 03, 2021•28 min
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments from Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health , the most significant challenge to Roe v. Wade to date. The anticipation surrounding Dobbs , on both sides of the abortion issue, has been palpable. Wednesday's performance did not disappoint. Today, on a very special edition of the BreakPoint podcast, I talk with Dr. Ryan Anderson, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) located in Washington, D.C.. Anderson is a legal scholar and public i...
Dec 03, 2021•7 min
Not that long ago, what we ate was considered a matter of personal preference. Our sexual behavior, on the other hand, was considered a matter of morality that required regulating. Times have changed. In every society throughout history, sex has been seen as a moral matter of public concern. A primary reason for that is sex can result in children. So, it has implications for the community. With the advent of contraception and the popularizing of abortion, sex is no longer seen as a public moral ...
Dec 02, 2021•1 min
Every single person, including those who struggle with who they are, are made in the image and likeness of God. However much someone can be mistaken in their self-understanding, whatever they've done to add to their own confusion, they're still infinitely valuable and worthy of the fullest expressions of our love and care. This includes every person, within the growing population of people who identify as transgender. Because of this, it is important to say, definitively, that radical transgende...
Dec 02, 2021•6 min
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is crafting a new rule that could force religious employers, insurers, and healthcare providers to pay for and provide, among other things, gender transitions. The National Catholic Register broke the story. According to court filings, progressive activist groups demanded HHS expand its definition of discrimination "based on sex" to include gender identity. This would reverse the narrower Trump Administration rule, which provided religious exempt...
Dec 01, 2021•1 min
Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that could upend Roe v. Wade . At the very least, Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization is the most significant challenge to legalized abortion to date. In question is a Mississippi law known as the Gestational Age Act . If the court decides the law should stand, the power to determine and limit abortion rights would effectively be returned to the states. The long battle over abortion in America has had many chapters. For years,...
Dec 01, 2021•5 min
A few weeks ago, I talked about a claim that we should call God "they" since "He" isn't inclusive enough. A tweet by the Religious News Service recently doubled down on this idea, asserting that Christian churches "lack consensus" about God's pronouns. Lacks consensus? That's a strange statement. That only makes sense if 99.99% of all Christian churches, in all times and places throughout history, don't count as a consensus. If you go around the world and ask Christians from all cultures and all...
Nov 30, 2021•1 min
We cover plenty of news at BreakPoint. Most of our commentaries, in fact, address a breaking story or headline in some way. And, several times a week or more, someone in our audience will ask if we plan to address this or that news story. Sometimes they are asking for our take on a high-profile headline. Other times, they are asking about a story that's been buried in the never-ending news cycle. While we take every request seriously, we aren't always able to follow through on every one of them....
Nov 30, 2021•5 min
Shane Morris visits with Dr. Thomas Price about Athanasius' On The Incarnation . The pair discuss the significance of Jesus being man and how Advent is an important time for the Christian, and not only to celebrate the birth of Christ. This is a portion of an extended conversation Shane has with Dr. Price on the Upstream podcast. To receive the full conversation register for the Advent resources organized by BreakPoint at www.breakpoint.org/advent....
Nov 29, 2021•33 min
Last week the LA Times reported that , facing soaring rates of D's and F's, more schools are simply doing away with grades entirely. Instead, teachers are encouraged to give students little to no homework, move deadlines, and have fewer outcome-driven measurements of achievement. What's the rationale behind the move? "By continuing to use century-old grading practices," wrote L.A. Unified's chief academic administrator, "we inadvertently perpetuate achievement and opportunity gaps, rewarding our...
Nov 29, 2021•1 min
Recently in the Atlantic, Peter Wehner argued that the evangelical church is breaking apart . He references the politicization of Covid, the challenge of two contentious elections, and the fact that America is in a bitter partisan divide. Additionally, in June, Mere Orthodoxy columnist Michael Graham suggested that evangelicalism in America is undergoing a " Six-way fracturing ." Graham doesn't express the same pessimism about the future as Wehner; Graham is descriptive , while Wehner's is predi...
Nov 29, 2021•7 min
John and Maria discuss the recent convictions of Travis, and Gregory McMichael, and William Bryan, in the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery. They discuss how this case pairs with the Kyle Rittenhouse case and how worldview guides society to have strength to withstand horrendous acts as a civilization and to hold a worldview big enough for the brokenness in the world to protect image bearers. Additionally, John and Maria revisit the Thanksgiving commentary from Chuck Colson where he explains the st...
Nov 26, 2021•1 hr 4 min
Black Friday is less a day this year and more of a couple weeks, so we might not see the normal chaos from WalMart and Best Buy. Folks not trampling each other over smartphones and flat screen televisions is an improvement, of course, but the idol of stuff still claims socially distanced hearts and minds too. One way is through the artificial perfections of Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. Pictures of perfectly decorated homes and Instagram-worthy holiday celebration videos with perfectly beh...
Nov 26, 2021•1 min
Black Friday has been different the last few years. Shelves aren't as stocked as we're used to, especially after the supply chain debacle. Instead of a single day of sleep-deprived consumers trampling security guards for flatscreen TVs, we endure weeks and weeks of online over-marketing. While the presumed decrease in physical violence in stores certainly is an improvement from what we're used to on Black Friday, the lack of material goods available to attempt to fill the voids in hearts and min...
Nov 26, 2021•5 min
Gratitude is on our minds as we celebrate Thanksgiving. Practicing thankfulness, we are looking back to an interview John conducted with Peter Leithart, president of the Theopolis Institute and author of "Gratitude: An Intellectual History." How did Christianity change the West's understanding of gratitude? And how can we Christians in this age of profound ingratitude and entitlement reinvigorate the virtues of gratitude and thanksgiving in our own lives and in the culture around us?...
Nov 25, 2021•28 min
We've all seen "A Charlie Brown Christmas," in which Charlie Brown messes up the Christmas play and Linus reminds everyone what Christmas is all about. Another of my favorites is "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving." Poor Chuck's friends show up expecting a feast, but he and Snoopy serve them jelly beans and popcorn. Thankfully, Linus is there again to tell the true story of Thanksgiving. But it's Marcie who reminds Charlie Brown that the Pilgrims at Plymouth didn't come to dinner expecting to receive...
Nov 25, 2021•1 min
A Christian worldview not only points us to what is true, but it also places us, historically, in the redemptive history of God's creation. In fact, there is no such thing as "secular" history. The history of the world is God's redemptive history - that is, history can only be understood within the larger creative and redemptive work of God in Christ. That's a long way to introduce today, Thanksgiving, but it's an important framework for understanding how God has moved and worked in human histor...
Nov 25, 2021•5 min
INC.com's Jeff Steen has a new technique for anxiety management : schedule time to worry. Setting aside time to consider what worries us, he writes, clarifies our fears. It reminds us of what's important, what we can do about it, and (most importantly) what we can't. It's something he's encouraged business leaders to do for years, and it's seen results. There's a biblical term for Steen's technique: prayer. If that sounds cliché, it might be because we've lost one of the main things prayer is me...
Nov 24, 2021•1 min
Z-ers Identify as LGBT ." That was a significantly higher number than reported in previous years. Then, last month, a new survey released by Arizona Christian University reported that about 39 percent of 18-24-year-olds claim the label. Even granting that polling data should always be taken with a grain of salt, that's a shockingly high number. And, in addition to challenging Christians about how much the culture around them has changed, these numbers also challenge the way people have been taug...
Nov 24, 2021•6 min
I received an email from Oklahoma Wesleyan University entitled "Five Questions You Should Ask on Your Next College Visit." The suggestions are good, but given the dismal state of higher education , here are five more. First, why am I going? Too many 18-year-olds are signing up to pay $20,000 a year without knowing why they're there - something the nation-wide 40% dropout rate confirms. Second, what ideas are assumed here? Given today's world, students expecting an education (practical skills, cr...
Nov 23, 2021•1 min
This Sunday marks the beginning of Advent. It's the season historically "set aside by the Church to help believers prepare to receive the fullness of Jesus' coming." The word "coming" refers both to Jesus' Incarnation and " His return as the 'Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory ," who will " send his angels to gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens ." On BreakPoint a few years ago, I said that "walking through this season of...
Nov 23, 2021•4 min
