As if the last few years were not strange enough, the United States Congress recently held hearings on the subject of UFOs. As NBC News reported , numerous claims were made by those called before the subcommittee, including by former military or intelligence personnel. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this otherwise earth-shattering story was how it has largely been greeted, at least on social media, with a collective "meh." If so much information was kept hush-hush for so many years, why t...
Aug 15, 2023•4 min
Massachusetts is rejecting would-be adoptive parents if those parents are Christian and thus denying a home to children in need, according to a new lawsuit . Mike and Kitty Burke went through all the classes, background checks, and home assessments required to become adoptive parents, and scored highly. Yet, they were rejected because, as state officials wrote in their report, the couple's Christian faith meant they are "not supportive" of kids who identify as LGBTQ. Right now, in Massachusetts ...
Aug 14, 2023•1 min
In the 22nd week of surrogate Brittney Pearson's pregnancy , she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Because the necessary treatment could harm the baby, her doctors recommended inducing labor early and allowing the baby to be cared for in neonatal intensive care while she started chemo. However, the gay couple paying Brittney Pearson to serve as their surrogate did not want a premature baby with potential developmental or health problems. They wanted her instead to have an a...
Aug 14, 2023•4 min
Millions of Americans have stopped going to church creating the biggest social shift in our lifetime. We'll look at the reasons Ohio's Issue 1 failed giving pro-life voters another defeat. And suicide rates in America are at levels not seen since the Great Depression. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org
Aug 11, 2023•1 hr 3 min
Distressed by the onset of puberty, California teenager Chloe Cole was fast-tracked to a double mastectomy at age 15. Recently, on her 19th birthday, Chloe appeared before Congress , passionately describing the harm of so-called "trans-affirming" medicine, which is anything but. After Chloe's remarks, a mother who had transitioned her 18-year-old daughter told her story. Given a chance to respond, tears filled Chloe's eyes, and she replied to the committee chairman: "I just want to set the recor...
Aug 11, 2023•1 min
Fifty years ago this week, Charles W. Colson became a follower of Jesus Christ. Chuck would subsequently become one of the most respected evangelical leaders of the 20th and early 21st centuries, founding both Prison Fellowship Ministries and the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and authoring bestselling books such as Born Again , How Now Shall We Live? , and Loving God . Chuck Colson's influence came about because of how deeply and thoroughly Jesus Christ changed his life. Certainly, he w...
Aug 11, 2023•5 min
It's an experience that drives many young mothers crazy. After carrying a child for months, enduring labor and childbirth, nursing through many sleepless nights, what are the first words she hears from the kid? "Dada!" It isn't always the case, but across time and cultures, babies are more likely to name their father before their mother. However, rather than a preference for dad or a slight to mom, according to a tweet by Dr. Dan Wuori, it more likely reinforces how important mom is. At that you...
Aug 10, 2023•1 min
In 1973, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote that "nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution." Almost 50 years later, an increasing number of scientists are asking whether evolution makes any sense in light of what we now know from biology. A recent long-form essay in The Guardian signals just how urgent the problem has become for the most dominant theory in the history of the sciences. In it, author Stephen Buranyi gives voice to a growing number of scientists w...
Aug 10, 2023•6 min
The award for the weirdest and most misleading headline of the year goes to a recent article in the Washington Post that announced, " An abortion ban made them teen parents. " The article tells the story of Billy and Brooke High and describes her pregnancy at age 18 as something that just "happened" because they were hanging out after meeting at a skate park. Brooke gave birth to twins soon after the Dobbs decision . She wanted an abortion but would have had to drive 13 hours to get one. Instead...
Aug 09, 2023•1 min
This month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, request a copy of Live Your Truth and Other Lies by Alisa Childers. Visit colsoncenter.org/august to learn more. ___ In her new book, author and apologist Alisa Childers targets the lies that often masquerade as cultural proverbs today. In Live Your Truth and Other Lies: Exposing Popular Deceptions That Make Us Anxious, Exhausted, and Self-Obsessed , Childers offers just what the title promises. She exposes the bad ideas at the center of...
Aug 09, 2023•4 min
Since it was legalized in 2016, Canada has increased pressure on doctors and hospitals to offer assisted suicide . Recently, an article in WORLD Magazine reported that Canadian authorities kicked a nonprofit called the Delta Hospice Society out of its rented building because they refused to kill their patients. Before they closed, executives with the hospice said they had briefly considered registering as a "faith-based organization" to qualify for a religious exemption under Canadian law. This ...
Aug 08, 2023•1 min
Recently, Chloe Cole, a 19-year-old young woman who was pressured to undergo transgender surgeries, challenged a social media video by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the populist astronomer and science personality. Although a legitimate astrophysicist, Dr. Tyson's public proclamations and videos are not always from his area of scientific expertise. In fact, they aren't always scientific. In this particular video, Tyson asserted, in favor of gender ideology, that "no matter my chromosomes today, I feel 80%...
Aug 08, 2023•5 min
Recently on NPR, reporter Rachel Martin interviewed Dr. Lisa Miller, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University, about her controversial claim that spirituality is good for mental health. According to Miller, those who say spirituality is "very important" show an 80% decreased risk for addiction to drugs and alcohol and are 82% less likely to die by suicide. "[T]he more high risk we are," Miller said, "the more that there's stress in our lives, … the greater the impact of spirituali...
Aug 07, 2023•1 min
As unexpected as it was that the Barbie movie would spark such a widespread and intense cultural conversation, Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer , a film about the brilliant and broken man who became the father of the atomic bomb, has too. The film tells the story of the man who gave the world the power to destroy itself, or as Oppenheimer famously put it , "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Atomic weapons have been a constant source of debate since their initial use to end the war ...
Aug 07, 2023•4 min
The Oppenheimer movie has Christians revisiting the morality of warfare. An extra warm summer in some parts of the U.S. raises climate fears again. John and Maria discuss ways to slow down the growth of assisted suicide. — Recommendations — Summit Ministries Latigo Ranch Section 1 - Just War and the Bomb Between Pacifism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition by J. Daryl Charles Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer "Let's Talk About Just War" by Nathaniel Peters "Canadian h...
Aug 04, 2023•1 hr 8 min
The number of teens experiencing symptoms of depression are higher than ever. According to research from psychologist Jean Twenge, 49.5% of teens report that they feel they "can't do anything right," 44.2% report that they feel their "life is not useful," and 48.9% say they "do not enjoy life." Each of these findings is roughly double what they were in 2009. These stats are the latest in a growing body of research that demonstrates a significant link between teens' mental health and their usage ...
Aug 04, 2023•1 min
Recently, British author and journalist Helen Joyce offered a hard-to-hear but reasonable explanation for why transgender ideology continues to endure, despite its inherent contradictions , its obvious falsehoods , and the harm that has been inflicted on children . Her words are worth quoting at length: "There's a lot of people who can't move on [from] this and that's the people who've transitioned their own children. Those people are going to be like the Japanese soldiers who were on Pacific Is...
Aug 04, 2023•5 min
If all we had to go on was Salon, Slate, or T he Atlantic magazines, we'd be forced to conclude that becoming a parent is a life sentence of loneliness. Though studies do demonstrate a loss in certain forms of happiness for parents, according to Brad Wilcox of the Institute for Family Studies, that conclusion " no longer fits the data ." Nearly 60% of childless men and women say they are lonely some, most, or all the time while only 45% of those with children report the same. Likewise , "82% of ...
Aug 03, 2023•1 min
Recently Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, proposed The National Strategy for Social Connection Act . The bill has three parts. Part one would create a White House Office of Social Connection Policy to advise the president on the epidemic of loneliness and develop strategies to improve social connection. Part two would mandate the federal government to develop an official, national Anti-Loneliness strategy across all federal agencies. Part three would send more funding to the CD...
Aug 03, 2023•6 min
Disney has decided, again, to reimagine a classic. Instead of the traditional seven dwarves, the new Snow White will be accompanied by seven "magical creatures" of all ages, sizes, and genders. Of course, Disney has always been rather liberal with source material. Few Disney movies follow the original plots of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen . Even so, a recent Tweet thread highlighted how this kind of ideological editing can move from a quirk to a crisis. Its author noted the pass...
Aug 02, 2023•1 min
In its most recent term, the United States Supreme Court strengthened free speech by ruling that business owners cannot be punished for expression consistent with their deeply held beliefs and by ruling that affirmative action practices in college admissions violates the constitutional prohibition of racial discrimination. All this on the heels of the landmark decision in the Dobbs case, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion law to the states. Again, unsurprisingly, the...
Aug 02, 2023•6 min
Russell Brand's "brand" is crass British actor, comedian, and freethinker. However, he recently offered a profound take on the Ten Commandments, human nature, and contemporary culture: "When it says in the Old Testament, 'Worship no other gods than me,' the implication ... is that we are a species that worships, and if you do not access the Divine, ... you will worship the profane. You will worship your own identity. You will worship your belongings. You will worship the template lai[d] before y...
Aug 01, 2023•1 min
If it is true, as Richard Weaver famously put it, that "ideas have consequences," it is also true that bad ideas have victims. On no other contemporary issue today is the connection between a bad idea and its victims clearer than assisted suicide. In no other nation today are the bad ideas and their victims more aggressively embraced than in Canada. In a lengthy and powerful essay at The Atlantic this month , David Brooks exposed just how monstrous Canada's so-called "medical aid in dying" regim...
Aug 01, 2023•5 min
Local authorities in a coastal English town are dropping the threat of legal charges against Adam Smith-Connor for praying silently outside of an abortion clinic. In a video of the incident, a police officer, obviously uncomfortable, asked Smith-Connor to describe the "nature of [his] prayer," adding that she doesn't "want to probe." She suggested Smith-Connor might be violating the town's "buffer zone" rule, which outlaws "acts of disapproval" outside of the clinic. Ultimately, the officers say...
Jul 31, 2023•1 min
Despite having three daughters, I can't say I ever expected to discuss the theological implications of a movie based on Barbie dolls. And yet, Barbie is dominating headlines, not only for bringing in a whopping 155 million dollars on its opening weekend, but also for garnering thought-pieces on the deeper meaning of its plot and for its cultural implications about the identity and value of women. A Vox article, for example, compared its plot to the biblical account of the Garden of Eden, with a ...
Jul 31, 2023•6 min
The Barbie Movie is setting attendance records. What messages is it sending? LGTBQ+ students are flocking to Ivy League universities. What's driving the trend? And Russell Brand shares some insightful views about God and worship. — Recommendations — Focus on the Family's Radio Theatre How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk: The Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind by John Van App Section 1 - Barbie Check Breakpoint.org on Monday, July 31, for our official Barbie review. ...
Jul 28, 2023•51 min
Despite cultural propaganda that sells marijuana as "harmless," increasingly research finds that regular cannabis use is just the opposite. Not only have recent studies found that marijuana use is a leading indicator of workplace accidents and leads to schizophrenia among young men, but a new, peer-reviewed study tracking almost 30 years of medical records for over 6.5 million Danish citizens has found that marijuana use is closely associated with increased risks for depression and bipolar disor...
Jul 28, 2023•1 min
190 years ago today, the great British parliamentarian and abolitionist William Wilberforce died at the home of his cousin near Westminster, London. Three days earlier, Parliament had passed the Slavery Abolition Act , which " abolished slavery in most British colonies, freeing more than 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and South Africa as well as a small number in Canada " on condition that the Crown compensated slave owners. When his friend Thomas Babington Macaulay delivered the new...
Jul 28, 2023•4 min
On this day 75 years ago, an elderly German couple living in the shattered remains of Berlin turned on the radio. This was Klaus and Paula Bonhoeffer, the parents of pastor, theologian, and resistance leader Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Because lines of communication had been devastated by the war, the first Klaus and Paula heard of their son's death was his memorial service in London, organized by his good friend Bishop George Bell and broadcast over the BBC. In the words of my former colleague Eric Me...
Jul 27, 2023•1 min
To see Dr. Kristin Collier's speech at this year's Colson Center National Conference, go to colsonconference.org . To hear more about how her faith shapes her medical practice, check out her interview on the Strong Women podcast . ______ Perhaps the most helpful framework for wrestling with moral issues comes from T.S. Eliot. To paraphrase, we can only know what we should and should not do with something if we first know what that something is for. For example, before we decide what we should do...
Jul 27, 2023•4 min
