Canada has just adopted a new ban on so-called "conversion therapy " that criminalizes any "practice, treatment, or service" designed to change, repress, or reduce a person's same-sex attraction or transgender identity. According to WORLD , the ban covers even the mildest forms of "talk therapy," including counseling for adults who want to de-transition. So, in effect, Canada is denying that people even exist who detransition or who may legitimately want help reconciling themselves with their bi...
Jan 11, 2022•1 min
"What people once expected from the Almighty, they now expect from the almighty bureaucracy. That's a bad trade for anyone, but for the Christian, it's rank idolatry." This observation, made by Chuck Colson in his book, God and Government , is as true today as when he wrote it. In fact, all the evidence needed to prove that America has made the "bad trade" Chuck described, was on full display last week. Most of the commentary reflecting on the anniversary of the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capit...
Jan 11, 2022•6 min
According to the British news outlet The Guardian , it wasn't a happy holiday for many Christians in India. Radical Hindu activists raided Christian churches - smashing statues, burning Bibles, and threatening believers. This capped off an already bad year for Christians in India , a year that averaged 100 attacks on Christians in each of its first three months. It's vitally important that we remember our brothers and sisters around the world face great trials and tribulations. In totalitarian r...
Jan 10, 2022•1 min
"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter," writes the author of Proverbs, "(and) to search out a matter is the glory of kings." The Biblical account of reality—that God created a world that was knowable and His image-beares to be knowers—powerfully explains the human drive to learn and investigate the world around us. It also justifies the utilization of general revelation as we pursue knowledge of the created order through various branches of science. To put it bluntly, the Bible is not anti...
Jan 10, 2022•6 min
John and Maria reflect on the commemorations of January 6th. They outline how that event marked who we are, highlighting the summer riots and breakdown in cities that led up to the incident in Washington D.C. Then Maria asks John for further explanation of a BreakPoint commentary on the Woke influence in the renovations of the Notre Dame cathedral in France. To close, John explains to Maria how marriage is a reality, like gravity, in our world as Maria reflects on recent high profile divorces an...
Jan 07, 2022•1 hr 4 min
Much environmentalism today assumes that humans are always the problem, and our activity is always harmful. But the more we study, the more we realize how resilient living things are. Recently, USA Today and the BBC reported that the infamous Pacific Ocean garbage patch —an area of more than 610,000 square miles littered with manmade trash—has become a thriving habitat for small marine animals. Scientists have found arthropods, crabs, and mollusks on more than 90% of debris—some of the species t...
Jan 07, 2022•1 min
God has a long history of working inside prisons. The very first book of the Bible describes how God granted Joseph favor with a prison warden , something that eventually led to the saving of his family, the saving of Egypt, and the preservation of God's promises to establish the nation of Israel . The book of Acts gives several accounts of God working in prisons. For example, after Paul and Silas were miraculously released from jail in Philippi, the jailor and his whole household converted . An...
Jan 07, 2022•5 min
Kevin Kelly , co-founder of WIRED magazine recently argued that there are two problems emerging in technology . Class 1 problems are when tech doesn't work perfectly. Think of code glitches, the wheels are falling off, expensive repairs, and the like. Market forces typically solve these kinds of problems over the course of a few years. Class 2 problems, however, are more insidious. They arise when technology works too well. A good example is facial recognition software. "What if the system was i...
Jan 06, 2022•1 min
Today could be the most significant Christian holiday that most Americans know about the least. Epiphany is set aside in the church calendar to remember the visitation of the Magi to the infant Jesus. The day's name comes from a Greek word that means "manifestation." Through these strange visitors, God's gift of Himself to the world was first made manifest to the wider world. Until recently, in much of the Christian world, gifts were exchanged on Epiphany, not Christmas day. A former BreakPoint ...
Jan 06, 2022•5 min
Shane welcomes Michael Craven to answer listener questions. Michael and Shane respond to how a young listener can encourage the seniors in his church who seem worried by this cultural moment. They also answer if beauty is objective and what makes Critical Race Theory a worldview.
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 2 min
A horrifying new survey found the number of pre-adolescent children in the U.S. who admit to sharing nude images of themselves more than doubled last year. Fourteen percent of kids aged 9-12 say they have shared inappropriate pictures of themselves. This is up from just six percent in 2019. Of that number, over a third said they shared those images with someone they believed to be 18 or older. As WORLD notes, this spike in dangerous behavior coincides with the pandemic, which meant increased scr...
Jan 05, 2022•1 min
The 2019 fire in Notre Dame reminded the world of the importance, the history, and the beauty of this magnificent structure. As we mourned the damage, many hoped the building would be repaired to remind the world of its original purpose. Recently, the cathedral's reconstruction plans were announced and, unfortunately, the news isn't good. Notre Dame is rightly considered one of the most fantastic examples of French Gothic architecture. It took nearly 100 years to build, from 1153 to 1260, and in...
Jan 05, 2022•6 min
A vlogger recently asked 100 different people to say their age on camera, starting with 1-year-old babies and ending with 98, 99, and 100-year-olds. It's kind of like watching 100 years pass in the course of 3 minutes. The common phrase used in ancient times was momento mori : remember that you will die. Respect for the elderly came not just from their wisdom, but because they had lived long enough to earn it. In our modern world, our relationship with age is complicated. Today, we tend to focus...
Jan 04, 2022•1 min
In his new book, A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles: Instruction and Inspiration for Living Supernaturally in Christ , renowned Christian philosopher J.P. Moreland makes a provocative claim. Ninety-five percent of what the average evangelical church accomplishes in a given year, suggests Moreland, could be explained even if God didn't exist. In other words, too much of our sermons, programs, and worship could be explained away (and perhaps dismissed by outsiders) as due to skillful leadership...
Jan 04, 2022•5 min
Os Guinness joins John Stonestreet to discuss the cultural landscape in America. The two visit how it is desperately important for Christians to consider their calling in society as a calling to represent Christ in this cultural moment. Register for the event with John and Os Guinness in Phoenix at www.colsoncenter.org/phoenix
Jan 03, 2022•20 min
Parents, educators, the church, and the state all play essential roles within a society, but when the state goes bad, it can take down every other sphere with it. For example, according to a recent article in The Economist , "A struggle is underway for the hearts and minds of Hong Kong's children." In August, the city's pro-democracy teacher's union disbanded, following a government crackdown that had called it "a malignant tumor." Since then, the curriculum now "educates" children solely on the...
Jan 03, 2022•1 min
In his best-selling book The Call , social critic and author Os Guinness observes that one reason Christians struggle to discern and follow God's will for their lives is that they haven't fully wrestled with the gravity and challenges of this cultural moment. The fact that we should see the challenges of this time and place as an essential and defining aspect of our calling, rather than an accidental context in which we live out our calling, is implied throughout Scripture. God reveals Himself t...
Jan 03, 2022•5 min
John and Maria recount prominent people who passed in 2021, the top inventions of the past year, and important trends to consider as we close out the year. Then, John and Maria look ahead at current movements in culture. They consider the move of parents to be more involved in their school districts, the influence of China worldwide, and the pro-life movement. John closes the discussion by sharing how the Church is in an important position as we enter 2022, equipped to answer the big questions t...
Dec 31, 2021•1 hr 11 min
**The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021** Like every other student in America, Mississippi third-grader Lydia Booth has to wear a face mask to school. But when Lydia donned her favorite mask, with the words "Jesus loves me" on it, school officials forced her to remove the mask and threatened her with suspension if she wore it again. As the Alliance Defending Freedom points out , students in Lydia's school were wearing masks with all kinds of messages, from Black Lives Matte...
Dec 31, 2021•1 min
**The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021** Faithful watchers of the Olympics experience a letdown after the games are over. This year, with viewership in a freefall, there was likely not enough enthusiasm for there even to be a letdown on Monday morning. Many have tired of the politicization of this year's games , which started before the opening ceremonies. Patriotism, courage, and even "historic performance" were redefined in Tokyo, and for the worse. However, there is one...
Dec 31, 2021•7 min
**The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021** G.K. Chesterton said that gratitude was "nearly the greatest of all human duties, (and) nearly the most difficult." It is the greatest of human duties because, as Paul wrote the Corinthians, "what do we have that we did not receive?" Truth, tradition, technologies, medicine, democracy, relative peace, are all things that were given to us by those who've gone before. And yet, to paraphrase Jesus, even pagans can give thanks when thin...
Dec 30, 2021•1 min
**The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021** Francis Schaeffer described how ideas escape the ivory towers of universities and think tanks eventually to shape how ordinary people think, speak, and view their world. In 2020, one idea made that journey in record time. Not that long ago, conversations involving Critical Race Theory were largely relegated to academic papers, classroom discussions, and scholarly journal articles. Today, dialogues about CRT can be found across socia...
Dec 30, 2021•6 min
Shane invites historian and BreakPoint writer Dr. Glenn Sunshine to explain why we celebrate Christmas even though the first century Christians likely didn't. Then, Shane brings a question from a listener who recently ready Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letters from a Birmingham Jail and wonders if they still apply in the current culture climate that focuses so much on race. To close, Dr. Sunshine helps a reader seeking resources to better understand Irish history and how it impacted Western civiliza...
Dec 29, 2021•39 min
Several months ago, Amazon began banning books deemed "dangerous" to LGBTQ people. Some of these books were hateful, demeaning, and unhelpful. Others simply questioned the dominant narratives about homosexuality or gender dysphoria. Now Amazon has banned one of the most thoroughly researched books on transgenderism : When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan Anderson. In the book, Anderson shares stories of people who aren't supposed to exist: de-transitioners, those ...
Dec 29, 2021•1 min
As the world watches the disaster unfold in Afghanistan, there's another chapter of the story we're not hearing nearly as much about. The Afghan church, a body of believers that's experienced incredible growth, now faces life under the Taliban. Early indications are not encouraging. Almost as quickly as the Islamic fundamentalists are taking control of cities, Christians are being notified that they are being watched. Yesterday, I spoke at length with World Magazine Senior Editor Mindy Belz, who...
Dec 29, 2021•6 min
This deconversion story, I can get into. With so many stories of "exvangelicals" and why they left the faith, and celebrity Christians "deconstructing" their faith, including some formerly strong voices for Christianity and the Church, it's important to note that it's not just Christians walking away from their faiths. Last week, the Atheists in Kenya Society issued a regretful announcement that the secretary of their organization, Seth Mahiga, had resigned because "he has found Jesus Christ and...
Dec 28, 2021•1 min
In 416 BC, during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, Athens decided to attack the neutral island of Melos. When the Melians protested they had done Athens no wrong, the Athenians replied, "The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must." The Melians were starved into surrender, their men were killed, and their women and children were sold into slavery. None of this was unusual in the ancient world. The strong, it was supposed, had every right to dominate the weak. Crue...
Dec 28, 2021•6 min
Normally when an Olympian wins the gold, we see happy tears. We see families back home cheering. We see the pride in carrying the national flag around the field. It's such a pure moment. It never gets old. So, when the Fiji men's rugby team recently won the gold over New Zealand, there was something about this that was even more pure and enjoyable. This was the second Olympic gold for the Fijians. They got on their knees, they prayed to God in thanksgiving, and sang a hymn of praise . It was so ...
Dec 27, 2021•1 min
The following post is a highlight from 2021 -- In the introduction to his book The Content Trap , author Bharat Anand asks readers to consider what caused The Yellowstone Fires of 1988 , which lasted for months and destroyed over 1.3 million acres of the world's oldest, and one of our nation's most treasured, national parks. The traditional story places the blame on a worker who dropped a single, still-lit cigarette. Anand disagrees. The cigarette certainly triggered this fire, but a million cig...
Dec 27, 2021•5 min
John and Maria revisit a recent BreakPoint commentary that highlighted the theology in Christmas Carols. John highlights how many carols highlight the Incarnation as an act of war against evil, discussing how this imagery has fallen out of favor in pop-Christianity but holds significance inside church history and tradition. Maria shares the recent story of the escape by a number of missionaries in Haiti from their captors. She tells how this is a miracle, recounting a few details surrounding the...
Dec 24, 2021•50 min
