An early draft of Justice Alito's opinion was leaked from the Supreme Court. That's a big deal. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court confirmed the authenticity of a draft opinion from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito regarding the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health case. Justice Alito's opinion is important and is briefly explained in our Breakpoint podcast by Erin Morrow Hawley. Here's a sample: The opinion sort of has a couple of parts. It looks first at, "is there any historical right to abortion?" I...
May 04, 2022•1 min
On Monday night, an initial draft of the Supreme Court majority opinion on the Dobbs case was leaked to news site Politico. As SCOTUS Blog tweeted: "It's impossible to overstate the earthquake this will cause inside the Court, in terms of the destruction of trust among the Justices and staff." Tuesday morning, Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the authenticity of the draft, and called the leak a "betrayal of confidences of the Court intended to undermine the integrity of our operations." Most...
May 04, 2022•7 min
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court confirmed the authenticity of a draft opinion from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito regarding the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health case. John Stonestreet visits with Erin Morrow Hawley, senior counsel to the appellate team at Alliance Defending Freedom. Erin explains the significance of the leaked draft opinion and helps us understand the circumstances surrounding the court. She also provides important insight on what this means for the pro-life community moving fo...
May 03, 2022•52 min
In March, online magazine Vox ran a series of stories under the title "America's Struggle for Forgiveness." That's not a typical topic for a thoroughly secular outlet like Vox, but, then again, Christians should be talking about forgiveness more than they are too. "The state of modern outrage is a cycle," writes contributor Aja Romano : We wake up mad, we go to bed mad, and in between, the only thing that might change is what's making us angry. The one gesture that could offer substantive change...
May 03, 2022•5 min
The Colson Center is offering a special short course featuring Dr. Carl Trueman and Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. In the BreakPoint Podcast today we are featuring the first session in a four-part series the Colson Center is offering this month. During this month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, you'll receive a wealth of resources that will be explored in a special short-course offering. For more information visit www.colsoncenter.org/april...
May 02, 2022•35 min
This April, scientists confirmed the dimensions of the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet, the single largest comet ever recorded. Its core appears to be about 85 miles across. "It's 100 times bigger than the typical comets we've been studying for all these years," says astronomer David Jewitt: Finding this thing is a reminder of how little we know about the outer solar system. There's a vast quantity of objects out there that we haven't seen, and a huge number of things we haven't even imagined. Awe...
May 02, 2022•1 min
Recently, a colleague noted how a growing number of conservative-minded people he encountered on social media, some of them Christians, were refusing to believe stories about Russian atrocities in Ukraine. Some even reject that the invasion was an unjustified war of aggression by Russia. When he asked the reason for their doubt, it was simply because those stories were reported in the "mainstream media," which has done nothing but lie to us for years. I share suspicion for certain sources. Most ...
May 02, 2022•5 min
John and Maria discuss society's reaction to Elon Musk buying Twitter. Maria questions why many reacted the way they did, and John explains how and why words matter in culture. Then Maria asks John about an upcoming Colson Center event at the Wilberforce Weekend, where John will guide attendees to imagine a post-Roe world. A number of guest speakers will inspire us to consider the individual responsibility, as many states enact "trigger" laws in preparation for a dismantling of Casey and a weake...
Apr 30, 2022•1 hr 10 min
A recent viral video shows thousands of people in Shanghai screaming in unison into the night to protest the Chinese government's brutal "zero-COVID" policy. Entire high-rises of people are confined to their rooms, locked in with green fencing that appeared overnight. Children, including babies, are separated from their parents in massive government quarantine centers, some of which lack basic medical equipment or even beds. Other videos show hundreds of pets being collected and euthanized as su...
Apr 29, 2022•1 min
Many of our favorite stories culminate with a conversion experience. C.S. Lewis' autobiography, Surprised by Joy is like this, with Lewis fighting God every step of the way until he finally recognizes that Christ is the source of true joy. Another example is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol , with Ebenezer Scrooge realizing the error of his ways and becoming a new man. It's a Wonderful Life also features personal redemption, when George Bailey realizes his life has incredible value. In other t...
Apr 29, 2022•4 min
Recently, The New York Times asked six teens to describe what cancel culture "is really like." Their responses show just how normal the term has become. For many, it's "basically a joke," a word thrown around about anything and everything. That's not surprising for a generation so plugged in and coming of age just as the term has reached critical mass. For others, "it's a way to take away someone's power and call [them] out for being problematic in a situation," as one girl put it. But that powe...
Apr 28, 2022•1 min
Is there hope for Hong Kong? That's the question the city's citizens, including nearly 1 million Protestant and Catholic Christians , are being forced to ask daily. Under more than 150 years of British rule, Hong Kong established itself as a bridge from East to West, and an economic powerhouse that protected the basic freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly. In 1997, when the British government relinquished control to Beijing, a 50-year transitional period was established under a principle kn...
Apr 28, 2022•5 min
John and Shane are asked how a student should respond to his college requesting him to identify his preferred pronouns. John explains how using one's name is unique from a person's preferred pronoun. He also shares how choosing a pronoun says something distinct about what male and female are. Along with emphasizing the importance of understanding the issue, John emphasizes the way in which a person engages the issue of pronouns. He encourages the listener to respond with light, not heat. For ano...
Apr 27, 2022•54 min
In one of the most annoying tech moves since Microsoft's "Clippy ," Google Docs now offers unsolicited advice about how to avoid using non-inclusive language . Terms like "landlord" or "motherboard" trigger a pop-up warning that reads "these words may not be inclusive to all readers." The folks at TechRadar were overly generous when they said that this was "a good idea, poorly executed." In reality, it's a bad idea, poorly executed. It's more than annoying for Google to thought police our words ...
Apr 27, 2022•1 min
According to Theodoret of Cyrrhus, on January 1, A.D. 404, an ascetic monk named Telemachus jumped to the floor of the arena during a gladiatorial match, and begged the competitors to stop. The crowd was so angry at the interruption that they stoned him to death. When Christian Emperor Honorius heard about Telemachus' act of bravery, he ordered an end to gladiatorial combat. Telemachus' stand led to martyrdom, but it changed a culture. Throughout history, similar stands made in Jesus' name yield...
Apr 27, 2022•5 min
Big marijuana promised not to market to children. They are. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stonestreet with The Point . Legal recreational marijuana sales officially began this week in New Jersey. That's the same state where, on Christmas Day in 2020, a 3-year-old was admitted to a hospital ICU after he ate a dangerous amount of cannabis edibles. They were in a bag that looked like a package of Nerds candy. According to CNN , knockoff candy bags that actually contain THC edibles are a big probl...
Apr 26, 2022•1 min
Teens are not all right, and there's an underlying cause—the loss of meaning. At a recent gathering, Dr. Ryan M. Burkhart, Associate Dean of the Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at Colorado Christian University, noted that he and other counselors are seeing "treatment-resistant depression and anxiety." These counselors are seeing more young clients but are not seeing typical therapies bring the same results as in the past. One mark of this kind of despair is suicide. I...
Apr 26, 2022•6 min
Maria Baer visits with Ryan Bomberger about his upcoming presentation at the Wilberforce Weekend , May 10-13. Ryan has a rather unique perspective of the innate nature of Purpose. His biological mother was raped yet courageously gave him a chance to live and the beautiful gift of adoption. He was adopted at 6 weeks of age and grew up in a loving, multi-"racial" Christian family of 15. With siblings of varying ethnicities, he grew up with a great appreciation for diversity. Ten of the thirteen ch...
Apr 25, 2022•14 min
In the warp-speed cycle of digital news, caring for our souls requires time in God's Word, time away from our devices, and a reminder that we're called to faithfulness, not success . In his book Every Moment Holy , Douglas Kaine McKelvey offers " A Liturgy For Those Flooded by Too Much Information ." "We are daily aware of more grief, O Lord," he writes, "than we can rightly consider, of more suffering and scandal than we can respond to, of more hostility, hatred, horror, and injustice than we c...
Apr 25, 2022•1 min
America's teens are not all right. As Derek Thomas recently wrote in an Atlantic article entitled "Why American Teens are So Sad," From 2009-2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel "persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness" rose from 26 percent to 44 percent. [This] is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded. [Almost] every measure of mental health is getting worse, for every teenage demographic, and it's happening all across the country. What Thomas i...
Apr 25, 2022•5 min
Maria opens BreakPoint This Week asking John for some insight into who Chuck Colson was. It's been 10 years since Chuck Colson's passing following a final message at a Wilberforce Weekend in 2012. Highlighting attributes he remembers about Chuck, John explains the legacy he gave to the Colson Center. Then, John and Maria explore how Florida is quickly becoming ground zero for the culture wars. John explains that a series of actions from the Florida Legislature and Governor DeSantis are causing s...
Apr 23, 2022•1 hr 6 min
According to The New York Times , some teens are choosing to keep their masks on, even after pandemic mandates end . The reason isn't because they fear Covid. It's due to anxiety. "The mask has offered teens a way to hide some of their anxiety symptoms and emotions from others, and wearing it has also made many of them feel 'normal' and 'like everybody else,'" writes Emily Sohn. The last two plus years have been tough on teenagers. Rates of Anxiety and suicidal thinking are both high post-pandem...
Apr 22, 2022•1 min
This week, the Colson Center has remembered our founder, Chuck Colson, on the 10th anniversary of his death. Though the Colson Center is part of Chuck's outsized legacy, we are not a memorial organization. We've often joked that if the Colson Center were only about playing a tape recorder of Chuck's commentaries, he would come back and haunt us from the grave. Chuck had a vision for the Church: that it would be the Church. And, he had a vision for the Colson Center: that it would serve and equip...
Apr 22, 2022•5 min
Christian legal experts are bracing for the Biden administration to issue a reversal of a 2019 "conscience rule," which protected faith-based groups from being forced to violate their beliefs. To quote one Christian attorney, reversing the protection would create " an existential threat to religious-based employers, " who would be forced to provide services, such as abortifacients or gender assignment surgery, or face fines, lawsuits and legal challenges that would drive them out of business. If...
Apr 21, 2022•1 min
Ten years ago today, Chuck Colson met Jesus Christ face-to-face in eternity. As many would note later, Chuck Colson died in a way fitting for a marine, with "his boots on." I was sitting on the stage behind Chuck as he delivered what would be his final speech. At the 2012 Wilberforce Weekend, Chuck collapsed on stage. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital where, on April 21, he died. His final words may have been delivered with less energy than some of us were used to hearing from Chuck, but...
Apr 21, 2022•6 min
John and Shane reflect on who Chuck Colson was and the legacy he left in the Colson Center. A listener writes in asking for some context to the organization, noting that this is the 10th anniversary of Chuck's passing. John and Shane then provide some answers to how a public school parent can work to impact their community. A single-parent writes in asking how a parent can guide a student in the public arena noting the challenges in curriculum and ideology taught in public schools that oppose a ...
Apr 20, 2022•47 min
As pressure continues to mount on institutions to accommodate the sexual revolution, it's no longer possible to avoid the issues or craft a "third way." Yet, colleges keep trying. Recently, Calvin University spun off a department to accommodate a lesbian staffer who wished to marry her same-sex partner, and the assistant professor who presided over the ceremony. The staffer quit after Calvin asked her to keep her "marriage" quiet. Writing at WORLD Opinions , Bart Gingerich points out that attemp...
Apr 20, 2022•1 min
Ten years ago this week, Chuck Colson went to be with the Lord. After his time in the White House and then in prison and then in leading the largest ministry to prisoners and their families in the world, the great passion of the last few years of Chuck's life was advancing a Christian worldview. He worked and prayed so that, as he often put it, the Church would be the church. One of the first projects after I joined the Colson Center team was a curriculum project called Doing the Right Thing . T...
Apr 20, 2022•5 min
One company is proposing an innovative digital solution for loneliness. "Replika" is an AI chat-bot created "for anyone who wants a friend with no judgment, drama, or social anxiety involved." The company makes audacious claims. "Feeling down, anxious, having trouble getting to sleep, or managing negative emotions?" the website asks. "Replika can help." Presumably, this is by filling a relational void: a virtual "friend," "mentor," "boyfriend," or "girlfriend" … whatever the user wants. If you t...
Apr 19, 2022•1 min
Evidence is mounting of possible war crimes by Russia and, on a vastly smaller scale , by Ukraine . We can be sure, given that every act of warring nations is documented on social media today, that the truth will come out. But where did the idea come from that some ways of fighting wars crossed some sort of civilized line? Who decided where that line should be drawn? Where did the very notion of "war crimes" come from? Union Major General Sherman, the general behind the infamous Sherman's March ...
Apr 19, 2022•5 min
