Groundbreaking medical technologies such as immunotherapy and targeted chemotherapy have changed the game when it comes to fighting cancers, with new treatments seemingly on the horizon. Praise God. At the same time, one non-medical factor has long been known to significantly improve the odds of someone surviving cancer. According to one 2013 study of over 700,000 cancer patients, those who were married were less likely to die of cancer than those who were not. In fact, at least according to thi...
Jul 26, 2023•1 min
In his new book, 32 Christians Who Changed Their World, Colson Center Senior Fellow Dr. Glenn Sunshine tells the stories of faithful men and women, most of whom are unknown today, whose lives were used by God in extraordinary ways. To receive a copy of 32 Christians Who Changed Their World, give a gift of any amount this month to the Colson Center (please visit colsoncenter.org/July) . _______ Ho Feng Shan was born in Yiyang, Hunan province, in China. Orphaned at age seven, he was taken in and e...
Jul 26, 2023•6 min
It's not unusual for family photos to include the family dog, but as families in the photo have become less traditional, the dog has taken on new significance. A recent poll by Pew Research found that about half of U.S. pet owners consider their pets "as much a part of their family as a human member." Those living with a partner but not married were the most likely to say this, at 65%, followed by those never married, non-parents, and then those divorced or separated. Those married and those wit...
Jul 25, 2023•1 min
In the parable of the sower, Jesus illustrated how the seed of God's Word flourishes or perishes depending on the kind of ground it falls on. Some seeds fell on a path, and birds ate them. Some fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the seedlings. "Other seeds," said Jesus, "fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away." That r...
Jul 25, 2023•6 min
Recent research from political scientist Ryan Burge indicates that, at least in the United States, the Christian faith is found primarily among the educated and wealthy. Americans most likely to regularly attend church hold graduate degrees and have an average annual income of $60,000-$100,000. Does this mean Christianity is a "luxury religion?" Not exactly. According to marriage experts John Van Epp and J.P. DeGance, "one's economic future is greatly impacted by the relationship choices one mak...
Jul 24, 2023•1 min
In John 16:33, Jesus said that "[i]n the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." In the 20 centuries since our Lord spoke these haunting yet hopeful words, they've proven true. In fact, in terms of absolute numbers, we live in the worst period of persecution against Christians in history. More Christians died for their faith in the 20th century than the previous 19 combined , and the 21st century is shaping up to be at least as deadly, but likely more. Accord...
Jul 24, 2023•6 min
John and Maria discuss the importance of biblical literacy as well as how a worldview of the human condition can impact the function of government. — Recommendations — Free Livestream: Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview Meghan Daum & Sarah Haider on Child Activists Section 1 - Tucker Carlson and Biblical Literacy Tucker Carlson on spiritual warfare Section 2 - Bureaucracy and Human Nature For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org...
Jul 22, 2023•1 hr 4 min
If you haven't heard, the state of Texas is under invasion from small creatures who are, according to breathless media reports, popping up everywhere. "Nearly 10,000 more babies born in nine months under Texas' restrictive abortion law," read The Texas Tribune . Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School arrived at the number by comparing Texas births after Senate Bill 8 took effect, which prohibits abortion after conception, to the number of births in the same period the year before. One of ...
Jul 21, 2023•1 min
A few months ago, kidney specialist Dr. Stanley Goldfarb was fired from UpToDate, a digital research tool for physicians. Last year, the president of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where Dr. Goldfarb served as an associate dean, wrote a public letter accusing him of racism while students and colleagues circulated a petition calling for his title as professor emeritus to be stripped. Dr. Goldfarb's purported crimes had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do ...
Jul 21, 2023•6 min
Rather than celebrating their differences and strengths, women are increasingly being told that the only way to true equality and freedom is by rejecting who they are, especially their God-given capacity for procreation. This message is clearly reaching teenage girls, who today make up the majority of those identifying as transgender or non-binary. In recent years, a group of "reactionary feminists" have pushed back on the attempts to erase women. Unlike their progressive counterparts, reactiona...
Jul 20, 2023•1 min
Please join us for the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview on Thursday, July 27. Sign up to attend live or to join the livestream at ColsonCenter.org/GreatLakes . _____ When I was growing up, Christians had to wrestle with whether or not our convictions could withstand the threat of ridicule. We'd be asked, "Are you willing to be mocked and made fun of by a professor who doesn't believe in God or a friend trying to tempt you into doing something you know is wrong?" About the worst thing...
Jul 20, 2023•5 min
On this day, in the year 64, the Great Fire of Rome broke out, for which Emperor Nero would blame a new religious sect, the Christians. The first Epistle of the Apostle Peter was written to those who experienced the persecution unleashed by Nero. I Peter is best summarized as "the Book of Hope," but the hope he described is counter cultural. It does not anticipate a "good outcome," at least not in the here and now. Instead, Peter understands true hope as rooted in the certainty of something that...
Jul 19, 2023•1 min
Throughout history, across diverse societies, nations, and eras, Christians who carried the Gospel into pagan cultures defended and protected abandoned and abused children. In his new book, 32 Christians Who Changed Their World, Senior Colson Fellow Dr. Glenn Sunshine tells the stories of Christian heroes, most of whom are unknown today, whose courage and faithfulness changed the way children are seen and treated. You can receive a copy of 32 Christians Who Changed Their World with a gift of any...
Jul 19, 2023•4 min
According to NBC , Jesus has returned in an online incarnation. Yes, you too can log on and talk to a cyber savior, a disembodied vision of a white man who offers counsel on things ranging from the serious to the silly. Setting aside how this likely violates the Second Commandment , this stunt typifies a central problem with contemporary religious thinking: recreating Jesus in our image. A programmed Christ built of nothing but the disparate thoughts of what we'd like him to be is literally an i...
Jul 18, 2023•1 min
Register to attend live or join the livestream for the Great Lakes Symposium at colsoncenter.org/greatlakes . _______ In response to a Breakpoint commentary about the murders in Nashville in March, the Colson Center was identified by a critic as being "proudly, if quietly, Dominionist. " To be clear, we aren't , but he was particularly troubled by how the commentary described Christians as victims which, of course, they were. In that commentary, we wondered aloud whether in fact we have entered ...
Jul 18, 2023•6 min
Recently in The New York Times , Catherine Pearson noted how the growing cultural stigma against boredom burdens parents. Research shows that parents across cultural and economic lines believe it's their job to fend off their kids' boredom with activities. Doing so implicitly teaches kids that boredom is bad for them, and entertainment a right. This plays well in an age that treats any discomfort as dangerous, and that having fun, or at least avoiding suffering, is the meaning of life. This unde...
Jul 17, 2023•1 min
In 303 Creative vs. Elenis, the Supreme Court upheld Lorie Smith's free speech rights, deciding that the state of Colorado could not force her to produce websites for so-called same-sex weddings. Ever since, media pundits and public officials have distorted the ruling, claiming that it will allow people to refuse service to LGBT individuals. However, even the state of Colorado acknowledged that Smith serves all people with her business, but she would not provide services that meant expressing a ...
Jul 17, 2023•6 min
A lot of disinformation has been spread about the recent Supreme Court ruling in the case defending a Colorado graphic designer's free speech rights. John and Maria discuss some new thoughts surrounding the ethics of medicine. — Recommendations — Further Up & Further In The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession by Farr Curlin and Christopher Tollefsen Section 1 - Correcting Misinformation on 303 Creative v. Elenis "The Smearing of Lorie Smith" The Wall Street Journal "Correcting...
Jul 14, 2023•55 min
The cases involving affirmative action and Lorie Smith and 303 Creative have received the most attention from the recent Supreme Court term, but another ruling has important implications for religious liberty. The Court ruled that U.S. Post Office employee Gerald Groff could not be forced to work on Sundays. Thanks are due to Groff and his lawyers at The First Liberty Institute . In the past, employers could get away with merely offering lip service to religious exemptions for workers because an...
Jul 14, 2023•1 min
A recent CBS News article claims, in its very title in fact, to separate "medical facts from misinformation" around so-called "gender-affirming care." However, rather than separate the facts from the falsehoods, the article peddles lies and half-truths, assuming the conclusions it claims to prove in a thinly veiled piece of progressive propaganda. And that's about the nicest thing that can be said about it. The first dead giveaway about the piece is how it smuggles transgender ideology into its ...
Jul 14, 2023•5 min
This week in 1924, Eric Liddell (1902-1945) won an Olympic gold medal in the 400-meter race. As a devout Christian, Liddell decided to never race on Sundays. Imagine his dismay when he realized that his best race—the 100-meter—was scheduled for a Sunday. Liddell withdrew, to the derision of many Britons who thought he was being disloyal to his nation. He quickly pivoted for the 200-meter and 400-meter races, taking third in the 200-meter and claiming the gold in the 400-meter. Liddell was the so...
Jul 13, 2023•1 min
Recently, in the wake of the Supreme Court's important decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis, a lie has been propagated about the case, a lie that purportedly implicates plaintiff Lorie Smith and the Alliance Defending Freedom. Thanks to the willingness of media outlets, public officials, and pundits to repeat these accusations and misrepresent what they mean, this lie has the potential to poison the cultural memory about this critically important case. The accusation is that 303 Creative, the grap...
Jul 13, 2023•6 min
It is typically entertaining when two popular intellectuals get into a public spat. Recently, Canadian psychologist and YouTube star Jordan Peterson called out the famous British biologist Richard Dawkins with an "I told you so!" After Dawkins complained on Twitter about New Zealand elevating traditional Maori stories to the same level as Western science, Peterson retorted, "Welcome to the world of post-humanism, sir. A world which you sadly helped birth. … [I]t wouldn't surprise me at all if th...
Jul 12, 2023•1 min
Jessica Bates lost her husband a few years ago in a car wreck. This would be devastating for anyone, but through her grief over her loss, she's decided to open her heart and home to others. As she lacks a husband, she's now reaching out to those who have no parents, trying to adopt children in her home state of Oregon. Mind you, this is in addition to the five children left fatherless by her husband's death. It takes a special love to take in those who need a home. It takes a strong love and a s...
Jul 12, 2023•4 min
One of the most important and effective pro-life leaders is Kristan Hawkins, founder and president of Students for Life of America. Kristan became a pro-life advocate in her early teens when she began serving at a pregnancy care center. Her goal is to make abortion "unthinkable and unavailable across the US." For years she rallied and mobilized young Americans by calling them the "post- Roe generation." Though the Dobbs decision last June in a sense fulfilled that rallying cry, the real vision o...
Jul 11, 2023•1 min
Several years ago, Max McLean and the Fellowship for Performing Arts staged The Most Reluctant Convert , a play about the life of C.S. Lewis up to his conversion. During the Covid shutdowns, that production was made into a film that received strong reviews. Now, McLean and FPA are offering a follow-up stage production dealing with Lewis' life post-conversion. Although Further Up and Further In includes some biographical information, such as the writing of The Problem of Pain and the recording of...
Jul 11, 2023•5 min
Recently, the FDA approved a brain-implanted computer chip, developed by Elon Musk's company Neuralink, for human trials. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org
Jul 10, 2023•1 min
Holocaust-era movie eerily resembles the expansive loosening of euthanasia laws in the name of human dignity. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org
Jul 10, 2023•6 min
John and Maria look at several recent Supreme Court decisions that move the court to the right and what is driving the recent claims that adults have a right to have children? For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org
Jul 07, 2023•1 hr 2 min
While some 74% of Americans believe race and ethnicity should not be considered in college admissions, others are lamenting the Supreme Court decision to end affirmative action as an inevitable catastrophe. In the words of one headline in The Atlantic , " Elite Multiculturalism Is Over ." However, the question so rarely asked is, "Did affirmative action even work in the first place?" Back in 2004, renowned economist Thomas Sowell—a 1958 Harvard grad— set out to answer that question , surveying e...
Jul 07, 2023•1 min
