John and Maria start BreakPoint This Week by discussing a recent commentary related to forgiveness. Maria notes a special point in the article where John states that we are likely choosing to forget about forgiveness, creating a unique honor-shame culture. Then John and Maria visit briefly on a story they covered last week where the IRS sent a letter to a Christian group stating they didn't qualify for tax exempt status. Due to public backlash, the IRS granted the Christian group tax exempt stat...
Jul 09, 2021•59 min
John and Maria start BreakPoint This Week by discussing a recent commentary related to forgiveness. Maria notes a special point in the article where John states that we are likely choosing to forget about forgiveness, creating a unique honor-shame culture. Then John and Maria visit briefly on a story they covered last week where the IRS sent a letter to a Christian group stating they didn't qualify for tax exempt status. Due to public backlash, the IRS granted the Christian group tax exempt stat...
Jul 09, 2021•59 min
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , nearly 19 percent more Americans died in 2020 than in 2019. Adjusted for population age, that's the largest one-year increase in mortality since the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918. The CDC attributes approximately 375,000 American deaths in 2020 to COVID-19, but making that stat the headline of this story would be burying the lede. Unlike the Spanish flu, the COVID pandemic left young adults largely unscathed. Only about 3.5% of the pan...
Jul 09, 2021•6 min
In various forms and in various expressions, the perpetual myth repeated in each chapter of the sexual revolution (as each new extreme becomes a norm in our culture) is this phrase: The kids will be fine . It all started with no-fault divorce. That first version of the kids will be fine went something like this: "Kids will be better off with happy parents that aren't married than with unhappy parents that stay married." Last week, my friend Katie Faust tweeted the following: "The safest place st...
Jul 08, 2021•5 min
John and Shane discuss important questions this week, ranging from how to discipline a follower of Christ while being evangelistic to teaching worldview to students who are Biblically Illiterate. John and Shane also give guidance to how schools can approach Critical Race Theory in secondary schools, is culture missing the point in celebrating someone exercising freedom instead of virtue, and how a Christian can affirm the image of God in a friend without affirming their friend's behavior.
Jul 07, 2021•1 hr
On Friday, in an act of what can only be described as dereliction, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear the case of Arlene's Flowers, Inc vs. Washington . In refusing to hear this case, the Court has failed to bring clarity to a situation it ultimately created. Despite the utopian thinking of Justice Anthony Kennedy in the Obergefell vs. Hodges decision , legalizing same-sex marriage has led to a crisis of religious liberty. Barronelle Stutzman is the definitive answer to the q...
Jul 07, 2021•5 min
The term cancel culture evokes images of screaming undergrads, D-platform speakers, fired employees, and demanding protesters. However, the cancel culture ethic doesn't simply exist "out there" in the larger culture; it has infiltrated our homes. Our dinner tables have become personal social media platforms. Increasingly, this doesn't merely take the form of political ideology, it is quite simply a fading ability to forgive . In a recent essay at Comment magazine, Pastor Timothy Keller articulat...
Jul 06, 2021•6 min
Freedom is not just a governmental endeavor; it is an image-of-God reality. One that we citizens have a responsibility to defend, retain, to advance, and support. Not only here in America but also around the world. Ambassador Sam Brownback is doing incredible work in this field. John discusses the issue of freedom worldwide, how governments around the world need to be called to account and held accountable for their work in recognizing and protecting Freedom. Samuel Brownback is an attorney, pol...
Jul 05, 2021•27 min
The greatest enemy of freedom can be freedom . One of the most important observations that I gleaned from one of Os Guinness's books is that celebrating the acquisition of liberty and freedom (what we celebrate this weekend is our acquisition of freedom) is typical in the world's history. But what is really unusual is sustaining freedom. When freedom becomes not a freedom for good, truth, or justice but a freedom from — freedom from restraint, from consequences, from any rules or responsibilitie...
Jul 05, 2021•5 min
John and Maria start by making sense of the tragedy in Miami. With the Champlain Towers collapse there are many questions. John discusses a few ways to consider tragedies, and how Christians can respond with a worldview large enough to hold the brokenness we're experiencing. Maria then shares a commentary she wrote related to Gwen Berry, an athlete who recently turned her back to the American flag while standing on the podium during Olympic trials. John highlighted the importance of protecting l...
Jul 02, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Chuck Colson would often say that the greatest gift Christianity gave the world other than the message of salvation is the idea of the image of God. It is important for Christians to know and understand the image of God for three distinct reasons. First, the image of God has been among the most consequential ideas in all of human history. Even atheists like Friedrich Nietzsche or the modern-day philosopher Luc Ferry, have acknowledged that our ideas about human dignity, human equality and human ...
Jul 02, 2021•7 min
From its earliest days, wherever Christianity has spread, hospitals have followed, particularly for the world's poor. Although most Christians who served the poor by healing the sick remain largely unknown, José Gregorio Hernández is an exception. He is a major figure in the history of Venezuela and is remembered today, both for his medical skills and his generosity to the poor. Yet, for all his ability and eventual fame, he almost missed out on serving God in this way, ironically because he wan...
Jul 01, 2021•5 min
Michael Craven joins John on Ask the Colson Center to discuss a myriad of topics. They discuss how a professional can retain credibility in their field in the face of woke courts and cancel culture. They also answer a question on how the church can care for the culture without swinging the pendulum into Critical Race Theory. Michael goes on to ask John if Christians should retire and if Christians should preach the simplicity of the Gospel to the culture rather than engage in culture wars....
Jun 30, 2021•29 min
Like his democratic predecessor, President Biden has prioritized LGBTQ rights in both the domestic and foreign policies of the United States. The administration's priorities were made most obvious in early June when an enormous rainbow flag was hung outside the U.S. embassy to the Vatican . While "trolling" the Roman Catholic Church isn't usually a diplomatic priority, officials made their intentions clear by tweeting: "The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See celebrates #PrideMonth with the Pride flag ...
Jun 30, 2021•7 min
China's next great leap forward could be forced procreation, and it's animated by the same ideas that energize so much of the West. In 1957, Chinese dictator Mao Zedong told a Yugoslav official that his nation did not fear a nuclear attack : "What if they killed 300 million of us?" he said. "We would still have many people left." Recently, China announced a revision to its infamous one-child policy, instituted by Mao's successor. Married couples can now apply to have up to three children, an inc...
Jun 29, 2021•5 min
Chuck Colson often observed that politics is downstream from the larger culture. In other words, the way culture thinks eventually leads to the political outcomes that we see and trouble us today. So many of the recent policy decisions of the Biden administration reflect that in real time. Recently at Wilberforce Weekend, my friend Professor Carter Snead gave special insight into how culture is impacting law. Specifically when it comes to the laws that govern reproductive behavior in American cu...
Jun 28, 2021•5 min
John and Maria discuss the Christian worldview response to the receding coral reefs around the world. They provide a strong framework for the Christian worldview when looking at issues dealing with the environment. They also talk about a new Netflix TV show called Sexy Beasts. After explaining the masked dating show, John provides context for the problems inside the show related to progress in the sexual revolution. Maria also shares the story of a Colson Fellow who stood in a pro-choice rally t...
Jun 26, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Now, apartment therapy probably isn't the first place you look to find insight into God's design and His intent for Creation. But just a few weeks ago, a writer described going through her late grandmother's possessions and was surprised by how many candleholders her grandmother had owned. These were no ordinary candle holders. They were for Shabbat, Hebrew for "Sabbath." On a Friday afternoon, after looking at her grandmother's menorah and other Jewish art, the writer lit the candles, and for t...
Jun 25, 2021•5 min
The integrity of a Christian worldview becomes most evident whenever the timeless truths of Scripture collide and intersect with the issues of our contemporary moment. That happened for one of our recently commissioned Colson Fellows named Kirsten. Kirsten's story about speaking up at a pro-choice rally is the stuff of movies. It's also the stuff of ordinary Christians everywhere who choose to join in God's story, in the time and place where He has put them. The following is a transcript of Kirs...
Jun 24, 2021•6 min
John and Shane discuss two significant questions dealing with mankind discerning their role as subduing the earth and making it flourish. They first field a question related to contraception, discussing the impact of mankind remaking the purpose and design of sex. Then, John is asked to provide some resources on parenting and the role of moms and dads. John and Shane give a plethora of resources to equip the listener to understand the power and role of moms and dads instead of simply parents. --...
Jun 23, 2021•43 min
In the 1987 flick starring Tom Selleck and a few other guys called Three Men and a Baby , a trio of bachelors share a New York apartment and they take turns bringing home one-night stands. All seems to be going according to this hedonistic plan until one of their one-night stands leaves a baby at their doorstep. Jack is the father, but he's out of town and hilarity ensues as his two roommates rearrange their lives to care for this little baby named Mary after bumbling their way through bottles a...
Jun 23, 2021•5 min
Imagine a software engineering class that doesn't make students learn computer code. That should give you some idea how ridiculous it is that Princeton University is no longer requiring classics majors to learn Greek or Latin. Not zoology students or English majors, but classics students. You know, the folks who study Greek and Latin culture. Why this departure from centuries of academic standards? The head of undergraduate studies in Princeton's classics department explains that this change wil...
Jun 22, 2021•5 min
On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a much-anticipated ruling in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia . In 2018, the city of Philadelphia barred Catholic Social Services (CSS) from placing foster children, as it had been doing for over 200 years , unless it changed its policy on same-sex households. Rather than compromise Church teaching, CSS challenged the city's action in court. They lost at the Third Circuit, but in a 9-0 decision, CSS and religious freedom won the day at the Supreme Court. The w...
Jun 21, 2021•6 min
John and Maria explain the significance of to important court cases that were decided this week. One case involving Jack Phillips challenges religious freedom in the public life. The other is a protection of the freedom of non-profit organizations to conduct businesses guided by religious convictions. Maria introduced a segment on Juneteenth, a recently minted holiday by the Biden administration that helps us recognize the challenges Americans faced at the hands of slavery. John then gives comme...
Jun 18, 2021•1 hr 9 min
Since I wasn't even alive in 1968, I'll defer to Boomers and historians to tell us whether the country was more divided back then or today. In my lifetime, however, I can confidently say that the racial, political, economic, and ideological polarization has never been worse, nor has the violence and outrage. No matter the issue, from public policy to personal morality to global health, people seem to immediately run to their ideological and political corners: No discussion, little charity, less ...
Jun 18, 2021•5 min
In a rather stunning op-ed at CNN a couple of weeks ago, a medical doctor offered an answer to one of the great worldview questions: "What is the highest good?" Bodily autonomy, wrote Dr. Alexis Drutchas, is the highest human right, and should trump all other considerations in medical decision making: "Adults with capacity should hold the ultimate authority over their own bodies and the medical decisions for their minor children." The obvious context of this op-ed, which should be especially obv...
Jun 17, 2021•6 min
John welcomes Michael Craven, Director of the Colson Fellows program, to facilitate the BreakPoint Q&A this week. John answers questions ranging from what parents should prioritize in fostering faith to how people who weren't mentors can mentor others. John also fields a question on a recent BreakPoint. A listener writes in to ask if being anti-surrogacy is like being anti-life.
Jun 17, 2021•48 min
Christianity has always been concerned about body and spirit, mind and matter, the spiritual and the physical. This was why wherever Christianity spread, believers established hospitals and schools alongside churches. In China, for example, Western medicine was an essential ingredient of the growth of Christianity. Many important Chinese Christians were first introduced to Christianity and Western learning via medicine. Shi Meiyu was born in Jiujiang, China. Her father was a Methodist pastor, an...
Jun 16, 2021•4 min
There are certain moments in history, such as the end of the Roman Empire or the Enlightenment, when it's obvious how much the cultural ground has shifted. Cultural norms that worked before to foster social cohesion no longer suffice. Certain ideas and shared ways of thinking can no longer be taken for granted. At these "hinge points," Christians are forced to remember who we are and to rethink our place in the overarching story of redemption. This is one of those hinge points. The cultural grou...
Jun 15, 2021•5 min
The scope and scale of the suicide epidemic is unbelievably scary, especially to parents. There's a growing number of suicide, suicidal thoughts, what's called deaths from despair that inflicts our culture. All we seem to be doing is treating the symptoms. Our culture says that the problem is lack of support; so that our government, schools, and even some churches, the social institutions that are supposed to weave the strong fabric of our communities are throwing caution to the wind to do anyth...
Jun 14, 2021•28 min
