You're listening to Breakpoint This Week, where we're talking about the top stories of the week from a Christian perspective. Today, we're going to talk about the anti-Semitic terror attack in Colorado. We're also gonna talk about the Coulson's International Conference, our impressions, and how great it was to meet so many of you. We have a lot to get to today. We're so glad you're with us.
Stick around. Welcome to Breakpoint This Week. From the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer, alongside John Stone Street. Coming off yet another Colson Center National Conference in Louisville last weekend and John, I've been coming to these now for five years. I can't remember.
And they're always exceptional, but this one I think was my favorite one so far. It was such a special weekend. We want to talk about it, kind of recap it a little bit, share our impressions. But we're going to do that in the second segment. We're going to kind of switch things around.
Usually, the past couple of weeks, we've been hitting some major news stories in this first segment. We're going to do that kind of one by one in the next segment and talk about the conference, but we wanted to start the show. and talk about what happened in Boulder.
So if just a few days ago, last Sunday, There is a group that meets every Sunday in Boulder and in cities across the country that. March is almost too strong of a word. They gather and they hold signs and they usually walk down a route, and this is in support of the hostages that are still being held by Hamas. And this past Sunday, a man, an Egyptian national, threw two Molotov cocktails at this group and injured more than a dozen people. Thankfully, I don't believe anybody has died.
But this was a man from Egypt. Like I said, he'd been in the country a few years. His tourist visa had expired and he'd overstayed it. I was just reading today he'd attempted to buy handguns a few times and had not been allowed because of his immigration status. He's been arrested and he said to the police, according to multiple news reports, he wanted to kill Zionists.
So this was about killing Jews. Again, this was an Egyptian national, a Muslim man. His family has been arrested by ICE. That case is on hold for now. There's a lot of moving parts to this, but a really, really horrific attack.
Yeah, you know, it's going to be tempting for. Listeners to think this program has turned into a whole show about Colorado, but that's not really the intention. There is something about acts of mass terror kind of disproportionately happening in our state. That's something that I think has to do with some of the other topics that we have discussed in terms of meaninglessness and and other things. But this is very clearly related To the issue with Israel and Gaza.
And it's troubling on a number of levels. First, there are clear signs that anti-Semitic violence is growing and You know, if you talk about something that really had nothing essential to do. With The level of response of Israel against Hamas. This is a group that didn't. They they they they were peace walking, they were doing so for those who were taken as as as hostages, of course many of them being women and children.
uh who are unconnected uh to any sort of military outfits or decisions there. It's just kind of hard to get around. But, you know, keep this in mind that this was done. directly in the wake of The shooting of two uh folks who worked at the Israeli embassy on the street in Washington, D. C.
And something that Most media outlets just largely ignored, which was a Michigan man released from prison, Muslim. who drove to an Israeli daycare, a Jewish daycare, With the intent of shooting a lot of kids. And praise God, that whole thing was. was foiled. The other reason that we should be alarmed is is just how everyone is talking about it.
Here in this same city, this man was from Colorado Springs. His daughter graduated from a local school I'm somewhat familiar with. She was named Best and Brightest in Colorado Springs, had a remarkable academic. And public service resume. He said he wanted to die in this attack, but he.
had planned to wait until his daughter graduated. Very level-headed, clear. He explained to the authorities, having not expected to survive exactly what he did, why he did it. how long he had been planning and so on. I want to contrast that with what happened in the same city.
just uh a couple years ago. When a young man who had had multiple run-ins with the law. Because of domestic violence, who had signs of trauma and mental illness. who had identified as non-binary and had um used uh they them pronouns. I walked into Club Q.
and a a LGBT night Q, LGBTQ nightclub here in Colorado Springs. Killed five, wounded I think twenty-five. Horrific, horrific act of violence. It wasn't twenty four hours. before multiple people on social media and then multiple major n news media outlets.
Washington Post, USA Today. New York Times had articles. than implied or directly insinuated. that focus on the family. was responsible for this act of violence.
Now, Focus on the Family has never called for violence one day in its entire existence as an organization. including not against that particular community. They had nothing to do with this whatsoever. But they were blamed for this. And the reasoning was stochastic terror.
this idea that if you You can say things and write things that contribute to an environment or a culture in which you make violence more necessary. just weeks after the attack. There was dandalism down on the campus of focus on the family. Which said the same thing: their blood is on your hands. Basically, the same thing that all these articles said.
Have you seen one reference? Too stochastic. terror. As being a condition or a reason or a cause. For this man, this Colorado Springs man living here illegally.
who had expressed a desire to kill Jews. Have have you heard any reference to that whatsoever? Nope. All I've seen are weirdly clarifying comments from ABC, I believe, and Reuters saying. He said this was about Zionism and not about Jews.
Okay, thanks. Yeah, and actually even allowing it as a kind of. Not a j not a rationalization and not a justification, but Maybe a rationalization like in other words, this adds clarity. Right. I mean, that's kind of the tone in which it's given, right?
Yeah. Listen, I... am stunned by this. I'm watching it. It's the same town.
It's incredible. You have had, since October of twenty twenty three, A nonstop flow. of people. Calling for violence. Against Jews.
Doing so on college campuses by Columbia Doing so in public protest? In Colorado Springs, there's a far left college called Colorado College.
Now it was pretty sad and pathetic, but you know what happened there? In the spring of 2024, they had one of those encampments. You remember those encampments where the students got together and refused to go to class until the university divested from Israel? And by the way, I'm just going to tell you, there's no way in any way that Colorado College has been vested with Israel.
So I don't know what they were doing.
Well, and my favorite thing about the encampments personally was that they demanded things like pizza and like DoorDash and then said it was a humanitarian violation if it wasn't sent to them. And so on. Colorado College had one of those. I drove by it. It was, again, it was pretty sad.
But even more than that, there were chance. And apparently, one of those chants, which is if you are aware of what river and what sea you're talking about. In all of this, in this conversation, is a call for genocide. There's a couple of them that are. One of them is globalize the intifada.
Well As Charles Cook said on a National Review conversation about this this week, apparently that call now has come true. Because you have Acts of violence happening against you is really all over the West, including the United States. It's been globalized.
Now There have been No references to stochastic violence. You what you have instead. You know, they even blamed Republicans, if you remember, for the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband. I heard that actually just the other day. that that was repeated despite the fact that you were talking about someone who was homeless and mentally ill and and and you know who perpetrated that attack.
Well all all I'm saying here is This is eight. another example of how deeply embedded on some this whole critical theory mood is. And your illustration about the ABC news piece is exactly an example of this where.
Well, he was out to kill Zion. You know what? He set a woman on fire who was a victim of the Holocaust. And how are we rationalizing this? Yeah, we should be really concerned.
We should be in defense of our Jewish neighbors. They are facing. A new level of violence and mistreatment and hatred. And There's an awful lot of people complicit. That just yesterday were super clear about motives and super clear about guilt by association.
And now they're nowhere to be found, or they're saying the exact opposite. And see, that's what critical theory is, right? there is this gut level determination prior to any event of who the good guys are and who the bad guys are based on these categories of oppression and so on.
So If a so-called good guy carries out an act of evil, there has to be some rationalization, some level. If a so-called Bad guy. is the victim of such evil, then in some way they kind of brought it on themselves. And we're hearing that and seeing that up front and personal, it's astonishing to watch. I think it's infected the way news people view the end purpose of their job, just generally, anyway, because you'll see this.
In in stories that Every one of these stories from a national outlet that covered this incident. They will always do this thing where they'll maybe give you a little bit of detail at the beginning, and then they'll do like a zoom out and they'll pretend that they're doing this really great work of contextualizing this for you. Here's the cultural moment in which this took place. The problem is, they have that part written before the story even happens. They have the contextualization written, and it's written completely within the critical theory mood in the majority of the elite news institutions.
And, you know, I This is unrelated, but Jake Tapper is doing, the CNN host is kind of doing the rounds publicizing his book that he just wrote about. The supposed cover-up of Biden's mental decline during his presidency. And he's been asked over and over again: Aren't you in the media though? Like, wasn't it kind of your job to see that and to cover it? And what he'll say every time I've listened to a handful of interviews now.
He'll say, I just knew, I just reported what we knew at the time. Like, I just saw what you were seeing. Which is so fascinating because to me, that's like a fireable offense when you're a reporter. You were just reporting what everybody could already see and find out for themselves. I feel like the point of your job would be to look into it and to ask questions that aren't being answered and to try and find things that aren't obvious to everyone from nine to five every morning.
But I, and I feel that is a really tempting rabbit hole to go down. I know, I know, it really is. There's nothing that can justify that exactly. The connection I see here is that. When news people are covering an incident like this, instead of just telling us what this man said.
And telling us who he was. And I mean, I read five stories before I saw that part about his daughter. That is a terrifying and chilling detail that he chose to wait until, I mean, it just adds to the. the clear-headedness it seems that he had about this attack. But every story I read had this cute little zoom out paragraph about how people have been upset about Israel's response and it's been this many days and there's a distinction between Zionism and Jews and it's.
It is an infection. I don't know how much it contributed to the sky. 'Cause I I wanted to ask you a question about his worldview too. It sounds like you you're a little bit more familiar with the story, just like things he has said. But he according to an eyewitness at the scene, he yelled something like, How many children have you killed?
And this is a line that people throw out about this, that the Jewish, the Israeli army is killing innocent children in Gaza.
Okay, setting aside just the irrationality of obviously trying to kill people in the name of defending people who've been killed, I don't understand that. The Muslim religion outright advocates For killing, I'm thinking of honor killing. minors or children who have violated Sharia law. How do you? It feels like this is a person appealing to Christian and Western ideals.
To make a case for what he was doing, which seemed bizarre if this was a fully. ideologically Muslim motivated event. Does that make sense? Yeah. You know, his concern was not just as far as I can tell, not just the Islamic faith, although the the fact that he was Muslim was down downplayed also in reports and how that might have contributed.
But really there is a deep desire for Israel to not exist. not to stop the war in Gaza, but to not exist. And therefore. That is, I think, you know, in a sense, the motivation. But I wanted to, you know, and beyond that, we'll have to continue to wait to hear.
You know, he was born in Egypt. There was some, he lived in, I think, Kuwait for a long time. uh before coming to the United States. But it's not just the media. I'm not just talking about the media here and being infected by the critical theory mood.
His daughter, who is as far as I can tell, had no knowledge of this, has no guilt of this in her. Interview for the Colorado Springs paper, in which she was named Best and Brightest. She actually praised America. for what it had done for her and to her. But the school that she attended is a charter school in town.
this school had a Arab Muslim Club. that was started by this young girl. This young lady. They were allowed to meet inside. They were allowed to make public announcements.
They could read the Quran inside in the building during school hours and talk about Muslim heritage and Muslim cultural things. I know a group of students there who actually started a Christian club there. They were not allowed to publicly announce it, or barely were allowed to, and they weren't allowed to meet inside because that was a violation during lunch hours.
So even in inclement weather they met outside.
Now How's that consistent? When you have a critical theory mood applied to you know, whether a student can open a club, that's unfair, it's wrong, it should be stopped. But you see, when that same thing starts getting superimposed on rising anti-Semitic violence. See what I mean? The consequences are a lot more serious.
And you start to see like, no, people really think this way.
So uh listen uh That's what a worldview does. It either brings things into focus and allows you to see reality as it is, or actually, as a pair of glasses, like putting on the wrong prescription, it keeps you, prevents you from seeing. reality as it actually is. And to me, this is an incredible example of that upfront. And personal.
And it's, you know, close to home, as we said. My daughter was asking me about something she heard somebody say on the radio this week that was. clearly anti-Christian and just a weird comment. She asked me about it. And I just said, remember the story about the man who was blind and Jesus was going to heal him?
What did he put on his eyes first? And she said, Mud. And I was like, Yep. That's what it's like. People have mud on their eyes.
That was a picture of what it's like to look at the world. That way.
Well, we're going to continue praying for the victims and for the safety of Our Jewish neighbors. A scary time. Let's take a quick break, John. We'll be right back with more breakpoints this week. The church is called to restore what's broken, and the Colson Center equips believers to do just that.
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So, John, impressions of the Coulson Center National Conference. I thought this was a really, really special. conference. I love meeting so many people who listened to Breakpoint this week. Everybody is so kind and encouraging and just Make me feel like a celebrity, which is such a funny experience, but really sweet.
And everybody was so kind to my husband and my daughters. That was really, really fun. Also, congratulations to the graduating class of Colson Fellows, biggest class ever. Which is incredible. Commissioning class.
We don't graduate as a commission. It's different. It's very different. Graduation means you're finished. Commissioning means you're just getting started.
Steve, if I did the program, I would know that. If you ever did it, you would know. That's right. Very good.
Okay. Yeah, to me, this felt sort of like a pep rally. For the church. And I think that's what it was designed for. It was like every person that got up and spoke afterwards, I felt like.
I am so proud that person's on my team and that I'm on their team. Like, I just felt energized. I I you know, I started By saying that I thought this was kind of a more serious topic in conference because it really took more seriously. At least that was the intention, the calling, and I think that we have to this moment as the church. Also, coming out of, I think, various ways.
I know a lot of people make it their business and living, even, to. complain about the church, castigate the church, and that's from people both inside and outside the family. And we didn't want to do that because obviously, as we all know, we'll create the church that our kids and grandkids will complain about. I think it's important, though, to take seriously the ways that, for example, the church has been thought of as non-essential, for example. Either for individual Christians or, you know, gathering has been considered.
to be non-essential in the the depersonalization and disembodiment. I think The silence on one hand and the anger on the other, which I think betrays a lack of confidence. That you see in various corners.
So these were the kinds of things that we were really trying to wrestle with. You know, I think that the most important observations for me. coming out from some of the speakers is you know, you kind of cognitively know the church is God's idea, not ours, not man's. And so But when you hear the promise of Christ explained as well as it was by Pastor Joe Novinson, That is where our confidence rests, not in the fact that we're going to come up with a new strategy or a new missiology or We're going to go back to something that worked in the past, or we're going to, you know, I think in many cases, it's going to look like returning to trade. tried and true things instead of trying to innovate everywhere.
The reality is, the confidence that we have in the church, if we do, has to come from Christ and what he has done. And that we don't forget that, as he said. I think the idea of Christian conviction And how we posture ourselves. In a hostile moment, in a confused moment like ours. Being intuitive.
was something that that Carl Truman brought up.
Something I've been thinking a lot about using different language of maybe plausibility or habituation, cultivation. In fact, that was in a session where we talked about virtues, and virtues are muscle memory sorts of. Moral actions that we make, not necessarily conscious decisions, although it that's part of it. There's just something about becoming a person of courage or becoming a person of charity or becoming a person of long-suffering that comes from going to the gym and. And doing it is as Robbie George said.
years ago on a project with Chuck Colson, if you want to be a virtuous person. You have to habitually do virtuous things over and over and over. And so that to me is really intriguing, both in terms of what do we mean by liturgy and what do we not mean by liturgy. And how do we think about that faithful in our own traditions, but also ultimately to the truth? Those were, I think, two pretty profound observations as we think about who do we need to be?
And that was the theme of the conference, right? Be the church.
So who do we need to be? Yeah. It felt like the group of speakers was really Gosh, I hesitate to say this because I don't want to put too many feathers in your cap. It was just really well curated. it felt like, you know, the that list from Stanley Hauerwass, the quote about the church Christians being the people who Don't kill our children and don't kill our elderly, and that that will be a profound witness to the world.
This felt like a really great, almost expansion of that list. Like, if Christians are the people who. Value beauty. If we die well, if we help other people die well. If we cultivate virtue, if we spend time learning how to know God and why we should know God.
All these like people came at it from such different directions, but in such a great and helpful way. This week, Erin's 95-year-old grandmother has entered hospice. And our girls were asking us last night what that meant. And as you know, we heard from Farr Curlin at the conference about How different it's starting to be to approach dying not in a like, White knuckling, clutching for the, you know, the as long as possible before the moment, or total and utter sedation and comfort, but looking at it as almost a sacramental. Holy time with its own meaning and a time for families to be together and to think about life and what it is and what God has given us and all of that.
It was really sweet to be able to talk to my girls about it last night. Grandma is. In hospice, which means she's going to be with her family and all of those things. She's going to get to, it's. And then I have to tell you, I was...
Incredibly moved by the award that we gave to Ananthi Jebesing, who is a sweet woman. I mean, I got to meet her after that dinner, and I felt like. I'm not gonna forget this moment, getting to meet this woman. Her story was unbelievable. Starting these schools for children in the slums of Delhi.
And she was just so soft-spoken and so humble about it. All of this sounds cliche, but I'm trying, I don't even know how to convey. Like, it just really touched me. That was an incredible moment. I'm so grateful that.
You guys, how did you guys find out about her work? There's a pretty robust nomination process for the Wilberforce Award, and we'll. uh solicit those actually in just the next few weeks for next year But it's amazing the list of folks from past winners to board members to ministry colleagues to friends to partners to national Christian leaders who participate in that nomination process. It's a remarkable list. That's neat.
Yeah, that was incredibly special.
Well, John, as promised, we wanted to talk about a couple of other news stories this segment as well.
So before we move on, this week, a group of congressmen wrote a letter to their colleagues. asking them to pass a new bill. that would reinstate Nigeria as a country of particular concern. on the State Department's list of countries that are Violating religious freedom with deadly consequences. Nigeria was added to the list in 2020, and then, pretty quickly in 2021, taken off the list with little to no explanation.
And officials have been lobbying for its return to the list because once a country is on the list that sets in motion. things like sanctions and other actions that the government can take to protect In this case, Christians from the abject violence against them in Nigeria. um perpetrated largely on them because of their religion. And the Biden administration never added it back to the list.
So there's a group of congressmen that are pushing to get it added back to the list. You and I talk every year about the open doors list of the. The countries in the world where it's most dangerous to be a Christian, and Nigeria continues to climb on that list. It defies belief that it's still not a country of particular concern. Yeah, there's no reason in terms of what the def definition is and what needs to happen there.
I mean, I don't think we should go intervene in every issue across the globe. But right now, you have a. a group of Christians that have been subjected to violence. For well over a decade, from multiple sources, all Islamic pressure.
So you have the resurrection of ISIS there, you have Boko Haram, and you have. the Filani herdsman. And it's all been done with a wink, wink, nod, nod. you know, by the state. In fact, there was a I I thought an interesting article this week that talked about why that Christians are allowed to be persecuted there.
And it has to do with government allowance. And it has for a long time. And when you justify this or excuse it as a tribal conflict, as some people in the West have done because it has to do with Fulani tribesmen or You justify that it is just about a conflict over resources or land or some other framing that you bring to the table that's based on secular categories and not actually what's happening on the ground. But even more than that, the violence now is spreading south into more and more territory where Christians have historically been protected.
So that's happening on the ground there. And you've had an explosion of violence just really in the last couple months. Of course, we always expect, and I just want to say how tragic it is that I just said this. But but I'm going to say it again. We expect every Easter and every Christmas for there to be attack.
an attack on Christians who are attending church. And you know what? It's been about a decade in a row now, year after year after year. where on a Christian holy day, while in church, Militant Islamic fighters have attacked. Christians who are defenseless.
And there's so many examples of it, and the numbers continue to climb.
So, I would ask if this is something that should concern us, because it's our brothers and sisters in Christ. Pick up the phone. Call your senators, your representatives, ask them to get behind this because it really is something that the government can do. The government can't fix this problem. All on its own, but what it can do is bring relief, and relief is desperately needed right now.
Well, John, there's one more news story this week that I want to hit you with. Phil Robertson passed away. He was the patriarch of the Duck Dynasty family, as we know. With an incredible story that was made into a movie called The Blind a couple of years ago. He was kind of a rough and tumble guy.
I have to confess, I'm not a big reality TV person, but he was really, this whole family is extremely beloved. Like, I take that very seriously. And I'm being very cautious not to say anything denigrating reality TV because I can see how, and I have seen over the years how beloved this family is. But everything out all the tributes I've read about Phil this week have just been incredible. What a legacy that he left.
Uh, were you a duck dynasty fan? Do you have a duck collar in your house? I do not, but what it is a remarkable story, and you're right, because it was.
so odd not just because they were so different and that's one of the things that I think attracted people to the show. But it was a different type of reality TV. I mean, you kind of consider what the lineup was: you know, the Kardashians and you. You know, the real housewives, you know, all these kind of celebrities who I saw one piece saying it was that they were such a welcome relief to the Botox-induced. Stupor of you know reality TV, so true, and uh it was really uh interesting.
You know, they got canceled. They also, right, they were kind of written off. And there were attempts to cancel them a number of times, both in terms of wanting them to play down their religious aspect. They closed every episode. with family around the dinner table and praying.
And but also Phil was b bold. He re refused to not say what he believed was true. All this comes from a remarkable conversion. The story has been told many times, rough and tumble biker. Guilty of infidelity and an alcoholic, and Jesus just absolutely transforms his life because somebody had the courage.
To tell them about Jesus. And then he had the courage for the rest of his life to tell an awful lot of people about Jesus. There's just such a strong temptation right now to you know, to make a kind of a joke, it's an obvious joke. It's hopefully a respectful joke. where Scripture says that the feet of those who bring the gospel to the world are beautiful, And you're like, that cannot be true of a guy who spent most of his life tramping around Hunting in the swamp.
I, you know, that's the joke. That's kind of a metaphor. He was a really rough dude, right? He was washed clean. But there's a.
It's beautiful. It's beautiful top to bottom. And, you know, there was another person this week whose death I learned of.
Someone who was very, very encouraging to me in very in different places and different times a decade or so ago. A a wonderful woman from Dallas named Peggy Powell. Ooh. prayed for more people, brought the gospel to kids through Her her obituary that I read this week was really remarkable. you know, teaching flannel graph in the back in the days of flannel graph and The story of her and her husband is that they refused to buy furniture for their own house until they were able to have enough money.
to get a Young Life group. They were big supporters of Young Life, big fans of Young Life. and mobilize the gospel going to an awful lot of teenagers in that area. But even more than that, as God continued to bless them, they continued to bless an awful lot of other ministries and organizations. That's how our paths cross.
But, you know, I was just thinking about Phil Robertson and Peggy. Powell, kind of in the in in the same conversation, just in terms of beauty. That there is a beauty that comes along with the gospel, the beauty of a life change. You know, we're always reminded. about Chuck Coulson's beautiful life change, the beauty of uh Even a toilet school to go to Ananti Jebasingh, the Wilberforce Award winner.
Where children in the slums are introduced to Jesus and to learning and to knowledge and to education and given. Yeah. It is beautiful, and beautiful is the right word for it. And so it's just kind of a funny contrast when you think about a bearded. you know, biker guy who uh who uh shoots a lot of guns and And says what he thinks when he thinks it.
And yeah, it's worth mentioning, I guess. That's so true. Yeah, I love that.
Okay, well let's take a quick break. We'll be right back with more breakpoint this week. Hi, John Stone Street here from the Colson Center. If you've ever taken a close look at a really old church building, most of the time you can find a cornerstone. A lot of times, the cornerstone will bear the names of the founders who built the church, not just to last during their time, but for generations to come.
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John, this week a video was posted that has caused a bit of a stir online, and I think rightfully so. The British theologian N.T. Wright, who I know many of us have valued his writing and thinking for many years. He was interviewed on a podcast and asked about abortion. And gave a strange answer, and that's a soft word given what he said.
He told the story of a family friend that had been exposed to measles, I think he said, when she was pregnant. And that he ha he decided through that situation that You know, if you knew that a very early pregnancy was at high risk of. Deformity. I mean, I even hesitate to spell it all out because to me, it's such a tired argument. But in that case, he believes, you know, as long as it's before viability for some arbitrary reason, then it should be okay.
And he kind of connected it at the beginning of this. To saying, like, the reason Christians have been so anti-abortion is that when it first was legalized in the 70s and then kind of promoted and normalized. It was it became a symbol of the sexual revolution. It was a symbol of sexual freedom and removing the sex act from the marriage covenant. And so understandably, that's why Christians were so against it.
But we haven't really taken the time to revisit and really think about whether we Should be against abortion from the moment of conception. And here's a reason why we shouldn't. He even mentioned bizarrely ectopic pregnancies, talking about why, you know, how sometimes pregnancies can be very dangerous for a mother, which I say that's bizarre because. An ectopic pregnancy cannot survive. And it is immediately life-threatening for the mother.
So, and even in those cases, the doctors do not go into a woman and intentionally kill the pregnancy. They remove it to save the life of the woman, which, of course, we then know ends the life of the baby as well. And that's a really, really hard. Hard and tragic situation, but not at all an elective abortion. I mean, it just seemed really, gosh, I want to use this word respectfully, and I'm choosing it carefully.
it seemed really ignorant, like he's not aware of both the ethical concerns and even like the scientific realities around this topic, which was surprising for somebody of his stature. Yeah, and it, you know, led to a whole lot of questions because he is a beloved and respected Bible scholar and theologian, and rightfully so. I mean, his treatment of the resurrection is magisterial. I mean, it it just really is the A collection of a remarkable case for the that the Son of God died and was raised from the dead. And all that that means in terms of a Christian worldview.
And he's actually written about that as well. And I. There is a reason and a good reason why people love and are helped by him. This was dreadful. This was really a bad answer.
You know, I. commend you for your Your attempt there to kind of go through everything he said, because he did kind of go on a meandering journey in the answer, in which. He resurrected a lot of really Pro-abortion trope. you know, just basically You know, even at one point, I think, talked about how it was hard to say these things because he's a man and not a woman. You know, you just kind of go back and say, and all of this misses the fundamental.
question, a fundamental question, by the way, that I thought Scott Klusendorf clarified pretty well, which is that abortion is the shedding of blood, and God hates that. You know, when you Start there, the fundamental question about what abortion is without it being kind of shaded by cultural assumptions or whatever. you know, then you you know get to a much better place. One of the things that this reminded me of is: you know, kind of if you've been in this issue, and I have, you know, for a long time, many. Of our folks who listen to us have they're they're they're really well schooled, I think, on The argument.
against abortion Uh which can be summarized um you know in um And the basic argument that Taking an innocent life is wrong. Abortion does that, so therefore, abortion is wrong. We feel like we say that over and over and over and over, and maybe it's time to move to something else. But Dr. Wright's answer made clear that either he did not take those arguments seriously.
And just dismisses them, or he's unaware of them, which means we have to continue to go back to them over and over and over. Right. In other words, it's only wrong if life in the womb is not a separate. whole human life that is valuable in and of itself. It's only an invalid argument if it's somehow not wrong to take those lives.
And If those two things are true, then abortion is absolutely morally unjustifiable. And I I just came across something that he talked about. years ago in which somebody who was I think interviewing him mentioned abortion as one of the great moral Debates the moral evils of our age. And he really reacted against that and said, no, it's not. And so.
You know, it it tells me that Here you have a guy that is just wonderful in terms of articulating the implications of the gospel for all of life. But then, when it comes to taking that framework and applying it to the moral challenges of the contemporary moment to which God has called us to. is not always very good on this. There is a real distinction.
Now, I think That also betrays something else, which is in the name of social media, in the name of podcasts like this one, in the name of. 24-hour news cycles that are then delivered to us in bits and pieces. One feels like they have to be an expert on everything. He's clearly not. And I think that that's something that we all have to reckon with because you can go back and say, how many times have we just messed this one up?
Maybe we shouldn't actually speak out on everything. Because it is not always helpful, and we don't always know everything. But you know, here you have a podcast that basically is inviting people to ask anything. And maybe people should be able to ask anything, but that doesn't mean that one should always answer anything. Yeah, we do I think we need to normalize the uh hey, better minds than me should.
Maybe tackle this one for you. It honestly makes me think of something Thaddeus Williams said. at the Coulson Center uh pre-conference. He was talking about, you know, we... Getting our relationship with God.
And knowing who God is, getting that right is a prerequisite for being the church the way that He's asked us to. And so He kind of started his talk by saying, This really begins with knowing what you don't know or knowing that you don't know, right? And that we all need this knowledge. And he shared this throwaway stat that has haunted me since then, which was there was some survey, I think that he had done at Biola or somebody had done at Biola. Where they asked the students, do you think you are an above-average friend?
And they defined it, you know, like, how good of a friend are you basically? And out of some thousands of kids that were surveyed, they all literally said, Yes, I am an above-average kid, which of course, as we know from the definition of words like average, cannot be possible. But His point was that we all are subject to this kind of self-serving bias where we all think we're a little bit smarter or better at things than maybe we are. In the case of, Dr. Wright.
And I'm sure myself. It just brings me back to the Lord's Prayer of like Deliver me from temptation and from evil. Because all all of us are subject to thinking were right. And everybody else is wrong, or thinking that we have something really important to say about just about everything, because even if it's just for the fact that somebody asked us. And I just want to guard against that with my dear life.
Well, I think the next question has to do with, you know, what does this mean in terms of how seriously should people take his work? How seriously should people take his ministry? Does this disqualify what he's done in the past or whatever? And this isn't, by the way, the first controversial thing he said. I think it's interesting, almost always.
the things that seem The strangest are things that are when he's trying to kind of make an argument that has something to do with American politics or American culture.
Now, abortion, of course, is very much an issue. in the UK. But over there, you can actually get arrested for praying outside an abortion clinic. In other words, dissent is not allowed. And I wonder what he would think about that.
Like, in other words, does he really mean that If there are like legitimate cases, then that the actions of the state And suppressing any dissent, is that actually a good thing or not? That just seems, you know, like a bizarre next step. But I also want to say too that We're going to have this problem when we look at almost anyone, when we look at Martin Luther and anti-Semitic comments he made, when we look at well, certainly Martin Luther King Jr. as well, who theologically wasn't always right. Uh certainly, and also, you know, had had a lifestyle that actually it w was not commendable.
You know, Augustine. Said things, Origin, a church fathers. I mean, at this point, of course, they're kind of flirting with ideas that trying to figure out who Jesus is and. and how all that works together within the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Now, I'm not saying that all of those things are considered equal, but I also want to say this, that It is ideas that are right and wrong. People are always both. We're always going to be right on some things and wrong on some other things. And so we have to have the, I think, the discernment capability in order to figure out what is true and stand on what is true and go forward. And you know, we've got similar issues.
Richard Hayes, one of the top New Testament ethicists of our lifetimes, wrote probably the first. the finest articulation of New Testament ethics when it comes to sexuality. Changes his mind, you know, now here at the end of his life and says something completely different and kind of embraces this process theology. In view of God's kind of own moral evolution, or we quoted Stanley Hauerwass at the conference who encouraged us to be the kind of Christians not to kill our kids and kill our elderly. Uh but but there's not a whole lot I I agree with Stanley Hauerwass on theologically um and on a worldview level.
So these things can all be different.
So we have to have that sort of discernment uh in order to uh to make the distinctions that we need to make. All right, John, let's go to some feedback and some questions now. We've had a lot of great questions and comments. Please keep them coming. You can go to breakpoint.org and click on contact us and we will see all of those.
I want to start by Going to a question from someone named BJ. And it is asking why. I'm going to read just a brief part of his question. 'Cause I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I want to get it clear. Correct.
He's asking why the Coulson Center threw its support towards Donald Trump. This person said he was very uncomfortable with that and lost his trust in the Coulson Center. In the second Trump term, he is convinced that Trump's character, chaos, and leadership style are anti-Christian. And he's asking why we as the Colson Center Endorse Trump and why we don't call out that chaos or character defect. Yeah.
Well, I did he used the word endorse? I think that's an important part of the question. I'm not sure that he did. Yes, he did. Why can't he use the word endorse?
Why can you not acknowledge that you were wrong to carte blanche support and endorse him? Oh, okay. That's interesting. No, you know, it's funny because maybe the next question should be the feedback that says, why didn't you endorse Trump and why are you questioning him based on any of the times that we have questioned, for example, his the way He carried out the deportation of the refugee women from, where were they from? We talked about this just the other week.
I'm blanking out on, you know, where they were from and w what's happened to them. Or, you know, calling out, for example, the very first tape that gave him so much trouble in his 16 campaign, the famous inside. addition uh tape uh from the bus um and so on. The Colson Center does not endorse candidates. We never have.
Chuck Colson made sure that that was put into the water from the very beginning. The board holds me to that, and I do not endorse candidates, and I did not endorse this one. Back in 2016, we were asked to Join various campaigns in their faith, you know. advisory committees. And we turned all of them down because of that policy.
Chuck Colson in particular was Very wary. Of political power. And he also thought that we need to be wary of the political illusion, the idea that we should look to. Political leaders or political figures, or even the political process as the best understanding of and solution for whatever problems we face. Hence, the theme of our conference last week: the church being the church.
And so, our approach is to try to call balls and strikes. Maybe we don't do that. perfectly. I'm sure that I don't do that perfectly. That also involves not overreacting to things that are super loud, but not at the end of the day super important.
I've mentioned a couple times I think we're in an age where politics takes way too much air out of the room. that shows us that we're um captive to the political illusion, not only if we look to a political leader for our answers, but if we look at a political leader and blame him for all of our problems. In my view, the kind of leaders we have reflect the kind of people we have. It's downstream, not upstream, from what we're really doing. If you want to talk about lawlessness, if you want to talk about chaos, if you want to talk about Uh bending the rules around a strong personality.
That didn't begin with Trump and it's not going to end with Trump. It predates him by quite a long time.
So now we're looking at individual decisions. And as I said repeatedly leading up to the election, the question we have to ask is. How do we best lessen evil? We engage with the political process as a voter. both on things like ballot initiatives and local races, on uh national races, including the president.
And what is the best way to limit evil? And that requires a level of ranking of moral issues. And I think that there are issues front and center. In our cultural moment, that are more important than others. And that is shapes the way that I think.
It shapes the way that I vote personally. I do think Christians have a responsibility to vote, but that even a vote is not an endorsement.
So. That's the framing. I don't think any of this is new. I think this is kind of the same things that we've said over and over and over. But we have never done a blanket.
or what whatever the word there that was used, endorsement. of Trump, and we will not do that of any presidential candidate.
So I just have one quick follow-up question. Why did you endorse Donald Trump?
Sorry, I couldn't nail myself. We have a second question that I think was a really great one, really thoughtful from someone named Elizabeth. Who wrote in a couple of weeks ago? She says she's a therapist, a licensed therapist. And she's noticed that you and I, so we've talked about Abigail Schreier's book, Bad Therapy, Before.
And but she specifically was asking about you using the term therapeutic, like you know, in terms of the triumph of the therapeutic or therapeutic culture. And she Mentioned that usually when we use that term, we're using it in a negative sense. I think you and I had a conversation a few weeks ago about. The church almost kind of going that direction, like adopting some of the ways of speaking of the therapeutic culture. And I think in her question, she may have been conflating.
Us using that term to describe a worldview. and actual therapy. And so I wanted to give you a chance to clarify what you mean by like the a therapeutic cultural moment. Yeah, well, I think it it has to do with the triumph of the therapeutic. And that of course is the title of a book.
in which how we personally feel Gets elevated as the defining and deciding factor in almost every area of life. And we certainly have seen that, and that's Abigail Schreier's argument. when it comes to the classroom. that the classroom has become less about learning and more about how you feel. We've seen this in education programs.
You and I have talked about this, to get certified as a teacher, including at many Christian colleges. Is to do far more work in how to teach and far less work. And by the way, It's continuing to decline as more and more therapeutic kinds of Pedagogical strategies and classes and so on are added to the program. And far less what to teach, like what is true, what's the facts. But that's across the culture.
This is, in a sense, what Carl Truman is writing about in the rise of expressive individualism. That this is actually measured, I think, by the therapeutic, right? In other words, if the top priority is to be myself and to express myself to the world and not. not physically but express Physically, my emotional or my mental preferences and state, and then my next job is to embrace anybody else's expression.
Well, then, therapeutic becomes a way of measuring that and seeing that. It doesn't mean that someone's going to therapy, and going to therapy is itself bad. the increased normalization of people going to therapy. is actually bad. It has to do with what happens when you're at therapy and what happens when the therapeutic then becomes part of everything else.
And how the therapists are trained and what their uh what their end goal is and all of that. Yeah, it is. And listen, there are wonderful therapists who have rethought all that. And they're like, I know this is what I was taught, but this is actually better. And, you know, I think of, for example, those who are understanding their role as counselors within the larger cultural moment.
Of making people, for example, come face to face with the idea of sin and the fact that their feelings aren't always right, and the fact that there actually needs to be a resilience among young people, not just a constant calling. I mean, and the list goes on and on and on. When a therapeutic culture takes over, then certain values rise to the top, including when you go to therapy. And when you're trying to be a therapist. This isn't Specifically, a unique situation just for those that are in the counseling world.
You know, one of my seminary props, John Woodbridge, the brilliant historian. used to do an exercise because he received a PhD in history at one of the top programs in Europe and in and in France on Enlightenment history. The guy was as smart as it gets, but he realized coming back how secular his education was. And as he came back to faith, he realized: oh, I need to think about not only am I following Jesus, but how do I rethink my training? And so he used to ask a really helpful question: which is: what are the dominant rules?
in your area of study or your area of work. Because every Area of study or work has rules, right? Like, you know, safety first, or, you know, in history, it was you can't look vertically, everything has to be explained by horizontal causes. But then you have to say, wait a minute. What worldview does that?
Rule, reflect. And if I started with this worldview, what would be the rules? For example, if I started within the beginning was the Word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and God is writing the story of history, and at just the right time, in just the right place, He sends His Son. How do I have to rethink the rules of history to do my work as a historian who is a Christian? Everybody has to do that.
I have to do that as a parent. I have to do that as an organizational leader dealing with the IRS and dealing with everything else. You know, we all have to do that. We were just talking about doing that as podcasters. And, you know, the rules of podcasting is you always gotta be saying something about everything.
No, you don't. You don't.
Somebody made up that rule. It's a bad rule. Have a different rule.
So, I think the same thing is true here. But I get the, I don't want to say defensiveness either, I get the concern. Because You know, do you have people right now arguing compellingly? that the way therapy has been done Is bringing more harm than good. And their critiques need to be taken seriously.
They're bringing up some important stuff. It doesn't mean You shouldn't be a counselor. That doesn't even mean we need less counselors. We might even need more. We need to rethink what it means to counsel, what it means to lead people to truth and to wholeness and to reconciliation.
Yeah. And I think she mentioned in her question as well that she worried that we, by talking about it but talking about the therapeutic in a negative way, that we might um push Christian people away from therapy who might really benefit from it. And I appreciate all everything you just said. I don't know that I need to add anything to it. The therapeutic is a value system in the way that we're talking about it.
And a lot of therapy is geared toward that value system, which I think is inverted. And that's how you get a lot of the iatrogenesis, as Abigail Schreier called it. Where which makes sense, you when you um teach people implicitly that the highest their highest goal It is to look inward and to constantly be monitoring their inner experience and to maximize it. That just causes a lot of problems because that's not what we were made for. I have talked about it a million times.
I don't need to get really deep into it. I've just benefited personally so much from therapy, from cognitive behavioral therapy in particular. And there are certain conditions, you know, things like obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is what I've struggled with, or other types of anxiety or panic disorders. Where there's like a pretty straightforward step-by-step therapy where people can find extreme deep relief, like I have found. But that kind of therapy is the rare kind.
Like my first visit with my therapist. She told me, we're not, this is not an ongoing relationship. We're not just gonna come here every week and talk about. your life, which I'm not necessarily saying that's wrong, but I think the therapeutic values that you talked about are what. Tends to dominate a lot of what people expect from therapy and what therapists are offering.
And that's not always healthy. But by all means, if you would benefit from therapy. Don't hear us say that you shouldn't go or that Christians can't go. This is something else. This is a worldview question.
Well, John, that is all the time we have for our program today. Do you want to do, I'll just recommendations real quick and then I'll throw it over to you. On this note, I'll re-recommend Psychology as Religion by Paul Vitz. Because he went through that journey that you're describing. He studied as a psychologist, became a believer in graduate school, and then realized how much of his.
academic career was Masked as scientific, but really was quite religious and ideological. And this book is kind of his way of explaining that, and then talking about how a lot of what he learned in. Psychology School was at odds with what the Bible teaches about what humans are and what we need.
So it was, I think he wrote it in the 70s and then he re-released it in the 90s, but still very relevant.
So Psychology as Religion by Paul Witts. That'll be my recommendation.
Well, I just want to recommend a couple things that are coming up. Folks can join us. If you live in the Bay Harbor, Michigan area near the end of July, we're going to have a fun conversation as part of our. Annual Great Lakes World View Symposium. This time we're going to have a conversation about truth and courage.
with none other. Then Seth Dillon, the CEO of the Babylon Bee, who's got a crazy story of being canceled and then being restored by the providence of God. And also, just kind of what it means to tell the truth in a culture like ours. Jim Daly from Focus on the Family will also be joining that conversation. You can join us live or you can sign up for the live stream.
Go to Colsoncenter.org/slash truth. That's colsoncenter.org slash truth. And between now and then, if you are an educator, a home educator, a Christian educator of any kind, you can join us for the Rooted Educator Worldview Summit. This is an event that we do, a three-day event that we do in partnership with ACSI. This year, it'll be in Dallas, Texas, June 16 to 18, which I know is just around the corner.
But we still got some space left, join hundreds of educators from around America to talk about. how to be formed in a Christian worldview as an educator in such a way that you can form culture at your school and in your classroom. You can confront errors and you can actually point kids to the truth. It's a tremendous conference. We have an incredible lineup this year with Elisa Childers, Jeff Myers.
From Summit Ministries, Brett Kunkel, and many others. Thaddeus Williams, who was just with us for our own conference, again, the Rooted Educators Conference. You can go to acsi.org/slash rooted. That's acsi.org/slash rooted. All right, well, thanks so much for listening to Breakpoint this week.
From the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer. And for John Stone Street, we'll see you all back here next week.
