You're listening to Breakpoint This Week, where we're talking about the top stories of the week from a Christian worldview. Today we're going to hit some of the top news this week, including more information about the abortion drug and its harms on women. We're also gonna talk about a return to spirituality in the US and worldwide. We have a lot to get to today. We're so glad you're here.
Stick around. Welcome to Breakpoint this week from the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview. I'm Maria Baer, alongside John Stone Street, president of the Coulson Center. John, we've taken to starting these shows lately with hitting a few just kind of top news stories in this first segment.
So I want to start with a paper, a new paper that came out from the Ethics and Public Policy Center this past week. This is a companion to a research paper that they released a couple of weeks ago. Really digging into the impact of the abortion pill, Mifopristone. And the first paper that they released, they analyzed nearly 900,000 insurance claims data. And looked at the incidence rates of adverse medical reactions after taking these medications, and they found them to be far higher than the FDA is currently warning women about.
So the FDA says it's around 0.5%. of women will go on to have an adverse medical reaction. EPPC and other data researchers found that it's more like one in nine women will have an adverse medical reaction within 45 days. This new paper that they released this week found that one in 20 women who are prescribed or who take mifopristone will go on to require another abortion attempt after this. And I do just want to point out briefly, we've spoken before, kind of described how this abortion pill regimen works, that the first pill you take essentially starves the baby, the second pill induces labor.
And I did see online some people pushing back against this phrasing from EPPC saying that women will require a second abortion attempt. People rightly wondering: like, do you really require a second attempt? Is that the right word to use? And I don't know exactly the statistical breakdown here, but a lot of times what they're talking about is that the baby has already been killed, but the medication was not successful in allowing the woman to expel the baby. And so they require a surgery, which of course has immense risks.
Already, but once you have parts of a baby left over, that introduces its own risk of infection and that kind of thing.
So, this rate as well is far higher than the FDA is reporting. One in 20 women who take this medication will go on to require an additional abortion attempt. Yeah.
Well, and let's be really clear what EPPC is trying to do. There's no question that Ryan Anderson is pro-life. He's just pro-life top to bottom. He's behind these reports. He's behind this research project, which is, as you said, looking at an enormous data set when you're looking at the size.
of cases that they are. It's way, way, way bigger than the original data set which was used to come up with conclusions that Mifepristone was safe and harmless, as safe as Tylenol is what we have been told over and over and over. And basically, what this series of reports looking at this data set is saying. is that that's not the case, that the FDA rushed to a decision, that the decision that was rushed to was based on considerations other than scientifically conclusive facts coming out of th these studies, that mephopristone needs to have a level of oversight and regulation that it currently does not have. And that has been the trajectory in the last several Democratic administrations.
is to remove the oversight, to remove the doctor's visit, to remove the follow-up doctor's visit, to remove the prescribing by a medical practitioner, to remove the care, and to remove reporting requirements. And see, that's what is so crazy about this is not only did the FDA rush to a decision, but then they removed the reporting requirements, which basically, if their decision proved to be wrong, you would never know. No. Thankfully, this work is being done. And the fact that this work is being done is incredibly important.
And let's be really clear. What EPPC is after is not a second abortion attempt. What they're after is an undoing of this special treatment of Mifopristone. Which isn't mirrored in any other medication, particularly one that is dealing with something so critical. What we all believe is that we know mifopristone.
Is not safe for the baby. It leads, when it works successfully, a baby dies. That means it's not safe. But it was advanced over whether or not it was safe for the woman. And this is an incremental strategy to get this thing unrooted and to get this that's this genie that's been out of the bottle.
So to speak, when it comes to chemical abortion, which by the way is now 60% of all abortions in America by our best estimates. And these are just estimates because we don't have reporting requirements. You see, this is like a whole end justifies the means self-perpetuating cycle of deception. And this is a step to unraveling that.
So it's important to know what we have been told is not true. I was encouraged this week that in a Senate committee, Senator Josh Hawley brought up this new research from EPPC to. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and he said that he was familiar with it and looking into it along with Dr. Marty McCary at the FDA.
So, this is all really encouraging. I hope that continues.
Okay, Don, I want to also talk about two court cases that have been, have either reached a settlement or were decided in the past. Few months that we just haven't mentioned quite yet. One of them is from your home state. There was a There's universal preschool in Colorado, and there was a Christian school that applied to be a program within the state's preschool program and was denied the ability to. Only hire teachers that adhere to its Christian beliefs.
And Thankfully, a few weeks ago, a district court judge ruled that that is discrimination. And the school, which is called Darren Patterson Christian Academy, should be able to enforce. To operate according to its religious beliefs, which means hiring and firing based along those lines.
So that is good news, even good news coming from Colorado. Who knew that was possible?
Well, let me hit that one before we go to the next one, because they're related. These are related cases, but they're also separate. Like, the reason this matters is because of all the craziness that's happened in California.
Sorry. Colorado. Oops. No, I meant to make that mistake because people were. A legitimate one because listen, the Supreme Court has been Crystal clear.
On the fact that religious entities cannot be kept from participating. in government programs, state programs that are widely available. Uh and having to compromise their deeply held beliefs. There have been so many cases on this before the Supreme Court. They have been crystal clear.
These cases and these results were crystal clear before, quote unquote, Trump remade the court.
Okay, so in other words, you can't be penalized for being a religious institution. That has been firmly established. And yet, what do we see? The state of Colorado trying to do it again. And you know what we're going to see is in these blue states, and I don't think blue states is precise enough.
We have said here on the program, and I need to be just really clear about this. There are life states and abortion states. There are take care of children states. and mutilate children in the name of trans medicine states. In other words, it's not like one side is standing still and the other one's kind of going in an opposite direction.
They're going opposite directions of each other. And it is very important to understand these strategies. And I think that in some of these states, Colorado is interesting because it very, very much is moving in this kind of pro-death progressive direction and has been in an aggressive way for quite some time. But prior to that, there's been some pretty robust A space created for educational choice and educational freedom and alternative institutions. I think.
that part of this progressive state strategy. On abortion, but especially on the LGBTQ issues. Will be to crack down on things like charter schools and private schools and so on. And the attempts will be multiple. I think, by the way, We talked about this specifically out of Colorado, and there's other examples as well.
Different states will also try to crack down, not just on making sure that abortion rights are secure and expanded. but that pro-life institutions, pro-life doctors, pro-life nurses, and certainly pregnancy resource centers are crippled and hampered. from being able to do their life-saving work.
So that's, I wanted to talk about this just because it is a radar thing. There's no way Colorado should have tried to do this after the Trinity Lutheran Playground case. You know, recycled tires that you can have access to, but you can't because you're a religious. I mean, that was so clearly decided on every single level, but. It's still happening.
That's the thing that I want people to realize. And you need to ask yourself, which state are you in? We need a strategy, political and policy strategy for life states, and we need a policy strategy. for death states. And I'm using that language carefully, but intentionally.
I don't know if you realize too far, but I have to ask you about this. In Colorado, is your general sense as a Coloradan that the population of Colorado is as radically liberal as the officials running the state? Or is this like, are you a fish out of water there at this point? Or what's it like on the ground? Ha ha ha ha.
The way we talk about it is like a war zone, and we need kind of reporters that are embedded with the troops, sort of thing. It's an interesting place. I remember, you know, 15 years ago, a friend of mine who ran for state senate described Colorado as a lesbian couple sitting on their front porch cleaning their guns while smoking marijuana. And this was prior to the legalization. In other words, it was more libertarian.
You know, there is a centralization of political power in some of these states. Where even if it's against, I like, for example, I can't imagine that most people in the state of Maine. think that this one lawmaker should be completely mistreated without any sort of due process. But they also aren't paying a whole lot of attention. And I don't think there's a whole lot of attention paid to state politics.
Here there's a real divide, and the divide is between the 25 corridor from Fort Collins through Denver, and of course attach Boulder to that. Colorado Springs is in this mixed world and then you've got a Pueblo. And things like libertarian causes of of drugs. and other things I think has enabled a lot of these controlling social policies. To be put in place.
I mean, you go to the mountain communities, it's completely different. You go to the yuppie mountain communities, maybe that's harsh, that's different even still.
So we're we're a mishmash kind of dominated by the big city, but that's That's Michigan, right? That's a a lot of states. I mean, that's that that was the story of Virginia before it. you know, basically turn back around.
So you've got the rural-urban divide there, you know, and there's other things too. When that level of power is entrenched in the state, it's really hard to stop. To that end, with things You know, like you said, needing a strategy, or that combined with people not paying attention to state politics, which is hard to do. I mean, there's a lot going on. I think one of the strategies is going to be we're just going to have to push back.
I mean, there's a really good chance, I think, that the regulators who told this Christian academy that they couldn't exist or they couldn't hire based on their beliefs was just kind of crossing their fingers and hoping that they'd roll over. You know they They likely knew about the Supreme. I mean, it would be malpractice if they didn't know about what the regulations were, but.
Sometimes I think it's, you know, bureaucracy is a strategy a lot of times of these radical policies. Yeah, I think sometimes there is. And I think ignorance is a strategy sometimes too, right? In other words, not knowing these things and it becomes useful. It's like some people know and some people don't.
And let's see what we can get away with. But, you know, I can't speak to that. I don't know that level of specificity in terms of the causes. But I do think you're exactly right. The old adage, all politics is local.
has been Kind of Altered in this era in which more and more power has been centralized. When it comes to these specific issues, Yeah, you know, on the ground what's happening in these states state by state. Is incredibly important. And who's in the White House matters, but who's in the White House can't solve this problem. on a local level.
And that's what we're seeing. And of course, what we've had too And this is, you know, topic for a whole A whole segment. Is the centralization of certain powers around the executive, which so that puts all of our attention there, and then we don't always pay attention to what happens. On the local level. And that's that these aren't long-term solutions.
We might be stopping the evil at some level, but rebuilding, redirecting towards a better end. That takes local action.
Well, just because we teased it, I'm going to real quick just mention this other case. This was a settlement that was reached between a former professor at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Alan Josephson, was the chief of the university's Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology. He himself is a child psychologist who was raising what we know are very rational and prescient concerns about Gender ideology in the treatment of children with psychiatric care and also physical medical care. And he was essentially fired.
They didn't renew his contract at the University of Louisville. Just a couple of weeks ago, now we know, thanks to the Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented it, which represented Dr. Josephson. He reached a $1.6 million settlement with the university for his unlawful firing. And I am very encouraged by that case as well.
Hopefully, that sends a message both to other psychologists that are in his position, but also to universities and institutions. That are risking some big dollars to discriminate like this. Yeah, absolutely worth mentioning. Shout out to Dr. Josephson.
He's been courageous on this early. Like he was. Early on this. I mean, what got him in trouble was a Heritage Foundation panel. years ago and to be stubborn in this way and to actually stick to your guns.
And he did it scientifically. He did it medically. He did it professionally. This wasn't an argument for religious freedom. This was an argument for academic freedom, and two thumbs up for that faithfulness to stick it out this way.
Agreed. Let's take a quick break, John. We'll be right back with more Breakpoint this week. Imagine what could happen if the church led the way in restoring what's broken. That's what happened when Ryan joined the Colson Fellows program.
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We're back on breakpoint this week. John, I want to broaden the discussion now and talk a little bit more about, you know, you've used this language before, the re-enchantment of culture. People maybe not turning back necessarily to Christianity specifically. But we know from Pew research data that came out earlier this year, I think in February, that. The sort of religious unaffiliation, like the great migration away from affiliating with religious belief or institutions, has stagnated.
You know, that's far from super great, exciting news. You know, I would hardly call this a revival, but it is interesting. And there have actually been little pockets of increased religiosity. around the world.
So let me just read a couple of stats. from Pew and then I want to hear your thoughts more generally about this trend.
So in the 1970s, Americans born in the 70s are 63% Christian. That goes down in the 80s. They're 53% Christian if you're born in the 80s. In the 90s, they are only 46% Christian, but American children born in the 2000s are also around 46% Christian.
So here's the stagnation, like the sl the sl it it is slowing down that people are non-affiliated with Christianity. There's also some really interesting analysis from Ryan Burge that shows that. Gen Z men, so young men. are turning back to religion and mostly Christianity. more than any other demographic group.
That is a fascinating stat in and of itself. And then there's also some stats coming out of France. that the baptisms in the French Catholic Church. Are starting to increase for the first time in decades, which is fascinating.
So, what do you make of this? Causing this.
Well, look, there's a lot to this story, I think. And I appreciate you giving me credit for re-enchantment, but that obviously goes to people smarter than me that I've borrowed from. And we'll talk about some of those here because that's part of the story. You taught it to me, so I'm just going to credit you. That's all that matters.
Yeah.
I mean, this is an on the ground reality, these numbers. You know, record baptisms on Easter in some countries in certain denominations or in the Catholic Church. I think the Just reports of of uh of churches being filled. We're we're hearing that. certain unexpected places, especially in Europe.
In the UK, we're hearing about evangelical churches being failed. We're seeing this religious affiliation again, or at least an increased interest in religious things among young men, not young women yet, young men. And, you know, I'm all old enough to remember when you and I had multiple segments on the rise of the nuns. Right? Not the N-U-Ns, but the N-O-N-Es.
So that's at least. Recent enough to be in the context of these conversations that we have. And now we're having conversations not about the rise of the nuns, but about the stagnation of the nuns, where that kind of exploding group of people has topped off. I love those conversations because I always have to say that. No, no, no, no, we can't share them anymore.
We have a band of nuns cresting the hills with their bow and arrows, and now they're stagnating. And now we're having conversations about the decline of the nuns, or at least it's flattened out. And just about a year ago or so, a lot of people are looking at this trend and trying to look at it ahead of time. You got people looking at it on a popular level and people looking at it on a numerical level.
So take a guy like Ryan Burge, who's been doing just wonderful, helpful, demographic work and statistical work on commitment and where people stand. And he's, you know, I think not too long ago, was like, hey, the story is that unbelief has. You know, that there was this explosion of. Admitted unbelief, and now it's plateaued. And then, you know, a lot of work, not just from those guys, but also IFS, Institute of Family Studies, talking about the different directions.
On a lot of issues that young men and young women are going, we talked about how that's going to strain. you know, the future in some really important ways. But you got, you know, Justin Briarly over in the UK hosted the Unbelievable Podcast for a long time. Brought together these really interesting conversations between believers and non-believers, or believers on very different side. of social issues and, you know, writes this book, The Surprising Return of the Belief in God, or something along those lines.
You know, basically talking about how you have these British intellectuals. Certainly we've talked about Ianne Hirsi Ali. you know, who who has a much more personal story than a Richard Dawkins just saying, hey, radical Islam is bad, Christianity is good, or at least has brought good things to the world. To Tom Holland, basically going from blaming all the historical evils of Western Civ on Christians to saying, Well actually Christianity is the source of most of the goods of Western Siv.
So th th you have this. Kind of All these ideas have changed. And then you've got this thing called re-enchantment.
Now, re-enchantment is a response to disenchantment. Disenchantment is this idea in the modern world that the more technology we get, the more toys we have, the more access we have to consumer goods, the less religious will be because we won't be praying for these things. We all have them. And that was the thesis for a really long time. But what people missed is that these predictions of the death of God were highly exaggerated and premature.
And that is because you can have all this stuff, but do you have meaning?
So, the more modern we became, the more access we had to all this stuff, but the less access we had to the big questions: who am I? Why am I here? What's true? What's right and wrong? How do I know?
And you're supposed to put answers on these deep existential surgical questions with Yeah. Band-aids of, you know, social media and, you know, access to. You know, cable television and air conditioning and cell phones, and it did not answer the existential question.
So people continued to turn to meaning.
So that is what people like Rod Dreer have been talking about. Ross Dalthit's new book, and he's been on a series of podcasts. talking about this, his own podcast, having conversations about The return to religion. We interviewed him as part of a special segment. For World Magazine, myself, and a couple others that show up on the Culture Friday segment over there.
And others talking about this return of belief or why belief should be taken seriously. He's doing more of an apologetic work. Rod Dreer's doing more of, hey, hey, it's happening, and be aware. Because when you open this box of religiosity, you get everything. You normally get the true stuff, you get the false stuff.
And I think we can't underestimate. That. Right. That if you got to be careful, if you're looking for the creepy voices, C.S. Lewis says something like this.
You know, when the little kids that are playing, is there a burglar? They stop because maybe there's a real burglar. And you know, down the hall. And it's the same thing. Like it you're looking for spiritual stuff.
There are There are negative spiritual forces. Right? There there are forces of evil that are there as well. And so, the return of belief or the return of the willingness to explore spiritual things. will bring a whole lot of things with it.
I saw some of this in This is a very niche world, but one that I was kind of on the outskirts of. Kind of the rise of like the mommy bloggers in the 2010s.
So just go with me on this. A lot of the most famous mommy bloggers, these are women who keep on Mormon. It was kind of a strange, I don't know how to account for it, but that was just the reality. And then, kind of, there was this weird movement in the 2010s where.
Some of the most famous, like mom influencers, bloggers, writers. There was this movement towards Catholicism, and it still exists. You could find this if you cared to online. But I got the sense at the time that this was less of a search for. Christianity itself?
and more a search for a sense of mysticism or Life outside the self. You know, it reminded me of, I think it was Sherry Turkle or somebody who was writing about. you know, hypothesizing that one of the reasons people Turn to drugs, and that addiction is so difficult, is that it reminds us we have bodies. And people are hungry for that. Like they want to feel things.
And I wonder if this pull towards religion of all stripes is a part of this pull towards mysticism or just a sense of there being something like. We'd we'd like to think of ourselves as feeling sufficient. you know, just in our secular humanist view of things. Everything's physical. Our thoughts are all neurons firing.
But we really, when it gets right down to it, nobody is really that comfortable with that. It's just not a nice way to live. And so there's this pull towards mysticism. I see it as well and I think Dotha has talked about this. With the the rise in like psychedelic use, which is very strange.
Kind of happening in a parallel sense in like spiritual communities, but also in the psychological community. To me, though, that's part of your warning about like, don't open the door to the burglar down the hall just because you like to pretend there's a burglar down the hall. Like, if. You're either looking for something or you're not.
So How does the existing church, right?
So the community of believers who are already here, Like we're not we don't want to turn anybody away But how do we like remain we keep our fidelity to the truth as people start seeking more? Yeah, well, there's a couple answers to that. Number one is the missional or practical way, and then there's also. The theological grounding. Like, in other words, what are the things that we can't compromise on?
And I think that's been the problem because there's been this conflict. In the modern age, between the theological, in other words, what the Bible holds us to as being true. True. And the missional. In other words, we don't want to offend anybody.
We want to be relevant. We want to be attractive.
So there was a real downplay, for example, of the mystical and of the Supernatural of things that were you know we would talk about Christianese things And then that started out being, you know, like words that people don't understand, you know, that are in the King James, like superfluity of naughtiness or concupiscence. But then it ended up being sin. You're like, oh, wait a minute. We can't downplay sin just because we're trying to be relevant. Or let's take the crosses off the wall and not talk about the violence.
That exists in some of that. And oh, let's let our sermons not be about here's what you need to believe, but here's what will help your life. And so we stopped talking about God's design for this and God's design for that. And we started to talk about how to be happy and healthy. And so, really, the sermons and the church life and the Bible studies took a therapeutic turn.
And we didn't realize that we were just being whisked away. in a modern world. To where when spirituality is not considered to be actually true, then the only thing that matters is whether something helps.
So let's make everything therapeutic and counseling-based and things like that. We don't want to make the mistake of just going into the supernatural. Realm as a strategy, right? As if it's just like, well, now people are interested in it.
Now we can open the door as if there are no rules. And, you know, by the way, some people are doing that. They're doing that with ancient liturgies. They're doing that with practices or whatever.
Now, none of this, some of this isn't new. The emerging church folks kind of experimented with this. 25 years ago, but I I feel like that's a new kind of danger. The question is, are we going to do it by whose rules? We're still in this kind of post-postmodern era.
where experience trumps everything else.
So we try to serve the experience. What we're saying is, is on the other side of this quote-unquote spiritual realm, which now we're reawakened to, is God. The question is who is he? Who has he revealed himself to be? Psalm 135 is, I think, very instructive here.
where David compares the gods of the nations versus the god of Israel. And he talks about the gods of the nations being deaf and dumb and blind, and it makes us deaf and dumb and blind. And so, the most important thing in this worship is to get God right. We're going to start the Colson Center National Conference on be the church with who is God and how do we know. You know, allowing Thaddeus Williams, who's just written his work, Revering God, which is in the tradition of knowing God.
from Packer and Loving God from Colson. Revering God. What does it mean for us to get worship a right? And of course, the church is a worshiping community. That's one of the things we have to be.
But we have to get God right, right? And on the other side of this spirituality is a real God who actually exists. whose nature is not constructed by our imagination. but revealed to us. By him.
And we want to get all that right. And I think Kind of Jumping to strategy. Before ontology has been the problem. Let's get God right. First.
I love that. That's great.
Okay, well, John, let's take another quick break and we'll be right back with more breakpoint this week in just a minute. Educators, your worldview matters. It shapes your school. It shapes your classroom. It shapes your students.
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We're back on breakpoint this week. John, this week, the Trump administration allowed Afrikaaners, people from South Africa, to resettle in the United States under the refugee status. These were white Afrikaners who have been subject to what the Trump administration has said amounts to persecution in South Africa because of their race. And I know some of our friends at World interviewed a few of these families who were telling stories of. You know, people just coming onto their land, for example, or into their house and saying, This is mine now, kind of thing.
So they were brought back into the U.S. A lot of them families with children. And this has created a little bit of a stir, understandably, because you and I mentioned at the beginning of Trump's presidency, he put a large hold on kind of refugee resettlement just because there was such a flood of people coming in from the southern border, and immigration has been such a cycle of. you know, num the numbers increasing astronomically from one month to the next. You know, he kind of talked about it as like, we need to figure out, we need to get our ducks in the row and then, you know, kind of refigure this out.
But understandably, I think this has caused some ruckus. You know, there are the. Also, I believe this week or recently. The refugee resettlement status for Afghan refugees was kind of halted or was capped. And so people are asking: you know, how wise was this?
How fair was it? Is this more political than expedient? What do you think about this?
Well, I I want to be careful to say what I know and what I don't know. And I think the bigger critique that has been out out there is that this is a group of white people, you know, white South Africans. That's who we're talking about here. And the people that are on hold are not white. And so You know, you've got, I think, a bunch of things happening at once.
One is we're in an era where those on the left who already have been catechized deeply to see everything in terms of race. Can't ignore the fact that the 59 families are white and that all the programs that have been stopped are not white. And is that really what this is about? And my answer is. Maybe, I don't know.
I think you're there's when you talk about an immigration. Policy, particularly as it has to do with refugees. And one of the things that's at the core of this confusion. Is talking about kind of the overall immigration crisis and open borders, particularly the southern border, and confusing that then with the refugee program, right? Like, how do we actually?
Vet those out. The problem of vetting is a big problem. Here you're talking about, what'd you say, 59? families. This is a much smaller group.
Yeah, because in a sense, you're kind of taking kind of big policies. This is a much smaller group. So that changes things. We're not talking about thousands. We're talking about 50.
We're talking about a situation we know. You're talking about Those on the left who are saying that white people cannot be victims of race and oppression. Uh and I think there's Plausible evidence out of South Africa that the racial policies that were once inflicted. On black Africans, now the power has shifted, and there's real victimization happening both ways. The answer for those of us that want to be Thoughtful and true and Christian is not to prefer one race over the other.
It's to actually reject the idea of race as a defining category. But it's become a defining category in this critical theory mood. The other problem we have is that any sort of refugee program, if you're actually going to rethink it and enact it, You're gonna have to. Prioritize something. And I am an unapologetic advocate.
that the thing that should be prioritized is religious belief. particularly Christian religious belief. And we know that because, first of all, Christian religious belief is compatible with who we are as a nation. Other religious belief is not.
Now, some religious beliefs aren't incompatible. Right. There's a fundamental incompatibility with certain kind of minority religious beliefs that are in persecuted situations. And should we extend our hearts and our homes and our abilities to help whenever we could? I think the answer to that is yes.
But there are religious beliefs that are real problems, you know, for a cultural setting. Because religion Is not something that's personal and private, like the secularists would want us to believe. It has cultural implications. and kind of who we are. And I go back to the very first apologist, you remember.
You're looking at Tertullian and Justin Martyr that are writing apologies for the Christian faith. They're not just saying, hey, Christianity is true. What they're trying to actually stop is religious persecution. They're writing to Roman governors and people in power and saying, you don't want to persecute and kill these people because they're the best citizens you got. Is that true?
Now, that's not true across the board, and people are going to accuse me of favoring Christians over other groups, and I am. I should, as a Christian. Both. As an American, Because I believe the compatibilities and incompatibilities that are shaped more by belief than racial identification. Right?
And here's what I mean by that. One of the groups that came out with a strong opposition that's been highly active in refugee resettlement is the Episcopal Church in America. And they rejected this. project because these people We're we're white. And Look, there might be more to it than the story.
Again, I'm not talking about the details of the story, but I also know that the Episcopal Church, if this was a group. of white or black people that identified as trans, they would be all about advocating for their resettlement. You see what I mean? You have to prioritize something. You have to, you know, have, have a, unless you're going to say no refugees ever.
And I don't think that is the, the status or the position that the, that America as a nation should take. we should prioritize something. I think it's completely legitimate to prioritize resettlement based on religious conviction and to prioritize particular religions as being more compatible and incompatible. Race is not the option. That is it.
Actually, misunderstanding. How people are wired and how people are oriented. We are fundamentally religious creatures. As John Calvin said, and we should. be those types of people.
Now we should also yes show compassion where we could. You know, having refugee programs doesn't always mean resettling them in America. Right? There's other places that we can be a part of. And right now we're just...
kind of in this is this strange place where we're going to have to rethink that. And be clear about it and articulate about it, and we're not, which is leading to a lot of this confusion, I think. Yeah.
Well, we tend to just read every political action as a political message as well, which makes this all fraught, even if it's not actually. And it's that's understandable. It's just hard not to do. And and and and sorry, not let me just jump in. And to then therefore.
Credit the worst possible intentions of the other side. Like, the only reason you would do this is because of this, sort of thing. Right. Be as uncharitable as possible. Yeah.
That's just the political way. This, I think, is a good time to ask a question that we got from a listener this week. And we're going to get to more listener feedback later in the show. But somebody wrote in and said, You know, he feels conflicted because he's aware of, you know, communities that are being intentionally set aside as Muslim communities. I think he said there's one in Dallas, there's one in Minnesota.
He's aware of some public schools in these areas who will, for example, break for prayer twice a day during the school day, during Ramadan, and that kind of thing. To be open to these communities. And he was kind of wrestling through, I really appreciated how he wrote this question, wrestling through how to think about that as a Christian. I think wrestling through some of these very questions you're saying, which is, We want to be welcoming. We want to be compassionate.
We recognize like the foundational fidelity to religious freedom is a core part of our identity as Americans, and we're so grateful for that. And there's tremendous reason for that. But it's also true that some ways of life are less compatible. This is the. Cultures that love their neighbor are better than cultures that eat their neighbor, kind of thing.
So How do you think through this if you're a person where a community like that is being suggested in your area? You know, this is a lot of art and not a lot of science, right? Because of the overarching freedom of religion that we enjoy and we don't want to step on. But to have that doesn't mean it's a free-for-all, doesn't mean that there aren't limits, and it doesn't mean that there aren't priorities. There's freedom of conscience, freedom of practice, and so on.
and the freedom to do that within certain kind of larger expectations that a culture or civilization has. I remember in the days after 9-11, I used to do a weekly segment on a particular radio, drivetime radio show. in California, a Christian radio station. And oftentimes, following me was an imam from a local congregation and who in. You know, was dealing with kind of the wake of 9-11 and all that meant for the Islamic world and the Islamic faith.
He was an outspoken, direct advocate for secularizing Islam.
Now, it's interesting. If you secularize Christianity, you corrupt it. If you secularize Islam, you also corrupt it. But corrupt it from what? Like, if you follow the teachings of Jesus, you should be a good citizen.
If you follow the Implications and the direct teachings of Muhammad, you're taking over that culture, you're not assimilating. You know, you're not a good citizen. You're actually rechain changing what it means to be a citizen. And this isn't theoretical. You just look around the world.
And not only in majority Islamic civilizations, you know. parts of London. You look at parts of Russia, you see these kind of communities. you know what what happens in these places certainly in parts of africa Post-colonial Africa. of Islam as a culture-building civilization and the kind of Culture that it builds.
It's not compatible with the West. It's not been compatible with the West. I'm not trying to be. quote unquote islama islamophobic by saying that it's it's observably true I just saw One of the thought leaders on this say along these lines. It's like, you know.
You can read the books from Harvard professors on this whole thing, or you can just get in a plane and go to any of these places. And and see. the fruit of a particular understanding of God, a particular understanding of morality, a particular understanding of citizenship, a particular understanding of the role of church and state, and you can kind of see how it fleshes out. You know, that's really at the heart of this. I don't know how you do that math if you're talking about a particular neighborhood in a particular church in a particular town in a particular state.
And, you know, right now, that's really hard to do. But I do know that the gospel transforms lives, and that's not just a theoretical thing, that a Christian responsibility is not just. at times opposing These takeovers. That oftentimes happening, you just go to Dearborn, Michigan, for example, there's parts of, culture that get taken over. And we should oppose that.
But it also We should evangelize, you know. There is a remarkable move right now of Muslims coming to Christ. because Christ has something far better to offer. It's he he in a sense fulfills the false promises. of uh of Islam.
And of the uh of Muhammad? And at the same time offer something way, way, way, way, way better.
So the missional aspect of this, I think, is a strategic aspect of this and should be really important as well. You know, the specifics I you know, that's probably beyond my um my scope and pay grade at the moment. But Those have to be I think the components, where can this be aligned and where is this fundamentally incompatible? And am I sharing Christ? What does it look like for the church to double down and share Christ in this community?
When I lived in Phoenix, there was, you know, there's a pretty sizable Somali community in Phoenix. That's by and large a Muslim community. And there was a mosque there. I don't remember what had happened geopolitically at the time, but it was being vandalized pretty regularly. And so a group of people from our church went over and met with this community and I can't remember the specifics, but we had some signs and we stood outside and we held a little press conference like: stop vandalizing this mosque.
And I think that was meaningful because If it had been a question of whether this mosque should be built, let's say, like in our community, if this was. I could see feeling a little bit Conflicted, if not outright, hey, I'm not sure I want that here for the compatibility reasons you're talking about. But I also, I'm proud that we were able, I think that was a good ministry moment for us to say, like, okay, they're, they're here and they're being, you know, they're the targets of vandals and. You know, this kind of whatever public expressions of hatred. And so we want to, you know, stand with them and be compassionate towards them.
But also, our bottom line goal was to evangelize them. And we started a little group where we were like mentoring their kids. We were doing homework help after school. And it was very explicitly like, we are from a church and this is our aim kind of thing. And it was a little lying to straddle, but yeah.
Yeah, you don't want to be deceptive by it. And but you also don't want lawlessness to win in your community.
So you would, you would stand. Vandalism is lawlessness, right?
So even on that level, you want to stand for it.
So, yeah. Yeah.
Well, John, in the last segment, we got to a question from a listener, and I want to get to a few more of those now, as many as we can. We got a note this week from someone named Brad. who was asking you specifically this is Brad from Little Rock saying his daughter is considering both Summit Ministries and Impact 360 and was asking for your advice. on which program and why.
So I'm going to give you the floor here. That's funny. You're making me choose between friends. Like, you know, which one is my favorite? Both of these organizations are wonderful.
Obviously, I've had a long history. Who's your BFF and who's your BFF? Yeah, that's right. I've had a long history with both organizations, longer with Summit Ministries, and my relationship with Impact came out of my relationship with Summit Ministries. where I worked for years.
Here's what we I wanted to highlight. Number one is there are wonderful ministries that help students wrestle deeply with their faith. And unfortunately, that doesn't always happen in the context of church. And wrestling with faith isn't just kind of intellectually wrestling with whether faith is true, but also how do you live it out? And certainly, these organizations have, you know, excel differently on those levels.
So, investigate. But they're both organizations that come alongside families and parents. Do wonderful preparation so that A, students can understand the kind of challenges that they're going to face to their faith. B, they understand that there are smart Christians, a lot of them. I said often that we're in the golden age of apologetics.
The disconnect is not that there are answers that have not been Come that had not been developed to really hard questions. It's that oftentimes the answers haven't been translated.
So that people know that they exist. I mean, I can't tell you how many students tell me, you know, some form of, you know, They get asked this question from a skeptic, or they come across something online, and they're like, oh my gosh. And I'm like, do you realize people have been answering that question now for 15 years and done it really well? And like, oh, you know, so, in other words, because they're a Christian, they've been in church their whole life, they haven't come across the answer, it must not exist. It's really powerful just for students to be in those communities.
And I can attest to both Impact 360. And to Summit Ministries, and for that record to Worldview Academy. My kids have done all three, okay? At various levels, and they are all worthy of time and attention and investment. My guess is.
Impact 360 has a smaller capacity, so they're probably full for the summer and you can't get in.
So Summit is probably full in some of its sessions and not others. And Worldview Academy is probably full in some of its sessions and not others. Worldview Academy travels around. It's only a week. Summit Ministries is in Colorado and in Georgia, and it's two weeks.
It tends to cater more to older high schoolers, where Worldview Academy is just as appropriate for younger high schoolers. Impact 360 puts their Worldview program, Immersion, in with their Propel, which is also a leadership development program.
So there's just a lot of good stuff. And I think you close your eyes and you point. And you're going to make a good choice no matter where you point to. These are wonderful organizations doing wonderful work, and it's really important. Work that they're doing.
At some point, when the Stone Street kids are old enough, they should probably just launch their own. Like, I've seen your backyard. It's gorgeous. Just have some, you know, a little summer camp back there. They sound qualified already.
They've gone through all these programs. They never stood a chance. They were always going to be Worldview kids.
So what? I've never told you about Camp Fun, have I? Have I ever told you about Camp Fun? Camp Fun. Wait, is this the thing you do with them in the summer?
I don't do it there. No, they did it on their own. My oldest daughter actually developed a day camp for about 30 kids for five years and made a lot of money doing it. And so. And yes, there was All kinds of nerdy, homeschooly sorts of things that were involved in camp fun using our backyard.
I love it. Don't tell my HOA, because I'm sure they would not have been happy about this. I know. My girl set up a lemonade stand at the park last week, and we live in such a Anyway, my husband was like, Maria, it's a 50-50 chance somebody from the city is going to come by and be like, you can't be here. But thankfully, they didn't.
Did they?
Okay, well, John, they did not. They didn't. The last question I want to get to is: it's funny. I changed my shirt just before we recorded.
So, for those of you listening, John and I always record over this video platform. We can see each other. I did, I changed right before we started, but I was wearing a t-shirt from my kids' Christian school. And I bring that up because we got some feedback this week asking why we're so dogmatic about saying that the only right way or the truly best And, you know, only surefire way to educate your kids is by homeschooling them. And I, of course, do not homeschool my kids.
So I'll let that speak for itself. But I want to give you a chance to respond to that. Yeah.
Well, I don't want to level this critique at you because it was leveled at me and it's it we we get a version of it sometimes here. Um this one actually came in response to A segment that I did over at World with the world and everything in it. And it was a couple of weeks ago. and uh someone who had made the choice to send their children to a public school. uh ask what you know they didn't really ask really said, you know, why do you always recommend homeschooling?
My initial reaction is to say, Well, I don't, because I actually don't. And in fact, I have gotten in a lot of trouble for not doing that. I remember. talking about the wonderful ministry that Christians can have as teachers in public schools and the resources of a group like Gateways to Better Education. And that was maybe the most hate mail I've ever gotten is by even just suggesting that there's only one answer to this.
There's one answer to this, and that is that education belongs to the parents, not the state. And the current system is built to outsource to the state. Not only the specifics, but also the generalities. And what I mean by that is the worldview formation, the catechism. to the state.
And we think as if that's the normal option. And what's happened in the last couple years is More and more and more and more people have realized that the product that is coming out of that. is not what they want on various levels. And there have been excuses that have been given by parents who choose this. And I think it's completely legitimate.
And situations for parents to put together. I mean, we've done that with our kids. We've pieced together using resources from the state, using resources from private groups, using resources from private schools. Honestly, the worst experience we've had is not from the state, it's from a private Christian school. But that's, you know, you piece it together.
And you know who's in charge of it? Me. We wanted to go in with our eyes wide open and say that. The thing I critiqued the other day that got the reaction. was a line That I have heard, which is, I want my kids to be a missionary.
I think that's a good idea. Plenty of reasons to use state resources as you piece together the education in whatever way you do. You should never outsource it. And you should use as much as possible. You need to be fully aware of just how bad it is.
In many places, in terms of the worldview formation, in terms of the academic excellence, in terms of the structure, and all that sort of stuff. I think we have to unseat the idea that church or that state-run education is a status quo. It's not. Shouldn't be. But the line is that I want my kids to be a missionary there.
I I just think that that that is just really misguided. First of all, Where does it say that six year olds should be missionaries, or seven year olds or eight year olds? If they are missionaries, Should they be missionaries all by themselves without you? Which is what happens when we outsource to our kids and leave them abandoned? By the way, do you are you saying that with a full understanding of just how much pressure it is to turn your kids into a secularist?
Or now to turn your kids into a particular kind, Of secularists, like the pressure that's on them to bury their faith. And to accept, you know, to turn them into a secularist activist now in many cases. Like, this isn't hypothetical. This is actually revealed. There could be wonderful teachers and wonderful headmasters in various state schools.
I completely grant that, and so on. And I think that there are plenty of situations where that is the best choice for. for people. But the missionary line was what I was specifically critiquing. Because You know, yes, are six-year-olds and seven-year-olds, should they be missionaries for Christ?
Yes, but why there? And why alone? I mean, I just don't understand that. At all.
So, you know, you would never send someone to be a missionary in a hostile environment without significant preparation. We shouldn't do that to our own kids either. Listen, use the resources if they're there, if they're available. I'm completely an advocate of I pay taxes for these schools that I don't get any benefit from.
So, if my legislature passes some sort of way that I can get a tax benefit from it, am I going to take it? Heck yeah, because it's my money to begin with. Right? I'm completely okay with that. It was specifically.
That line. And we'll get emails from people who say, you should have said homeschooling is the only option. And I think that there are a lot of options that people can take advantage of. If In terms of the actual structure of it. if it's parents fundamentally making the decisions.
Yeah, agreed. I do think it's also worth busting the myth. This was mentioned in the feedback as well, that public school is the only place where kids can go to be exposed to other viewpoints. I don't know when this became a talking point, but I just would invite people say that. Yeah.
I would invite this person to expose themselves to any of the curriculum of any of the Christian schools across. the country I mean, I'm open to the idea that there are some that are too sheltered ideologically or whatever it is, but. I think one of the least ideologically diverse places you could put your kid is in a public school. If you're in a space where you're teaching kids actual literature or rhetoric or you're reading classic literature, They're being exposed to other worldviews, and there are plenty of opportunities and ways to do that. And we absolutely should do that.
If anybody should be confident enough to do that, it should be a Christian parent. Who is confident in the truth and goodness of Christianity, and is therefore willing to tell your kids at the appropriate time and manner that there are other ways of viewing the world, and here's how people act when they view it that way, and here's what they say is true. All of that's happening. I mean, I can speak to my own. Children's experience at a private Christian school here in Columbus and They are very aware that there are world religions and other ways of viewing.
everything from the human body to to existentialism. You know, so that this is not, this is a myth that that is missing anywhere except public schools. Yeah.
Well, and and in the same way there's a lot of myths, right? There's there's the myth that just because a school says that it is Christian, that it is Christian. You know, a lot of times what that means is longer skirts and and and shorter hair and Bible class, but really nothing else about it is Christian. It could mean that it is academically or worldviewish in the same. It could also mean that it's just as secular as any other school in the way that it teaches, but it has chapel and it has a Bible class, right?
There's a lot of myths there. There's the myth that just because we're Christian, we don't need to be excellent. You know, that's there too.
So you have to go through these large categories, right? There's ways to do homeschooling well and ways to do homeschooling in a way that is not well. There's ways to do Christian schooling while that's Christian and ways to not do it. There's ways to parent your kids through public school. And this woman who critiqued seemed to be super engaged, so I have no doubts.
That this person, let me say that again. And there's ways to parent your child through a public school setting, whether a class or a local community college or whatever, in a way that's fantastic. The way that this particular email came in, I have no doubt that this person who leveled their critique is as highly engaged. And God bless you for being highly engaged. Because that's the magic, right?
It is that's the fundamental truth, it is your. Job to parent. And education does not magically go to the state. That has to be actually uprooted. That's the bad.
belief about a status quo that's just not true. All right, John.
Well, that is all the time we have for the program today. Do you want to share a quick recommendation before we sign off? A quick recommendation. You know, I want to recommend Katie Faust's book about raising kids in a woke culture, just because it fits along with these things and you kind of wrestle through how do you teach discernment. Without just kind of prescribing an easy solution here, there, or somewhere else.
I thought it was a great book and should have gotten even more attention than it did. Raising Godly Kids in a Woke Culture, is that what it was?
Something like Good Kids in a Woke Culture, something like that. But great book.
Something like that. Katie Cost. Yeah.
Something like that. Sorry, Katie. That's close enough, people will find it on Amazon. Yeah.
Um, okay, well, I'll I'm just gonna completely out of left field because that's my style, John. I'm going to recommend if you want a glimpse into what my house sounds like every evening. Listen to the new Mumford and Sons album. It's so great. The World and Everything In It did a review on it.
A couple weeks ago on their podcast because Marcus Mumford. the lead singer of Mumford and Sons was is a pastor's kid and grew up in the church in the UK. And it's kind of a heartbreaking album. The lyrics are heartbreaking. But if you've listened to Mumford and Sons over the years, you've kind of followed his trajectory of.
faith and doubt and reconciling some major you know, abuse in his past and But the new album is really, really good. It's called Rushmere.
So that's my summer album recommendation. All right, well, thank you so much for listening to Breakpoint This Week from the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. I'm Maria Baer, alongside John Stone Street. Please continue sending your feedback and questions by going to breakpoint.org and clicking on contact us. We are loving getting the chance to respond to those.
Otherwise, we'll see you all back here next week. Thanks so much.
