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 talk about some pop culture news, including the canceling of Stephen Colbert's Late Show. We're also going to talk about public libraries. What was their original mission? Are they still fulfilling it?
We have a lot to get to this week. We're so glad you're with us. Stick around. Welcome to Breakpoint This Week. For the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer, alongside John Stone Street.
John, I did hear your intro with the illustrious Katie McCoy last week, and I'm very normal. I don't know what you're talking about. Could not believe you said that. I was out last week. I had so many other things I wanted to say, but I was actually feeling quite generous.
I was on the top of the world last week, literally and figuratively, visiting very dear friends of ours in Colorado, actually, in Kremlin, Colorado, at Latigo Ranch. If you ever have a chance, and if you guys listening, there is a very, very sweet couple, great friends of the Colson Center who run Latigo Ranch. You get to go. You can take your kids. You ride horses all day.
It is truly probably one of the most beautiful places I've been in the world. And it's like stepping back in time. The last day I was there, one of their daughter, who's the horse wrangler, mentioned something to me about something she'd read online or whatever. And I was like, wait, you guys don't go online here. This is, we're in the 1890s.
Like, don't ruin this vision I have of this place, because that's how it feels. This is really special. We also saw a black bear, which was awesome. But that is not what we want to start the show with today, John. The first thing I want to talk to you about is the news that Stephen Colbert's show has been canceled.
The Colbert Rapport, which I always thought was a clever take on words. That's been the most important story of the whole week, right there. That one. It's been amazing how big of a deal that became. I personally don't like my comedy to come with a lecture, but I'll let you take this one and tell us how you feel about Colbert getting canceled.
Well, you know, look, it's a sign of our times that, first of all, his show became so kind of hyperpolitical in such a way that was so distinct from shows before. I mean, this is not the way Johnny Carson was. This was not the way even Jay Leno was. There might be political targets of jokes, but it pretty much went every different direction. but that's not what late night TV has become.
And late night television is not successful right now. And so I think that kind of tells us that we're on the other side of at least some of the interest, if anybody had it at any time in that kind of comedy, which is a shame because there's some things about Stephen Colbert that I always really appreciated. I actually found him quite funny back in his early days. And also, you know, he's someone who has been outspoken about having his Catholic faith. I didn't always understand how he applied his Catholic faith, but he has been outspoken about it.
So I think, you know, look, it's not as big of a story as everyone's making it out to be. And that's probably something that tells us what the big story is. And that is, is that I just think we're over this and I would not be surprised if some of the other notorious figures in this genre, which has changed this genre, that they will follow suit as well. It's funny to me that people always accuse big corporations, like for example, CBS, of only looking out for the bottom line and the evil corporations and capitalism is bad and whatever else. And then when they make a decision, the same people are like, why are they being influenced by politics?
And this was politically. I think the most plausible explanation here is that this was a bottom line decision. because like you said, these shows are not successful anymore. I mean, the share of viewers they get is very small. They've lost, I mean, Colbert's show notoriously has lost millions of dollars a year for several years.
I don't know whether or not that's connected to politics. I can tell you I have never watched his show and always found him the show, at least, like I said, just to be kind of grating because once you get the sense that the person who's supposed to be funny also thinks they are doing something important with a capital I, That's usually when it stops feeling funny, but that's just me. I'm just one viewer or non-viewer as it were. But let's shift gears from Stephen Colbert to someone else who's, this interview that went viral recently, I found unlike Colbert's show to be absolutely riveting. I've watched it twice now.
And this is the interview with Scotty Scheffler. Can you tell us a little bit about, he's a pro golfer, obviously a very, very successful young, I think he's 29 years old, a young father and a pro golfer basically said in this interview, I'm struggling to feel like, what's the point was his exact quote. You, I work my whole life and try to win these tournaments. And then I win and I celebrate for a few minutes. And then you guys start asking me about the next tournament.
And he had more to say, he was gracious to the sport, but it was a fascinating interview, something you don't hear a lot. You know, I thought the interview was quite fascinating too, but for the new story, Scotty Scheffler is playing the most dominant golf on the planet right now. And I know only a little bit enough about that to know that he's kind of on a streak right now that puts him in the line of the great, certainly the great of our time. Roy McIlroy, in fact, said something like, you know, he's the standard bearer right now. Everyone's trying to catch up to him.
And again, I know enough to watch the Masters every year and be fascinated when you see this kind of an athletic performance. But there was a scene as he won the British Open last weekend of his son. And I think what made that picture so incredible was the interview, because before that he had talked about his priorities and about how competitive he is. And yet how he also is realizing that there are some things that are ultimately important and some things that are not. It was a prioritization that I think a lot of people found really meaningful.
And then to see him carry his son, allow his son, you know, to walk up the green as he won and then to carry him. And, you know, we're kind of watching him grow up because I think when Scheffler won the Masters last year, the baby was a newborn, I think. And we're watching this little boy grow up and we're watching him be a dad.
So a lot of that's really fun to see. But the interview that everyone is talking about has to do with this idea of priorities. and it created a lot of confusion because you don't get to as good as he is without a crazy amount of work. But for him to say, I do this crazy amount of work, not just because I love the game, although I love the competition, but because I wanna provide for my family and my wife thanks me for working this hard and I thank her for her work for her son. There's just a way that he framed priorities in this conversation and he's doing so in his career, that doesn't denigrate the sport.
It doesn't denigrate the work. It doesn't denigrate the meaning. It actually properly orders it. And like, I don't know enough about Sheffar. I know he's a man of faith.
He's very outspoken about his faith in Christ. He's very outspoken about his priorities of family. But what he's arguing for here in his life and in his words is this Augustinian approach to theology in which there are goods that have to be ordered. And that's true for the state and it's true for the individual. Again, I don't know that Scotty Scheffler has this in mind, but that's what he's doing.
He's not saying that I have to choose between God and the sport or between God and my family and the sport. He's putting them in proper order. And as Lewis says, when you put these things in proper order, then they all flourish. If you get them out of order, then they all suffer. And I tell you, we've seen enough families suffer in the name of professional athletes to see this thing go well.
And obviously, again, he's just getting started, but good heavens, he is killing it right now. He is dominating the sport at a level. And that's after a rough start last year, last year, I think. But the pace he's been on has been absolutely unbelievable. You know, I've been working on a piece with the Institute for Family Studies and looking at the boost to the child independent care tax credit.
Basically, that was put into the big, beautiful bill or whatever we're calling it. And it was like pulling teeth, apparently, politically to get that credit for people who pay for child care, to get that over the line, as opposed to expanding just the child tax credit, which has not been touched in several years and is pretty low, especially considering inflation. And I loved, because so much conversation around this child care tax credit has been, you know, people on the left are saying, well, this is not nearly enough. People deserve more. Women need more help to be able to work and to serve their careers.
I caught in Scheffler's interview, he said something like, like you said, I'm really grateful that I get to support my family and my son. But the second that this game interferes with my family, that will be the last day I play golf, is what he said. Great line. Which was such an about face from, I mean, especially honestly as a woman, the way women talk about work in view of this bill, for example, expanding the child independent. You do not hear women saying things like, I will never let work come in between me and my children and me and my family.
It's like, you're not, it's kind of tacky to say that. You're not really allowed to say that as a woman because it's anti-feminist or whatever. Here you have an uber successful man saying that. And I'm really grateful he did. Yeah.
Well, I mean, to your point on the tax credit, I mean, listen, this is not necessarily devoted to this particular story. But, you know, when you make the connection here, policy can incentivize the wrong thing. I mean, that's the whole story of the so-called war on poverty and welfare. Are we incentivizing strong families or are we disincentivizing strong families? Do we want to help moms or do we want to incentivize them to leave their children?
I mean, these are all really hard questions to work out in policy. And there's a lot more to them than just that. One last story I want to hit before we go on with the show.
So for our news segments here, there was a new lawsuit filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of another business in Colorado.
So we talked about recently Camp Idrahaji. This is a Christian camp that's been in operation in Colorado for decades that filed a pre-enforcement lawsuit against the Kelly Loving Act, which is this bill that Colorado recently signed into law that makes it a crime to misgender people who are asking for so-called transgender pronouns. And in Camp Idrahaji's case, they would have been forced to allow boys who say they're girls to bunk with girls at their camp. They won that challenge on behalf of ADF.
Now ADF has filed another challenge on behalf of a bookstore, born again used books, who are fighting this same law, which says that misgendering someone, again, not using the preferred pronouns according to whatever transgender orthodoxy is punishable. And it's amazing to me that Colorado is still sticking to its guns on this, even after Camp Hydra Haji and other instances where they've, you know, kind of been told to take their bat and go home. But do you think that this will be a harder challenge because it's not related to facilities? Yeah, I think it's more accurate to make a distinction between these because, you know, really what you had was in the camp of Camp Hydra Haji, a policy that applied to Christian camping and camping in general in the state of Colorado, which of course is pretty popular, and asking for recognition of a religious exemption and the state refused it.
So it's not exactly the same thing as a pre-enforcement challenge. They were told by the state that they actually could not have that exemption, which how does how does literally a camp whose name stands for, I'd rather have Jesus not qualify for a religious exemption. It was insane. And they backed off. The thing that we've seen in Colorado, first of all, I was talking about this with the clients here in the bookstore case, and it's like ADF clients who's Colorado, you're like, okay, you're going to have to be more specific because there's a lot of ADF clients in Colorado, one after another, after another.
This one follows It was actually their case, which is the XXXY Clothing Company, which is, again, a store front. And they're basically the new law in Colorado demands that you refer to people as they wish and to not do so is punishable. It's a crime of misgendering. And this specifically applies to places of public accommodation.
Now, you might remember that phrase, public accommodation, something we talked an awful lot about when it came to Masterpiece Cake Shop, Jack Phillips and Lori Smith, the three of three creative, both of which are cases that Colorado won. Jack's case on a more narrow basis, Lori's was a more resounding victory as a thing of speech. But Colorado has tended to stand behind regulations that they invent around public accommodations and connect them directly to the Civil Rights Act, which is where that idea comes from. Think about during Jim Crow or whatever, someone goes on a drive, an African-American family goes on a drive across the country. They actually aren't able to do that unless they can make sure that there are places that are available for public accommodation, think hotels, gas stations, restaurants, that would actually serve them.
Of course, the difference in the case of Jack Phillips and Lori Smith is that there are dozens and dozens and dozens of bakeries and photographers and website design places and other things that would serve a same-sex wedding in the same zip code, sometimes in the same neighborhood. That makes those cases so distinct from those that are connected with civil rights.
So public accommodation then has become kind of a weapon to get public compliance, to move the culture in the direction that Colorado wants it to go. Born Again Used Christian Books is a bookstore. It is a Christian-themed bookstore. They will sell books to anyone but now they are asking the employees and those who work there to refer to customers by whatever the customer demands. And to not do so then is a violation of this public accommodation.
It's gonna be very interesting. Again, this follows another lawsuit with the XXXY Clothing Company. Remember that, that's the woman who came out of Levi, right? Wasn't it Levi that she worked for before? Yeah.
The other aspect of this story and why we want to talk about it is not just that it is in this tradition of things that are really important in the state of Colorado and Colorado being a bellwether of brand new legislation made up to advance a progressive set of ideals. But I know the owners of Born Again Christian Books. I've known them literally for two decades. Our kids have grown up together. They're wonderful people, colleagues, friends.
And he also is a pastor of a church in Colorado Springs. They're a homeschool family. and just dear folks. And so I got a little bit more of an inside look of we kind of walked Jack journey after he made the decision to do what he did Now of course he didn plan it It just happened for him It happened to him Let's put it that way. But to walk through the process of thinking through, okay, let's, you know, what does it mean to count the cost these days?
Just really a remarkable thing. And it's a really important case. And it's going to be interesting because Colorado has got to be like, dang it, there's ADF again. I can't believe they showed up again. They got to be so tired of seeing those guys.
But sometimes they back down and sometimes they fought. And we'll see. I tend to think that because it has to do with public accommodation and protecting that, they're right essentially to define what that space is and the way that they want to and how important that is to the cause that they're trying to advance. I don't see them backing off of this one like Idra Haji. I think that's the difference.
I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong because the journey, as we have said, the process is the punishment for people who are trying to defend their rights. And this is both speech and religion on the case of Born Again News Books. And so, yeah, really something. I actually hope on behalf of your friends at the bookstore, I hope as well that they would back down.
But part of me also hopes that the state does not back down because this needs to be litigated in the light. Like we need to get the rest from this. Let's do it. Like it has to come to a head. And I'm grateful that the bookstore is putting itself out there for that reason.
Let's take a quick break, John. We'll be right back with more Breakpoint this week. Hi, Breakpoint listeners. If you've been considering applying for the Colson Fellows Program, there's good news. We've extended the deadline two weeks until July 31st.
The Colson Fellows Program is a 10-month worldview formation program for busy men and women in all stages of life. The program takes a deep dive into Christian worldview to equip you to live like a Christian right where God has called you. But don't wait to submit your application. If you've been on the fence about the program, now is the time to jump in. Don't miss this opportunity to deepen your faith and sharpen your mind with like-minded Christians around you.
If you have questions, we've added two more live informational webinars on July 17th and July 23rd, hosted by Michael Craven, Vice President and Dean of the Colson Fellows Program. Find out more at colsonfellows.org. That's colsonfellows.org. We're back on Breakpoint this week. John, I want to talk now about a piece I read in the free press a couple weeks ago and promptly sent it to you.
You said the state of Colorado is getting tired of hearing from ADF, probably. I have no doubt that my local library is very tired of hearing me and seeing me come over there, but I do not intend to stop. And the story I want to talk with you about is called The Death of the Public Library. And this reporter was writing, he started with a story about his local library in Florida, but kind of zoomed out to look at libraries generally. Visits to libraries since I believe 2019 have gone down 35% and security incidents are way, way up.
To anybody who's gone to a library frequently or infrequently, this is not a surprise. Over the past couple of decades, libraries have increasingly been seen as a social service in line with a homeless shelter, a day shelter. There are always people, even in my neighborhood library, there are people sleeping there, people who are clearly spending their whole day there. This reporter with the Free Press found, I mean, more than half of librarians in Los Angeles are now trained to use Narcan, which is the medication that can reverse an overdose. Librarians are increasingly being trained in, you know, kind of social work aspects.
and there was even an interesting part of this piece where he spoke with librarians or he went to a conference with the National Association of Libraries and he said librarians talk about their jobs in religious terms much more than they used to. This woman coined the phrase vocational awe. Like we are here to be a welcoming space for everybody. It's the exact kind of stuff you'd expect. The result of course has been that people are just not going, the people who want to go to the library to get books or do research are no longer going to the library.
It is for a different crowd of people now. And that is not because people don't want access to print materials anymore because sales at print bookstores are way up. Barnes and Noble is expanding to an impressive degree this year.
So it's not that. I sent this to you because to me, this is evidence of more of the shifting in what we view, like what we view is the mission of our institutions. It's sort of like a shifting of that, the sphere sovereignty where libraries were set up and would still ostensibly sell themselves as a place where people can go and get access to free books and resources, do research, interact with librarians who can help them do that research and find the books they're looking for, Were there story times for children, et cetera? And it is increasingly being seen as social services in an era of addiction-fueled poverty. And I think that's a huge shame because the people we're thinking about last in that equation are kids.
I can't send my kids to my library anymore for this reason, even the children's section. And it's really a loss.
Well, yeah, I mean, there's a lot here, right? I mean, some would argue you can't send your kids to the children's section at the library whether or not there's any danger from an addicted stranger because there's danger from the ideas in the sense that here you now have an institution that's internally thinks in some ways, or at least it's bought into the idea that its job is to be the arbiter over and above parents of the free exchange of ideas. I mean, you've complained on here before and rightly so. In due course, after you complained to the library itself, you know, about posters proclaiming them to be safe spaces for, you know, children or, you know, preteens who are questioning their identity. And, you know, if you don't feel safe at home, you can feel safe here.
I mean, at that point, I want to go back and go, why does the library, why is there such a thing as a public library? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? it's this it's very similar to our question about education should public schools exist now listen public schools exist because of christian civilization public schools exist because there was a desire to assist parents and make sure that uh religion and morality and citizenship uh and and and connection with literacy which enabled all those things We're being taught, you know, to the youngest citizens, right?
So you can secure the future. One would argue that that vision is so far gone in public education that, you know, you and I've talked over the last couple of weeks that, you know, it's time for the Department of Education to go. It's time for the cracks in the public school system to be opened wide and replaced with better alternatives. I do wonder if this conversation on libraries is the same thing. It's like, okay, well, what was the original vision?
I don't think it's the proper purview of the state, you know, here in the beginning, but I think it had good intentions. And, you know, you never think that it's going to get that far off the rails until it does. My kids benefited greatly, you know, from access to public libraries and so on. But you know what? They also benefit greatly from the book exchange in our neighborhood.
And there you have an alternative that does the same thing in many ways.
So there's ways that institutions, it's usually never one thing, it's many things, right? And so you have the one thing being the internal threats. And as you're talking about the external threats, which is, if you're not really clear on the type of institution you are or the purpose of an institution, then you're going to have a tough call when it comes to priorities. For example, we talked about the Scopes trial. Scopes Draw is a great example of this.
That was the whole question about priorities. Are public schools about the state helping parents educate their kids? Are public schools about teachers' academic freedom? And we know how that whole thing got litigated, and it went one particular direction. But that prioritization gets off kilter, I think, when you lose sight of your purpose.
So it would be interesting. Maybe you know the answer to this. Maybe we need to call Glenn Sunshine in at some point, too. talk about this. What was the original purpose of life?
Where did they come from? Do you know?
Well, okay.
So in the free press, this reporter wrote in January, Barnes and Noble announced that it planned to open 60 new locations in 2025, a record on top of the 57 it opened in 24. A company spokesperson told people magazine readers were looking for a place to spend time and connect with other people in their community. Our bookstores have become a safe and welcoming space to meet up with friends and explore the bookshelves. And this reporter then wrote, this of course is the role libraries have historically played and should still play. Instead, as libraries look to be everything to everybody, as one librarian told me, they're becoming less and less to fewer and fewer people.
Yeah.
Listen, no question that analysis is right. It is interesting if you went back a little further on the Barnes and Noble question, because we all remember the glory days of, I mean, seminary, I chose Barnes and Noble over the library at the seminary, mainly because I can't study and write in quiet. I need noise. I'm a noise guy. But even in the kind of recent resurgence of book sales, it's still down, right?
From what it was 25 years ago or something like that, I would think.
Well, I'm not sure because it depends on if they're wrapping in e-books, I guess. Because the medium is a question. And I think there was some, like if you go to the New York Metropolitan Library, it is clearly an institution set up for research. It's not just like a bunch of rooms with stacks of fiction books that you're just going to go check out for leisure reading. It's specific research areas and studying.
That seems to be less and less needed or sought after because of the internet itself. but it's still, people still use it for that purpose. And they still primarily use it ostensibly. Their mission has to do with books and literacy to some degree. These are not addiction recovery centers, but that's what so many of them have de facto become.
Yeah, and then of course you can go, well, what's the cause of addiction? And what's the cause of homelessness? And you kind of keep going back and further and further and further. And I think the best definition of homelessness or explanation for homelessness that I've heard is that it's a catastrophic loss of relationship. when people lose sense of home.
So then you think, well, listen, the literacy rate, the poverty rate, the relationship, all of that sort of stuff is also impacted by the degrading of the family in America. And it shouldn't be lost on all of us that you as a super engaged and caring wife and mother and someone who values the life of the mind are mourning the loss of the library, right? In other words, it takes a particular kind of person to care and to care about specific things. And that was a resource that should be of help to you, which makes me ask the question, what would a Christian redemptive move here be, right? Like what could the church do?
It's interesting to me that so many big churches opened coffee shops when coffee shops got popular. You know, is there a role to open a library now that, you know, we need a replacement for that? Isn't, I mean, that to me is an interesting question. There is a Colson fellow who graduated a few years ago, and she and I were in touch a while ago, who is doing exactly this. She is starting a library in her church and encouraging other churches to do the same.
And it's not, from my understanding, strictly Christian or theology books. It is just a library where parents can go and not have to worry like I do that their kids are going to bring home four books and three of them are going to have to do with sex and LGBT identity, which is a wonderful alternative. But it begs the same question. It makes me gives me the same response that I feel about public schools, which is I would not personally currently send my kids to the public school in my area. but I don't think it's right that it would be off limits for me for these very basic reasons that I don't want my kids to.
In other words, if it's going to be a real public accommodation and it's going to follow the mission that it originally had, then it should change. And as much as my time and schedule and patience allow, I want to try and be a part of that. That's why I'm over at the library voicing my concern to the manager like I did again this morning pretty consistently. Because my hope is that the more I do it, the more it seems pressing to them. And the more I maybe can encourage other people that they're able to do it too and should think about it.
I love the idea of kind of redemptive alternatives.
Sometimes you redeem from within and sometimes you offer something better from without. And I think that that's a really interesting question. I mean, you know, to your point, I mean, again, going back to Colorado being Colorado, I mean, just 30 miles from where we live is another case. This isn't an ADF case, but this has to do, again, with the school library in a small little town, maybe the smallest school district in Colorado. They have very, very limited resources.
And, you know, a judge has mandated a group of parents went through a whole process to pull out some books. One of the book literally in the first chapter featured incest and portrayed it in a positive way. And this is in the school library.
So they voted to get that book out of there. And of course, the ACLU comes and sues and the school district now is under the gun. The judge has ordered it back in while it's being decided. I mean, it's just one insane thing after another. and you just kind of go, well, this is what happens when institutions lose trust.
The question is, what kind of opportunity does that pose? What can we do as an alternative at such a time as this? And I think that's an interesting question. Christians have always, from the beginning, we have talked here before about how Christians have been on the side of children and have been about rescuing and saving children You know what else Christians have always been on the side of Literacy and reading because we think that the word matters And whether that was kind of the oral tradition of memorization and repetition or whether that was, you know, to invent the printing press, as Gutenberg did, in order to disseminate learning and reading, so that people could have their hands on the text, primarily of Scripture, but also as a way of learning and knowing and becoming who we're supposed to be. That was the vision.
That's why education has always gone and literacy has always gone wherever the church went. You wouldn't always think about that still being the mission of the church, given where the literacy rate is. But to me, it's an interesting question. I'd love to hear from folks stories of redemptive alternatives when it comes. We know that there's a ton on education.
We've already talked about that.
So I don't mean that. I want redemptive alternatives on the library question. Is there anything like that that people know about? In addition, you know, to the Colson fellow that you mentioned. And then there's people like our Wilberforce Award winner this year, Dr.
Jabba Singh, who chose to devote so much of her life to teaching kids to read who otherwise would never have gotten that opportunity. I mean, in the slums of India, where their highest hopes were to work as housekeepers, or just very blue-collar jobs were the highest available to them. And most of those kids in her community at that time were not going to school at all. And it was her Christian faith, as I understand it, who inspired her to teach kids to read because of this belief that everybody should be able to read. Because the word is important, and the word of God is given to us in words.
And yeah, that is a huge part of our legacy.
So I agree. I'd love to hear more either alternatives to the library or maybe ways you've helped or encouraged your library to see a better way. We know that the progressive side of culture has been very forceful in these very spaces. This is why libraries have teen only, like you mentioned, spaces where grownups are not allowed to go because what if a teen doesn't feel safe being their authentic self at home and they need to be that at the library. and yet you can go into any children's section and find people sleeping on the floor or doing other really inappropriate things.
It's because kids are thought of last. And I think one of our opportunities to bring redemption to the situation is to stand up for kids in the library. John, let's take another quick break. We'll be right back with more Breakpoint this week. What is a human being worth?
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We're back on Breakpoint this week. John, there was a story in World this week about a new study called the Global Flourishing Study that's really just getting underway. It just released its first set of data. My understanding is it's going to be about a five-year study and it's in its first year. This is coming from researchers at Baylor University, as well as the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard, which has a really robust kind of infrastructure for studying human happiness.
It has one of the biggest studies on human happiness in the world. In this particular study, they're surveying 200,000 people from 22 countries across the world. And on a scale of zero to 10, they're measuring human flourishing And they're measuring it through domains such as physical health, mental health, meaning and purpose, close relationships, character, virtues, and financial security. But one of the things they found in this preliminary set of data, which is counterintuitive a bit, is that the countries that scored the highest are some of the poorest countries in the world. For example, Indonesia had the highest score, followed then by Mexico and the Philippines.
and this reporter on World spoke to a couple different researchers and psychology professors about why this might be the case and it sort of reminded me of this debate about decadence and whether there's a correlation between money and happiness that might be inverted as opposed to the correlation we'd think which is the more money the happier you are what do you think well I mean listen this is the latest in a whole bunch of work that's just been done recently in the last five to 10 years. And it's pointing, or at least trying to give some shape data-wise to some things philosophically that people have discussed for a long time. And the prevailing wisdom that this study aligns with is that there's not a relationship between money and happiness. There actually just isn't. Once you get past a particular income level, the relationship is anecdotal.
In other words, there's, it's not even correlation in a sense that it has to do with purpose. Arthur Brooks, I think, has done some really helpful things here philosophically. And now the data, I think, continues to back up what he says is that, you know, if you have a life of productivity, meaning and productivity, in other words, you have reason to live and what you're doing with your life matters, then once you're above survivability, once you have enough money to eat, honestly, more money just doesn't make a whole lot of difference. But more money can further detach you from those things. It can further detach you from meaning.
It can further detach you from productivity, particularly when you're talking about generational or multi-generational wealth. And I know so many people who are wrestling with, listen, am I going to actually hurt my kids by leaving them all this money that I've been blessed with. And the data says maybe that's a really good warning. And so it is fascinating that we're looking at this. I've got all kinds of qualms with this happiness study and that happiness study and different versions of it.
I know this is talking about flourishing, which is big. Those are still loaded words with loaded categories. But looking at it is at least interesting. And there's no question at all that technological psychological sophistication and scientific ability are not ways to secure happiness. There's something about being almost disconnected from those things, which you come down to it, it's meaning and productivity.
And of course, relationships as well. Those are kind of the three big factors that we think money can buy or money can replace. And study after study says no. I think part of it too is that people can adapt. People are very adaptive to circumstances and suffering.
And the less suffering you encounter or the less discomfort you encounter, often the less capable you are of dealing with it when it does arise and the less confident you are in your own ability to deal with it. I see this in my personal life, but I think we can also see it on a big scale like these studies where in nations where maybe there are high familial connections and either there's a high communal culture or a high religious culture, but who are experiencing poverty or certainly have less resources than we have in the West, there can still be a very strong sense of meaning, which gives people a sense of purpose. that could be easier found than if you're living somewhere where every need is met. I mean, I just think in an ecclesiastical view of this, the happiest people are the people who are able to hold money and material goods loosely. And the more of those things you have, the harder it seems to be to be able to hold them loosely.
I don't think that's a character flaw necessarily. I think it's just human nature. but it does seem to go against the prevailing wisdom that like searching for comfort and longevity and every, you know, having all of our desires met is the most important thing for our flourishing. I, I, I think the data is going to continue to suggest that's not the case.
Well, John, I want to turn now to some feedback we've gotten from some listeners. And just to reminder, if you'd like to reach out, you can go to breakpoint.org and click on contact us with any questions or feedback or recommendations of articles or news you'd like us to tackle. I want to start with this question from Dan, who was a Colson fellow this past year. He wrote in about a conversation you had with Katie on last week's episode about immigration. He says, there was a discussion about how the left uses scripture when it wants to make its point, but not when the point is against them politically.
This is true, but that still doesn't explain some of the questions that arise, particularly in regards to immigration. For example, Christ asked us to love our neighbors and to give to those in need. How does that impact how we view immigration? No, I think it's great. And it's exactly the right question, but just because one side is selective doesn't mean that the verse that they're pointing out is irrelevant to the conversation.
I think when it comes to immigration, some of the things we tried to talk about in the past is, you know, understanding that the commands that made Israel distinct are not commands from which to derive public policy for America today. It might be. It might be because it reflects some kind of universal moral principle and so on, but it might not be.
So, for example, when God tells Israel to welcome the stranger, oftentimes that's used then to justify welcoming the stranger by having, you know, open borders and having low expectations and having all these other things. And what's ignored are all the other verses to talk about the stranger. In other words, these are very specific commands in Deuteronomy to Israel in that time and place. What's universal is that humans are made in the image and likeness of God, and that family is a universal part of being made in the image and likeness of God. And so we can look at that and say, oh, you know what?
When we take someone who enters the United States illegally and treat them like an animal, that's something that every single person should be absolutely against. If we ever have a policy, this is something that the Colson Center has spoken out against when President Obama did it and when President Trump talked about doing it in his first term, separating kids from their parents, that is absolutely irresponsible. I mean, to do it temporarily is one thing, but to actually do it in any sort of long-term way that causes that kind of harm and so on, that's absolutely not acceptable. And that's not because there's a specific verse that says thou shalt not separate kids at the border. It's because there are biblical truths about what it means to be human, and that should inform a policy that's just.
So proof texting a particular verse, that's what I think I want to go against. Because at that point, you have to take into consideration first, Israel and the United States are not the same people for the same purposes in God's redemptive history. Secondly, there are context of enemies. The way that Israel handled their immigration issues when they were feeling pressure from the Philistines was different than when David had put all of the armies around them to defeat and basically put all the wars at rest. And it's particularly when Solomon did that.
And in other words, these are contextual situations that require wisdom. And there's a whole lot of stuff, by the way, that talks about what it means to be wise. and understanding the nature of things.
So I think the biblical instruction about what it means to be human, what it means to be created in his image, inherent with dignity, also the biblical understanding of the fall, basically having a prudential understanding of the capacity of humans to do evil and to will evil and to do it kind of in a coordinated way and to deceive and the importance of the rule of law and so on. These are all important things that have to be considered. And so we have to look at that and then measure whatever policies we have and new policies we promote and temporary policies and long-term policies against those things. That's where a biblical, quote unquote, immigration policy is gonna come from. It's not gonna come by grabbing one verse out of Deuteronomy, but not another.
Right. And there's a difference as well, I think, between how we are called to treat people individually that we come across and the way a nation is called upon to fulfill its duties and to make policy, which seems to be another part of it.
Well, look, that's clearly when it comes to the, sorry, let me just say one more thing. That's clearly when it comes to the words of Jesus. A lot of times people pick up the words of Deuteronomy, but sometimes they'll pick out that piece from the Sermon on the Mount, you know, or when Jesus said, I was hungry and you gave me food and I was naked and you gave me clothes. and then somehow justifying not having any sort of border policies whatsoever because Jesus said that. Instructions to individuals.
And then how you and I should deal with an immigrant as we pass them on the street versus how a nation needs to handle his official status. Those are completely different things. I know I've mentioned before that we help women at our pregnancy center who are here illegally. and I do everything we can to keep them safe and healthy. Yeah, but we all have the understanding.
And you don't want them to choose abortion either. Right, no, no, no, no, no. And we all have the understanding, including them. I mean, everybody's clear-eyed about it, that they're at risk because they knew the risk they took when they came here. Like that to me is part of this contextualizing and individualizing.
I'm not sitting here in Columbus, Ohio, making national policy. These are very different questions. And if you were working for ICE, that you'd have a different responsibility. You're not. You're working for a pregnancy resource center.
So you have a responsibility to tell them about Jesus and to help their kids be well cared for and to help them navigate whatever challenges they have. You don't help them break the law. That's not something that you do. They chose to do that. And then you love and care on them because every life is valuable.
So I wish there was a quick, easy handbook for all these various scenarios that we all face. but I do think we can be biblical about it in a holistic way.
So it was a great question from Dan. Agreed.
Well, there's another question I want to get to. This was from a few weeks ago when we were talking about we talked on a few of the programs including a program with Katie Faust about the 10th anniversary of the Obergefell decision And you had also done a breakpoint commentary just about kind of looking at this decision 10 years on, what has it changed in culture? What impact has it had on children and families? I'm going to take this person kind of took the, the breakpoint kind of one point by point.
So I just want to hit a few of them and then maybe let you respond.
So for example, you had said Obergefell had no legal authority to redefine family. This person responded and said, no, but it recognized that same-sex couples already form families legally, emotionally, and spiritually. Jesus did not define family by procreation. He redefined it by love when he said, whoever does the will of my father is my family. This commenter goes on to say, to quibble with your take that marriage is about procreation, kind of in the same vein, that procreation and reproduction and covenant love has nothing to do with each other, that families can be what we want them, and that Jesus, neither Jesus nor the Bible, defined families the way that we seem to be, which is a mother and a father coming together to have children.
Yeah, this was quite a set of comment, and he basically took on a number of things that we said and decided that we were wrong. And I think the whole exercise here is an exercise in the difference between an assertion and an argument.
So let's take, for example, no, Obergefell recognized that same-sex couples already form families. Same-sex couples don't already form families. I mean, same-sex couples have a relationship. They have a relationship that is romantic and they may even have a relationship that's committed. But why is romance and commitment the same thing as a family?
We wouldn't say that that's a legitimate argument when it comes to any other kind of relationship forms or many other relationship forms.
So why all of a sudden did Obergefell have the right to do that?
Well, it's because historically families have always been recognized as the relationship between mother, father and child. This is why even communities and cultures that had no moral problems, religious or otherwise, with homosexual behavior still did not call homosexual relationships families. That was the innovation of Obergefell. They did not call same-sex couples married. Why?
Because the government doesn't have any interest in who you play tennis with or who you have strong feelings about or anything like that. The government has an interest in kids. And what Obergefell did and why it did more than extend family or recognize family, as this guy's arguing, is because family has always been understood to be connected to procreation. And same-sex couples have nothing to do with procreation. The argument, by the way, was not that Jesus did or did not define family by procreation, although he did in his proof text of Matthew 12, 50 here, that whoever does the will of my father is my family.
that doesn't change how he argued about divorce in Matthew chapter 19, in which he very clearly made it about male and female and the male and female capacity to have sexual intercourse. And obviously he put that back in the context of Genesis and that sexual intercourse there is created by God for the purpose of procreation or male and female are given the gift of sexual intercourse for procreation. In other words, what Jesus actually argues there is something really, really specific, is that men and women can become one flesh. And that is in a procreative capacity, according to Genesis 1, which he clearly points everyone to. Two men and two women actually cannot become one flesh in the way that Jesus meant it.
They do not kick in the procreative process, the thing that Adam needed help with. In fact, he did a suitable helper for. That's why all the animals that he named weren't helpful. That's why another Adam would not be helpful. That's why another Eve would not be helpful for Eve.
This is something that is a very common tactic of those who basically believe that the mantra love is love somehow is an argument. Love is love is not an argument because we know that not all love is all love. If every, and just being romantic or committed is not sufficient to define a family. Here's the argument. It's really simple.
I owe this to my friend, Frank Turek. every single person on the planet lives in a loving, committed, romantic, monogamous, faithful, heterosexual relationship, then the world has a future. If every single person lives in a loving, committed, romantic, monogamous, faithful, homosexual relationship, the world will come to an end. In other words, all the same adjectives. But love isn't love.
Heterosexual love is not homosexual love. And that's why the second point, which he then goes on to, and I don't know if you want to go to the second point, we could go point by point here. Marriage is not about procreation. Marriage is not just about procreation, but marriage is not less than procreation. And just because a couple has passed the point of being able to procreate, they still participate in a procreative process, right?
So there is a fundamental difference between men and women having sexual intercourse and two men or two women who can't actually have sexual intercourse and what that does to the institution of marriage itself. How much more do we want to go through here? I mean, I don't know. I think you've kind of hit the central argument most of the, and I appreciate the feedback here that somebody took the time. They clearly very much disagree with you.
But I think most of the pushback here was like you're saying, it was really an argument and not an assertion. He says at one point that you called these judges in Obergefell, the Obergefell decision, activist judges. And he's saying, no, they were not activist judges. They simply recognized gay people. Like, in other words, rather than creating a new category, they simply gave legal recognition to a category that was already happening.
Right. That's right. And it's connected to an earlier point that this person also made that no one cared about IVF and surrogacy until gay folks started using it.
Well, I appreciate that maybe some didn't. I did. I've been talking about IVF and surrogacy for years. I was talking about it to high school and college students way before the Obergefell decision. And the fundamental point that in order for a same-sex couple to, quote-unquote, have a child, they have to bring a third party into it.
They cannot do it through that normal process. And that process is the process that is overwhelmingly demonstrated to be what's best for children in the context of marriage. and to basically change that just because some people want that definition of marriage is actually to put children second, not to put children first. And the institution of marriage is the institution that is guaranteed that children by and large are put first in this whole kind of conversation. As my friend Maggie Gallagher would often say, whenever a baby's born, there's a mom nearby.
What marriage did is made sure that whenever a baby is born, so is a dad. and that's what a child needs. And that's where we get the definition of marriage. By the way, I think it's also interesting too. I'm not sure exactly what piece this person is, was responding to because we did do a lot of the pieces.
But the main pieces we did actually did not argue for marriage from scripture. It argued for marriage from natural law. It argued for marriage from what has been obviously true throughout all of history. to argue that the Obergefell decision, quote unquote, I'm quoting here, recognize queer people as full human beings. First of all, that's an anachronism because the word queer was something that was basically put back on that to include further letters of the alphabet.
It was not about the T or the Q or the IA back when the Obergefell decision was being argued. It was about the L and the G and maybe the B.
So that's an anachronism put back on there. And why is it? Like who was it that decided that the only way to recognize someone as a full human being, to use this word, is to recognize whatever sexual arrangement they want to have as being the same as marriage, right? I think about this all the time. This is a brand new argument.
This does not exist in the history of the world. You can use that same argument with the transgender nomenclature.
Well, he is. And it always goes somewhere. This commenter, I don't know if it was a he or she, but that's what this person's doing. They're arguing that for queer people. It always goes somewhere you don't want it to go because you end up asking questions like, well, how deeply does this person feel that way?
Or how long have they felt that way? Or how badly do they want it to be true? Or how much do they feel emotionally attached to this person? These are not questions that the law is supposed to be answering or that any moral law would have to ask in order to decide whether it's good or not. But that's basically what you'll have to get into if you go that route.
And I mean, I remember we shouldn't be teaching our kids either. I mean, I tell my kids this all the time. I remember somebody pushing back to me years ago and saying, when you talk about transgender people as if it's not a real category, you make them feel less human. And my response to that is, if anyone has ever told you that another human being has the ability to make you feel less human, that was an incredible disservice. I don't have that.
I shouldn't have that power. And I don't, you shouldn't give me that power. And I don't give anybody else that power. If I'm human, I was made in the image of God and that dignity cannot be taken away. What we're talking about in these conversations is behaviors and what we incentivize and don't and what's real and what's not.
You know, what I was thinking as I was reading through this other than, you know, you know, this is kind of a point by point lesson and the difference between an assertion and an argument is how the Obergefell conversation, the same sex marriage conversation in particular, but also then the subsequent ones of trans and others, they actually proceeded by form of assertion. Things were just said. Things were said like the kids will be fine. Things were said like, you know, marriage is a civil right. Things were said like, well, that was later, I'm talking specifically about the Obergefell one, like the kids of gay marriages do fine.
And see what was, what happened in this comment was a whole bait and switch that, you know, kids from same sex parents will do fine. And then it became in, uh, later on in the comments, you know, kids of queer people will be fine. Uh, we have no evidence for any of that. The evidence that we have suggest otherwise, um, by the way, uh, one of the things Katie and I talked about last week was how Mark Regner, who did one of the early studies on the difference between same-sex, not queer parenting, same-sex parenting. And of course, queer means anything that anybody wants it to at the time, but that they didn't do as well.
And that Mark's findings were legitimized and validated over and over and over. And so you just have, it just reminded me how this whole debate went forward. It was by basically saying, the only reason you would disagree with this is if you're a bigot. And so let me just tell you everything that I want to be true about this. God blesses what human systems refuse to recognize.
I mean, you just, queer families are holy. Queer love is holy. No, this is a sinful act of sexual perversion that was then qualified and called the same as marriage by, yes, activist judges who changed for the first time in human history what the term marriage meant. It was always that way. I was also struck too, because there was a way that this kind of just assertion of bigotry, it just silenced people.
You know, people just didn't want to say anything about it. I just feel like it's losing its hold. And maybe it is the T that followed this so quickly. when the tease just jumped on board, used all the same arguments. And I really want to let this person know, maybe they don't know, read some Andrew Sullivan because there's some Andrew Sullivan in this where here you have a guy who championed same-sex marriage or Jonathan Rauch, another guy who championed same-sex marriage and then looks at how the tease and those who identify as queer use the exact same arguments.
And those who were advocates of same-sex marriage were like, whoa, we didn't mean that. We don't want that. And there's some buyer's regret on this that I think we're going to see more of. And I also, hopefully we can see this whole thing of like, oh, you're just biased or you're just whatever, that that loses its hold on people because it actually doesn't help kids. It doesn't point people to truth and we can do better.
Well, John, let's I will save my recommendation for next week. Do you have maybe some recommendations people could turn to for more on this, both like biblical arguments for the sanctity of marriage or a response to some of these arguments that we're wrestling with here? I mean, listen, I feel bad about recommending my own book. I don't usually do that, but I'm going to. Remember, it was put out pre-Obergefell.
You know, obviously the book to recommend is What is Marriage by Robbie George, Ryan Anderson, and Sharif Gurgis. It's not the most accessible book for everyone. And so Sean McDowell and I jumped into this fray back in 2013 and 14 and started to write this. And we included both a natural law and a biblical argument for this. The idea being we think the Bible's true.
And if the Bible's true, you'll be able to find it in the universe like gravity. And you'll be able to find it in the Bible because the Bible describes what's true. And so, you know, there's parts of it that would desperately need to be updated at this point, kind of looking later. You know, there's some Q&As at the end or FAQs about, okay, if same-sex marriage does become legalized, how do we handle this, that, or the other? And, you know, we gave recommendations about things and so on.
And I would probably update some of those things. But I think the first part and the second part, which is, you know, what's the Bible say about this? Or what does Jesus have to say about this? And then the second one is, what if we leave God out of it altogether? Do we get to the same conclusion?
I think it aged well, I guess.
So the book is called Same-Sex Marriage. It was published by Baker back in the day. And I think you can still pick it up on Amazon. Awesome.
Well, that is going to do it for our program this week. 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. We'll see you all back here next week.
