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 the school shooting in Minneapolis. We're also going to talk about the largest Planned Parenthood in America closing and what that means for the pro-life cause. We have a lot to get to this week. We're so glad you're here.
Stick around. Welcome to Breakpoint This Week. From the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer, alongside John Stone Street, president of the Coulson Center. John, most of our listeners will be familiar with the news this week about a shooting at a Catholic school in Minnesota. How have you been working through?
this news.
Well, it's awful. It's uh it's terrible. It's terrible Because whenever children die, it. tells us that the world Shouldn't be this way, and yet it is. Again, I mean we kind of started the summer with a Children dying from a natural disaster.
Here we end the summer with children dying from an act of. What's called moral evil when someone actually perpetrates that against someone else? This is A commonality of uh of a young man who has mental illness. And we've talked in the past about Young men in particular being led to either deaths of despair or acts of desperation like this. Uh we know this guy was uh just in a in a really, really bad place.
But there's also so much, so many questions I have about the coverage of this, right? I mean, The national shooting happened. And we didn't know anything about that. The manifesto was immediately available and it was buried and it was hidden and we didn't know. for so long.
Mm. We knew an incredible amount about This young man. almost immediately. And I don't think it was because of authorities, and I don't think it was because of. of of the news coverage.
It was because a whole bunch of people jumped on social media, scrubbed it and didn't let it die. And then you kind of go, is this the new world we're in where we have to rely on this in order to get the truth? And I think a lot of people. think that that it is the case.
So you have the media coverage, you have uh People out loud saying over and over and over, this is about mental illness and that. His transgender identity is part of that mental illness.
Now, of course, a lot of people are getting. Critiqued for saying that. They're getting Attacked for saying that, but a lot of people are saying that, and they feel emboldened to say that. And I don't think that was the case. For the Nashville shooter, everyone tiptoed around that fact and weren't willing to say those things out loud.
And the days after. This one and media coverage. People Calling this A man a man because he was. Until about 24 hours later, when everyone got smacked down, and then CNN and the BBC and other liberal outlets predictably backed down and. Started calling him a she according to her chosen pronouns.
Jake Tapper even made a big deal about it. in his coverage. But there's more people that are saying he, and less people that are saying she. And that sounds like a. really weird Small win, but In some way that that it is?
But all of that is just like noise around The central event, which is that children have died and other children have been traumatized. And a community has been kind of brutalized. And Everyone has rushed into that community to politicize it almost immediately, including the mayor of Minneapolis. And it's interesting to me, I guess. in a trag it's super tragic way that There are some And maybe it's because this was a new one.
Like it hasn't happened for a while. You know, it's been, I guess, since the Nashville. school shooting that something like this happened and and and And some kind of kind of go without a whole lot of You know talk this one has dominated The the the the culture and and why is it that some of these shootings do and some of these shootings don't? They're all way too normal. I mean.
I mean, that's kind of a... a barrage of thoughts and and there are more and all those are different angles to go down But there's a um In in the wake of the um The incredible loss at Camp Mystic of the young girls to this natural disaster. We we wade in. and a breakpoint commentary wrestling through. This this classic problem of evil.
And The problem of evil has to address or what's called a theodicy, a Christian response to this. has to address both acts of natural evil. and acts of moral evil. And we began the summer with one, we end the summer with another. And I've been just spending a lot of time thinking and saying, you know, does it?
Can our can our defense Explain this level of depravity and On an existential level, the answer is no. It doesn't feel satisfying. But then I look at all the other answers, you know, what's the possible answer from a postmodern perspective or a critical theory perspective or a new age kind of Buddhist perspective? And it's kind of like what Churchill said about democracy: it's the worst form, except for all the others. All the other worldviews cannot explain this and cannot not just explain it, but then offer hope and a way forward.
I think we're going to see within this community. The hope of Christ plays itself out. I hope that's the case. I think we saw that at Covenant Christian in Nashville. worldview gets tested.
It gets tested about whether it's big enough or not. Is it big enough for this level of depravity and evil? I mean, can you imagine walking up to a church service, a mass? and spraying bullets in at children intentionally. From the outside.
I mean, there's so much level of evil and cowardice and and and and just brokenness. And I I don't know if you spent any time reading The manifestos that this or the writings of this guy and what he wrote on the weapons. Uh what he wrote in his uh notebook. You just, you kind of go where does someone get to that place where they're so. Broken.
And then you say Can my worldview explain this? There have been multiple times in my neighborhood. We have a lot of homeless people that congregate around here. Where I'm walking through the park, for example, and there maybe there are people kind of encamped around there. And you'll hear people screaming like very strange, nonsensical things, right?
Like obscenities or racial slurs. That happened last week. Not talking to anybody in particular, like clearly, having some kind of mental health crisis, usually involving drugs. Honestly, reading some of the news about this shooter this week and seeing what he'd written. I just Was overcome with this.
You know, you're just really impressed upon by the wickedness of it. that it it just literally like spews out of a person. in a really illogical, irrational way that Once you give yourself over to evil like that, it just spills out. And I've seen it. lots of times on a spectrum of manifestations, right?
A person yelling in the park is incredibly disturbing and threatening. But it's wholly different than a person doing what this Manded this week. But it feels similar. And then I will be honest. Just dipping my toe into the coverage of it afterwards felt like the same realm of wickedness.
You know, it's like the Coliseum. You know, you watch the movie Gladiator, and you're like, how does a human being? Go into a stadium and watch, like, what a horrible mob. What an irrational, wicked thing to witness. And then you go on social media after an event like this and you think the world is not different than that.
And That was the impression I had. And just I guess further. That left me with two um kind of Mantras for myself going into the week and the weekend, which was number one: like, just don't. Get into it. I don't want to.
I'm trying to avoid most of the coverage about this, other than, you know, I listen to the world and everything in it. Your commentary on there is very helpful. I'd like to know the bare bones of the story, but other than that, I don't want to be, I don't want to listen to it. But Also, you know, understanding that people Once you give yourself over to that kind of evil. It's In my mind, it's not helpful or constructive to try and wrestle with what they're saying or make sense of it or argue with it, because it's possible to become so wicked and to give such a foothold to wickedness that you're just screaming irrationalities.
And sometimes acting on them. And there's no reckoning with that other than praying to the Lord to rebuke it.
Well, I think that that's a very important choice that a lot of people have to make. I mean, there is a level of wickedness here. In terms of how deep to go into the rabbit hole, this is not for everyone, trust me. But there is something different about this one. And what is different about this one?
that I think we have to reckon with. Is, you know, to your point about the Coliseum, there was cultural support for that, right? That was a cultural norm. And we cannot anymore. And I'm grateful for the people that are willing to step up and say: look, look, look at this, don't turn away.
Because what we're not turning away from is that There has been a disproportionate number of recent actions. like this committed by those who are confused about who they are. And it's men thinking that their women are identifying as transgender, and yet. The irony, the tragic, awful irony is that they're kind of The last kind of explosion of desperation. is to then behave in a way that we're told that men behave, right, this kind of violent, awful way.
And Having questioned who they are, it's almost like a last gasp trying to reclaim this thing. And there was actually a line in there: like, I'd cut my hair, but it's the last thing I have to be trans, and the trans thing is the only thing he can hold on to. It's also that The it's being exposed. And what I mean by that is when The Arizona A senator was shot in the head. Within Thirty minutes everyone knew precisely the motive of the shooter, and it turned out to be exactly wrong.
And how many times has that happened to the point where I'm really hesitant to jump out and say this is the motive, this is the motive, this is the motive. We have Very, very clear.
Now, trend lines and explicit words from this guy. And the one thing we keep hearing is that we don't know the motive, we don't know the motive, we don't know the motive, and it's the one from the left. You know, I'm old enough to remember four or five years ago when it was like, we got to stop talking about mental illness. That's a red herring. That's a red herring.
It's not, we got to stop talking about it. That's all they were talking about on CNN the first night, that it's a mental illness, mental illness. That you know, that sort of thing. But They weren't talking about the transgender identity as being part of that mental illness. What they were talking about are, you know, quote unquote.
programs being cut and of course not enough gun regulation. But we're looking at a city, Minneapolis. incredibly high level of gun regulation. more than almost any other city in America. And we also have to come.
Two I think reckon with the fact that In the name of treating mental illness, in many cases we are facilitating it and making it worse. This is the Abigail Schreier conversation that she's introduced, and it seems to me that people are willing. To have it. And part of it, you know, is kind of this immediate smackdown. How dare you say it's because of this?
Or how dare you say it's because. Particularly of the transgender identity. And I think it's ringing hollow. People are like, no, we are going to talk about this. Because it is really clear.
And when you're disconnected from reality, I am not saying that people who struggle with who they were born to be. Are more violent. I think there are suggestions of trend lines and that sort of stuff that need to be reckoned with, and there's not enough data in. But what we know is that mental health tends to come in bunches. Your experience with the homeless in Ohio mirrors my experience with the mentally ill homeless in Jamaica.
Where you just saw anger and violence and disconnection and all that sort of stuff.
Well, you disconnect from reality. The These are what we call comorbidities and it and it's pretty. pretty obvious. And our culture has played a role in this. That's what I'm saying.
Listen, I'm not. a social construct construct guide where we turned around and I think Some Christians immediately will dismiss the fact that, oh, the society made me do it. And we should, because people hold individual guilt for their actions. But cultures either normalize certain things or they don't normalize certain things. We're in a moment where culture has normalized meaninglessness.
culture has normalized. uh confusion about who people are. Culture has normalized. If Abigail Schreier's right in bad therapy, mental illness. Uh and instead of bringing people out of it, actually perpetuates it in many ways.
And these are the sorts of consequences of that. And we've got to reckon with. saying what is true. Because not saying what is true just takes us further down this, I think, rabbit hole. And it's where we're at.
Right. I don't know. This one just is sitting different for me. It's sitting different. Maybe it's because it's been a while.
Maybe it's because of, you know, we knew so much so quickly. And Why didn't we? I mean, we still don't know anything about Las Vegas. We still hardly know anything, hardly anything. about the Nashville shooter which had you know the I mean, you would think that would dominate the attention, right?
This was the first. mass shooting of a school aiming at kids by a woman. Right? I mean, that's that that I can remember. The one in Nashville I'm talking about, right?
But here we have all this information. Here it's the topic of conversation. Yeah, it just sits different for me. I'm so upset. I can't describe how much I hate that we have so many to compare it to.
Just seems outrageous to me. The other through line I see, John, is that I'm thinking of Sandy Hook, this example in Minnesota. There there was the the shooting at the Baptist the small Baptist Church in Texas. a few years ago that killed so many people. Was that these were sons of either former employees or members of the church in the case of Texas?
And it it honestly made it made me think, gosh, I want to write a letter to my school and say, hey, if you if any of you on this staff have a son who is troubled, do something about it. But As a parent, you never Consider that it's your son. Like, is there any lesson to be learned here or encouragement we can give people? When or if their kids are struggling, just to not underestimate the depth of the struggle, I guess. I listen, that is, I don't want to draw more lines, but the Club Q shooting in here, you know, you have someone who was kind of frequented that pulse was the same way.
Different situation, but When there is a familiar kind of target that's been identified, and you know, when you're talking about children of. of former employees of a religious institution who have very art very clearly and unapologetically expressed, not just having a bad experience, but hating that that community. I don't know if it was as specific in this case as it was in others. It just, you know, as you said, it just seemed rambly all over the place. It's a legitimate question in terms of how do we at least Uh Slow this down?
How do we at least stop it? Do we need to do some. serious things. The the red flag laws are in place for a reason. But they don't seem to always be getting to these cases, the cases that are extreme enough to actually.
follow through with Violence like this. I had it I had a conversation. There's going to be a A bonus podcast, I think, next week on the Breakpoint podcast with Justin Brierly. And we were talking about that kind of the ex You know, this kind of new interest in Christianity, what's called a quiet revival in the UK. You know, one of the things he brought up is that there's not this kind of deep-seated hatred.
Or baggage of having a bad experience with the church in the UK because nobody went to church and young people never went to church.
So you're not talking about that. But in the United States, you still have that. You still have kind of a. a much higher segment of the population. that has gone to church.
And then you have, you know, A lot of people that have been taught to hate it. And in many ways, I think, led and reinforced in their hatred to it. And then, you know, again. Pushed even further, into delusion and mental illness. That is a trend.
I mean, we look for trends and you're like, where's the trend? Where's the trend? It tends to be young men. It tends to be young men who have incredible problems. Their dads tend to be absent.
And now we're seeing this trend line of those who identify as non-binary or. Transgender, that is a very real trend line that you see in a number of these incidents. And, you know, maybe that's another trend line. It's an interesting question. Certainly, a lot of time online, too, for these men.
Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back with more breakpoint this week. Did you miss the Colson Center National Conference this year? I have good news. You can still experience every powerful moment.
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We're back on breakpoint this week. John, normally we try to hit a few news headlines in that first segment, but we're going to go ahead and do that now. There were a couple other news items this week I wanted to run by you. First is, Planned Parenthood in Texas announced the closure of its what was formerly the largest Planned Parenthood clinic in the country in Houston. They're closing multiple clinics now, kind of restructuring their leadership.
They're saying that it's due to a lack of funding because Because of in part, obviously, Dobbs in 2022, Texas outlawed abortion. But also under the Trump administration, Planned Parenthood is not receiving Medicaid funding, some of that's tied up in courts, but this is a restructuring, I guess, of Planned Parenthood. I mean, unequivocal good news out of Texas. What does this tell us about the pro-life movement going forward?
Well, I think there's always good news when one of these places closes, right? Even if it's a symbol that it closes. And you look at why this is closing, and it's because the Dobbs decision made it possible for Texas to pass their own laws on this. And Texas, so dramatically restricted the practice of abortion in the state. And you know, um, you remember when we were told that abortion is not that big of a financial deal for Planned Parenthood?
You know, with this is three percent of what they do, but it was like 60 of their budget, and so uh. This, I think. Proves that wrong. You know, in other words, that when you lose that kind of service, quote unquote, and the money that comes in. Uh it it created this incredible hole in their income line.
And uh I think that's a very important thing for us to continue to point out, that Planned Parenthood has always been in the business of abortion. And by business, I mean uh bringing money in And as we know, because of David DeLeiden, also in many cases, bringing money in. because they were selling body parts after abortion to medical facilities and other things.
So that's, I think, one part of the story. But, Maria, we need to be really sober-minded about this: that Planned Parenthood's business. is increasingly moving online. And Texas now is taking steps to restrict the. uh shipping across state lines of the abortion pill.
of Mephopristown. And they're warning Planned Parenthood Clinics and other places and other abortion pill providers. Do not ship into our state. Do not take our clients. be interesting whether they violate that or not.
But You know, right now 60% of Uh abortions are being carried out. chemically. And that's something that's often done without the need, quote unquote, of a facility like this. And we've talked about how that leaves women alone and isolated. That's a terrible thing to do.
But before we, it's kind of like Roe v. Way, you know, the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Way. Like, let's celebrate this, but let's realize.
Now, the problem has just changed a lot. It's not as straightforward as, oh, this is closing. But listen. Less abortions in Texas means more saved lives.
So let's celebrate that. And call it out for what it is. Amen. I'll also just say too. The majority of sex ed curriculum in public schools in the United States is put out by Planned Parenthood.
I think they're focusing a lot of their attention there as well. On issues, even on the transgender medicine thing, right? I mean, on puberty blockers and things like that, right? Yeah. Yeah.
So there's still other income lines, but apparently it's not enough to sustain this place in Houston. But they're not above pivoting. They have some brilliant business minds, and we should keep our eye on that. Um there is a case out of Texas right now of a man who is accused of Obtaining the abortion medication and poisoning his partner's. I don't think they were in a relationship, but hot chocolate causing an abortion.
And I had the misfortune of reading through the text messages that are now part of an affidavit between this man and this woman. And John, he sounded like a veritable spokesman for Planned Parenthood. I think he just lifted everything that they say about the abortion pill from their website. And tried to convince this woman to take it. She said no.
So he gave it to her without her knowledge. It's a really horrifying case. But I think it would be hard to hard to decry if you're Planned Parenthood because they kind of took he kind of took their information and ran with it a little bit. I mean, that sounds like toxic masculinity to me, right? I mean, wouldn't that be fit into the category of toxic masculinity?
But I mean, abortion, we're told all the time, is a uh all about autonomy. Just I think sometimes it's about men's autonomy, but they don't tend to put that on the poster.
So, I guess. There is another story this week where a family has indicated they plan to sue Chat GPT because their son, unfortunately, took his own life. He was very young. And when the parents were looking into this, they were on the Today Show. talking about it.
They found uh you know, they went through his phone and found Days and days and hours and hours of conversation between this. Young boy and chat GPT, where he was indicating his plans to commit suicide. And according to this family, at least, the chat bot that was responding to him. in some places seem to encourage it. I think like mentioned a hotline at one point, but then was saying things like, I promise I'll never tell and that kind of thing.
Is this going to be an increasing problem, do you think?
Well, yeah, I mean, I think we've had a couple of these stories now, and the lawsuit is interesting. But to me, it's pointing to something. Even Beyond, is there kind of a nefarious part of AI that wants to see humans dead? I mean, we remember the story when. The um The grad student was working on a paper in the middle of the night or something.
And the AI service told him he was a plague on humanity and he needed to, you know. Eliminate himself or whatever. Do you remember this? This was like a couple years ago. Super creepy, right?
But, but, And I I am not Quite Ready to pronounce what kind of demonic influences are bubbling up through this. I subscribe pretty heavily when it comes to spiritual activity, to the Screw tape letters model. In other words, the evil doesn't always jump out and go boo.
Sometimes it comes up through our. very uh materialistic way of doing life and the world together. But There is an aspect of artificial intelligence in almost all of its forms. Where Two things are the reality. Number one is it's mining sources.
that we created.
So, the language, for example, that humans are a plague on the planet, you know, that was part of that other story, or in this case, that suicide actually is an option. And that sort of thing. I mean, that's coming from our own sources. Right. At one point, it said, according to these parents, it responded to this boy and said, you don't owe anyone your survival.
That language. You don't owe anyone.
Well, I mean, where's that coming from? Is it coming? I mean, that stuff's been on Reddit for, you know, I think an awful long time. It's curating this information from stuff. that we have already uh put out there.
But the other thing, and this is something that Bill Maher has been talking about of all people. The thing he calls the most annoying part of artificial intelligence, and he often does it with really colorful language.
So, this is not a recommendation of his program or his monologue. But that AI basically kisses our uh our our rear ends. I'm going to say that. Can I say that on our podcast? I didn't say it.
You said it. It is. I said it, so yeah, you can send the notes to whatever. But there's such an appeasement, and it kind of connects to the way we kind of think about. Mental health and struggle is to always affirm, always affirm, always affirm, always affirm, always affirm, always affirm.
Right. And we do that when it comes to sexuality, we do that when it comes to identities, we do that when it comes to doctor-assisted suicide, we do that when it comes. to all kinds of other uh things.
So you have a completely non-nef nefarious, I guess, in that way. program that's just basically Taught to give information in this sort of tone, but you're talking about this topic where. You know I mean, I mean, Bill Maher's example is: you can ask AI the stupidest questions and it responds with, What a great question, or well, that's an interesting observation, right? I mean, it has this kind of whole tone. And I think, by the way, that tone is also learned from.
stuff that we have done culturally to create this kind of universal affirmation. But I think that's going to be part of this is as well. But, you know, there's been an attempt to, you know, legally bring our... uh technologies You know, kind of back into compliance with our humanity for a long time. And it hasn't really gone very well.
You know, I mean, you think about just the legal attempts to put some restrictions on pornography usage and how, or access to pornography, and how long that took to actually gain any traction. And in some places, it still hasn't gained any traction, right? I mean, it's just the legal boundaries on our technology. When it comes to technology, there is this kind of driving force that if we can do it, we have to do it. And if we don't do it, we're holding ourselves back.
And that ethos has been so powerful. that uh it's going to be interesting to see if there's any way to uh put the brakes on here. John, I don't know if you saw this, but Jeffrey Hinton was this guy. I don't know his background, but he's involved in the creation of AI. You know, godfather of AI is thrown around about him, but I feel like they call multiple people that.
He was in an interview recently said something like: The way to keep AI safe, his word. was we need to build into it a maternal instinct. And what he was basically saying was: I mean, from his materialistic kind of evolutionary. worldview, I should say. The only instances of true selflessness in human behavior is between mothers and their children.
And it's really the only instance of a person who's willing to put another Survive another being's survival before their own because that doesn't make any evolutionary sense outside of a mom doing that for their kids. I just was struck with, like, that is, I think, such a great insight and will prove to be utterly impossible because that is something that. Is a unique inherent part of being made in the image of God. The ability and the call to be selfless, to consider others' needs before your own. You are not going to be able to give that to a machine, but it is true that that is required for human flourishing.
So I just, I thought that was really interesting, but it's going to prove to be impossible. I mean, it it is part of kind of the human instinct. It's also one of the most suppressed human instincts and our culture right now. In other words, self-sacrificing. I mean, we have article after article of middle-aged women talking about how much they hate their kids, how much they hope they never had kids, or they didn't want stretch marks, so they're going to have somebody else give birth, but then they're going to call themselves the mom, or they're going to actually go through process to genetically select their own kids.
so that we can do parenting. In other words, we're just in a process of Where that kind of inherent sacrifice that mothers often bring, it's being worked out of us in new cultural norms.
So I hope he means going back to the good old days and not doing it based on today. But that's a good idea. I would argue the more we argue that we shouldn't be selfless. We are also equally arguing that everyone else should be selfless toward us, though. Like, we definitely love it and want to see it improve in everyone else, just not ourselves.
The only problem is these AI bots are going to source something and they're going to, you know, source these. Terrible Huffington Post articles, you know, where Miranda July, yeah. Let's take a quick break, John. We'll be right back with more breakpoint this week. I Triggered a huge dog pile.
Within a couple of days, it was in all the newspapers, and under considerable duress, I published a Apology letter. Oban made me take time away to examine my quote-unquote blind spots. And Yes, I might have gone against the prevailing thought of the industry. but it was more important to stand by my principles. That was Winston Marshall, a musician.
When he spoke out against far-left ideology, he was faced with the choice: retract these sincerely held beliefs. Or stand for truth at the expense of public approval. You can hear his story in Truth Rising, a documentary brought to you by the Colson Center and Focus on the Family. Don't miss the global streaming premiere of Truth Rising on September the 5th. We're back on breakpoint this week.
John, we are, of course, recording this on Friday. This coming week is going to be the release of the Truth Rising documentary. And I know we've shared. Your conversations with Oz Guinness about this project before, but can you give us a little preview of what we can expect? Yeah, we're real excited.
So, the global premiere is next Friday, September the 5th. You can go to truthrising.com and Get access to that as well as a number of other resources and a follow-up study and so on. You know, there's this kind of tradition that the Colson Center is a part of that You know, we we remember Francis Schaefer. In his films, Whatever Happened to the Human Race and How Then Shall We Live. Both trying to offer Christians an understanding of the cultural moment and to understand the ideological.
uh shifts that were taking place. And his appeal was an appeal to truth. Uh, that seeing Christianity as true truth, as he put it, that it was not just true.
Something that was personally helpful, but that it was the thing that was true with the capital T. And that is where some of our values, like human dignity and so on, came from. And that other ideas that were not true, existentialism, nihilism, were creeping into the West, and that was going to lead to certain things. Uh like, for example, uh uh an increased devaluing of human life. check.
Check. Uh a devaluing of children. Check. I mean, he went through and listed all that, the devaluing of the elderly check. I mean, you can just kind of go through.
That list, an onslaught of relativism, and that relativism would have consequences in really significant areas of life. Check. I mean, he was prophetic, right? And when Chuck and Nancy Piercy wrote, How now shall we live? There was an intentional you know Titling of that to kind of be, hey, we're now talking about truth again, because you know, some of these things that he predicted have indeed come true.
And then you had Del Tackett talking about the, yeah, the Truth Project, same thing. You know, and basically really just kind of saying, look, Christianity is true and we can show that it's true. We should have confidence in that it's true. And these other things are not true and that sort of thing. One of the things that you and I have talked about a lot.
Is that these very, very important works, A, Seemed it. They've aged well, right? I mean, they said important things, those important things tended to have come. And to reality. But they were also theoretical.
And 25 years ago is when I started teaching worldview in a formal way, you know, at conferences and in classrooms and things like that. You know, at the time we were talking about the hyper-relativism of postmodernism. It hadn't morphed into the The tyranny of relativism that came through critical theory or anything like that. But there were examples we used of abandoning truth and embracing relativism, like, wow, truth is up to you, truth is up to me. Does that mean that stop can mean go?
Does that mean that boy means girl? And these were hypotheticals, and at least one of those now is debated in public policy. At least one of those now has been enforced on us. By medical quote unquote experts and educational and psychological quote unquote experts. In other words, those theoretical things have now become existential.
So I've been thinking for a long time, like, We need to update this. Because now it's not just that we need Discernment, although we always need discernment. And that was my kind of clarion call for 25 years. You know, what Paul prayed for the church at Philippi, that your love would abound more and more in truth and in all discernment. We need to know what's true.
We need to be able to discern it from what's false.
Now we have to add something else, which is courage, because It's not enough to just know the truth. You have to actually at times at a critical choice, at a critical moment, say what's true. At a critical moment, claim what's true. Love the truth. Believe in the truth.
This is kind of another level of Christian commitment. And so really the truth rising is in that. It's it you know it's not as maybe robust as as as the others in that theoretical way, but it It takes viewers on a journey. From where we're at in this cultural moment, what Osgenis calls a civilizational moment. What he means by that is a critical point in our civilization where we've untethered ourselves from those ideas and those truths that animated the world.
And now we're looking for something else. And we've tried, as John Howard, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, puts it, we tried alternative fuel. But I don't know if you've ever done this, put gas in a diesel engine or put diesel in a gas engine. It just, it doesn't work. It sputters.
And we're doing that as a civilization. You know, there was.
something that Drove our culture forward. Ideas about human dignity, ideas about morality. In other words, ideas that were true. We've cut off from the sources of that truth and then tried to put alternative fuel. That's why we're sputtering, that's why we're back and forth.
And yeah, we've had a vibe shift in the last couple of years, but that's basically just pointing and saying our fuel's not working. That's not actually cleaning out the engine and putting new fuel in, right? And that's the moment that we're in. calls for a certain way to live. This is a film.
That begins. With civilization it ends with calling. It starts with: how do we understand the civilizational moment? And it ends with. What does that mean for all of us?
It starts with Uh Oz Guinness taking us basically on a tour like the Gandalf he is. through Western civilization. What do we know to be true about civilization? From some of the top experts in the world, Neil Ferguson literally wrote the book on civilizations. You have people who are believers, like Philippa Stroud, people who are not believers, like David Berlinski, pointing at the same thing and saying, You are here.
This is the moment you're in. This is why it's so critical. This is why it matters. And and then The film ends with five stories of courage that I think point the way to the kind of people we need to be. The five stories are stories that some of our folks will certainly be familiar with.
Jack Phillips, we talk a lot about Jack, his stand of courage, and That was a 13-year journey. What his story tells us is sometimes you tell the truth and you leave the results up to God. And you don't need to be grandiose. You know, he didn't go out on the big stage and announce anything. He just took a stand that he had to take at a particular moment, and that put him on a trajectory that he never planned and never expected, and God's been faithful to him.
Uh Chloe Cole. She was deceived. The greatest lie of our gender, 15 years old, she has a double mastectomy. And now she's one of the most important voices for what is true. What an incredible transformation.
Can it be true that truth transforms us? Ayan Hirsi Ali, truth has transformed her. and the significance of truth. In her personal life and the significance of truth on a cultural level, the sort of things that she's seeing. Such a big picture.
What an amazing thing. Seth Dillon. You know. Uh told the truth through humor, got canceled in the middle of cancel culture. refuse to back down.
And The number of things that have come because he decided not to pull down that tweet. It's really hard to quantify. No one could have ever predicted all the things that would have come out of that. Of course, Katie Faust and just how kind of a pastor's wife can become a courageous voice of truth. And by the way, something we say here a lot: that becoming a voice of truth.
means protecting children.
So listen, I think it's an inspiring. Documentary. I think it's so beautiful. It's so well done. Our friends at Coldwater did such a terrific job.
This has been a partnership between the Colson Center and Focus on the Family. Um you know we we kind of share that heritage of these These truth-telling projects. Remember the Truth Project back in the day and That was a focus project. And so, really, Jim and I, Jim Daly and I just talked about it and said, you know, it's time for something like this. We need to do something like this.
And this is um It took a couple different forms and then emerged as this kind of call to courage. And then the documentary is followed by a four-part study. And the four parts are basically what I think are the four ingredients to be that kind of person of courage. A clear understanding of hope, truth, identity, calling. And being able to put our minds around those four aspects, these are resources for communities or for churches or whatever.
So, anyway, the global streaming premieres next. Friday, September the 5th, go to truthrising.com. You can sign up for it. That's my big pitch for it. But but it is a We we did a screening last week here in Colorado Springs, and it's It's just really an inspiring journey.
to land in the stories the way that it does is just Okay, now what kind of person do I need to be? What does it mean for me to To ground my feet. in truth and be able and be willing. to say the truth. Yeah at that time when it matters the most.
Nick Eicher has a he had a screening of it as well and has a really cool Kind of review of it over at World if you're interested in checking that out too. Yeah. John, you and I have talked a couple of times recently about organ donation. Kind of the shifting definition of death. There was a rather shocking piece in the New York Times from a doctor about that.
But we got a couple comments and questions. about that um someone First, kind of accusing us of being flat earthers when it comes to like this is. Progress that we can't ignore, and we should embrace, you know, wholeheartedly, I guess. But I think the more serious question that we got that I wanted to put to you was from someone asking about living organ donation.
So of course it's possible to donate, for example, a kidney while you're still living. And what kind of the ethics are behind that, and if that's something Christians can get behind?
So, let me throw that to you. Yeah, and these are great questions. I mean, the flat earth comparison was kind of ridiculous, so I don't want to really take that. seriously at all as if we can't ethically question what's happening. And for the record, I did not actually condemn organ donation at no time.
The question that was brought up both in our commentary is how the definition of death has moved. As we're trying to accommodate this, and that the incredible life-giving thing. That this process enabled now has become a crisis that has to be solved, right? I mean, and the crisis, if we're actually honest about it, is not enough people are dying to get the organs that we need. I mean, this is to.
To pretend like there's no ethical complexity here is just Bizarre, of course there is. I have no issue whatsoever with living organ donation. I think it's an incredible redemptive way that our technology has brought us forward. Um The And there are medical procedures that are problematic in and of themselves. Um yeah in other words because of By doing it, this is what it involves.
You know, for example, artificial reproductive technologies. that separates sex from babies. Uh and what does that mean? And to just pretend like having sex in order to procreate is irrelevant is to me an incredibly big jump and reductionistic to humans as if they're just bodies. And the baby's just a commodity.
Um But this, no, I mean, being able to save a life, you know, preserving an organ, that seems to me to be something really redemptive. It's just. everything that's come around it that's problematic. Right. The definition of death changing.
Is it this or is it this? The stories we have of hastening death. The medical community embracing a narrative that we have an organ shortage. Which basically is saying we're waiting for someone else to die so that we can save this life. I mean, these are, this is an incredibly ethically fraught area.
And it's not a bunch of flat earthers bringing this up, it's some really Um incredibly thoughtful. bioethicists like Gilbert Mylander. And others that have been bringing this up for a while. Just because we continue to practice it and run unabated doesn't mean that the ethical problems have gone away. They're still very much there.
But living organ donation, yeah. I mean, I don't see any problem with that at all. If you can. Save a friend, save a brother, save a spouse, save somebody. By donating in Oregon.
Now, I think You know, we would never say it's okay for someone to just sacrifice Choose to die in order to donate an organ. That's that's now we're talking about completely different ethical. uh uh territory or in I think the the case that we're in, somebody else choosing for that person to die quicker. You know, making the pronouncement that, oh, they're going to die anyway. And if we don't go ahead and take their organ out.
You know, now we're now that's the questions that we're dealing with, and these are these are real questions.
So, yeah, I don't have any sort of ethical problem with the. process of organ donation or the idea of organ donation Per se. And I've never said that I did. for the record. Do you think it it changes the way we look at our bodies at all?
'Cause I I I think I feel the very same as you, but at the same time I could see how it could tempt us to look at our bodies as like a collection of parts that we can kind of do with what we want. I I I don't I don't know. Necessarily. I I you know, that's the question. Is that a comorbidity or is that a result?
You know, we're already a culture that seems to think about people as a collection of parts. Right. I mean, we do that or separate our bodies. I think that's probably the bigger risk: we can separate our bodies from our true selves or whatever. And if we get to the point where we can You know, download consciousness or something like that, that's going to be a completely.
Escalation, it's going to be a complete escalation of this crisis.
So I think there's that's an interesting question, and it's something that we need to. bring up because we live in a culture that does that. And so If if we're not intentionally fighting that as we advance in medical technology, it's going to make those things worse.
Well, we've got another question that I wanted to read to you. This is from a listener named Jeremy. He. Is Arguing that words have meaning. We love this.
Totally agree. He says we're steeped in a milieu of enlightenment tea. Using the phrase passed away or the word past to refer to death is one such cup of tea, Jeremy says. Death is wrong. It is not the way this was meant to be.
That's why Jesus grieved over his friend's death. And Jeremy encourages us to stop using the phrase passed away and to start to say simply died or death when we're referring to this process. Do you think this is good advice? Actually, Jeremy has put his finger on a really robust theological conversation, but it's only in some circles because this is nomenclature that's widely accepted. But it's not nomenclature that is widely accepted by by many in the Christian community because of the theological implications.
The Bible uses the word past, talking about death and life. Jesus did in John chapter five. But what's interesting is he doesn't talk about. Um passing from life to death. as being as going from life to death is passing.
But what he brings in salvation going from death to life, passing.
So that's a really interesting detail from John chapter five. I think the Lazarus account, which I think is being referred to here as Jesus weeping at the grave of his friend, is powerful. I actually am not sure that Jesus is weeping the death of Lazarus because he knows what he's about to do. He seems to be responding with tears. In fact, if you, I mean, you know, are we talking about a blow-by-blow account?
Jesus is actually seemingly weeping after encountering Martha and Mary. In other words, Martha runs out and says, if you had been here, our brother would not be dead. Uh, Mary comes and says that, and it's almost the same thing, and Jesus wept. That's where it comes in. And this is after Uh Jesus wrestling with Lazarus' death with his disciples.
I mean, remember, this chapter is so bizarre how it begins. Jesus gets word that Lazarus is sick. The disciples come and say, Are we going to Bethany? Because Lazarus is sick. Jesus says, Oh, his sickness will not end in death.
And then a few days later, he says, Hey, we're going to Bethany. And the disciple said, I thought you said as. Sickness would not end in death. And Jesus says, Lazarus is dead. I mean, would you be confused at this point if you're a disciple?
I mean, and there's kind of a, You know, we don't know the emotional baggage that's kind of being communicated here, but. Jesus is talking very, you know, there's just this kind of like, oh, he's not sick, it's not going to end in death. But he's dead. And And then he walks up and of course he knows what he's going to do. And that's what I always found to be so incredibly moving there in John 11: is Jesus knows he's going to.
Turn their tears into joy, right? If your brother's dead at the beginning of the day and alive at the end of the day, you're having a party. And so, not only does he know Lazarus is not going to remain dead, he knows he's going to remove all the suffering in that community and turn it into a party, right? And actually, he also knows that by doing that, that's gonna put him on a trajectory to the cross.
So, in other words, his act of alleviating suffering is going to lead to his own suffering. John also makes that clear, I think, at the end of 11, beginning of 12. There's a lot happening in that story, and it's exactly the passage you want to go to to ask this question. But I think there is some some some And very important merit to how I mean, obviously, I think there's it's incredibly important what words we choose about specific things. We don't embrace words like you know, cisgender because.
It's a fabricated category that doesn't need to exist. There is something really problematic, I think, in the way Christians think and talk about death. We don't mourn as those who do not have hope. We mourn as those who have hope. That Doesn't mean, I think.
Dismissing that death hurts, that it is death, that something has gone wrong, that this is not a part of the created order. And I think the idea theologically to have a problem with the word passed away is that it seems to. Communicate as if death is natural and death is not natural in a biblical worldview. Death is natural in a naturalistic worldview. Death is natural.
You know, if we're just bodies and we're just heartbeats and we're just brainwaves. But that's not what the Christian believes. that this is unnatural, this is not the way it's supposed to be. And of course, it's one thing to theorize about this. It's another thing.
to walk through it. And My understanding of this has been really shaped not just by the theological conversation. By the way, my pastor agrees with this, that it's He doesn't use that word past. He doesn't talk about it in that trivial way. Death is Death is not the way it's supposed to be.
Jesus came to defeat death. Death is the enemy, but it's an enemy now with no sting.
So it's been shaped by by being under that instruction, but it's also been shaped by walking through or watching A very good friend walk through the death of a very Well, the child. just in the last couple of years. dealing with both the pain And also dealing With hope. And how do you put those two things together? And in that process, Singing hymns?
that have theologically correct things about Death. have been really, really important. Because you don't always believe what you believe. You know what I mean? You certainly don't always feel what you believe.
And you have to rehearse. You have to rehearse what's true about death. You have to rehearse what's true about life. And it's a really powerful thing for me to have watched this and to. have in very small ways participated.
with our friends and And I've learned a lot.
So I think the question is. Really important. I think it, by the way, it has implications for you know how we Bury how we cremate. I think it has whether we do celebrations of life or whether we actually do funerals and. And these nuances are important, but I'm not sure it's the most helpful thing in the moment to kind of beat this drum.
So I've just. kind of hopefully been watching and learning on this one. If you would indulge me a second, I'm just going to read really quick. This is from a book I read, a fiction book. uh imagining the passing or sorry the dying of President Lincoln's son.
And this is from the Viewpoint of President Lincoln.
So he's the one talking. I was in error when I saw him as fixed and stable and thought that I would have him forever. He was never fixed nor stable. but always just a passing temporary energy burst. I had reason to know this, had he not looked this way at birth, that way at four, another way at seven.
been made entirely anew at nine. He had never stayed the same, even instant to instant, he came out of nothingness, took form, was loved, was always bound to return to nothingness. I am not stable, Mary is not stable, the very buildings and monuments here are not stable, and the greater city not stable, and the wide world not stable. All alter are altering in every instance. Ugh.
That book is so beautiful and it This was one of those opportunities for me reading this book to rehearse, like you're saying, and to think about to write. That's great. That's brilliant. Beautiful, yeah. Yeah.
Well, John, I think that is going to do it for today. Do you have a recommendation? You gave a very powerful recommendation for Truth Rising, which again will release September 5th. But if you have another one, I will allow it. No, no, I'm going to go with that one.
I'm going to play by the rules this week. You know, you get into the process and these projects get kind of edited and honed. And what I saw this week, I'm just really excited about it. I think it does fit into that trajectory of. Asking the church right now to wrestle deeply with the significance of truth.
particularly at this moment of history, and not only being being willing to grant it. intellectually, but then to Orient our lives around it. And when it comes to that moment, And we may not have a moment as dramatic as some. Uh it may be a moment like Chloe's where we come to face to face with the fact that Oh. And she tells the story of where that came from.
Um in the film. Hello. I'm wrong. And what that required to admit. uh being wrong.
And to re-embrace the truth, or it could just be like, well, you've already made up your mind about what is true, and then it gets tested, and the cost that comes along with it, like Jack. Or like Katie, who faced a incredible cost for s doing what what's what's true. And then Do we believe, part of that is do we believe that God is big enough to handle that? Do we believe in the truth that is truth? As Chloe says in the film, there's not your truth and my truth, Jesus Christ is the truth.
Do we believe that and do we believe also we can trust him with that? That's really where this comes. And to put it in the context of such a critical moment that we're in. That's why I think this film is really important. And it's a call for all of us to be the truth tellers.
George Orwell said. In an age of deception telling the truth is a revolutionary act. Truth Rising is basically calling Christians to be that kind of revolutionary today. I don't think I can top that, John. I'm just gonna say that's my recommendation too.
So be on the lookout for that. I'm sure we'll chat about it next week.
Well, that's going to do it for the show. Thank you for listening to Breakpoint this week from the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview. I'm Maria Baer alongside John Stone Street. Have a wonderful week. We'll see you all back here next week.
