You're listening to Breakpoint This Week, where we're talking about the top stories of the week from a Christian perspective. Today we're going to talk about the memorial service for Charlie Kirk over the weekend. We're also going to talk about whether a revival is underway. How do we recognize a Christian revival? Thank you so much for joining us this week.
Let's get to it. 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. We actually do have a lot to get to today. People like to tease me for saying that about our program, but I do want to start.
Just talking about our impressions from the Charlie Kirk Memorial that happened on Sunday in Phoenix.
So many people were there, people in power. Obviously, President Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke. The TPUSA team, Erica Kirk, gave what I think was the most powerful talk of the day. Was a long and to my mind, a really beautiful ceremony, but there have been.
Take after take this week on what it meant, what it didn't mean, what it looked like. People are concerned about it, people really loved it.
So, can you share what your impressions were?
Well, it was riveting at some level. Probably the most direct summary that I can think of is. I can't think of a parallel to this. In other words, I think it was the largest evangelistic event in human history. Which is hard to say, right?
I mean, bigger than Billy Graham.
So Billy Graham preached to a million live.
So if you want to do the numbers live, but when you add the social media component and the number of times the individual clips were shared and the overall wake. A friend of mine argued that, well, if you do Jonah and Nineveh as a percentage of the population, that wins. And I'm like, all right, I can give you that. But there were remarkable sharings of the gospel in terms of. The statement was very clear.
The songs that were sung right off the bat about. putting the attention to God, that was something that Pastor McCoy The pastor who opened up had committed to that, this would be something that would make a lot. About Jesus. And that's the way it went forward until Stephen Miller and President Trump, both of whom took a different tack. Said things that were, I think, inappropriate for the funeral memorial service, not necessarily surprising.
given the voices and You know, we talked about in past weeks that tension between Charlie's faith and his political activism and And that kind of emerged there. But I honestly think that the The line from the president, many have dismissed it as a joke. I don't think it's that easily dismissable, but I do think. The stark contrast. that it provided.
was actually something that was more remarkable. Uh in and not justifying at all his comments. But it was so clear. Like, he wasn't the one that had been so deeply personally. Hurt, Erica was, and she was the one that offered forgiveness.
And Erica's statement of forgiveness goes in line with something we've talked about here as well. which is that In the world of worldviews right now, Christianity offers forgiveness, and it's hard to see any other worldview that's going to be able to provide that. The other two things I want to just highlight, and I'd love to hear what stood out to you. One is Frank Turek, who's a friend, and I've known Frank for a long time. He was someone who was standing there when the assassination took place.
Went to the hospital in the SUV, told that story. there. But the best line of the day, I think other than the forgiveness line, which is hard to top, but Frank was really clear about the gospel in this moment. Which it's hard to be and he he pulled it off. That Charlie was not in heaven because he sacrificed his life with That's the gospel.
You can talk about a remarkable life and still end up with the core of the gospel. being without Christ we are uh unworthy. of God's love. We're unworthy of God's forgiveness. While we were God's enemies, Christ died for us.
And then Marco Rubio. I mean, in just a couple of minutes, and I think as a Roman Catholic, Sounded an awful lot like DL Moody. In that moment. I mean, just to hear the gospel, boom, boom, boom, boom, and delivered it. And so.
That you know, it that that was a profound uh event as part of all this. Um So yeah, what about you? Yeah, I loved Marco Rubio. I loved it because That's always where my mind goes. This stuck out to me as well: how many times the gospel was shared in several different ways, right?
Pastor McCoy shared it, Erica shared it. People spoke about it differently. And that always is a reminder to me that. The Lord reaches his people in all different ways because some of the methods and ways of talking about it wouldn't resonate with me, or maybe wouldn't have, but were nevertheless true. And then other ways did.
And I'm sure the opposite is true for other people, right?
So every time it's proclaimed, it's a win. I loved Marco Rubio's way. That's kind of my tactic. And I feel like that's yours too, because you always do the. The creation, fall, redemption, restoration, kind of that framing.
My pastor at church has a, he calls it the gospel in six, and he has six steps, so pretty similar, like. He does creation, God, man, then the offer, then the payment, and then, you know, all that kind of stuff. But I just loved how quickly he was like, Okay, listen, so. Let's pretend that none of you have ever heard any of this before and let's just go to this. God created the world.
You can see that all around you. And then God created you. And then here's what happened. It was really powerful and beautiful. Maybe this is the cynical side of me, but I've been kind of disgusted by some of the reaction to this that I knew was probably inevitable, but like.
I've seen a lot of. I think Megan Basham shared a lot of responses on Twitter that were just beautiful, like individual people saying, If I wanted to start reading the Bible, which one should I get? And where do I go? And if I wanted to find a church, how do I find one? Just something stirred in people watching this.
I don't feel the need necessarily to like classify or categorize and say unequivocally we're in a revival and this was the beginning. I think it. It maybe isn't as important to know for sure what's happening or how this will be remembered. Later on, as it is just to respond to individual people who are searching right now. But I say disgusted because I'm thinking of.
We tend to be careful about calling out people by name. But there are certain people who pretend to write. On behalf of Christianity, kind of in the public intellectual world, and I'm thinking particularly of David French right now. Who wrote about this in a way that I found so distasteful and cynical, which is instead of responding to the fact that. For better or worse, I mean, for it's it's for better.
People were moved for Jesus by watching this and by hearing about Charlie's life. And then David French is going to write something about how you should think about it. You might think that you felt moved from this, but you really shouldn't have been. because this was some kind of Christian nationalism or because President Trump was involved and he said the wrong thing. Kind of in this like cynical and paternalistic way at the same time.
I've been. really disappointed in that because If this memorial and this entire situation I think has demonstrated anything, It's that Charlie's boldness and the people around him, and people who've been inspired by him. seems to have been more along the lines of what people are thirsty for. Than the kind of like political lecturing and mingling of political correctness with a little bit of gospel sprinkled in. And Yeah, that's just what I've been meditating on this week.
Yeah, I think it's the conversation about revival is really interesting to me. I think we're going to have it here later on in the program, and I'm going to come back to that because. There's also this um sense that that that is that is true And I want to keep coming back to what is true and and Jesus told the parable of the wheat and the tares that the good's going to grow up with the bad and and that he moves in ways that aren't expected. Jesus speaks through Or God has spoken to people through all kinds of means, good, good, and bad. and um mixed and and and so on.
And then the gospel goes forward and there is a Real debate when the disciples come to Jesus and say, Hey, you know, the disciples of John the Baptist are saying this and this and this. And, you know, there's this really remarkable line where Jesus says, you know, if you're not against us, you're for us, which. But you would think it would be the other way around. And I really try to let that frame kind of how I think about. You know, who's with us and who's not with us, as opposed to the categories that are superimposed on us.
particularly in this political moment. And I think we need to do that. It's messy business. Revival is messy business. Sinners are messy business.
The world after the fall is messy business. This is kind of you know, we can expect some of this. And at the same time, I think turn around and thank God. For the number of people who have been exposed. I just want to highlight something.
This is not new, but. There's a handful of these things coming out. Not even a handful, a lot of them. But there's a viral video. Of a young man whose wife bought him a $300 suit, first suit he ever owned, first suit he ever put on.
And he's in front of the camera just proud of himself. saying, I'm going to do better. And he refers to this event as being something that motivated him and that he wants to do better for his wife. and kids and And you just look at that and you say, look, we have been selling Men short, we have been selling people short and Really what we need to do is call them to the high expectations. Of what God has.
And of course, the only way to get there ultimately is through what Christ has done. That's the real. downside when these things get politicized is because There's no question that we can Let our politics shape how we think about the gospel. And how we think about Christianity, and that the mixing of those two things is a dangerous, dangerous thing indeed. We don't want to not do that, I guess, at the expense of saying that Jesus is not Lord of heaven and earth, that Jesus is not Lord of this realm as well.
that what it means to be human in his image. and a redeemed image bearer. It is to apply His Lordship in every relationship that we have, upward with Him, inward with ourselves, outward. With others, both personally and socially, and then downward with the created order. Understanding that as the truth about who we are and who Christ has saved us to be.
In There was this narrative that the right is guilty of driving people away from the church. And there's evidence for that. We certainly have the deconstructors that point to maybe the ways the church has misbehaved here and there. And so on. But that that doesn't seem to be as as an easy as easy and as simplistic explanation for things, the rise of the nuns or whatever that it seemed to be just five years ago.
Now it seems like people are looking for something deep. They're looking for something rich. They're looking for something that explains. Uh life as it is. They're looking for a cause to believe in, something bigger than themselves.
The simplistic Kind of Christian. Theology isn't satisfying them. The attracted Marketing model isn't pulling it off. Particularly, I think, young men. And look, there will be tares that grow with the wheat.
There's no question about it. And so I hope we can keep going back to scripture over and over and over. To navigate our way through this, God's always on the move, even in times where it seems like He's not. There and then there are times where it seems more obvious this seems to be one of those. When I was a kid, the verse that really changed my life.
And I love how almost everybody has one of these. Was when Jesus said, if you're gonna follow me, you have to take up your cross and follow me, which might be one of the hardest things he said. And it's taken me years and will still take me more years to. Kind of plumb the depths of everything that that meant. But at the time, it meant so much to me because I was like, Okay, so he really does want all of me.
And that meant a lot to me. And I think that's what you're describing: that people were really searching for. They're not searching for a Christianity or system of morality that allows them to be comfortable and still fit in and to still be like intellectually respected and politically respected and all that. That people were actually hungry for the hard stuff. For somebody to say, like, no, you've got to be radically different, and you have to think about life in this world in a radically different way.
And difficult way, and actually laying down your life is what's expected of you. Like people want to rise to that.
Well, sometimes, sometimes we don't, you know what I mean? But that's the choice of the rich young ruler, right? From moment to moment, but I think generally, existentially, we do hunger for it, we hunger for meaning. Beyond ourselves. Yeah, it's the God-shaped vacuum.
We reach the end of ourselves and. We often think about that on an individual level, but there are times when cultures do. I mean, I think that's the none of a story, right? There's a reason that he walks into Nineveh thinking that they're going to, that Jonah walks into Nineveh thinking that they're going to kill him, and instead they repent. And of course That ticked him off.
He pouted about it. And There's all kinds of Of ways for us to fall down, as G.K. Chesterton said. There's only one way to stand up straight, but yeah. John, let's take a quick break and then I want to talk to you about revival.
We'll be right back on Breakpoint this week. Hey, John Stone Street here. This is your official invite to join us at the 2026 Colson Center National Conference. It'll be held in Knoxville, Tennessee, May 29th to the 31st. Again, Knoxville, Tennessee, May 29th to the 31st.
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That's colsonconference.org. We're back on Breakpoint this week.
So, John, are we in a revival? Yeah, I mean, this is the question. A lot of people talked about the event on Sunday, the memorial service. feeling like a revival. But I I think it's important to put this in context of something else.
Something that predates this, which is that there has been an enormous surge in interest in things of the faith. There have been events on college campuses. We've talked about the Ohio State football players. We've talked about Auburn. They did it again this year, a couple weeks ago.
They did it again this year at Alabama. Texas AM, actually college after college after college. Obviously, we have the Asbury, right? The Asbury University revival, as we call it. Yeah.
And so, what does it mean? What does revival itself mean? And this is something that. American Protestant evangelicals have wrestled with since the beginning of America. It's not that revival or awakening is only an American phenomenon.
It isn't. The Great Awakening. that we talk about the first Great Awakening was actually a transplant out of Britain. out of the revivalist preachers there. And of course, that led to all kinds of social reform and things in the UK.
We've seen massive evangelistic events where people Come to Christ under Billy Graham. You know, we mentioned earlier, he preached to a million people. I think that was Indonesia, if I remember correctly. I could be wrong on that. There was a number of those where the crowds were just incredible, and the response was really incredible.
But there is something unique about kind of there, there's a history of almost expecting awakening. in the United States. That goes back to prior to the founding of the country. You have Jonathan Edwards writing about this, not just about the First Great Awakening, but looking back to. When God brought awakenings to his community, and there were some really interesting aspects of that.
that are worth mentioning. In fact, Edwards actually brought us a criteria for awakening. How do we know? I went back to that this week and read through it, and maybe that's my early recommendation is to go back and read some. Jonathan Edwards on revival.
It's been, you know, by the way, a little bit of trivia. Do you know who his grandson was? I know who his, it's Timothy Dwight, right? I mean, who was the grandson was Aaron Burr? Oh, right.
That was one of them. I think the other, yeah, no, that's right. Aaron Burr, sir. Yeah. But I think one of the other ones, I think Timothy Dwight was also Edwards, who was part of the Second Great Awakening at, yeah, I could be wrong about that.
We're going to get emails. I'm doing some of this stuff off memory, which is a dangerous thing, especially as I head into my. Half century. But Edwards wrote about this and he said a couple things.
Now, first of all, you have with an awakening both people coming to Christ. And you have people rededicating or recommitting or so on. In other words, he talks about this. a growing awareness of spiritual things. He talks about that manifesting itself in an increased conversation about.
Things of faith in Christianity. That's something that we have noticed here, right? We were talking about the rise of the nuns yesterday and today or a couple years ago and in recent years we're talking about More and more people are willing to say something. They're more Willing to to speak out. a fascinating development.
Edwards, this is you'll find this interesting. Edwards. talk specifically about the interest rising in young people. And he was in a very concerned state about the young people in his community. Because they sat around and did nothing.
It's funny that they're. The sign that they were In need of revival was that they were lazy. And they just loitered. I mean, I guess if you think about the term revive, it does kind of elicit that. Picture.
You know, it's kind of like the good old days, right? When the things we had to worry about were laziness, not super creativity and crime and evil, but. That was one of the things, the young people.
So I think that's a really interesting thing.
So there was a growing awareness.
Now, this is unique. Mostly to the First Great Awakening. First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening are very different events. It l and especially when it comes to the the the revival event. uh side of the Second Great Awakening with Charles Finney setting up Buildings and going to towns and scheduling it and things like that.
That was an interesting thing. The first Great Awakening, there was though something that Edwards writes about a real growing fear of God, particularly an awareness of God's wrath against one's own sin.
So you have a self-awareness of sin and a self-awareness of God's wrath. You have to understand this is primarily before the The way we've kind of done the altar call, which is something that kind of emerges more out of the Second Great Awakening. where basically the Preaching is, look, you're a sinner and God hates sin. You know, the famous sermon of Jonathan Edwards, you remember the name of it? Sinners in the hands of an angry God.
Good job. Yes. Thank you. You know, he talks about hanging on a spider's web thread over the gates of hell. And So I want it was actually not a The most common kind of sermon that Edwards preached, although that's the one he's kind of known for.
But Edwards Talks, you know, about this. Kind of basically pray for God's mercy. This is the way that the first Great Awakening went. It wasn't a you know, come and and um You just accept Right now, you had to. essentially pray and if you had a sense of God's mercy and God's relief.
then there was signs of a conversion there.
So that's another part of it. There was a An increased reverence for God's word. Here's the other interesting thing, and we were just kind of talking about this, right? That Edwards notes that a lot of this emerges out of. highly doctrinal preaching.
Deep preaching. Not shallow preaching, but deep preaching. These are the riches of the wisdom of God kind of thing. There was a parallel in the second-grade awakening at Yale. I mentioned Timothy Dwight earlier.
He was the. the president of Yale and he Saw that at Yale, he thought that there were only Two Christians? when he became president there. And so what he did is he started a three year sermon series going through systematic theology. And it sparked a revival.
And these Yale students come to Christ and then they go to Harvard and try to win Harvard to Christ. And One college.
So you have this parallel too of college students. Look, so is what we're sensing now does it fit into that category? I mean, something's happening. A lot of those things are parallel. I think in the middle of it, it's kind of hard to.
To know. Edwards talks a lot about also that the wheat will grow up with the tares, you know, that you'll see false conversions and you'll see. abuses, emotionalism is one of the things he's concerned about. Certainly some other things. but that it should lead to you know transformed lives in the long term.
So I think all of these things are really interesting, and certainly God is doing.
Something. And we go back to what we said the last time, which is revival's a messy thing. I was reading Andrew Clavin's book this week, The Kingdom of Cain, which is my early recommendation. But he was talking about, you know, the rise of nihilism post-Nietzsche, kind of post-World War I. And he talks about this play that somebody wrote and then was made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock called Rope.
And it's about these. Two men who this college Students who just decide as an intellectual exercise to commit a murder just because they fully believe, like they kind of believe they're the Übermensch from Nietzsche. And that really the most sophisticated men are the ones who can commit murder because they know that nothing matters, including life. And so they kill this guy and then they put him in a big trunk and then they host a dinner party and use the trunk as a table. And this is the whole premise of the play: is that, like, isn't this kind of funny?
And we all know that nothing matters, whatever. And this, there's a central character that comes, I think he was played by Jimmy Stewart in the movie where he comes to the dinner party and he kind of joins in this talk: like, yeah, nothing, we all know nothing matters. We're the smart people. We lived through World War I. It's obviously clear that there's no moral order to the universe and all this kind of stuff.
And then at the very end, It's revealed that there's a body in the trunk. The trunk gets opened, and the Jimmy Stewart character sees the body and just immediately reverts to. The truth of how he sees the world. I mean, he's just absolutely horrified. Like, what have you done?
This is the most disgusting, debased kind of evil. You have killed not only him, but the humanity and yourselves. And it's this picture of like the darker, it's one thing to pay lip service to nihilism and you know, moral anarchy and all that kind of stuff, but. The deeper the evil gets, or the, I should, I'm trying to say, like, the more blatant or obvious it becomes. I think the brighter the light becomes as well for a lot of people.
And you get this sense, like even the text messages of the kid who killed Charlie Kirk, of him kind of thinking, like, This is all this is life as a game. I don't know. I just killed him and then I went to Dairy Queen afterwards. But everybody around him who saw it being like, Evil is real, and we need something better. Like, I think that's the hope, too, is that.
Revivals tend to start or happen or sprout up when evil gets darker and more obvious. Yeah, I think the contrast certainly is there. That's part of this. No question whatsoever. And the darkness that we're talking about makes the darkness that Edwards was talking about look pretty.
Quaint. you know in a sense but You know, at the same time, I think Nietzsche was one of those who Kind of argued for this. He thought it was going to be messy. He just, I think. didn't have the category to expect that.
there would be a backlash, either a backlash of Natural law, like this kind of inherent gut that we have, it's been likened to kind of trying to. you know, the suppression of Romans 1. That's the challenge of believing in natural law is that the Bible also talks about that we're darn good at suppressing these things that are supposed to be obvious to us. But they keep re-emerging, right? Like pushing beach balls underneath the.
uh the pool they they're gonna pop out and if you try to do it Do five of those at the same time, it's going to be impossible for not something to come out. And I think. The level of suppression has become unbelievable, which is something you see. On a civilizational level, that's some of the things that we were talking about in the Truth Rising film. is that that that that we've kind of detached from these things and They're non-negotiables, they're essentials, they're eternals.
And you can't. Can I ask you a question about revival as well? Sure. This real quick before we wrap up this segment. And this is going to sound like a leading question, but I don't mean it to be.
Is it important that we know whether we're in a real revival or not? I think it's important that we recognize the work of God and we thank him for it. You know, in terms of these. These words, I don't know. I mean, the word revival is not in the Bible.
It's not a category that we have there. But you do see these moments in which there's an awareness and God Uses circumstances or other things, preaching, teaching. We talked about Nineveh. You could remember Ezra reading the law, when they rediscovered the law in the temple, in the remains of the temple, and read it in front of the people, and that there's a recommitment. And then that really prepares the nation of Israel for what is to come over the next several hundred years.
It's really hard for us, I think, in America To not think in revivalist terms because of our history. And on the same time, it's really hard for us to think in terms of. What God's doing to orchestrate redemptive history. We've put this emphasis. On individual salvation, which is not a bad place to put emphasis, by the way.
I mean, I always talk about the gospel is more than that, but it's not less than that, right? I mean, If all there was to the gospel was how you can go to heaven and be saved and be with God when you die, then that's still really, really good news. But there is more to it than that. It's as big as the cosmos. It's as big as God's creation.
And so. We don't think like that, I think, in America. That has to do with a number of sociological factors and the way we think about the Bible and the way we think about morality. things maybe we've taken for granted as a country as well, but I think that w we want to thank God. When when he works.
And I still think that one of the best contemporary lines of discipleship. is Henry Blackaby. In experiencing God, in which he said, find out where God's working and then go join him, you know? Which is really a statement about two things. Number one, that God is working.
Three things that God is working, that he wants you to join him. And that that's a way better strategy than trying to just, you know, Do your own thing. You know, be a part of what he's doing. And at the same time, realize he's gifted you in particular ways and he's given you a particular calling, and your calling might be. In a really dark corner of the world where you don't see.
Jonah, what a great story. And he still turned around and complained about it, right? Isaiah Which is the one that Charlie liked to quote? People often love the Isaiah. 6.4, in which Isaiah says, Here am I, send me.
And they forget what came before it and what came after it. What came before it is. Isaiah is before God and he thinks he's about to die because he's sinful and he realizes it. And God actually, not because Isaiah does anything, he's almost like frozen in time. basically sends something to forgive his sins that the the angels bring a coal from the altar.
And then God ass. Who can I send? I mean, what are you going to say if you just thought you were going to die and, you know, There's really only one answer to that question. It's a response to what God has done to him. Not because Isaiah is doing anything particularly holy at this point.
And then God sends him, and we stop at hear him I send me without saying what happened. And God basically tells Isaiah to go fail. Isaiah is a prophet. His job is to talk. His job is to talk so people will repent and turn to God.
And Isaiah basically is told by God You're going to talk and they're not going to listen. The more you talk the less they're going to listen. The more you talk, the harder their hearts are going to be. And Isaiah asked one of the great questions in all of Holy Scripture. How long, O Lord?
Which is a great question after that, right? And Basically the answer is? Until it's over. They're never going to listen. The hope that you have, Isaiah, is, and he uses this image of the root of Jesse, you know.
The tree of Israel is cut, but out of that stump comes the root of Jesse, and that's, of course, Christ. And that's the hope that there is. You know, some of us are called to that kind of work and some of us are called to revival kinds of work. You know, praise God for those who get to be a part of the easy stuff. I won't say the easy stuff, the joyful stuff.
How about that? That's a lot easier than being in Isaiah. But make no mistake. You might get to be the Jonah? And you still I have to deal with your own fallen sin nature and you might end up being completely complaining about it anyway.
Well done, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back with more breakpoint this week.
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Please gather friends and family and watch Truth Rising together. It's available for streaming now at truthrising.com slash Colson. That's truthrising.com/slash Colson. We're back on breakpoint this week. John, I want to touch a couple of news items now that are kind of not related but the first i want to talk with you about is what's continuing to happen in Nigeria.
and that is the massacre of Christians. Out and out religious persecution. I think it's difficult to call it anything other than that at this point. There is an astounding piece in the free press right now by a reporter named Josh Code. Who interviewed a man who he's going by the name David?
He did not share his real name. But who was jailed in Nigeria because two women in his town? which the the government is unofficially but officially Muslim. In his town, two women in his town converted to Christianity, and David himself is a Christian. He's part of a small house church, he said.
And he helped smuggle these women out of town because he knew that they were immediately in danger. Um because they converted from Islam. And he was then arrested and tried for so-called kidnapping and sent to prison and basically brutally beaten. And eventually released. But now, you know, he was talking to the free press about how he knows he's being monitored.
All of his fellow Christians know he's being monitored, and that they're being monitored.
So they're very careful. They don't go out after dark, all that kind of stuff, but they're still meeting together. They're still praying. And meanwhile, he's just thrilled talking to the free press because those two women are doing wonderful. That one of them got married to a Christian in the church, the other one is still a believer.
And he said, all we do is pray. He said, I. The entire time I was in prison, he was just thinking of Psalm 23. I mean, it is a really. A human picture of what we have known has been going on there for a while now.
I mean, I think this year alone, some of the estimates are 7,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed. Senator Ted Cruz, thankfully, just recently. proposed a bill that would reinstate Nigeria as a country of particular concern on the United States list, which opens up several options for sanctions and other things to try and protect the Christians there. But This is really an incredible, incredibly dark situation. Speaking of a stark control, and what a stark contrast to what we were just talking about, right?
I mean, it kind of is an example of. The places that God calls us to, particular times and particular places. And he does this according to what Paul said to the Epicureans and Stoics.
so that people will be able to reach out to him and find him, because he's not far from any one of us. These are ways that are mysterious to us. They're far beyond, and doesn't mean we should be. You know, driven to inaction, it should be: we are driven to action, we are driven to pray, we are driven to. you know, appeal on their behalf.
President Trump mentioned this. And at the UN this week, which is also an an important thing. Because one of the great questions that we have of previous administrations. And also of the media is why is this going unnoticed? Why is this going, I don't think it's going unnoticed.
Why is it going unspoken about? And You could argue that it, well, it's gotten really bad now. It's been horrific forever. I mean, we've been talking about this. The difference between this year.
And The years prior. And I don't want to say this in any way that is perceived to be you know Making light of this? But I got to a point about Six, seven years ago. where I started every Easter and every Christmas. expecting stories out of Nigeria.
of Christians that were killed as they were worshiping. And it was, and it was like every Christmas, every Easter, also some other holy days, maybe Passover. or the Tr you know, uh a Palm Sunday. And You Get to this year, and we're not waiting for holy days anymore. This is extended into other Sundays.
This is extended into the villages and communities. I I think also it has been dismissed and Past years. particularly as the violence has come primarily out of the Fulani herdsmen. Which were one of the three persecuting groups of Christians. But, you know, originally it was Boko Haram and also the resurgence of ISIS in Nigeria.
And now you have And the Falani herdsman, that was dismissed at the highest levels, including the governmental levels at Nigeria as a. Hurt, you know, a A land dispute, a herdsman dispute. I mean, we're talking so far beyond that now, right? That's a super. stupid, ridiculous explanation for what we've seen.
And yet the majority of the the vast majority of the violence is coming for the Filani. And it's clear that this is motivated far more by the Islamic identity than it is by any sort of farming or agricultural or something silly like that. The dismissal of it has just reached a point where it is no more.
So here we are, and this this should drive us to our knees. It should drive us to ask these hard questions. Why is it that we R seeing kind of a resurgence. Ear. in spiritual things and not in other places.
In our editorial meeting earlier this week, we were talking about this, and our resident historian and friend, Dr. Glenn Sunshine. Reminded us of something I hadn't, I haven't read this book in a long time, but Philip Jenkins wrote a book. probably 15, 20 years ago called the Next Christendom. He was arguing there that the center of gravity of Christianity was going to move south.
from the West to the global south, particularly Africa. in Asia and he identified Nigeria as a specific country of that. And it's it's just interesting that here we are you know, however many years later. that that's also become the epicenter of resistance and persecution from a demonic force, uh demonic religion uh in in in the world. an idolatrous, evil, angry, oppressive religion.
At least as it w And I'm talking about as a religion. Uh it is. And so it is remarkable. It's good news that it's back on people's radars. I hope it's not too little, too late.
And obviously we go back Just say The rest of us need to be Doing everything we can, praying for them, praying that God would strengthen them, praying that the gospel would go forward. Praying that it would save the hearts, even of those who are the persecutors in this situation. because the gospel is strong enough to do that. But we need to talk about it. Let me just read real quick.
This is from David, and that the man who is from Nigeria talking to the free press. The Free Press asks, what message do you have for Christians in the West who enjoy more robust religious freedoms and live free of persecution? And David says, first, if Christians in the West take their freedom of religion for granted, they should be encouraged not to play with their rights of freedom. They should take their faith seriously. Secondly, for those in the West, there's a need for them to look at what we're going through here and hold us in their prayers.
It is my wish that every one of us here can have the kind of freedom that you enjoy in the West. Since that is not the case here, I encourage you to pray for us as a people. Just really powerful. John, the other news item, a little lighter, maybe, that I wanted to touch with you this week is. This little hullabaloo dust-up, if you will, about the rapture.
Apparently, there was some video circulating on TikTok that got several hundred thousand views. Of people predicting that the rapture was going to take place on the 24th, let's see, Wednesday, maybe? Wednesday or Tuesday. As far as I know, it did not happen. I suppose the way I read the Bible is that it is the unbelievers who are taken out of the world, and the believers get to stick around.
But I've never went to the bottom of the bottom.
Well, man, you're going to do that. You're just going to drop this trouble. I know.
Well, okay, my point is not that fine. You're going to get so many letters about this. I know.
But part of my purpose in bringing that up, knowing that people will get up in arms about it, is just to demonstrate that. I just don't spend that much time thinking about the actual strata of the end of the world or.
However, this change is going to happen. But I am fascinated by why it means so much to people to try and predict it.
Well, I think because the Bible spends a lot of time on it, you know, I mean, you have Old Testament. Books like Joel and Amos, and so on, that are talking about things that are clearly in the future. Paul uh you know, says things about this. The first Christians were wrestling with the return of Christ and what that means. Obviously the book of Revelation has been something.
So it's been a topic of fascination in the church. It's been something that God has given us. He's. It seems to me that he's given us just enough. And not very much.
And maybe that is what creates it. Maybe he gets some joy out of this. Uh, my uh friend watching us wrangle with it, you know. Um, I don't know, I don't think you know, God does that to us, but I do remember my um. My friend Michael Bauman, who maybe was the best single classroom teacher I've ever seen in action.
He taught at Hillsdale College for years. And also through Summit Ministries, he and I had the chance to travel different places and teach. We taught for Summit's Gap Your program together. Went down to New Zealand a couple times and and um But but his view on this was you know, there's a passage where The disciples are asking Jesus, you know, what are the signs, what are the signs of the things to come? And it's like when Jesus says there's going to be wars and rumors of war famines, all those sorts of things.
And he goes, think about that. I mean, those are things that are ubiquitous. Like they happen throughout human history.
So he goes, What I think's happening is Jesus is like, all right, get ready, get your pens out. I'm going to give you all the secrets. And then he tells them things that's happening all around them as a way. The leaves will fall and they will grow again. Yeah.
And I don't know if that's the case, you know, but he was trying to understand that passage. I do think, though, it's important. And I have a commentary about this event. Mainly because I think what is clear is That there are various views of the end times, and people hold them closely.
Some are, I think, more easily found in scripture than others. uh within each larger school of thought on mil pre-mill post-mil And so on, you have various variations.
Some of them go off into more extreme views, like. Doing things that the Bible tells us specifically not to do, which is no one knows the date and time.
So don't say the date and time, which is what this guy. Did. And many other people have. I was looking at this this week, by the way. Did you know in 1844 there was a Baptist preacher who predicted.
that the the rapture was going to happen that year. And so many people believed in it that it became known as the Great Disappointment. Oh, hilarious. What a, what a, what a moniker for your ministry. You are the great disappointment.
That is brutal, poor guy. And then, of course, we had Harold Camping in 2011 and some other things. But here's what we know. The Bible seems way more concerned. with the fact that Jesus is coming back.
And The what, the so what about that Jesus is coming back, then you know, the when and the how. That Jesus is coming back is described as a message of hope. And I think that's one of the first things that we can contrast is. I have my own views about the end times. I often joke that I paid a seminary so much money to get those views.
So I'm gonna keep them, but. You know, one of the passages that often uh are is used to describe Or support rapture a view of the rapture which not everyone holds but some people do is uh 1 Thessalonians 4. And you have kind of a rapture panic that tends to happen around these events. But what Paul says at the end of describing all of this, whatever he's describing, is. comfort one another with these words.
I remember being shown some end times films: The Mark of the Beast, Thief in the Night. back when I was a kid. They were Terrifying. And a lot of times this has been used to not comfort one another and comfort people of God, but to but to scare us. into behaving better.
And I think we're doing it wrong if we're doing it that way. And you also have the whole conversation that surrounds. End times thoughts like, well, if the whole thing's gonna be blown up anyway, why spend our time polishing the brass? of a sinking ship is the line. And I think also After Some of these.
Interesting. Things that Jesus is saying to his disciples in Matthew 24 about signs of the times and so on. In Matthew 25, It's all about be a good steward. Be be be be one of the uh those who wait and watch for the coming of the bridegroom. In other words, if our eschatology leads us to disengage rather than to engage, if it leads us to inaction rather than action, if it takes our hand off the plow instead of putting our hand on it, then we're doing it wrong.
And so there's a real way that the Bible spends a lot of time on this and so it shouldn't be surprising that we spend a lot of time on it as well. What what I think sometimes we miss is that it's supposed to motivate us Yeah. become agents of reconciliation and restoration. It's supposed to take us to hope. And to a trust.
in that and I You know, to go back. Two. The last story we were talking about this young man in Nigeria. Who is got his hand to the plow. who is facing incredible persecution.
And you think about What we do read in Revelation about Those crying out, how long, O Lord, when will you come rescue us? But that that has basically turns There Christian faith into faithfulness.
So, I know he said it was an unrelated story. Maybe it's not so much an unrelated story. Maybe it. It's a related story, at least in the sense of God has chosen to give us at least a glimpse of the future. What we all agree on is that Jesus Christ is coming back, number one.
And number two, that he is making all things new, because those are the two things that the Bible is clear on. And how that happens, you know, we can have interesting conversations about it. But it should keep our hands to the plow, should keep us more engaged, not less engaged, and it should make us hopeful, not despairing or fearful. Yeah. Amen.
Well, John, let's get to some questions that we've had sent in from listeners this week. The first is in reference to the murder of Charlie Kirk and the memorial service. I'm just going to read a little bit about it. There's no doubt that God is using this tragedy for our good and his glory. This memorial event was amazing.
Millions of people clearly heard the gospel. But there were a couple things that aren't sitting well with me. This is the questioner speaking. I find it odd the memorial service was scheduled at the same time people generally attend church. I'll just real quickly point out that that it was on Phoenix time, but moving on.
I feel like the event should have been scheduled a different day and time and used the opportunity to encourage people to engage in the local church. Number two, given that many people prioritize the event over their local church service, I can't help but see this as an event that puts a man at the focus and not Christ. The American Church is already suffering from the idol worship of celebrity pastors. I think this was a reflection of the state of the American Church. Can you help me sift through my thoughts on this?
Am I thinking about it in a biblical way, or is my concern over the worship of celebrity pastors? Clouding my view? Very thoughtful question. I think it's a very thoughtful question. And I think that the way he's thinking about this particular event is shaded by some observations about the American church that are really.
Spot on, right? You know, for example, that we do have this. Worship of celebrityism, not just celebrity pastors, but celebrityism in general. That church has become non-essential. You know?
for a lot of American Christians. We have seen that, particularly through COVID. I I said this back, you know, when There were kind of state mandates. you know, calling churches non-essential that A far greater threat to the future in the history of the church would not be whether a governor says it, but whether most Christians already think it. And most Christians think church is non-essential because they have youth sports.
I mean, that's the biggest thing. I think there are other things, but man, nothing. Nothing. Renders church more non-essential in the hearts and minds of more people in America right now than youth sports. It's out of hand, it's overblown.
And that is the context in which I think that has maybe created some of the things that this guy's thinking and feeling. And I think. That that thread is exactly right. There is this sense that the church is non-essential. I think, by the way, that it's fascinating that.
Whatever awakening and revival that we're seeing that predates this and that will emerge out of the The memorial service is being reflected in people returning to church.
So, even if you, as a Kind of an old lukewarm Christian think the church is not essential. These young men think that it's essential and they're looking for something, which I think is super cool. And I think that we better offer them something that's worth coming to. The second point on celebrityism and celebrity pastors, I think, is important that the attention is put on. A.
Christians ability to communicate and preach. As opposed to the word itself, has been something that's been around for a really long time. And Um we've centered around the performance. If you need any proof of this, just look at the The the Twitter feed or the X feed sneakers. on preachers or preachers with sneakers.
Do you know what I'm talking about? It just kind of looks at how much the shoes cost that preachers are wearing. There's no question about it. There's a vibe to it. There's a...
a performance element to it. And that's why I think many people are choosing more depth. They're choosing people Who will go deeper in the word, not wider? They're people that are choosing liturgy and all that's exactly right. I will say that I think the memorial service Have that risk.
And that there were clearly between the President, Stephen Miller, and some others. that this was much more a memorial service than anything else. They did what you might normally expect from Memorial Service, except Trump's comments, because Trump wouldn't do anything normal. in that situation or in general and he didn't. But I will say that Right off the bat.
The mu the worship music? Which, you know, I'm more into hymns that date back to the 15th century and before, but. The worship music was about God, not about. How great we are or how much we feel about God. And I think that had to be intentional.
There was also him's. Mixed in right off the bat, there was a pointing to Jesus, speaker after speaker pointed to Jesus. Explained Charlie to people. as being someone who first and foremost was a Christian.
So I don't know that this service fell prey to the celebrityism of our generation As much as I agree that that celebrityism is a Problem and Christian celebrityism is a big problem. in the church.
So, I agree with that analysis. I don't agree with the analysis of the memorial service itself.
So, I think the impulse is right. As far as the scheduling and the timing, I think. It was after you know, the church. service in most of America. You know, Charlie did live in Arizona.
And so it was scheduled at the time that people in Arizona would go to church and They, you know, I think. Not if you go to the 9 a.m. service, but okay. Or the Saturday night service, or the Friday night service, or the Monday evening service, or the Thursday young adult service. We can talk about what all that does in terms of the Sabbath and what that means, but.
I think it's a legitimate question. I don't know the answer to it. I don't have any insight into what TPUSA was thinking. But I do think the impulse about the church is right. If I had to guess, I can almost guarantee it was about the availability of the President of the United States who was coming.
But. Regardless, I wrote a piece a couple years ago just about, I think we talked about it here even. There's like a community festival in my neighborhood, and they keep having as an MC a man dressed in drag. And my church intentionally sets up a booth at this festival every year to pass out free pastries and invite people to church. And I was.
We've we've communicated with the town and the people who ran the festival for several years about this MC. Anyway, I wrote a piece about it. And I maybe I'm naive, but I was actually shocked by the amount of emails I got from Christians who were like, Why are you going to this festival when you should be at church that morning? And I was kind of discouraged by that, to say the least. In part because Um I really view church as This is gonna sound so.
gross but I really view it as a lifestyle. I am living life with the people that go to my church with me. And this was a thing that we choose to do one Sunday a year because that's when our neighborhood where we are physically located has this festival and we're trying to reach our neighbors.
So I think there is a little bit of legalism about this.
Now we should not neglect to meet together. And maybe some of us are scarred by the COVID kind of non-essentialism like you mentioned. But I think that's a memorial service that. is that happened exactly once. And so I think the I do not think we should be concerned about, you know, this shouldn't have been during church time.
Um and then I also just think It was a memorial service.
So I wouldn't go to a wedding, let's say, where the gospel was preached and then say, I didn't like that that service was about the couple or whatever. I mean, you know, this. This was a memorial service. And I'm a little defensive about the celebrity pastor thing because, I mean, Jonathan Edwards was a celebrity, like at some point. If you are a gifted communicator of the word, And you start to gain traction, and lots of people are looking to you for guidance and are listening to you because they feel intellectually empowered or they're learning from you.
And then you, in turn, see that as an opportunity to. Enlargen your reach for the gospel and all of that. That when does it turn over? And we suddenly say, oh no, you're being a celebrity. But you know what I'm saying?
There's a lot of nuance. Like, I don't know if you can. I don't think that that's the explanation for the vast majority of celebrity pastors. I think there is the, or the celebrity influencers or the Christian famous people. That is more of a mechanism that has been built out in order to draw it.
There are some. There's no question there are some. You're more pessimistic than I am. I think it might just happen more organically. And then the onus is on the organically.
It is so. People that are. It is.
So people that are using it, or let's say people that are looking at it as like, that's my pastor, even though I've literally never been in the same physical state as them or whatever. Like though, that's a problem. But. I think also that people expect the wrong things of their pastor.
So I'm with you on that. Like, if a church grows and all that, people complain, I don't know my pastor. I mean, if you had 5,000 people on Pentecost, I doubt everyone knew Peter either, right?
So I think. That's a legitimate question. But they would be called to go back and join a local community where somebody is speaking into their lives and they're laying down their lives for each other. There is a way church is done that can only be explained. By late twentieth century, entertainment celebrity culture.
Uh it's all in Postman. There's a thing when you read Postman and you hear the kind of the critiques that he writes about. amusing ourselves to death. And then you say, If I take that and apply that to what we've done with education or what we it's not just what we've done with movies, it's what we've done with All kinds of things, and church is one of those as well.
So, but It doesn't explain all of them. I will give you some are just really that good. And the fear, the fear, I think that. folks should have when they're that good. is that it becomes about them.
I mean, it's just that's just the fear. It's really hard to avoid. Oh, it's like uh You know, maybe it's our version. Or, in addition to the, it's easier for someone to pass, a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to be wealthy. Like, there's just.
There's certain life conditions that make it harder on yourself unnecessarily to be a. a devoted follower of Jesus and that that might be one of them.
So maybe try and avoid it, I guess. Avoid becoming famous as much as you can.
Well, John, let's talk about recommendations before we sign off here. I will just second the one I brought up briefly earlier, which is Andrew Clavin's book, The Kingdom of Cain. Which is a book that I am loving and I wish I had written myself, just because I'm saying this somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but every time I recommend a novel or some piece of art here, I'll get sometimes a flurry of emails from people that are really concerned about my salvation and/or taste because of the things that I recommend. And this is kind of. Andrew Clavin's defense of Looking at the darkness for the purpose, like through art and representation, for the purpose of seeing the light and thanking God for it.
The Kingdom of Cain, I highly recommend, by Andrew Clavin.
So what we're going to do this week is do a X release of Truth Rising. We're really excited.
So far it's been on YouTube and it's been released to individual folks who have signed up for it. Comments. I'm just scrolling through the YouTube comments. Right now, that it is just beautifully made, so challenging. Love the stories.
of courage. This needs to go viral. Just watch this. I'm amazed to see how God is working. It's just really encouraging to see all these.
Wonderful comments. I'm just scrolling down here now. We've also seen the preview or the premiere on Christian television, which has been fun to get reactions from that. But we're going to release the full film on X. And so the recommendation really is not just to watch it.
Hopefully, many people have already watched it. It's if A, if you're not on X, don't start. But if you are on X, uh which used to be known as Twitter. Look for Truth Rising on Friday and then share it. We'll also link to where this is going to be, the actual.
link that you can go right to the X page for Truth Rising. Uh, on the show notes here, so we'll make sure that that's there.
So you can go to our website and look that up or check. Just keep your eyes out for it. When it comes out, hashtag Uh truth rising I think is what we're gonna do. Let me just double check that. Uh yes, hashtag truth rising.
You can also look up Focus on the Family, Coulson Center, Babylon B, because we are. Um telling the story of Seth Dylan, Chloe Cole. uh telling her story by the way did you i don't know if you saw this but chloe Has a bill named after her that's going before Congress to ban. These gender mutilation surgeries and so on for minors. And by the way, since we were talking about Nigeria, it's worth mentioning that there's an ADF international Anti-blasphemy.
case. that is going Two. Uh the Nigerian High Court.
So, you think about the legal work that's being done by our friends there, and it's just also jumping into the dangerous. Place. This is northern Nigeria.
So anyway, check out the Truth Rising Premiere on X, and what helps that is people sharing it.
So if you're there, find it, share it, promote it. That would be great. Awesome.
Well, that's going to do it for the show today. Thank you so much for listening to Breakpoint This Week from the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. I'm Maria Bear alongside John Stone Street. We'll see you all back here next week. God bless.
