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 deadly shooting in Australia, rising anti-Semitism, and a changing landscape of safety around the world. We're so glad you're with us. Please stick around. Welcome to Breakpoint This Week from the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview.
I'm Maria Baer, alongside John Stone Street, president of the Coulson Center. John, we have to start this week with the shooting in Australia. And I'm going to hand it over to you because. We're recording this a week ahead of Christmas. We are Just about wrapping up the Hanukkah season, which I and my husband observe with our girls, and it's really been a sweet week.
But I really don't know what to say about this.
So this was the shooting on Vondi Beach in Australia during a Hanukkah celebration. That killed 15 people, including a child and a... Holocaust survivor by two Islamic men. A father and son.
So, can you help me work through this? No, because this sort of thing is not senseless in the sense that.
Some people call acts of evil like this senseless. It makes an awful lot of sense in a fallen world, particularly. Coming from a radicalized ideology that goes kind of all the way down the rabbit hole of that ideology. And what I mean by that is Islam on Islam's term sees Jews. As unworthy of life, and actually those that need to be eliminated.
And we've seen a resurgence, not just in anti-Semitism and attacks on Jewish people, although we have. But we've also seen a resurgence of Islamic violence against Jewish people. And you remember just two decades ago in the wake of 9-11, we would have just consistent. Incidents like this around the world in France, certainly in the United States with 9-11. But then also in other places as well.
Subway bombing in London, for example. I mean, there's just a lot of examples of this. And at times, It was Islamic violence just against the West, but you had these kind of targeted opportunities. And that's what. We see.
I mean, we saw it here in Colorado last May. Where a Muslim man from Colorado Springs went to a Jewish event and targeted Jewish people. not with guns, but with knives and and and stabbed people there. Look, there's enough examples of this, and it's built into the ideology. It's literally.
Built into the system. It's built into the books that are considered and the writings that are considered to be Authoritative. And it's It is a horrible, horrible thing. It is worth noting that these acts of Islamic violence. Are corresponding with anti-Semitism from other sources as well.
And Not just words, although there are a lot of words, also, actual actions. in terms of uh uh discrimination and hatred and and and things like like that. You you you kind of look to I I I I I think a lot about Chuck Colson and how he thought about for example, crime and And incarceration, and also restorative justice, and how to deal with the recivism raid, and so on. And part of his analysis was that the typical secular explanations for the trend lines that the society was going through at the time he was talking about an explosion in the prison population And the traditional explanations that this is because of racism or this is because of poverty or this is because of education. that those things were factors, but not enough to explain it.
And I think that when you look at these particular horrific. actions and words, against the Jewish people and you say, well, what is enough to explain it? You you you have to put all the all the pieces uh on the table, all the cards on the table. And if one card or two cards continue to show up over and over and over. You need to take those seriously.
And Chuck did that when it came to that topic of crime, incarceration, the exploding. prison population and and so on. And we need to do that here in the wake of resurgence of Islamic violence. and a resurgence of Anti-Semitism. And of course, it's worth mentioning as well, not to go on here, but it's worth mentioning that.
Good heavens. Um Anti-Semitism never goes away. It is this kind of recurring nightmare. And there has to be a spiritual dimension to it. There has to be a demonic dimension to it because it just never goes away.
It just continues to surge again and again and again. from various sources.
So it feels senseless because it feels so, what is it that we can actually do about it? but it actually makes a lot of sense. if if you take people's own words seriously. And there's plenty of things to read and to hear. both historically and recently.
of of what's happening. I think I think we we need to believe it. Yeah. It is, I think, in a lot of ways just a cycling through of history that tends to repeat itself, but it does also feel like it's escalating. I was reminded this week of You know, a year ago there was that horrific attack in Germany at the Christmas markets.
Where people drove a car into a crowd. And just a couple hours ago, Five Muslim men, including a Muslim. I don't know if he was an Imam or just a preacher. We were arrested in Germany for planning another of these kinds of attacks. And we, of course, know that.
Paris has canceled its New Year's celebrations, turning to some kind of dystopian like everybody watch online. We're going to do a prerecorded concert or something. Citing security concerns. London has increased security around its Christmas celebrations. Is this a result of migration?
Is this a story about Islam? Or is this a story about the continued normalization of anti-Semitism, of violence? The world is changing, but what is this? Yeah, I don't know if the attacks on Christmas are an example of anti-Semitism, although the anti-Semitism is certainly surging from both Islam and also. On the left, and also on the sources on the right.
So it's coming from multi-directions when we talk about anti-Semitism. The story of canceling Christmas, you might say. Is also a story gaining steam from last year to this year. And it has to do with Christmas markets, and it has to do. With the danger getting, how do we say, high enough that local authorities Feel like the solution is that these celebrations can't be protected.
Or these markets cannot be protected. But it says an awful lot about a society when the solution to threats of violence. Are we're just going to get rid of any opportunity, not by heightened security or heightened protection. In some cases, there is a sense in which the authorities feel like. to heighten security and to bring the kind of security that needs to be brought.
Will look like racial profiling, and that in a certain mindset is a bigger sin. You know, that's the greatest evil that you can do. And we need to understand that that's a poisonous idea. That goes through. This is not a call, certainly, for racial profiling.
But there is a sense in which if you're not willing to do that, or if you see the threat of racial profiling or being accused of racial profiling as being a bigger crime, something bigger than actually protecting the citizens, I mean, that just says an awful lot about cultural priorities and how we think evil works, how we think evil proceeds. But it also says something, you know, at some point, you know, if we go back to one of the big stories of this past year, the The murder of Charlie Kirk. It was in a venue. It was an open area in which. It was basically impossible to defend.
They made the decision: we're going to go ahead anyway. And we're going to do this. And these cities, these communities aren't willing to do that, or maybe they feel like. These places are un unguardable. But it's notable that the end result is A loss of freedom.
It's notable that the end result is a disconnect from a tradition, a cultural tradition that in many of these places goes back a really, really long time. And as one of the remaining, and I'm not saying a marketplace is the same as being connected to Christmas, but in these places it kind of is. These places it comes along with decoration and it comes along with celebration and it comes along with festivity and so on. Joseph Pieper, of course, wrote the book, Leisure as the Basis of Culture. And in other words, what we do with kind of these free spaces and free moments, both as individuals and as society, tells a lot about our values and it tells a lot about kind of our priorities.
Well, that's why these terrorists target these things. They're significant. They have meaning culturally. They're symbolic, yeah. But it's also symbolic within the community, right?
You know, you might say, well, you know, the attack in Australia was on a So that motivates these individuals. But when a community says, we're going to now no longer protect this tradition, we're not going to protect this activity that has defined these free spaces and free moments for decades. And connects us very specifically, then you're making a selection whether you want to or not. You're selecting not to be connected to that, and you're selecting now to be connecting. instead to to safety.
And that means you've allowed whatever you've allowed all the way up to that point. And you're making a decision not to backtrack, not to backpedal. Which a lot of communities have, a lot of countries have, certainly the United States has, Hungary has. And we are here talking about immigration. These are very, very difficult decisions to make.
I don't want to undermine how difficult these decisions are. But you do have to decide what is the fundamental purpose of the state. What is our role? And how much does it matter? kind of our history.
We've got a piece coming out in the next couple weeks. you know on The UK, and it's on a silly topic, a new Robin Hood series, which goes back and just completely retells the history. And of course, Robin Hood was mythical, but the scenario, the cultural backdrop there was. Is being told as if Christianity was not a part of that community or was being forced and so on. And so.
Tim Padgett, one of our writers, you know, sniffed that out and But but it but it has to do with It's similar here, right? Which is, why are we retelling the story as if Christianity were the oppressor?
Well, because you've embraced a philosophy, you've embraced a world view. and you're not allowed to tell. a story in any other way. You have to tell it in a way in which Christianity is the oppressor. But that's pretty notable.
You remember the British parliamentarian who spoke to a largely empty room a couple of months ago? And and basically said, look. We either tie ourselves to our past and our Christianity, or we lose a lot of the important things. This is the idea of a cut flower civilization and. Canceling Christmas is an example of this.
I'm not saying it's not a hard decision because you have to bring peace and order. But it's the conscience or the constable. You have a group of people who can govern themselves. You allow in people who can govern themselves, or you have to actually increase the police presence, you have to take away the fun, you have to redefine leisure. And free space and free time in your nation.
Yeah, I can appreciate if it were a sense of like, okay, this year got away from us, and we don't feel like we can adequately, because if I go to a major public celebration, I want to have the reasonable expectation that whatever authorities are in place have thought about this and feel that it is a safe place to go.
So if they don't feel that, then I appreciate, in a sense, them canceling it. But. I would hope then that that would in turn cause the reflection you're talking about, where they would then say, How did we get to this point? And how do we what do we need to do? Because this is absurd.
We can't, we're not going to go on this way. This celebration needs to continue next year. What do we need to change? And that's where we get to the hard questions, like you're talking about, looking at immigration, looking at why we seem to not be unable to police ourselves and why we can't trust our neighbors anymore, and why things like riding public transit feel fraught and a little bit more unsafe than they used to. And these are deeper questions that are harder to answer than what you do with a particular event.
But it's notable to look at the decisions made, right? And I think that's the point. And so think about after 9-11, the intentional decision was made. We shut down the airports for a while. We're going to open it back up, but it's going to look very different, right?
So there's a decreased amount of freedom. There's an increased amount of government intervention. Think about the New Year's Eve celebration right after September the 11th and the dropping of the ball. That continued to take place. I'm not sure if there was ever a year taken off or not.
I'd have to Google that to know if even that. that following year. But I think it kind of went on. Uh, if I remember correctly, anyway, I don't want to assume I'd have to google it again to figure it out, but. But the decision was made eventually, like, no, we are going to make sure this continues.
Like, you know, that's a New York tradition. And it was a very... Important statement. Think about the Nigerian Christians who every Christmas and every Easter. In fact, there were predictions this week of expecting a Christmas attack in churches.
And they should, because it's been going for 15 years straight, where every Christmas we wake up to another horrific attack by Muslims on Christians in the church. What do those Christians do the very next Sunday? And they go right back to church. In other words, These are more than symbolic things. They are choices you make as individuals to say, I'm attaching to my roots or I'm not.
These are the things that are essential and these are the things that are not.
So, again, how we get there to these decisions is very difficult. You need to protect people. I'm not undermining any of that in the decisions that are made, but it says. A lot of things about a lot of things, if I about your values. It reminds me of in the first summer of 2020.
We were, everybody was navigating the pandemic, and my husband and I were like, let's take the girls to Florida because we go there a lot. And it was, you could go actually go on the beach in Florida at that time, unlike a lot of other places. Our public park in our neighborhood had caution tape around it.
So we were really kind of scrambling. And my dad's best friend got very, very sick with COVID and was hospitalized for several weeks. And I remember calling my dad and saying, Am I crazy for traveling? Like, what is this situation made you? More reticent or scared.
And he said, if anything, it's made me feel more like. You should live your life with your loved ones and do what you do. Like, you know, if, and, and thankfully, his friend survived and is healthy and well. But that was exactly what you're talking about. It was a reckoning with what your values are and what the essentials are and what's important.
And of course, being reasonable. I mean, we were young, we were low risk, all those things. But that's kind of what needs to happen now on a civilizational level. And it feels a little bit like it's happening here. It doesn't feel so much so like it's gonna happen.
I don't have as high hopes that it's happening in Europe, unfortunately, at least Western Europe. But these are the moments when you have to make those kinds have those kinds of conversations, I guess. It's almost a recommendation to watch Truth Rising if you haven't watched it, because these are the sorts of conversations that have emerged in that documentary project, is what are the roots of civilization? What does it mean when a civilization is cut off? What kind of choices do we need to make as individuals?
And the simplest terms in that film and in the stories of courage. that are promoted are make this choice. If you make no other choice, Make the choice to to tell the truth. Make the choice to know the truth. Uh, make the choice to live by the truth, so you know, that's part of it.
But I do, I do want to throw at least a bone that there are hard in terms of the hard decision point which we made, which is uh going to Florida, which we did too, uh, right after I got COVID. I mean, I basically woke up out of my stupor and said, We're going to Florida, yeah, and um, it was, it was, it was funny. But, you know, choosing not to get on a cruise ship at that point, maybe was a good choice. You know what I mean? Like, at that point, not to mention they were all honestly, even for my parents, were older.
Like, there were all kinds of variables that would affect the math there. But I remember, by the way, I went to Florida in the middle of that for another, actually, to speak to a group of folks. Ended up, had one of my daughters with me. We went over to the east coast of Florida. And you could just see cruise ships lined up, you know, because they didn't have any place to park.
They were just parked all up and down that coast. And they had crews on them that couldn't get off. And so the decision in March or April to not get in a cruise ship. was or March was In May and February. Yeah.
There were a lot of people stranded on cruise ships for a long time. This also reminded me when you were talking, John, about a mini series that was very popular several years ago and that I thought was really good, but it was about terrorism. And I remember this one line. Where somebody accused one of the really great detectives, it was Mandy Patinkin actually, and they said, Aren't you engaging in racial profiling? And he said, That's it's not racial profiling, it's just profiling.
But this and it was so cathartic because this was what this is what you're talking about. What are your are your values appearances and personal offense and politicization? Or are your values accuracy, reasonableness and you know, solving criminal problems. And those are the kinds of questions that we're being forced to ask right now. And unfortunately, not everybody's being reasonable answering them.
But we certainly pray for everybody's safety. As things move forward, I want to mention just briefly, John, another tragedy of news that broke this week, which was the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife.
Now, allegedly, by his son, which it seems to point to, just tragedy on tragedy. And then, of course, President Trump just made an incredibly grotesque statement after it, somehow trying to make it about him and also disparaging. a man who'd just been murdered allegedly by his son. I don't know that there's a lot to comment on here other than that this was just. I mean, a tragedy and then embarrassing, frankly.
Yeah, it was a horrible statement. It should never have been made. And it's not something that anyone even. those who support The President's actions and policies in many different areas, which a lot of people do. And I certainly.
I'm grateful for the the movement on issues of life and other things, but you can. Call balls and strikes. You can say that this is wrong. And we cannot succumb to a vision of morality. which says, because this person is on my side, I have to support everything that they do.
And quote unquote. And this is where I was grateful to see so many voices. that were very, very clear on this. And it was a little odd to see the silence about those who are supporters of Trump on this statement. There wasn't a silence.
There was a a lot of people saying this was a A wretched thing to say. It was narcissistic. It was self-centered. It was. Tragic to th what what happened to Rob Reiner and and and his wife and the fact that it happened at the hands Of his son, allegedly, is from where all the evidence seems to be pointing right now.
Just just terrific. And we should also, by the way, mention that as we're recording this, the the shooter at Brown University has been caught and uh he uh killed himself in a storage unit. At least the the the again, the alleged shooter, it's it's it's early in that. Uh I think this is a story that's going to be um weird. That's my this is a prediction already.
It just seems like You don't usually get these things from Portugal. And so. It's a strange story. And it sounds like he also. is suspected of Being responsible for the murder of a physics professor at MIT.
Yeah, a nuclear scientist.
So there's a whole lot of things that we're doing. And that news broke. We have a very, very dear friend who we went to church with for several years here in Columbus who now is a physics professor at Brown. And this has been a really I know, very difficult and kind of shattering weak For him and his wife, and just, I mean, the any illusions of safety and just confusion about what, this is a very, very strange story for sure. Yeah, and scary.
Well, John, let's take a quick break. We're going to get to some more news of the week in just a moment. We'll be right back with more breakpoint this week. Hello, my name is Scott Miller and I have the privilege of serving as Vice President of Finance at the Coulson Center. As we approach the end of the year, I want to thank you for standing with us in this mission.
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We're back on breakpoint this week. John, I've got to bring up to you this story. Actually, you shared this with me from the Wall Street Journal. I read this story with my jaw just continuing to drop to the point where I then ran downstairs to try and describe to my husband what I just read, and I could not even get the words out to describe it. This is so utterly.
Shocking and horrifying, but also somewhat predictable the more I think about it. There is a growing situation. It sounds like it's primarily happening in California. At least that's where this coverage started. of Billionaires and presumably millionaires, very wealthy men from China.
Paying for surrogacy through fertility clinics in the United States. to have, in some cases, hundreds of children. I like again, it sounds like I'm pitching a movie to you. Like, I don't know how to describe this without it sounding like I'm exaggerating, but I am not. This came to the attention of authorities in California first because California has this really grotesque law where people who have paid for surrogacy can apply for parental rights in the seventh month of a woman's pregnancy.
So a woman could be pregnant with a baby and two unrelated adults can apply through the courts to be considered legally that child's parents already. And the court generally just grants that. The Kardashians did that. This is a big thing now in surrogacy.
Well, this judge in California started to notice that the same man's name was popping up on all of these applications for parental rights through surrogacy, all these different fertility clinics. um hundreds of babies and so the judge you know a stop to this as she said you know we we s we started declining these These parental rights applications. And then, upon further investigation, found that there's a handful of these Chinese men, and they'll say things like, or it will become apparent. These are men who have like video game companies or some kind of Tech companies or whatever. And it looks like they're, I don't know, building a workforce.
In some cases, they never meet these children. They're hiring nannies and they're hiring companies that will. Pick up the children from the hospital and bring them home. And these men are still back in China. It is an incredible, incredible story.
Um but what stuck out to me about it, and I think you as well, is that There is nothing to complain about in this story. That is not. endemic and fundamental to the practice of surrogacy itself. There's a certain accounting for taste here. People seem to find this story in particular quite distasteful, and I'm happy for that.
I think the 20th time we hear this kind of story, it will be less distasteful because that's how it works. But whatever you're upset about, whatever this judge is upset about. Applies to surrogacy itself. And at the end of the day, who has the right to say, well, this is too many babies to have through surrogacy? And this is, you're not going to meet this baby, or you're not going to care for it at this level that I would like.
Who's to be the judge there? The more reasonable cutoff would be to say surrogacy is fundamentally grotesque and immoral and should not be happening. It is a violation of children's and human rights. There's a lot to say about this. One is that the Wall Street Journal covered this, which was interesting.
This was not some. Kind of, you know, outlet taking an exception or taking a rare occasion and then elevating it to being. kind of endemic to the practice. The second thing I think of is the idea that in California the parental rights of those who order the child, the surrogates. Or the parents who are wanting to acquire the child.
can wait until seven months. to become considered the parent.
Now I again Uh I think that This is not a conversation about surrogate rights right now as the biological mom or anything like that. We'll get to that in a second. But why? Why wait for seven months? Why isn't it immediately Acknowledged.
when pregnancy is achieved. And the reason is. is because this is considered a consumer product. And by it, I mean the child is considered a consumer product. The the the surrogate is considered to be a means of production.
And if something goes wrong, you protect the buyer, you protect the customer.
Well, let me just really quick, because I did some research on this a while ago. It is also partly because. Would-be purchasers of these babies were forcing abortions. or we're trying to claim the legal right to demand an abortion. Earlier in the pregnancy, and they were using their right to this baby, their so-called right to a baby, to claim the right to.
Demand the abortion. It's all these problems are because of the endemic moral problems of the practice itself, but go on. The consumer. aspect of this is built into this. from from start to finish.
And we have talked about IVF and surrogacy in various ways and many, many times.
Well, you have different stories. I was reminded this week of, for example, when Russia invaded Ukraine, and one of the stories. were the uh the the the children uh that were conceived through IVF in this surrogacy tourism industry that Ukraine imbibes in. And hundreds and hundreds of children who could not go to their quote unquote owners or their buyers. And how many of those who were kind of buying these children or uh ordering them were gay men.
So again, they're completely consumers. They have no connection with the child other than. the connection of kind of making the first purchase order. And so, you know. Wh where do they go?
The consumerist aspect of this, turning children into commodity.
So the best way to manage all the kind of contract law disputes. Is through this, you know, kind of seven-month thing. And it just, again, it's all built in right now. Why are and to your point that the problems here are endemic? We have said that children are valuable.
Children are Not valuable as human beings, but should be given life if the adults want them.
So, all the priority here is put on adult desire. Gay men should have children if gay men want them. rich uh Chinese billionaires should not have children. If they what if they want a hundred of them like the video game executive? Who's to say?
In other words, this is the process completely working out as planned. Better than planned. Business is booming. There are quotes in this story of fertility clinics allegedly saying, like, Hey, send him my way. He wants five at one time.
Great. Yeah. Business is booming. Now, I can't explain for the life of me where the. Motivation is for the Chinese billionaire.
Like, why, why dozens? Why a hundred? Like, what's the in it for him or her. I imagine it's mostly him if it's if a Chinese billionaire that's almost always a man. What's in it for them, I I don't know.
That to me is a weird, the weird part of the story. What's motivating? Doesn't your mind immediately go to like Genghis Khan? Like this is some kind of... dystopian evil like male stereotypical I mean, not unlike Elon Musk, I guess, right?
Well, several of them cited him. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, kind of a return to this is what humans are.
And if you get human biology without a creator of human biology, you get the urge, the sexual urge, the reproductive urge without any kind of ordering.
Now The other thing that I want to point out here is that, again, this is working out exactly. As the plan Uh you know, for IVF and surrogacy. The more the better. All that sort of stuff. And if you think life begins at conception, then there's really no fundamental difference.
other than the surrogacy part of it. between uh a Chinese billionaire having dozens and dozens of children in a different country in a different place. And wants nothing to do with them. And the way that IVF is currently practiced, which involves the creation of many, many human beings that are then left detached from their biological parents, and freezers. Right.
So you have frozen embryos. And whenever we bring this up, we get a lot of challenge on that, you know, from those who have participated. in the process saying, but but that's that's not me. And I understand the intention is different. The intention of a child struggling with infertility.
going through the process, excess embryos are created. And now they're there. And the intention is, well, we're going to implant them eventually, or we want to give them life. It's all intention.
So the intention is different. And that's not a nothing within a Christian worldview of ethics. But the outcome is an awful lot of human beings that are detached from their parents, geographically separated.
So it's really hard to see. How the problem here is anything more than geography. This is just a geographical difference where these children are say of the Chinese billionaire in California and the children of IVF in America are in a state of frozen suspension. If human beings are human beings, you know, it's a question of location. You know, if you go back to the sled acronym, size, location, environment, degree of dependency.
which are the differences between an embryo uh a a product of conception quote unquote is what they're called and um A a child. That's all the difference that there is. And this seems to be a difference of loc location. Intent. Don't change kind of what happens.
And this speaks to me to those who have defended IVF, those who have defended. IVF and the and the President's policy Or the press, you know, the push from the Fr from the president. Publicly, even Christian voices that have done this, and why I can't understand this. I can't get there from here. If the President were saying, okay.
We're going to go. We want to promote this kind of IVF with all of these limits and all of these. Ethical impositions and all of these kind of practices.
So there's not excess embryos created and suspended in time, and there's not this. kind of eugenics screening of embryos up front. And people can't just get them whenever they want them.
So, if a child is inherently sterile, that doesn't give him a couple of men rights to acquire a child in a purchase process. In other words, None of that's part of uh of this plan. And none of that's part of the president's push. The problem is endemic to how IVF is done. And then you add the surrogacy confusion on, and it's hard to understand any sort of ethical reason that surrogacy should be allowed or promoted.
And I and again on a legal I'm going to go back to something you said at the beginning. You didn't say it exactly this way, but we have said it in the past and you've said it in the past and Right now, the fertility industry, big fertility, is the wild, wild west. There basically is if you want it, you can have it. You can pay for it. You can travel.
It's a form of tourism. Like. And the children are the ones that are being created. and then victimized. Either by being abandoned, being left, being screened out, being left frozen, or being left without a father who's a tech billionaire.
in China. Like it's endemic to the system. The system is working exactly as it was planned to work. And this is what you get.
So, if we all have an ickiness, which I hope we do, which a lot of people were like, what? You know, like you were, right? And I was when I sent it around. Just know the system is making this happen. You may not have done it in the way that you pursued.
uh having having children through IVF. But but It just seems like we have to speak out on behalf of these children. Yeah, I think stories like this are so helpfully clarifying. It is to our shame that it takes a story like this, it takes somebody who's. Gonna take the wild, wild west nature of this industry to its logical conclusions for us to reckon with the ethical.
Um depravity that it allows. But Either way, if you find yourself... With a sense of, as you said, ickiness. If you find yourself absolutely disgusted. By stories like this, it is extremely helpful to ask yourself why and then to determine whether or not the why.
Is also applicable to the most, the rosiest picture you could paint of assisted reproductive technology, of surrogacy, of you know, big IVF or whatever it is. Because It will get into a sort of murky territory where suddenly you've put yourself in the position of determining: well, how many babies is it okay for someone to order at one time? How long is it okay for a parent who's ordered a baby to not be in that child's life? How many other people is it okay for that person to hire to take care of that? What kinds of intentions are ethically okay as opposed to those that aren't?
Why is it okay to say, I want to continue to live an intentionally sterile life with this gay partner, but also have children. Why is that better morally to you than a man who says, I want to create a family legacy/slash workforce for my growing business? What is fundamentally different about that, especially when it comes to the Actual lived functional experience of the child who deserves a mom and a dad. There is, and you're gonna find that there isn't. There's the only real difference you'll come to.
is taste.
Some things are going to feel. better to you than others just because of cultural conditions and the way we live. And like I said at the beginning. I'm happy that people still seem to be averse to this kind of story, but you've got to know this about yourself and about cultures. The more this happens, the less distasteful it's going to seem because we're very adaptive.
And that's how these things happen. And your taste can lie to you. It is a very, very poor stand-in for real ethical decision-making, whether something feels right or wrong to you, because it can be so conditioned by repetition and circumstances.
So, this, I'm hoping. Like again, it's to our shame that these things have to happen for us to ask these questions at large. Just like, you know, all the stories coming out about men who, through sperm donation in our own country, have fathered hundreds of kids, and all these people saying, How is this possible? Aren't there limits? Nobody's keeping track of that.
There's no actual regulation. Yeah, the answer is: no, there are not limits. No, there are no limits. Of course not. And the women, you know, women who are like, oh, I had no idea.
And I've been victimized by this. You paid for. The sperm, this was the marketplace that you entered, right?
So if we had asked these questions from the beginning, we should be coming to the same conclusion, which is from the most well-intentioned. Um, childless couple here whose pain is real and deserves compassion, to a Chinese billionaire who's a sociopath and is endeavoring to do something that's fundamentally evil. the functional working out of this industry is the same. I do want to say the intent is not a nothing, right? Correct.
In other words, it is more than taste. It is intent and taste. Taste is more the rest of us looking at stories like this and saying do we find this distasteful or not. But the choice of participation is certainly Way different. And, you know, I but there's also a reality, you know.
We're at the age where uh my son sometimes does things. And um And he goes, I didn't mean, you know, to hit my sister or whatever. You know, I don't even, you know, I don't like it. I did it out of love, dad. What is that?
What is that? Does that change the fact that you you did this? No, right? And intention. matters Jesus took our actions from Back into the realm of intention, right?
But at the same time, you can have good intentions with bad results, and you're still responsible. For what you do. And our intents have to be governed. themselves. And as a society, you have to put safeguards on them.
So I would feel a lot better if there were those. You know, I again, I I struggle to see any ethical IVF. But but there are way more ethical ways of doing IVF than others. I struggle to see any ethical surrogacy. There are surrogates who engage in that, who have better intentions than others.
But those who are calling for the president to subsidize this, to put it into insurance plans. the president's own you know goal here thinking somehow, if he does, that it's connected with a pro-life view. Big fertility ends more lives. Big fertility victimizes more children.
So please, at least Join us in calling for the safeguards. that will be be put in place. It's almost as if we talk a lot about how in the kind of the tail and the sexual revolution, the sexual revolutionaries. tried to mitigate the disasters that were caused by bad men and bad women. By saying, oh, it's about consent, right?
You have to get consent. That has now been applied to having children, not just sex, but also procreation, which should, by the way, tell us. That there's an inherent connection between sex and procreation, which we've tried to sever, which we can never sever fully because, you know, biology. But gosh, consent? I want it.
That's enough to govern this industry? No, it's not. And there's enough examples of this right now. It's so obvious, it's so clear. Uh we have to put safeguards here.
And, you know, to the point that, you know, Katie Faust and others have been saying for a really long time: put the kids first. And there's nothing about this process. From the beginning to the end, that puts the kids first. The kids are subject to adult desires, consumer desires in this case. And whatever weird things are driving Chinese billionaires and Elon Musk to do these sorts of things.
Yeah, it the the cat's out of the bag. It's the Wild West. We're seeing The results of our New technological prowess.
So, anyway.
Well, to be fair, I don't think Elon Musk has used surrogacy, but the point is well taken. No, but he's, but, but, yeah, I mean, if you, if you don't have safeguards built on some sort of ontology, some sort of given, some sort of actuals. What kids deserve, what they need. Exactly. And this is increasingly the case both with computer technology, but also like artificial intelligence.
but also with certainly reproductive technologies, which is The possible drives the ethical. Right, not the actual. In other words, this is the way the world is. And so let's frame our ethics out of the givens of the world. Versus let's imagine what's possible with our technological workarounds and if it's possible then it must be acceptable because we should never hold back human innovation.
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Well, John, I want to turn now to there's a new book out by Scott Galloway. about men. Kind of calling men to a higher ideal, noticing, it's called notes on being a man. And our friend Brad Wilcox at the Institute for Family Studies wrote a review of the book. that was complimentary in the Wall Street Journal.
What he noted was that, you know, he's he's kind of Scott Galloway is calling men to more purpose. To procreation, which was a little bit surprising, but in a good way. You know, just noting what we've talked about here before, which is kind of the male malaise, as Brad, I think, calls it. You know, that fewer men are entering the workforce, men aren't graduating from college at the same rates as women anymore. We know, of course, that fewer men are getting married, fewer people are getting married, they're having fewer children.
There is. Deaths of despair are on the rise, particularly among men, addiction.
So we agree that there's a problem. I like the idea of this book because it was calling men. to live into their design, which I feel like five years ago, you weren't even allowed to acknowledge that there was a specific design for men that may be different from the design for women. But just acknowledging the positive parts of masculinity and calling men to live into that. What did you think what do you think of this thesis here?
Well, it's the analysis isn't new. There have been many books that date back to, you know, I'm sure even before, but Christine Hoff Summers. Book, The Wargand's Boys, that she wrote years ago, and that had to do mostly with education. You could talk about even beyond that. I mean, Margaret Mead, the feminist icon, said that.
The essential task of any society is to find a proper place for men. And I've joked here before that. Margaret Mead thought the proper place for men was on a different planet than women. But and hers was a restrictive vision, but she's not wrong in and of the statement. I was at a wonderful long conversation with the one and only Al Moeller this week.
President of Southern Seminary for one of his podcasts. And this is where the conversation went. we're you know, help helping boys find their place. Of course the Uh the the feminist movement uh As it became captivated by the sexual revolution and sold sexual freedom to women. Had to do something to mitigate the male sexual urge.
And so, where that ended up. As it was then hijacked from the DEI movement, was essentially to say masculinity is a problem. And so we went from ordering a society primarily away from men to actually seeing maleness as a pathology, a pathology that needed to be condemned in all places. And we also had the age of distraction. I think the The culture of adolescence, which men.
ironically were able to imbibe in. as a way of getting out of the way. and play video games and that actually created the imbalances. And I lowered the marriage rates, and there's a lot of other things. I mean, to the point where adolescents.
Which was initially considered to be kind of a transitional stage, roughly between the ages of 13 to 18. You know, by the time the 20th century was over, it was seen to be not a transitional stage. But a stage that many boys in particular entered and never left and went from 11 to 30.
Now The Interesting thing about Galloway is according to Brad Wilcox's analysis here in the Wall Street Journal. Is this aspect of the analysis that the large and growing cohort of bored, lonely, poorly educated men, right? And all those things have been written about: young men are bored, young men are lonely, young men are distracted, young men are not getting educated in the right ways. Has become a malevolent force in society. The malevolent idea of this, in other words, it's bad.
These are young men then that are vulnerable to conspiracy theories, radicalization, and nihilist politics. And I think There's probably a tendency of the human race to be kind of drawn to nihilist politics because of the power of nihilism for a long time. But We're certainly seeing a surge in that among young men. In other words, the The chickens are coming home to roost. The ideas are having their consequences.
The predictions of Frederick Nietzsche and the parable of the madman, in which he said, I've come too early. You know, now's when he should have, you know, been writing if he were still alive. He's talking about us up. Upward, downward, left, right, going constantly. How do we know any of these things?
Everything's cold and dark and dreary. We have nothing to warm us. We have to become gods ourselves, which is a very nihilistic. Idea in order to become worthy of the death of God, you know, things like that. Yeah, this is an analysis of this.
And What's encouraging to me? It's kind of like. When Abigail Schreier first wrote Irreversible Damage, putting her finger on and saying, look, This trans madness, which started with middle-aged men trying to live out of sexual perversion, has affected young girls and it's infecting our systems, including education and counseling and so on. And let me tell you what it is. It's causing she sparked a conversation.
She took a lot of heat for it, but she sparked a conversation. And then. It seems to me that the conversation about young men is happening now. It's overdue. There certainly has been various pieces of it.
But because the large and growing cohort of bored, lonely, poorly educated men has become a malevolent force, and we're starting to recognize the malevolent force in the last decade. The malevolence was kind of chalked up to just being men. You know, that maleness itself was malevolent.
Now we're basically willing to have a different conversation. And I see this happening. from more directions. And I I'm encouraged by that. We're going to have to unravel an awful lot of things on a societal level, certainly in our institutions, education, and even in our churches to take advantage of this moment.
But we're seeing this. We've talked about this. Erica Kirk during Charlie Kirk's memorial service said that Charlie understood this and wanted to reach what she called the lost boys of the West. There's a lot of lost boys in the West. Are they going to go to faith, which some of them are, are they going to go to some form of nihilism?
which a lot of them are. That is, I think, a profound analysis where they're articulating the stakes as they exist. And I think it's also a call to the church. The church has an opportunity. and I hope the Church leans into this opportunity.
It's not going to be necessarily clean and shaven. Or clean shaven and easy, you know, but are we going to actually jump into this opportunity? To me, is the question. Yeah. There's another slight wrench in this analysis, I think.
Just in that, the To talk about this purely in the realm of ideas. And I don't know that that's exactly what you're doing, but like. You know, the fact that we turned maleness into a source of toxicity and told men that they don't have a place where they should, and all of that is true. But the nature of work has changed so much that I think that's part of it. And it was probably an unavoidable part of it.
Like the. The kind of girl boss era feminism would never have been possible unless. The majority of work had not turned non-physical, right? I mean, if we still were like primarily a manufacturing-based economy, I don't think you'd see the level of women ascending in. the universities and the workplaces that we do.
But so the majority of like especially the higher paying work now is just not physical anymore, which is a a real functional like material difference. And I don't know that I necessarily have A solution for that, other than I do think it's an opportunity, like you said, for the church, because. Men and women, but particularly men, I think are called to provide. Especially because w women when you're building a family, women generally need, especially in the early years of their children's lives, need to have the freedom and space to be with their children more often than working, for example. not to open a can of worms, but it is if the church can Continue to teach that all work, regardless of the kind of work, regardless of whether it's physical, regardless of whether it's work that only men could do and not a woman could feasibly do.
Is meaningful because it provides for your family, or because it's work, or because it's cultivating whatever space of the world that you've been placed in, that that's meaningful and good. That's going to be a really important message. And I think some, you know, you've talked about David Bonson's book and how special that is and what a great contribution to this conversation. It is, and I'm grateful for him and others like him. But I agree it's an opportunity for the church just because the nature of work has changed so much.
I think that the nature of work has changed. That's obvious. But that dates that predates this. It predates this pretty dramatically. The move to the information age made it worse.
But the Industrial Revolution separated manual labor, first of all, from the home, and secondly, manual labor from non-manual labor, which became the white-collar, blue-collar. And then, of course, you had the building of economies of scale. You had the stock market. You had other ways of creating and generating wealth. And all of this, historically, if you go to France during the Enlightenment or you go to a theologically driven Europe, you had people dealing with ideas and people dealing with manual labor.
So it's not new. It's worse. It's a contributing factor. It's not a sufficient explanation. There's a way of seeing it now where I so I don't think it's enough to say that it just has to do with the way work has changed.
It has to do with how we think about work. I think, though, it also is in the structure of things. For example, one of the things that Is mentioned in this review. It's also mentioned is that in other places is that The emptying out of industries that aren't manual labor of men. There was another piece, by the way, written this week.
that created quite a stir. What was the name of that article? The Lost Generation by Jacob Savage. Yeah, and it created a lot of both critique, but also a lot of people saying, you know, this is a profound analysis where the actual push to rid the workplace and ridge spaces. of Not just as an idea, but as an applied idea.
Of white males have disenfranchised a generation of millennial. white men. And this didn't happen to the Xers. The Xers were able to kind of secure places or grandfathered in. Yeah, an increasing number of spaces.
Some of them just kind of bought into their fate and accepted their roles as mid-management. And then others were able to achieve a particular level of career satisfaction. But that was not the case for this one cohort. And if you actually see the numbers in these industries and how dramatically they drop, then you could talk about, and by the way, most of these aren't manual labor positions. Most of these are industries.
They're newspapers. They're news media. They're corporate leadership, businesses. that are being led. Certainly there's manual labor, but they're being led by those who are engaged in other things.
So it was a fascinating analysis. I think it probably is guilty of the trying to explain everything, and a thesis usually can't explain everything. There are contributing factors, but I think that there is a reckoning here. I don't think the change in the kind of work that we need explains as much. as how we think about work.
And we think about work as a means to an end, not as a source of meaning and purpose and expression of who we are. The idea of work as calling. There's a reason that that made this kind of comeback. The problem was they were trying to argue for calling without a caller. And that becomes, I think, confusing.
And the other thing that makes the most sense is that there was this sustained systemic widespread. attack on men as males. I'm not saying men are guiltless in all this. Men love the idea that, oh, I can be lazy and kind of, you know. Stand here in the corner, stay on the couch, and you know, in the name of women's equality, play video games while my living girlfriend who gives me all the sex that I want just doesn't require anything of me.
And works all in the name of female empowerment. I mean, I think the analysis that makes the most sense is the culture-wide identity crisis that started with a culture-wide confusion about what it means to be human, where value comes from. And it ended in a full out confusion about whether or not there's anything essential to human nature. At all, much less male and female, or whether everything itself is a show, everything is a stage, everything is a performance and a construct of individuals and societies. And when you start chipping away at any essential nature, Any the conversation that I had with Dr.
Moeller this week was about ontology, you know, whether there's a there there, whether there is a substance to who we are. And all the things that flow from that are pretty dramatic.
So it's a fascinating conversation. It's interesting that this review and then the piece in Compact, yeah. Compact Magazine, is that where it was? Um, you know, Abigail Streier said it was the most profound piece of analysis that she had ever. That she had read in a long time, or something like that.
And then other people said, ah, it's got problems. I think it had problems too, but it's, you know, when you start to ask these questions, It's better for a society than when you're just assuming the conclusion that all men are bad. You know, because they're men. And that is an interesting thing. And I think, by the way, the instruction here for Christians.
is to embrace the God given design. of humans made in the image of God. and that there's only two kinds of image bears, just like there are uh You know, if you think about the creation story, there's different kinds of cats, there's different kinds of dogs, there's different kinds of Horses, there's two kinds of image bearers, male and female, and that These are givens. These aren't things that we make up. These are things that we you know, we express out of something substantial.
And it has to start with the ideas.
Now to your point, it has to get practical. It has to get to application. It should actually get to the real world where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. But you got to have the right ideas to start with. And Francis Schaefer argued for, talked about this line of despair.
of ideas and how they eventually Become practically implemented or creep into the real world. And the wrong ideas will have. Victims We have an idea, the right ideas, the true ideas. We got to get those straight in our own minds. And then hopefully start working them out.
It is an opportunity, it's a moment, you know what I mean, where the conversation's happening.
So I think. For the people that are listening, and said, You guys always talk about such bad news. The answer is yes. But this is some good possibility. This is an opportunity.
This is a potential, I think, for the church to champion what's true. I hope so.
Well, John, let's just get to one brief question. I think you led me astray last week. And I don't mean me, I mean the friend I was asking for who'd never read any G.K. Chesterton. And you recommended Letters to f letters from Father Christmas?
Do you want to own up to this mistake? Yeah, I thought it was being super clever and You know, those inklings all run together anyway, and Chesterton really wasn't an inkling, but all those people writing and that kind of whole thing. And you just, anyway, I fumbled. Letters from Father Christmas, which is still a good recommendation, especially if there's a lot of people who are. But it's by Tolkien.
So, okay.
So, the answer to the question is: if you want to start with Chesterton, start with Orthodoxy, then go to heretics. Very good. Thank you. Yeah, but I think we should do the next question, too. We have got time, right?
Yeah, we got enough time. We got. Let's do the next question from Minnesota. From a listener named Walt. Thank you again for sending in questions, you guys.
I was look forward to the weekly podcast. I noticed your segment on the Minnesota scandal. This was talking about the Somali community that has defrauded the Medicaid system in Minnesota of over $1 billion at this point. You focused primarily on immigration within the Somali community. Regardless of who perpetrated the scheme, some analysis I saw focused the story more on the corrupting power of government assistance.
Isn't there an opportunity to speak more onto the Christian world view on this? There are questions of efficacy, like when helping hurts, the war on poverty, but then this incident adds the likely costs and impact of waste, fraud and abuse. What is your Christian worldview take?
Well, we speak about these sorts of things. I appreciated the question. And the problem is, you can't always say everything about everything.
So let me tell you the Christian worldview about government assistance. I contributed several years ago on the 50th anniversary on the war against poverty, and along with several other thought leaders, it was a national review forum, I think. And the conclusion was: yes, we fought the war on poverty and we lost. By all the metrics, we lost this. Why?
Well, because there are different segments of society. Kuyper talked about different spheres, those spheres having different authorities. And the government has a sphere. It has a role. It has a place to play.
And when it does more than it should, that means that either it's overstepping its bounds, or that means that whatever is responsible. to operate in that sphere has fallen apart. A related view, which would also, I think, speak to your question of what's the Christian worldview on that, is a Catholic notion historically, but I think it has a lot of merit biblically. When you think about the creation mandate to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. This is called subsidiarity.
simply put, subsidiarity is all things considered equal, those closest and most local to the problem are best suited to deal with the problem.
So the example I like to use with the high school Sunday school class that I teach when this comes up Is that because they all know my son? I said, my son disobeys, I don't call the police. Right, because I should be able to talk about that now. If my son goes crazy and starts bashing. You know, cars in the neighborhood and running wild, and I can't control them.
Now the police have to step in, right? Because now all things are not considered. It's interesting because a couple weeks ago, we got a question from Canada saying, Hey, listen, the Canadians, the government does all this good stuff. And I'm like, Well, no, the government then has to has a set of tools, and the c the set of tools for the state is pretty blunt.
So this is why we're seeing an increased call for medical assistance in dying on the poor. And they're calling it compassion. See the math. In other words, it's the state's job to care for the poor. That's the assumption.
Right.
And they're the primary ones who are going to deliver it. And you religious people stay away from it. You stay out of it. You local neighborhoods and communities, you stay out of it.
Well, eventually it becomes a math problem because you don't have enough money to take care of all these things. This is why You know, for example, the In China, they've tried to also step in to procreation. Limit procreation 30 years ago to one child.
Now they got a problem and they're trying to increase it. Why?
Because they've got a social safety net problem. They've inverted the economic triangle. It's the state trying to do what the state is not good at. That's a key point of the When Helping Hurts framework. But there's also there a statement on kind of the complex of American Christians going around the world and doing mission trips.
And in other words, all of this is about spheres. All of this is about who's most local to the problem. And a government that actually allows local citizens. and encourages and enables local citizens to care for their own communities, is one then that will help solve the problem without getting in the way. And we've kind of come to this agreement, I think, in disaster relief, as an example, right?
There was an article after Hurricane Harvey. five years ago, six years ago, whenever that was. USA Today said, Hey, if you receive FEMA aid, you probably got it from a religious person. Why?
Well, 'cause Samaritan Spurs is on the ground faster than FEMA every single time. Convoys of Hope are there doing good work every single time. There's a wonderful story uh in Glen Sunshine series when how Uh Christians Who Changed the World in China. of a massive earthquake and a local Christian. who had built up Because he'd heard from the Lord, medical supplies on the ground serving victims when the Communist Party showed up, and they were like, How can we help you do your good work because we can't do it?
The government has a role, but the government can't get local. And you start local and you build out from there. Alexis de Tocqueville noticed that about the American experience in democracy in America. That everything just didn't chalk up to an individual citizen in the big state. There were these.
mediating structures. These mediating structures, I think, if they're done well, recognize the authority of the sphere, home sphere, the education sphere, and so on. And the church and the state, and also kind of play these rules of subsidiarity. Who's most local that has the ability? Certainly, if you run out of resources, you need additional help.
You call on others who have maybe more resources. But outsourcing The parent's job to the state, always a bad idea. outsourcing the church's job. To the state? Always a bad idea.
So the state has a role, and that's how you order those according to a Christian. A Christian worldview. Great question. Love the question. And I does speak to the Minnesota It wasn't the Minnesota story.
We weren't trying to say that the government is always corrupt. The Christian worldview is that everything is always corrupt because humans are always corrupt. Right? That's the Christian worldview.
So you're going to find corruption everywhere you go. And it's better to start with what was God's created order? What is the created intent? and then build out from there. Yeah, that's helpful.
Thanks, John. John, what do you want for Christmas? This is our last episode before Christmas. This is a weird way to do recommendations. John, what do you recommend your wife get you for Christmas?
John, what do you recommend that everybody get you for Christmas? Go to church. Church and Christmas should not be separated.
So that's one thing that I would say. Take advantage of that. If you can find a lessons in Carol's service, there's usually some during Advent. There's usually some during Christmas. These are wonderful things to.
To liturgize and that sort of stuff. Yeah, I guess our next show will be the day after. Christmas, right? It's Which we are not going to record the day of Christmas. We're going to record the day before Christmas.
Yeah, I'm busy. Yeah. So that's my recommendation. My recommendation is to next week. Watch The Muppet Christmas Carol.
Oh, yeah. We can do that one. Absolutely. Never disappoints. Be best.
Music is fantastic. And you know what I want for Christmas is to be able to do it. No, sorry. I mean, you've probably recommended it to me, but Aaron has been watching that since he was a kid. It is, it is a major institution in my family every Christmas and has been since we started dating.
So, also, what I want for Christmas is Forrest Frank tickets. Are your kids into Forrest Frank? I don't even know who that is. Oh, you should.
Okay. Everybody go look up Forrest Frank. He has a new song out called. I think the present, present, it's a Christmas song. My girls are obsessed.
Every kid at their school is obsessed. And I am super grateful for Forrest Frank. And I'm thrilled that I get to be the one to introduce him to you, John. You're going to have to look him up after this.
So please somebody get my family force frank tickets because that would be so fun. Everybody, please have a wonderful, beautiful, Merry Christmas. Thank you for listening to Breakpoint this week. Thank you for supporting the Colson Center and this show. It's a privilege for John and I to come and chat with you every week.
and to work through the news together and to think about life in a biblical way. Have a wonderful Christmas. We'll see you all back here next week. From the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer alongside John Stone Street. Merry Christmas.
