You're listening to Breakpoint This Week, where we're talking about the top stories of the week from a Christian worldview. Today we're going to talk about religious persecution, including John's trip to South Korea and what he learned from Christians there. We're also going to talk about the continuing chaos in Minnesota over protests and ICE raids. We have a lot to get to you this week. 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, back on American soil. John, I've always wanted to see the Northern Lights, and I was wondering if maybe we could take this show on the road and head to Greenland. To record next week's episode, we might not need our passport by then.
What do you think? Oh, man.
So, we spent last week, my daughter and I traveling to South Korea to visit Colson Fellows. Cohort there as well as a couple churches. And here we are this week recording on. Wednesday, and it feels like there are certain cultural moments where it feels like there's a whole lot that could happen in the next 72 hours. Which could make our program here sound completely tone-deaf when it airs on Friday.
Like, how could you not talk about this? We got a lot of questions this week about Minneapolis, which we'll talk about, about Greenland and Trump's claim. Although I guess at Davos this week, he walked back the insinuation that he was willing to use the military, which is a good thing to walk back. But yeah, an awful lot is going on right now.
So I'm really worried here as we've got a board meeting this week. And so not able to record later in the week, a whole lot could happen between now and airtime. I'm optimistic. I've always wanted to go up there.
Well, John, before we talk about Minneapolis and what's going on there, some of the major cultural issues of the week. Tell us a little bit about your trip.
South Korea is not a place that people travel to every day.
So you said you were visiting some Colson Fellows and a couple of churches there. What kind of stuff did you see? We have some wonderful international cohorts of the Colson Fellows program. It's interesting too that there are ways in which Christian worldview. Gets accused, particularly the way we do it, sometimes gets accused of being kind of culturally insensitive or uh that it doesn't apply outside of America.
And it's just not true. What you find is that when you start by talking about the universals or the Christian story, creation, fall, redemption, restoration, or the idea of the image of God, which is According to a Christian worldview, the universal identity of every person, no matter what tongue, tribe, nation, and language. That they're from, or the idea of calling this intersection of the work of God in history. with the valuable Individual created in community, the church, you know, things like that. These are universals, and certainly there are.
Places where things don't translate. That's obviously true. But first of all, we're talking about universals. And second, we're also talking about a time. Where the Western world has been exported around the world.
And that's. No more obvious than in South Korea. It's been seventy-five years since the Korean War. When The Communist North invaded the South, pushed all the way to the South part of that peninsula, and then the UN forces, newly formed UN. made up primarily of US forces pushed back, and then there was an armistice signed in three years later, so 1953.
And so, what you have is a very clear example of the difference between. a free people and a not free people. There's no more stark contrast. Many people have seen just the images at night of, you know. North Korea versus South Korea on Google images.
With like very little light in North Korea and lights blazing all across South Korea. Yeah. It couldn't be more different. I have some friends who have traveled in to North Korea on diplomatic missions or educational work and What they see, you know, you have a limited. Teaching of history, you have soil that's just been abused and is not growing.
anything anymore you have the bark on trees that have been stripped up basically to human height because people are snacking on that because they just don't have enough to eat.
South Korea is what many people call an economic miracle. I went up to the highest point in Seoul, and you look around. everywhere you look, it's a developed city. I mean, as far as you can see.
Now, as someone who likes a little bit of space and elbow room, it was a little too crowded for my comfort level, 10 million, I think. in that larger metro area. But it's a remarkable place, and it has a very vibrant church. Huge churches. people who really care and know about how to pray.
But there's a crisis happening in South Korea where you have a government that is. increasingly progressive And aggressively progressive right now in power for the next five years. A pastor, I wrote about this this week on a breakpoint commentary. He was outspoken in his critique of the government socialism and pro-LGBT policies. uh has been accused of conspiring on an election to overturn an election.
Has 17 charges. He was arrested five months ago, was not released on bail, is still in prison awaiting trial, and faces. jail time. And it it it's such an extreme penalty. For something that should not merit jail time and hasn't.
You know, South Korea really has been modeled after the U.S. in many ways. And including, you know, the way the government works. Freedom, justice system, and some of this stuff is really encroaching on religion. There's a real intent there to Squash religious descent.
At the same time, there's a real Concerned by Christians there that many other Christians in South Korea have a highly privatized faith, something we talk about here in the U.S. that this is about me and Jesus, this is about going to heaven when I die. To be culturally engaged is a problem. It's a distraction from what really matters. Rather than seeing the lordship of Christ over every area, as fraught as that can be when played out.
In a moment like ours, the opposite also And That's what's happening over there.
So, the worldview message, the idea of Christianity. Being about all of life, not just about my eternity or not just about my spiritual life, but about being. about our families and our communities and our cultures. is uh is something that I think is is is really important and needed. You're right.
Most people don't find their way to South Korea. They certainly don't do it in January because it is cold. I mean, cold over there, especially in Seoul. Busan was very nice. And warm, but uh, not so much soul.
So, anyway, uh, it was, uh, I'm still, I'm still pretty jet-lagged and. It was just interesting given the conversations. we have had about the American context and About the left and the world view collision that. that the left is promoting on issues of sexuality and socialism and How that reflects on our understanding of the image of God. These are just as much.
essential conversations there as they are here right now. Are Christians in South Korea really tuned in to kind of the cultural battles happening in America?
Some of them are aware of it. There's there's things you look at. I mean, obviously, m many people around the world look at You know, the high level of noise that is happening around the Trump administration and Greenland and Venezuela. They don't they certainly are aren't able to see it. as a as a justifiable position.
On the other hand, the LGBT stuff is just bizarre to them. I mean, South Korea, they're at the point where they've been fighting now for years an anti-discrimination law, which is, if you remember, I mean, that seems like it was so 90s because it was so 90s. That's when we were talking about, right? Like, That conversation started like, oh, we can't discriminate. And how that started in the gay rights movement, and now how it became we need drag queen story hours for our third graders.
I mean, you know. But They they look and go.
Well, you know, what happened? I think rightfully so.
So, some of it's bizarre. You know, obviously. Around the world, many people know what the BBC tells them, and that's not necessarily a balanced news source.
So, you know, there's a lot of factors to that. To that question.
Okay, well, let's return to American soil. Let's talk about what's going on in Minnesota, Minneapolis in particular.
So, there was news over the weekend. Of course, there have been protests now. For weeks, about ICE raids and immigration enforcement operations happening, particularly in Minneapolis. Um we talked before about the killing of Renee Goode. But this past Sunday, there were more headlines about a protest that made its way into a church.
And of course, the former CNN anchor Don Lemon was part of it and was live streaming it. And these protesters went into a church where, I guess, one of the pastors or the elders.
somehow serves with ice, and that was kind of the pretext for it. I just saw a really fascinating piece in Matt Taibbi's Racket News about this because the same day that that protest happened in the church, ICE arrested a Laos-born man who is American, and he was wrongly arrested.
So they mistook him for what they characterized as a sex offender. And then now they've released this person, but it was kind of a.
Somewhat violent arrest. Like they brought him out kind of in his underwear. They barged into his home kind of thing. Matt Taibbi published this fascinating kind of unsettling story about the different volume of these two stories on X versus Blue Sky. If you were on Blue Sky, the world was up in arms about the arrest of this man from Laos, who is an American citizen.
And if you were on X, people were up in arms about this protest in a church. And it just kind of drove home the silos that we're in. I think both of these situations are concerning. But as you mentioned, we've gotten questions from some Breakpoint listeners just about how do we make sense of the overall chaos in Minneapolis, in Minnesota, with regards to immigration enforcement.
Well, I mean, we also got questions about our silence on it. And one of the reasons is. You know, we, because of how fast the news cycle moves, we also at. Breakpoint and the Colson Center don't feel like we're breaking news story people. That's not what we do.
The idea is there is an analysis that needs to be done of cultural events from a Christian worldview. And the temptation is to do what our culture has done, which is to let politics take over every story culturally.
So, that every cultural story is seen through a political lens. And it's very hard to resist that temptation at times. But the idea is, just because something is politically important does not mean it's culturally important, or at least. For the concerns that we have within a Christian worldview. This one certainly has crossed the line.
And when you say both of these stories, the story of this man from Uh who was arrested wrongly and the story of the um that the church Are concerning. I mean, I would escalate that pretty high. I mean, we're talking about very, very alarming things. that are happening. You know, immediately after Rene Goode was shot, you had to, again, politically, with.
without a full understanding of the facts and Anything, people concluding this was wrong, this was right, this was justified, this was unjustified. And that does speak to the echo chambers that people are in. Ideologically, not just on social media, but when you take ideology and combine social media, it creates one heck of an echo chamber. There's just so much going on up there that reflects so much of the problems. You know, that America has already been in.
These are pre-existing conditions that something like this situation. Takes play.
So, I mean, look, you have to call balls and strikes when you're doing the amount of work. to enforce immigration laws. Arrest offenders who are here illegally. You're not going to bat a thousand. And it doesn't do the right any good to say.
That ICE is doing everything right. They're not doing everything right. Even if the job that they're trying to do is a right job to do, it's being done in a context. Where the cat's been out of the bag for so long, it's going to be impossible to do it in a way. And it's at such a heated Level.
What happened at the church in Minneapolis was despicable. I appreciated too. The context that Scott Jennings brought on CNN the other night, where he said. You know, look, you can forgive this church for being really scared, and the parents at this church for being really scared. It was just a few months ago at a church in Minneapolis.
where a bunch of children were shot and these protesters Came in and targeted that. And I think on a worldview angle, one of the things we need to get to is how do you balance the, or how do you wrestle with the collision within the First Amendment? Which is, you know, we have folks saying that the protesters have. freedom of speech And obviously, that's a First Amendment right, but there's also the freedom of religion.
So we got to wrestle with that. But before we get there, like this is. been a horrible situation that's been allowed for too long.
Now it has to be reined in. and there are going to be abuses. And you have to call the abuses out when they happen. And calling the abuses out is not the same thing as undermining the entire effort. But that's unfortunately the way that it has to be portrayed.
So I know It's a pretty simplistic worldview analysis to say it's all just a complete mess. And trying to f Wade your way through it means everything's just going to be messy. That's simplistic. But at some level, it's really true. And it undermines this kind of idea that everybody on my side of the aisle is good, and everybody on your side of the aisle.
is bad Or that we're both equal. I mean, neither one of those analysis. The creation, fall, redemption, restoration framing is so much more helpful because you start with human dignity and you have an understanding of human sin that plays itself out both individually and structurally, which includes institutions and includes. cultures, it it includes groups of people as well as individuals. And it also reflects, too, what happens when you allow a culture to go down the road as far as ours has.
Into lawlessness. In other words, When you do not Uphold the laws that you have. Lawlessness is misunderstood for being freedom. Anyway, there's just a whole lot of things that play into this. Another framework that helps me a lot with situations like this is something that you've really taught me, which is.
To narrow your focus to the time and the space that you have been physically placed in. The siloing is tempting. It's also tempting to feel like, I have to. I am an individual Christian, and I need to have an exact answer from the Bible for how this large national issue should play out, and how each person should act, and what should be happening in that city, and what the consequences should be for that wrongful arrest or that protest or whatever, as opposed to. Kind of taking the pressure off a little bit.
It is not. My job to solve that huge problem by myself or to explain every aspect of it. It is my job to be faithful. In the time and place that I am, which in my case means we have families at our church that are here illegally and are scared. And my pastor is trying to help them walk through the legal process to do this the most.
Appropriate and respectful of the law way possible while at the same time caring for them as individuals. Like giving them rides and throwing a birthday party for their son, all the while we accept the consequences of the risk they took. While it's threading these personal needles because those people are in my life, as opposed to one of the other, you know, I think poisons of things like social media is that it's made us feel like the most important thing we can do in any situation is posture ourselves. It's what we post online, or whether we protest or don't protest, or what sign we hold up, or how we react to some situation that happened five states away, as opposed to just being faithful. In the moment that we're in.
And I would say part of that is going to include for every Christian. to never stop worshiping the Lord together. Regardless of the intimidation of the double standard of the hypocrisy of people who would invade your space, and I understand the fear. But we cannot let people stop us from worshiping the Lord together. Right.
And we have immigrants in our. In our church, you are here legally that are scared. And my guests are also taking. At times and places, unnecessary abuse from people who have demonized entire groups of people. And the Christian worldview doesn't allow us to do that in the same way that the Christian worldview doesn't allow a church to stand in the way of the law.
Right? I mean, this is the these are the nuances. I'd call it less threading needles, and I think it's. Kind of understanding what is the call of the church and what is the call of the state and how do you understand all that. I will say, though, that First Amendment thing is a really important thing to understand because there is not a justification for what the And and calling it a protest, I think, is is is even um The wrong word for what happened.
Well, what we're seeing in Minneapolis, it's interference. It's lawlessness. Intimidation. There is activity that is illegal, certainly intimidation, and even more. You have.
you know people completely crossing the line and then justifying it by protest, including Don Lemon. You know, Don Limon now is trying to turn around and say, well, I wasn't even a protester, I was just a journalist.
Well, if you look at the journalism he did, he wasn't just protesting, he was interfering. and violating a church. In the midst of worship. It's one thing to protest out of the church. It's another thing to walk in in the middle of a worship service.
It's so hard to respect that. Because the First Amendment is one way or the other, man. Like, were you part of it or not? I think he's worried. Yeah.
But I mean, but let's parse this out a little bit because it is really important to parse out. The First Amendment contains a lot of freedoms, guaranteed freedoms. And there's a reason it's the first one, right? Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly. Freedom of association.
And when you're talking about a church service, you have the integration of all three of those things happening: freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of Religion Now, there are limits. When we have advocated for religious freedom now for decades, Uh we uh there's always stories that come up and and we say there are limits to religious freedom. My religious freedom does not allow me to practice child sacrifice. Why? Because that interferes somebody else's right to life, which is prior, the right to life is prior to the First Amendment.
And then you also have then limits of speech, right? The famous line: you can't cry out. fire in a crowded theater, wrongly. Right, because that is itself a violation of speech. By saying that, you're now actually violating others' rights.
Obviously, we can throw in things like the FACE Act, which is being brought up here in terms of. Uh the the protections That have been guaranteed, and how those rights are protected, you know, to speech or whatever. And these I think protesters clearly violated. That.
Some people are even invoking the Klan Act, which has to do with intimidation. And that also was being brought in here. But our freedoms cannot overstep the bounds into someone else's. Particularly when it comes to fear and intimidation. And so, what happened there was just absolutely reprehensible there.
And it needs to be protected by the state. And here's why. When you think about the shootings that have taken place in churches and houses of worship and religious bodies, And I'm talking about the Tree of Life Synagogue in New Jersey. I think New Jersey, right? I think, and I'm talking about the Nashville.
Oh, Pennsylvania, right.
Sorry, thanks. Good catch. the the shooting in Nashville and the shooting in in Minnesota. And then if this goes unaddressed.
Now we have systemic widespread intimidation of houses of worship. and people going to those houses of worship to express their First Amendment rights. The government has to protect that. And if the government doesn't protect that, then the government is allowing. the erosion of that kind of First Amendment freedom.
At an alarming place. In the same way, uh uh of you know for example an an employer that tries to force their viewpoint. on a moral issue like same-sex marriage or LGBTQ things on An employee, right? Those protections have been laid out. Like that, you can't violate.
These are sacred rights in the American context. And I think they're sacred and they should be sacred, right? That's the next question: if they are sacred, says who?
Well, I think the image of God says that. I think the way the Bible describes the kind of creatures humans are. where our rights are fundamentally given to us by God, and the state's job is not to create those rights because it can't, or to take away those rights because they shouldn't, but to protect those rights because we want our government to align with reality, not not not align with reality. And I think that's what's at stake here. And it's a really significant.
thing to watch how this plays out. We're going to see abuses, right? We know that because of the fall chapter. We're going to see abuses on all sides. How they're addressed by the state then actually tells us what the future is going to hold.
And we've done a lot to protect freedom of religion in America. One of the things I was really thankful for, learning about the story of this pastor in South Korea and how the government's really trying to intimidate religious leaders to stay out of the public square with their treatment of Pastor Sung. One of the things we talked about the First Amendment. I talked about the court's protection of the First Amendment. And how states have tried to punish people and violate the First Amendment.
And yes, I'm looking at you, Colorado. But thankfully, eventually the Supreme Court, at least, has made those limits and those lines really. you know, clear. And we need that because between Even between whatever the event happens, think about Jack Phillips, and 13 years later when the Supreme Court, you know, or when the courts finally settled this out, there's a whole lot of punishment that happens in the process.
So we have the danger of where this is headed ultimately, and we have the trampling of freedoms in the meantime until the things are settled out. That's why it's important for this, this is the role of the government. This is the role of the state to protect these rights.
Well, Don, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back with more Breakpoint this week. You don't want your kids to just survive the attacks of culture. You want them to be brave, bold, and thrive. That's why we love Summit's summer programs for the rising generation.
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We're back on breakpoint this week. John, I had to chuckle because this the oral arguments at the Supreme Court that occurred while you were away brought back. Memories for me, I don't know if you remember this, but when the Dobbs decision came down, I was traveling. Do you remember that? And then I came back.
So you recorded the podcast with a guest host, and I came back and was like, Did anything happen while I was away? And then you went away, and we heard the oral arguments. Um, before the Supreme Court in the case of whether boys should be allowed in girls' sports.
So, I think whenever we want some major cultural movement to happen, one or both of us should just take a vacation somewhere, apparently, is what I'm learning from this. But let's talk about the so the oral arguments were heard last week. We probably won't get a decision until sometime in the summer. We don't need to sort of predict what's going to happen there. But there was a lot to glean from this argument.
You know, so this is the case of there's a West Virginia and Idaho has passed laws that have now been challenged in court that say boys can't compete in girls' sports. They're being challenged by a young boy who wants to play on a girls' team. And it came before the Supreme Court. If most people who are paying attention are like me, they were frustrated yet again, although I respect the process, but frustrated again by the fact that the litigation is not necessarily of the question, what is a boy? Although Justice Alito did bring that up, and that was a fascinating exchange.
Because if you're going to make an equal protection claim here, you're going to have to define that eventually. But it was a more technical question of Title IX and how can this be enforced. Where I want to start with you on this is. Several people noticed that Justice Coney Barrett and a I think Justice Kavanaugh as well. Most, if not all of the justices.
Allowed the characterization of so-called trans boys and trans girls. And then they used that in their questioning back of the people arguing these cases. And I, some people, I mean, I felt frustrated by that personally. I tend to have a sort of mythologized view of the Supreme Court justices that I hope is not. I don't want to, please don't shatter my illusions.
I am always like, well, they're 10 steps ahead of me, so they must know what they're doing, but. Other people were, I think, very understandably frustrated that they kind of gave up. The goat on that and just allowed that to move forward. Do you think that was significant? I don't think it's going to determine the outcome.
I mean, I think we're going to have a pretty overwhelming defense of Idaho and West Virginia's rights to keep boys out of girls' sports. And I think that was probably the most powerful part of the arguments in my mind is when that little point was clarified. It's like we're not discriminating against. People who are transgender or claim to be transgender or who claim a particular gender identity from participating. We're discriminating we're having is boys and girls' sports, right?
None of the women that play basketball right now at the college level or the WNBA who identify as male or non-binary or whatever. And there are a lot of them. Who are in lesbian relationships and whatever have some sort of understanding of their own sense of masculinity. None of them are trying to make the NBA because that's an absurd thing on its face. And you don't have, you know, girls at the high school level.
Invading boys' sports. This is really about biological sex. And I thought that's. Was a very telling part of the way the arguments went. And also, just that was very clearly stated.
I do think, though, you know, look, there's still a level of intimidation. And I remember Chuck Colson often said that Supreme Court justices still read the newspaper too, and they care about what people think about them. And It is a form of gaslighting, maybe the most pronounced form of gaslighting. in our lifetimes.
So-called pronoun hospitality, and it's like an outrage. Like you have. You know. you know, used a racial slur or whatever. And like Somebody completely made up these rules and they're not real rules.
But if you violate their rules, then it's like, and I do think that there's a sense. Maybe some of them have been ideologically convinced. That that's the right thing to do. That's the kind and charitable thing to do. I think there are people who don't agree with it, but they're willing to go along with the pronoun game.
In the identification game, but I think it's a real mistake because we have a breakpoint commentary either that came out this week or next week. I'm all jet lags, I don't remember when it's going to come out, but it's the importance of words and reality, right?
So, postmoderns say that words create reality. Christians say that words create reality, but not our words. God's words created reality. And so the relationship between our language and our language is to image God, just like all of our humanness is to image God.
So how we use language should match reality and we shouldn't lie. We should tell the truth. And there's a million other things to say there.
So I don't think it's significant. In terms of how the justices are going to decide. But I do think it's significant for a culture, and I think it's significant that we. not feel like we've broken some set of rules. Because you know, this whole thing has been a language game.
I want to mention two things. Number one, there was a Very helpful and thorough article in first things this week, an essay, really. By Scott. I don't know how you pronounce his last name, Scott Yenner, Y-E-N-O-R, called The Rise and Fall of Gay Activism.
So over 10, 13, 12, 13 years ago, Sean McDowell and I wrote a book. On the topic of same-sex marriage. And in it, we trace some of the gay rights movement. And what Yinner does is take it back even further than we did. It's a more scholarly, our book was way more populist, but He goes back.
Earlier. And then he also brings it up to to date. And he talks about the baits and switches that happened all the way throughout this movement, you know, the born this way conversation, right? Which is no longer part of it because it can't be. Right.
And all of that. And I would recommend this essay as something that really will explain. how we got here. Osgina says in a couple of his books that Christians really need to know about the history of ideas. Where do ideas come from?
We know ideas have consequences, they also have histories. And to know why some ideas became really sticky at certain times and places. This is a wonderful, wonderful help. The other thing I want to say is that there are still people that are just wrong on this. And on the issue of, and it, but it sounds so weird, right?
This week, for example. Also when um Josh Hawley in a Senate hearing. Grilled's a medical doctor who begins her whole posturing in front of the Senate hearing by saying, We need to trust the science, we need to be science-focused people. And then he asked, Can men get pregnant? And she won't answer it.
She said, Yes or no questions are not helpful, which I. He was a, he was, it was a masterclass on the part of Josh Holly, but I do wish he had followed up to that and said, then what is science after? Like, if you're talking about science and evidence, are you not after finding yes and no? Yeah. Well, listen, Bill Crystal.
you know, longtime political commentator, one of the most prominent never Trumpers. This week on Twitter came out and said, I've known men, or on X, I've known men that became women. And you're just like You don't know any man that's ever become a woman. You know men who dress like women. You know men who have done kind of body mutilation to appear more like women.
You don't know a single man that's ever become a woman, no one does. But part of the bait and switch is. He was responding to another post on X. In which someone was saying this whole trans conversation is just a political game. Because who cares in a free society, this post said.
Adults should be able to do whatever they want.
Okay, great. Let's go back and deal with this one. Because this was maybe even a worse post than Bill Crystal's response. Which is no, we have laws. No one thinks that in a free society, adults can do whatever.
There are limits to our freedom. If there are not limits to our freedom, then we become anarchists. Secondly, Don't bait and switch me now and say we're not talking about kids. We're talking about drag queen story hours. We're talking about boys and girls' locker rooms.
We're talking about. You know, the student in Loudoun County who was 16 years old and wore a skirt and went into a girls' restroom and assaulted students there, then got transferred to another school where he did it again.
So, you know, that's why I'm telling you: read this article at this essay at First Things. Because there's a history of how we got here. And and how we got to the point. Where suddenly We're supposed to know this kind of complete set of rules that are made up out of nowhere. And a big part of the making up of those rules is the making up of language.
You know, either rule, you have to use this when someone asks you to, or you know, the just the invention of words out of thin air, like cisgender. Or something like that. And it's part of discernment. It shows. If we can't discern language and discern words, we're going to have a hard time discerning behaviors.
And I think Crystal this week was case in point. There was also a moment in the oral arguments in which the lawyer for the other side. Said that this young boy who wanted to play on the girls' team because he had been taking estrogen. went through a full female puberty. And that just flew out of his mouth, and there was no challenge to it.
And I, again, I understand there's like so much to talk about. And these justices have to narrow it, you know, on so granular a legal argument, but it was like. There's I mean, absolute no. And that is actually material to this conversation, right?
So this past week, my husband was invited to speak at a metropolitan organization in Cleveland, Ohio. And this is one of the oldest. I mean, this thing opened like in 1908. A couple of sitting presidents have spoken there: Reagan, Obama, FDR, like this is a big honor that he was invited to speak there. And there have been protests about Aaron being invited for the past month.
And there was a big protest that day. People threw paint on the building. They had to lower the capacity in the room for security concerns and all this kind of stuff. And the thing that got the biggest angry response that Aaron said during his talk. was when he brought up the fact that You know, there are gender clinics in Ohio that are cutting off breasts of 16-year-old girls.
He said that, and he was building an argument for why it's important that we talk about these things. He and I prayed and talked the whole drive up there about how do we share the gospel? How do we respect people? And this was not even on our radar that this would be challenged. And the room erupted.
Even the moderator, who's been very kind, was like, now hold on. And Aaron stopped and was like, hang on. And do you guys not think that's happening? Because I thought the argument was that's good and we need that. But it's definitely, I mean, we have insurance claims data.
We have the children's hospitals under oath saying they do it. Like, we have actual children. We have Chloe Cole. We have people who've had it done to them. And it was a very, very surreal moment for us because.
You know, later I was talking to a friend who does not really follow politics very much. She's a friend from church. And she asked me, Maria, is there anybody who actually truly believes? That men can become women. And I told her, I increasingly, I don't think so, except for children, because this is what happens when.
people play with language in the way you're talking about John is that You know, more vulnerable people, including young children, will take them at their word. This whole game is a bunch of adults playing with words because they're trying to signal that they're a certain type of person. They want to follow whatever the new rules are. And kids are taking them at their word. That's why this is so dangerous.
Yeah, I don't know that it's just kids. I think there are people who really believe it. I remember when I first saw it, it was so stunning. It was on a Facebook post. Probably 15 years ago.
Maybe twelve years ago?
somebody got on and called me hateful for something and, um basically oh and said you're ignorant Don't you know that when men take hormone therapy, they become women? And just said it like a... You know, like this is factual, and the science is settled. It was the first time anyone had ever said that like that. And you kind of think.
Do you It may be maybe there is something here that's really believed. I agree with the kid your kid comment completely that Yeah, kids kids sure certainly kids believe it. I don't think the rubber meets the road very often for people who aren't like doctors or parents of children who are struggling.
So that doctor that Josh Hawley was interviewing, I can guarantee you.
So when my appendix ruptured, I'm 20 years old, I go into the hospital, they will not give me anything until they do a pregnancy test.
Okay, and that's they have to do that because whatever they give me or do could endanger the life of a baby if I was pregnant. If a 20-year-old girl goes into any emergency room and her appendix has retrod, and she says, Don't worry, I'm a man, there is not a single doctor in the United States of America that's not still gonna do a pregnancy test. But that's what I mean. Like they know, they obviously know that this young girl could say, Well, I'm a man, that therefore I am a man, because I said I was a man and I took testosterone for a while, whatever. I just, there's nobody.
There's nobody. I think what's happening is a different understanding of reality. And what I mean by that, and I do think that they're convinced.
So there was a a couple that I know. who had this conversation about their own child who was having a bout of gender dysphoria. When in was sent to and had to meet with a doctor. And the doctor basically said. Hopefully within 10 years.
I want you to think about all the assumptions loaded in this comment. He said, hopefully within 10 years, kids will be able to change who they are like they changed their clothes.
So, what's embedded in this, first of all, is that the ability to get pregnant or not get pregnant is not the definition of man and woman. Also, not just that sex and gender are separable, but that sex is as pliable as gender. Which is part of where this has gone. And and I think this is huge. That science is not about understanding nature and responding to it.
but that science fundamentally is about the ability to control nature. And this is something that Lewis wrote about in Abolition of Man. This is something that I think Craig Gay talks about in The Way of the Modern World, a book that you and I have talked about here a lot, that there is really, if you take out the Creator, As Nietzsche says, and I'll paraphrase him: everybody gets a promotion.
Now, for him, it was about power. In the scientific era, it's about control. To make the world what we want. I am increasingly convinced that Christian worldview. And our understanding of the world fundamentally, right now, in this moment, comes down to how much of the world is.
creation and how much of the world is a construct. Being able to tell the difference between gravity and speed limits. We talk about that often. Like with morality and marriage, but I'm telling you, right now, you have a group of people absolutely convinced. That reality is a speed limit.
Reality is a social construct, and the elements of reality are. And I don't want to undersell that self-deception because I think that's what Romans 1 talks about. That when you lose sight of God, you lose touch with reality and you have a fantasy of worshiping the creation over the creator. And Jack Colson used to say: there's no limit to the human capacity for self-justification, self-delusion, and self-rationalization. And I think we have seen that.
This has something to do with the history of ideas. For some of us, it's still unbelievable. that it's really believable for a lot of people.
Now, do they still have to You know, you might think gravity is a social construct, but you still have to live by it, right?
So, you know, to your point, there's inconsistency, no question. Like, it doesn't make any sense, it's absurd. And that's the definition of absurdity, right?
So, um But I think I don't want to downplay the human capacity. you Self-rationalization. Oh, gosh.
Well, now I'm just going to pray against that for myself because obviously we're capable of it too. In a culture that's facing a crisis of mental illness and suicide, Christians of all people should be able to point people to hope. But you have to learn how to bring Christ's hope to those who are around you and are suffering. In the free online course, Hope Always, Dr. Matthew Sleeth equips Christians to understand this current epidemic of mental illness and suicide and learn what the scripture says to those who are suffering and to those helping those who are suffering.
Especially if you're a parent, a pastor, a teacher, a friend working with the next generation, Hope Always will help you break the silence and offer real hope to those who need it most. Sign up today at colsoneducators.org. That's colsoneducators.org. John, there's a couple other quick headlines I want to hit quickly with you. The first is the new report from Open Doors.
They do this every year about Christian persecution. This is their World Watch report. And unfortunately, Christian persecution is on the rise. You just saw some of this in South Korea.
Well, yeah. And what you have is the erosion of really well-protected freedoms like in some nations that are becoming areas of concern. I think that's where I would put that category. I just, you know, the contrast between South Korea and North Korea, which I was able to. Kind of see it at a level I'd never seen before.
It just, you kind of realize, oh man, what a loss, you know, this would be if it really indeed goes that far. And hopefully it won't. And but we you know, we've talked about Nigeria, we've talked about Islam. What do you see in the world watch list? Number one, A, it's out again, so Christians need to know so we can pray for our brothers and sisters.
B, it's always at the hands of secularist. uh atheistic, consciously atheistic governments, mostly, you know, tyrannical communist kind of frameworks or Islam. And it kind of underscores the fact that worldview matters, not just for individuals, but for civilizations. 50 countries are ranked with a record high level of discrimination, and they're estimating 388 million Christians are facing high levels of persecution, which is an increase of over 8 million from the year before.
So, absolutely, we need to be praying for our brothers and sisters. Let's talk about another report looking at population in the United States. According to demographers, U.S. deaths are going to outpace births 10 years faster than originally thought.
So, The 2027 CBO report believes that in 2028 or 2029, the amount of deaths in the U.S. will outpace births. Is this a worldview question?
Well, yeah, I mean, we've hit this so many times. The fertility rate tells you a lot about the worldview of a nation, particularly whether it's sensate. or ideational. Those are categories from the sociologist Peturim Sorokin that there are societies that live for ideals, aspirations, and then there are societies that live for immediate gratification, just like there are individuals, right? And you can, you know, if you if you meet someone who only lives for pleasure, they're probably not a good person.
If you meet someone who's serious about building for the future and taking care of others, particularly their kids and grandkids, they probably are a good person. And that is the distinction between societies. The birth rate problem is an epidemic across the developed world. This is something that we're seeing in South Korea.
So when we talk about a privatized faith, One of the consequences of a privatized faith is the unwillingness to talk about creation and to talk about reproductive ethics and to talk about the inherent fundamental connection between sex marriage and babies. And so South Korea has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, and it's going to wreak havoc. And a related story, and I think this is probably where you were going next: the Heritage Foundation released a report. About policy recommendations that could improve marriage. And I do recommend this as a reading as well this week.
It was very helpful. I know many of the individuals that were behind it, they're brilliant. And they're tapping into something which is that marriage. Uh and marriage rates Tell you something about the worldview of a society, right? First of all, are men domesticated?
Men need to be domesticated because men tend to be idiots, especially if they're fallen. And when fewer men get married and fewer women get married, then that affects the kind of people that they are. But it also affects the fertility rate.
So, one of the things that I know is behind the authors is that the higher the marriage rate, the higher the fertility rate. As we've seen the fertility rate drop across the Western world, we've also seen the marriage rate drop across the Western world. And It's correlated. This is the fourth policy recommendation that I would make, although I'm not sure the government can do it. is that we have to encourage religiosity.
Because the less religious you are, the less likely you are to have babies, because the less likely you are to have married to get married.
So religious institutions in this time and place, churches, Christian colleges, We need to encourage marriage. We need to talk about the good of marriage. I had a conversation right before Christmas. It came out that last week with Dr. Al Moeller of Southern Seminary in his library podcast.
And so many of the things we came back to was this: how do we help young people? understand marriage, take seriously the challenge of marriage. And this is something that we believe because we're Genesis one and two people. Yeah, I appreciate the heritage report in as much as it acknowledges that probably most of the challenges facing us culturally could be improved at least by. Re-catechizing young people towards marriage and towards fidelity in marriage and childbearing and all of that.
I'm just more and more skeptical that the government really has a role to play or that they can manage it.
Now, a lot of their reports. They can get out of the way.
Okay, but hold on.
So, right. A lot of their report does focus on things like welfare reform, which I agree. Like in my state, right, there's penalties to it. If you have two individuals who are receiving SNAP benefits and whatever else, and then they get married, their benefits go down. That's silly.
That should be reformed. I just don't think that more and more, especially above the poverty rate, people don't make. Life decisions like whether to get married or whether to have children based on financial concerns. We're just not as rational about this as we think we are. And I, to that end, I'm just not sure that there's much.
I mean, all of these conversations when we're talking about policy always come back to things like paid parental leave or universal child care or a child tax credit. And certainly, things can the law can be a teacher, it can send signals, it can show things we value and things we disincent we want to disincentivize, and it can change culture somewhat from that direction. But I just, I'm just not sure this can happen any other way than from the bottom up, which is why I agree with you that. religiosity is really important. We have to model Healthy and life-giving marriage for younger people and encourage them towards it on literally like a guerrilla marketing individual to individual basis, I think.
Well, I don't want to disagree at all with that because, yes, we need the church to talk more about it. We need it to become more multi-generational and local. Whether the state plays a paternalistic role. and whether the state does things. that only fathers and only husbands and only mothers and only wives can do.
Makes a big difference. It's almost like maybe the state can't really do so much to promote marriage, but it can do a lot of things to discourage it. And people aren't rational about it, but norms matter. And paternalistic societies where the state steps over. This is Kuiperian to the max, right?
That each of these spheres operates individually. And when one of the spheres bleeds into the other, That's where social breakdown happens. And I think that there are a lot of ways. that the um The state. can get in the way of marriage and it has And I'll tell you, I remember Pastor Chris Brooks of Woodside Bible Church in Detroit came and spoke at our conference years ago, longtime friend, host of the Quip Show on Moody Radio.
At the time, I think it was during the Obama presidency. And he mentioned in all the ways that Obama had positioned himself to look like the father. And why that was bad for the black people. Like policy-wise. And it was a profound observation.
In a lot of ways. But yes, not by, and of course, he had to do it with the arm of the state, not just as a. A fi a name and a face. And it was a profound observation. So I don't want to downplay that.
That's all. Yeah, I think you're right.
Well, I'm grateful that for the Heritage Foundation. I'm grateful for people like the Institute for Family Studies that are really putting minds and time into looking at ways that the government can at least help or get out of the way. Because this is going to be an increasingly important issue.
Okay, John, let's talk about some questions that we've received from listeners lately. I'm going to read this one. about the Bible and the trustworthiness of it. I'm not sure how women are expected to believe a Bible written by men, translated by men, and used by men. If everyone's created in God's image, that should include women.
But traditional religion strives to maintain the past which limits women's rights, voices, and contributions. You can believe in God yet not organized religion. What do you think? You can believe in God and yet not organized religion, of course, but believing in God is not the point. The devils believe in God, is what scripture says.
And. You can believe in God wrongly. A.W. Tozer called it the essence of idolatry is having wrong ideas about God, expecting God to be this or that or the other, which a lot of people do. And that only makes sense if your information about God is coming from yourself.
And it is not actually being given to you by God Himself. One of the most profound, essential truths. Is that God has revealed Himself?
Now, if you don't believe God has revealed Himself, then you have to admit that you're just making God up. You're not actually worshiping the God that exists, you're worshiping the God you wish exists, or hope to exist, or think exists, or whatever. But there's no authority to your position, there's no information to your position. As to the point about the women piece, I mean, I think it's really unfortunate that someone has been convinced of this because there are so many wonderful. Historical looks at this from non-believers, even about the The way that Christianity has in its history elevated women at a point where literally.
No other force in human history even comes close. in every other society The power, the inherent strength, the size difference, the power differential between men and women is used. to abuse women and even to systematize this. to consider women property, to consider women um dispensable uh to use them for things like sexual pleasure or social status and nothing else. Christianity actually introduces this idea that Humans are made in the image of God, male and female.
Now, you might not believe that.
Sounded like when this was quoted. She was saying it kind of snarkily that, you know, if that were true, then the Bible would look like this.
Okay, that's an interesting argument. If men and women are indeed created in the image of God, then we'd have books of the Bible written by women as well as by men. I don't, maybe.
Okay, fine. Let me just say the alternative. If women aren't made in the image of God, Then you have no grounds by which to argue for the equality of women to begin with. If women aren't made in the image of God, if there's not inherent value given, then the value has to be attained and men are stronger. Period.
And there's no rules. That say other than man made laws, which, by the way, will be made by men because they're the strongest, which says that men shouldn't abuse or mistreat women. That's why. in the whole history of the world. the entire history of the world.
There has been one singular source. For the true equality of women with men. And it's been. the Judeo-Christian framework. which assumes It teaches that God has revealed Himself in this way.
So I appreciate the question. That and and and you know, I think that's an interesting point. That why wouldn't some books be written? by women as well as men. But if you don't grant that humans are made in the image of God, if you don't, and that's an observation that doesn't come from nature, that doesn't come from just observation, it comes from scripture.
If you don't begin there, then you've got no case for women's equality to begin with. I mean, we're watching a violent uprising. take place in Iran right now. led in some way by women because in just about every other um structured society that is not Influenced by the central truth claims of Christianity, you will get to a place of the subjugation of women, either the subjugation of them literally and physically, or the devaluing of them as women, other than Christianity. I mean, if you read Tom Holland, if nobody else, And see exactly what you said: that Christianity has fundamentally elevated.
the value of women in the eyes of The entire world more than any other system of thought. Yeah, exactly. And there's no. There you women including the woman who wrote this question. You are smart enough, and the God of the Bible and the God who created the universe is available to you.
You are just as smart as anybody else. To determine whether the Bible is true, that's really the question that you need to answer. It's not: do you like the Bible? But is it true? And you, God will reveal himself to you if you want him to, whether you're a man or a woman.
If you ask for him to do that, he will do that.
So. I would just encourage this listener to take that leap. Just ask and read it and decide for yourself.
Okay, I'm going to read another question to you, John. You mentioned a book you wrote. Um about same-sex marriage. There was another book you wrote called A Practical Guide to Culture. And this listener, Patrick, says he's been reading through that book.
In chapter nine, you're talking about hookup culture. You point out that millennials are less likely to hook up. than previous generations. That was written in 2017. Obviously, we have a lot more data now.
It's been several years, including data on the sexual behavior of Gen Z. Do you see any correlation with this, the lowering rates of hookup culture, let's call it, and the movement of teens simply being less social? Gene Twangy pointed out the Gen Z is having less sex. Yeah, go on. It's a great question.
And I co-wrote this book with Brett Kunkel. And this is in the third part of the book, which are called Cultural Waves. We distinguish between undercurrents and waves. And I did the work on the undercurrents with his help. And he did the work on the waves with my help.
And so. This is primarily something he wrote, but the fact is, we have seen this challenge. I remember talking to a Christian school headmaster, and he's like, I wish my kids would date because they're not dating.
So, you know, the hookup culture, which we all feared back in the 90s, has been replaced by the isolation and loneliness epidemic. And this is because of the increased use of technology. But I also don't want to think, I mean, sometimes we hear this, it's like, hey, good news, fewer teenagers are getting pregnant.
Well good. But that doesn't mean fewer teenagers are sexually broken. In other words, the self-centered direction that human sexuality and how we teach human sexuality to young people has taken. You know, went from, you know, worrying about the hookup culture outside of marriage for Gen Xers and millennials, early millennials, to becoming. kind of fully self-centered when we had artificial sexuality or dehumanized sexuality.
In other words, A group of young men Who aren't getting girls pregnant in high school are not less sexually broken if instead. their in cells. Uh and addicted to pornography. and have a hatred towards women. Because or themselves.
Well, yeah, sorry, that's a great point. It's always both, right? There's a loneliness, an inability to look anybody in the eye, have a conversation, ask somebody on a date, honor women, and that sort of stuff. And I think that's what we're dealing with more than any others. And I think some of us have this concern, including Sherry Turkle, that when this sort of addiction to pornography then is added to artificial intelligence and robotics.
You have a real crisis brewing, which is we may very well reach the point as a human civilization where our children will choose. between real spouses and robots for their life companions. And if they have been cultivated to be selfish in their own relationships to begin with, think about the benefits of coming home to a robot that always looks the same, never ages, never gains weight. Always is sympathetic to you and says, hey, honey, how was your day? But you never actually have to listen to somebody else complain about their day.
I mean, it's like the perfect spouse for a group of people who have been malformed. you know, into uh thinking that um uh relationships and sexuality are always on our terms for our purposes and never for the good of the other.
So I do think that this is a. Uh uh uh uh there's a degree of uh of catechism that is happening to young people. And it's just interesting because, you know, I guess I'm old enough now that I remember we were. you know, talking about the hookup culture and we were wrestling with, you know, The the ideas of I kiss dating goodbye. And I just cannot tell you the number of Christian leaders that are like, we need these kids to kiss dating hello again.
Call it courting dating or whatever, but we need them. They're not doing it. And so that also leads to. you know, on average, delayed marriages. Which lowers the fertility rate.
I mean, this is just a perfect storm with a string of consequences. That are remarkable, and I'm not even sure we know all the consequences yet.
So I think that it's a great question. And I think, yes. And by the way, we're working on a revision of that book now, and that'll be one of the areas that we have to update. I mean, you still want people to be sexually pure. But sexually pure today is not a reaction to the hookup culture.
Sexually pure today. Is a reaction primarily to artificial dehumanized. sexuality and the dehumanization is a big undercurrent. That we did talk about there, this is one of the waves that has kind of broken differently in the years to come.
So, what a great question. And I know this is actually a Colson Fellow who asked this. And I Appreciated that you know they're trying to address this in the context. I think this was a church context. He's trying to address it in the context of a church.
So, really, really good stuff.
Well, John, that's going to do it for the program today. You mentioned, we'll just say by way of recommendation, let's recommend the Practical Guide to Culture by you and Brett Kumkel. And then also, you mentioned the rise and fall of gay activism, that piece in First Things.
So, highly recommend people check that out as well. Otherwise, we'll see you all back here next week from the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview. I'm Maria Baer alongside John Stone Street. God bless.
