You are 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 about Christians there. We're also going to talk about the continuing chaos in Minnesota over protests and ICE raids. We've got a lot to get to this week. We're so glad you're with us.
Please stick around. Welcome back to Breakpoint, podcast of the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview. I'm here with John Stone Street, president. Of the Colson Center. I'm Katie McCoy.
And we've got a lot to talk about. And for starters, John and I have been world travelers. John, where have you been?
Well, our listeners know I've kind of spent some time in South Korea over the last couple of weeks. I'm back. I am. almost over jet lag that's nothing new and you've been uh In a different part of the world, Brazil. Brazil, and it was absolutely amazing.
It was their summer.
So I was there in the middle of January, and it was hot, hot. And I don't know if it's because we were just so near the equator. But eighty two In Georgia or Texas, where I lived for a long time, that's actually kind of a nice day. 82 in Brazil is like. Hydrate or dye.
It was rough. Yeah, it was not that warm in soul. But, you know, one of the things we were talking about offline, which I thought was really interesting, and I wanted to chat about this, is first of all, the The kind of things that America exports around the world, when we talk about culture, when we talk about faith, when we talk about How to understand culture through the lens of faith. But also, when we talk about cultural and political. Ideas.
You know, we have parts of the world that seem to be moving more nationalist, more right. And then there are parts of the world that are clearly moving more progressive. And I think. When we were talking offline, you had described some of what you saw in Brazil, especially on the cultural level, the kinds of issues that are now kind of making inroads down there. Yeah, really fascinating.
So, Brazil is relatively socialist. Their government certainly is very socialist now, and they've been in kind of a back and forth. With that, but with that, they have had this surge in feminist theology. And I'm talking the feminist theology that hit America in the 80s. And so, as I was talking to some women who are ministering there, especially ministering to college girls.
They were describing how, you know, all of a sudden they're having to deal with questions like: can we call God Mother? You know, Sophia in the Bible, for wisdom in Proverbs, is that referring to a female deity? Really fascinating how these things come in cycles. But also fascinating how they correlate with a lot of political ideas as well. Yeah, yeah.
So that's interesting.
So you're talking about the inroads of feminist theology. I know a lot of South America had experienced a generation ago. Inroads in liberation theology, right? I mean, something that has more to do with reframing the gospel and reframing. uh the work of Jesus as liberating the oppressed more than I was was Brazil on that Kind of wake of liberation theology as well back a couple decades ago?
I'm sure they would have been affected by it because, as you said, South America was the birthplace for it. Um but but the the really interesting thing is the the feminist critical theory is kind of a new iteration of of liberation theology.
So everything you can remember of liberation theology applied to Gender.
So, you know, Jesus was subverting specifically patriarchy. Is how a lot of feminist theologians will see some of these things. Are you talking about it in evangelical churches down there? Are you talking about seminaries? Are you talking about Roman Catholic churches?
Where did you see it?
So, this was mainly in an evangelical ministry that worked with a variety of different Protestant ministries. And they were hearing mainly from college students.
So, this would have been something that kind of the average college, Christian college female. Is encountering. I know that in Brazil, just from what I've learned, they had kind of a dearth of. Conservative Orthodox theologians leave Brazilian seminaries. And then, with that, they had a huge influx of liberal theologians.
And so, I think now, a generation later, they're seeing the fruit of that. Yeah, yeah.
So, let's talk about the connection then between these theological views and cultural views. Because I had this conversation when I was in South Korea. We talked a little bit about this last week, I did with Maria. You know, there are issues that are happening and that are coming up, particularly in the political space. in South Korea that are things, again, you said something like, you know, these these were the 90s for the United States.
So the big political conversation right now is about two things, primarily about whether or not religious voices have full expression and are able to criticize the government. And then number two, so yeah, I mean, really, what are the extents of freedom of religion and freedom of speech? You know, look, I mean, we all remember back in the beginning of the Jack Phillips fight, that was a real life conversation here. But even further back in the U.S. conversation, kind of these push, the push of anti-discrimination laws.
Uh in the confusion between criticizing a particular behavior and what that means in terms of discrimination. But I asked because they also had some concern that the Country there and the political party that's in power and will be for the next five years or so is more socialist. And there's not a history of that. There's obviously a history of South Korea being very much like America and being very much economically. capitalist and free market, which has been, you know, led to a wealth creation there that's really stunning given the recent history.
But Why is it connected here? I mean, you think about. President Obama in the United States, the first African American president. He actually Campaigns And talks about both in his first election, the first election and the second election about racial. uh reconciliation pushing that way And yet his second term, he puts all of his eggs into pushing LGBTQ causes.
President Biden, you know, who I mean, it's obviously unclear how much of his own policies came from himself or how much was forced upon him. But at the same time, like, Listen, he got behind, you know, the transgender movement. And sometimes the connection, full force, right? I mean, you remember he's saying they're the greatest among us, or something bizarre like that in one speech. And I mean, it's just kind of interesting and silly things.
And also, you know, backed up by, you know, pushing Supreme and nominating particular Supreme Court justices. And we've seen the results of. Of his nomination and so on. But how is it? And this is what I was asking.
How is it that a political progressivism? Is now kind of connected with a pro-LGBT movement. I mean, we're used to putting them on the same basket. We're used to seeing that, oh, if you believe this about, you know, the economy, you probably believe this about theology, and you probably believe this about marriage and family. But why?
It doesn't make sense to me. It's not obvious to me in every way that a socialist economic vision has to go along with some sort of kind of liberation. particularly when it comes to sexual liberation. But it seems to be increasingly the case. And when you mentioned that in Brazil, I thought that was really interesting because I saw the same thing in Korea, especially in a more traditional society like Korea.
They're kind of skipping feminism and jumping right to. The right to at least gay rights. The trans stuff is still too far. But why are all these things together? That's a fascinating question.
And if only we had, you know, Oz Guinness and Carl Truman on with us, I'm sure they would have like an answer within a paragraph. We can at least see some correlations, though, of. First of all, how we are dividing society, how we understand kind of the organization of society. With socialism, you have the have-and-the-have-nots. And when you're ordering society that way, That hearkens back to this kind of conflict language.
From which we see, you know, we glean at least from Marx. Not saying that all socialists are immediately Marxist, but it's a hop, skip, and a jump and not a big one. With that, too, you have conversations about what are the structures, what are the aspects of society that are protecting the power of the powerful. And all the way back to Marx and Engels, you have conversations about family, marriage, sexuality, these things that were organizing principles of society, organizing units of society, removing those and replacing it exclusively with the individual and the state.
So then everything that the individual is becomes. The concern of the state to protect whether that is now LGBT, so one sexual. Preference, gender expression, all of that.
So it does seem to be. this correlation not only with socialism, LGBT, I think about um There was a National Socialist Conference here in the United States. I want to say it was 2019. And in 2019, their tagline was no bosses. No borders, no binaries.
Oh, wow. What a combination. That's a good bumper sticker. That's kind of, we should take that and replace because it would be way more simple than the, you know, those yard signs that in this house we believe. And there's all these kind of random.
I mean, that kind of would simplify the whole thing into three categories. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think that's actually a really profound point. One of the conversations that I was having in South Korea, just asking why do you think it goes together here? Because historically, there has been a more socialist party there.
And the country is so economically driven as is. And of course, they have one of the lowest birth rates on the planet.
So there's also a history of a declining sense of at least procreation within the family, if not marriage. But he said the same thing. And I often, I think that's probably right, that the family gets in the way of the state. The family is a way of mediating authority. You're closer to the individual and having people kind of manage and And take care of themselves.
You made me think, by the way, of something that Chuck Olson used to always point out about understanding where rights come from, that if the state is. Not only the protector of rights, but the determiner of rights. If our rights come from the government, then obviously our rights can be taken from the government and we won't have much to say about it. But if the job of the government is to protect the rights, That people are given by God, then the government has limited power. But if a government sees itself as the one who d defines reality, determines what's true, probably, by the way, explains why the more extreme a government goes down that socialist path, The more anti-religion they are, either in expression or all outright hostile, because.
like the family. When you talk religion, you're talking about responsibilities that individuals have to something other than the state. It's a conflict of. interest you might say it's a A division of loyalties, you might say. And I think that's the way ideas work in the real world.
You need that kind of enforcement. You also mentioned Truman's name, so we can throw him back in the mix here. Remember in his book, he mentions that.
Something, I think, along the lines of when you talk about something like sexual freedom. Which really cannot be derived, like the idea of sexual autonomy and I can be anything that I want to be is a violation of reality itself, right? In its extremely of nature as the idea that nature is giving us indications of how we should live. And you can't really argue, right, even from an evolutionary standpoint that same-sex couples should be able to get married and have rights to children or something bizarre. You can't argue that even from an evolutionary perspective, you won't get it from any of the traditional theistic religions or worldviews.
Even historically, you wouldn't get it from even some of the Eastern religions, which have a much looser relationship with. You know, reality itself. In other words, you can't argue, you argue your way to it. You can't Philosophize your way to it.
So, you basically just have to force it on people. And the only thing that can do that here and now is the state.
So, that's the connection he makes in the rise and triumph of the modern self, I think. Yeah, that's fascinating. One thing before we leave the topics of Brazil and South Korea. I don't have the specific stats on this, but I know that Brazil and South Korea, especially South Korea, is one of the top-giving nations for Christian missions.
Now, when you have these conversations about secularism and socialism, certainly, let's just talk pragmatically about socialism.
Socialism and all the ripple effects that that has, disastrously so. For macroeconomics, that means that people like you and me have fewer discretionary dollars to go around.
Well, that directly affects Christian missions. And so, you know, as we talk about some of these policy things, we might ask ourselves, you know, is this really a matter of theology, of Christianity?
Well, it certainly affects it. It certainly affects the freedom with which we can live out our discipleship by the time these economic policies play out. Can I give the opposite of that too? I mean, or the reverse, the other side of that coin, because the conversation we had in South Korea over and over and over, and you talked about the theological Challenges in the evangelical context in Brazil. The challenges in South Korea, at least according to the folks that spoke to me, is not that there's not a strong vision of personal salvation, not that they're unwilling to talk about sin, not that they're wrestling with whether God is a man or a woman, none of that, right?
They're pretty clear on all that. If you have the word evangelical, you're at least in the ballpark on those things. The challenge, which probably wasn't a challenge a generation ago. Again, like you said, they're sending out missionaries. The prayer services go on for hours, you know, and they believe in prayer.
Ah, and they will. The challenge is that it's a privatized understanding of Christianity. That it's a two chapter gospel, is what they would say. Um that it's A conversation about sin and salvation and holiness. And it's not a big deal.
that it doesn't go beyond that if you're in a context where There's not kind of a gross attempt to secularize. Or liberalize a nation.
So that's another thing, right? Where we kind of look back at the modernist fundamentalist controversy of the 20th century. We look at The idea of the revivalism in America, the individual nature of how we think about Christianity and Christian faith. And then the forces of secularism came structurally and institutionally. And suddenly it was: oh, I've got to care about this.
There's a remarkable. article that was written years and years ago by the by the late Michael Cromerty. who at the time was with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. And he was talking about this narrative that the religious right, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson at the time, was trying to basically create a theocracy. They were trying to force Christianity through Ronald Reagan.
And uh Michael quoted in that piece Jerry Falwell Sr., the founder of Thomas Rowe Baptist Church and Liberty University. Saying something really interesting. In 1969, he said, I will not get involved in politics because it interferes with your ability to preach the gospel. In 1979, he was actively campaigning for Ronald Reagan as responsible for him defeating Jimmy Carter. What happened?
And Carmerney's article is not that suddenly Falwell woke up and decided, oh, I want to be a theocrat. What happened in the 70s was prayer was taken out of public schools, pornography went to the front shelf of 7-Eleven magazine stands, abortion became legalized on demand, and everything seemed to be getting more and more and more and more and more and more secular. And there was a time when almost he was forced to care, and he was forced to care that way. And I think at some level, that's what the folks in South Korea were talking about, and that the hole in our gospel certainly. could be, you know, wondering whether You know, God is a woman or a man, and whether the patriarchy is the definition of sin, and salvation is from systems of oppression or actually whatever.
Or it can also be a small, a small worldview. And The small world views. The two-chapter gospels are really exposed, I think. When cultures move left and when cultures move progressive.
So anyway, it's interesting to compare this. I also sense, I wonder if you sense this too. Last question. I know we probably overtimed this, but to me, the conversation about these ideas is really fascinating. We used to really be concerned about you know, translating.
You know, breakpoints or the Colson Fellows program to these other cultural contacts because it was like, oh, it's too American in this. And there are certainly aspects of it where the translation is more difficult than others. But what I heard is like there is a There is a flattening out of culture because of the progressive push. That some of the concerns about what it means to be human, what's the definition of the gospel, that stuff is pretty relevant culture to culture. That was my experience in South Korea.
I don't know if that's yours. Yeah, in Brazil, I found out that they are about, I'd say, maybe five years behind where America. is now on transgender issues. And so when you talked about the flattening out of different cultural issues, you figure you can just metastasize those because of technology. That now what was, you know, Located in America, it gets exported in real time in some cases, just because of social media technology and.
How fast ideas travel. Yeah, that is amazing. You actually made me think of something that I just wrote about earlier. We're editing A Practical Guide to Culture to a second edition, which we're excited about. I just came across this.
This is fascinating. You know what the global population is? Is it seven billion? I think we're almost I think we're basically at eight. But yeah, it's just under eight, right?
Do you know how many internet users there are worldwide? Think about worldwide.
So think about kind of You know, when we think about other places not having the technology that we do or whatever else, here's the number: 6 billion. Of the under 8 billion are internet users. That's what Thomas Friedman said when he said the world is flat. That is way off. That is way off than what I was guessing.
I was gonna say maybe four. Yeah, exactly. I was going less than half when I thought that. And so when you think about that, That is a crazy number. And it means that just like processing speeds.
Have been cut in half.
So also the transmission of culture. And I think that's kind of what you see. That's what we export. 70% of the global population is the number basically. It is our internet users.
It's absolutely, there's never been anything like this in the history of the world. Except Noah's Ark. I mean, the last thing that there was one technological invention that gathered the majority of the remain, it was after the flood did the damage in Noah's Ark, and nothing else has been like that since. Maybe the, you know, Babel was right before that, but you haven't had it since. It's pretty current.
Three out of four human beings have access to and have experienced. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah, and it has huge implications for mission. We should probably, yeah, we should probably cut this segment off. What a fascinating conversation.
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. These immersive worldview trainings give 13 to 25-year-olds the hope, clarity, and confidence they need to follow Jesus boldly in today's world. You can send your student in person, though their spaces are almost full, or watch together as a whole family with Summit online.
It's not just about getting apologetics answers. Summit students learn how to live winsomely and bravely in today's world, and how to discuss abortion, gender identity, how we can trust the Bible, and God's will for their lives. When your child understands the power of truth and relationship, they'll be equipped to stand strong, speak with courage, and live with unshakable faith. Visit summit.org/slash breakpoint and lock in the early bird rate to save a total of $500 for in-person conferences when you use code BREAKPOINT26. This is an investment that lasts.
John and his family have been at Summit every summer for the last several years because we know the impact it makes. Grab your spot now at summit.org slash breakpoint.
Well, let's uh let's switch gears. It's been a tough week, John, on the news. I was at a conference for. Work and just trying to keep up with the headlines. And it was one of those cultural moments.
that I thought This is going to stand out for years to come. I know that you all covered last week on Breakpoint what was happening in Minneapolis and in Minnesota. And I believe you said, you know, at the time of that recording, you could expect more things to have occurred. And sure enough, more things occurred. The death of Alex Predty and Just in the last 24 hours, another video that it doesn't change the facts or the concerns, but Maybe challenges some narratives that are out there.
And it's just in real time, it just seems like our culture is shifting. Yeah.
Well, I worried last week because we were recording, I think, on Wednesday for a Friday program and so much was happening. In Minneapolis, and basically the only thing slowing down the chaos was how cold it was across America. But but it w we did. And the big story at the time was, you know, the the the the shooting of a of a of an American citizen, a woman. who uh by indication seem to have threatened uh uh an agent with her car.
And so then at this point, you're talking about, you know, you know, prudence and you're talking about wisdom and you're talking about, you know, the rights of self-defense. And you have to come in and think about things like just war and all that. And then Then you have another story, and the facts of this story are different. Then But it's a story that happens in the same city, a city that has been inflamed. You have ICE agents in cities all across America.
You have ICE agents in other sanctuary cities across America, but you don't have anything happening. Like what's happening in Minneapolis. And I think that's why, though, why is that? I have a, I mean, I have a theory, but. I don't know.
Well, that's a good question. And I think many people have pointed out that there's one city that has Governor Waltz and one city that has the mayor that Minneapolis has. It's one thing to say we're not going to cooperate. There's another thing, you know, when you tell people to resist, like the district attorney of. Philadelphia just did to folks there, you know, actually.
Saying he was going to stake his career on hunting down ICE agents like. Nazi war criminals. It was a remarkable statement. And so you have this sort of. Of rhetoric.
And the thing is, you have protest in other sanctuary cities. where this sort of thing is not happening. And what something like this always exposes, and we did mention this this week, but what this one I think reveals is that it's something that we all struggle with. When I say we all, I mean people on both sides of at least the political spectrum. is the critical theory mood has confused our ability to tell what's right and what's wrong.
So, yeah. I mean, before we knew the details, before we saw the footage. Uh a bunch of things happened. Everyone uh immediately jumped to who the good guys and bad guys were. Everyone immediately Pretended.
to know all the facts of the situation because if who was involved and and nothing else. Uh now we have, as you may you know, as you mentioned, another video that talks about the behavior of this man, I think a few days before that, which was Uh, you know, unjustifiable, you know, kicking a police car, but that really doesn't justify at all, you know, uh, taking a man's life in the way that it was done.
Now, there again, there may be more video evidence, there may be more things. Uh, It is something about the internet and technology age, though. That, and I appreciate this. It was a conversation that happened on the editor's podcast this week. where, suddenly, all of us, Because of remember Thomas Friedman wrote that book, The World is Flat?
And what he meant was, is the tech the internet age now has flattened out the difference between the haves and the have-nots. And usually, I think he meant that by in terms of work and in terms of pay and economics. But it's also made us all forensic scientists, apparently. Like, we're all supposed to be able to read these situations. We should be experts in the law, experts in all that.
And it's just, it's a false. It is a false promise. We can't do it. You and I don't have that. I don't know you that well, Katie.
I don't think you've been trained in forensic science. I have not. But all of us are expected to come to the exact right conclusion that everybody else does. And we wonder. You know, why it's such a powder keg, not only in Minneapolis, but why this story in Minneapolis has become a powder keg for the rest of us.
And it is, and it's exactly what you said. It's that this extreme partisanship. Where we can see the same thing, and our first reaction is filtered through the framework that we already have. And I have a friend who challenges me on that, and I'm very grateful for it because, to some extent, I mean, we all kind of fit into somewhere on a spectrum. We have to remind ourselves, right?
I don't have all the facts here. I don't have all the information. But it is interesting, John, Minneapolis, Minneapolis. You know, we've talked over the years about Governor Waltz and his policies and reflecting, presumably, the people of Minnesota. But I can't think of Minneapolis, or excuse me, I can't think of Minnesota without thinking of.
They were the trans refuge state, the first trans refuge state. Where if you were a minor, you cross state lines, you can get whatever procedure you want, your parents can't even get you back. I put that. On par with some of the things that we're seeing. And it's like, is this just a general sense of anti-authoritarianism?
Now, please hear, I'm not justifying the things that have happened that are overreaches or abuses or any of that. But why is this city?
So inflamed. And this didn't happen in a vacuum. This is a general sense. I think you can see certainly abortion. They were, I think, one of the few states where their trimester abortion.
Had occurred despite the rhetoric to the contrary.
So, is there something that we're saying of the use of authority? Again, not talking about whether it's been justified or not and all the ways that it's been executed, but. Is is there just a general sense of anti-authoritarianism? In this one city. And this is part of why we're seeing this one city just be absolutely.
Explosive. Uh in their response. to to a federal government. Yeah.
I mean well, listen, world views take on cultural expressions as much as they do for individuals. Just, you know, people have world views, cultures re reflect world views.
Some are More dominant than others.
Some get along with each other, so then you get kind of a buffet. A kind of approach that's acceptable. And it is interesting, too, how kind of The most you know, progressive states a decade ago were talking about the need for tolerance. And there really is a new, I mean, you know, you talk about an anti-authoritarianism, and that's to be accomplished through a new authoritarianism, right? I mean, there's an inconsistency there.
And this is a terrible situation. We all, you know, it's also terrible that. The The first response to someone dying is to basically try to come up with all the ways that they deserve to die. And right now in that first, in the first story. The self-defense reason looks a lot more compelling than it does in the second one.
In the second one, it's hard to get there. What justifies that? And, but again, if you have a critical theory. approach to right and wrong, then you divide people up. N certain categories of people and they tend to be us versus them.
Us is good, them is bad. And we know that going in, we know that going out, that's going to be the lens through which. We see everything. And look, I get the tendency to be skeptical of the narrative that immediately comes out of the media, which almost always in recent memory has been wrong. And there's almost always been additional details that change things.
And we could just go story after story after story on that from the school kids at the March for Life. you know, a decade ago to everything else since. But, you know, that doesn't. Change the fact that we have these blind spots about how we think about morality and how we think about things and our defensiveness. About those things, which is understandable, does not justify us seeing events through a category of right and wrong that is not biblical.
The category of right and wrong that biblical is that every life is made in the image of God, so we should care about them. It should all be a tragedy. There's no sense to celebrate. God does not rejoice in the death of the wicked. We should not either, especially if we're not real sure about what we mean by wicked in a particular situation.
And also, we're all fallen. And the fallenness is not just the tendency to do wrong things. It's even the tendency to do right things, but just mess it up. Maybe that's what this is. Maybe there wasn't a vitriol and anger or a revenge or anything like that that these agents were trying to be vigilantes.
Or maybe none of that was there. It was just They just made a mistake. They made a bad mistake, a horrible mistake. And all that's really. really really possible and so You know, there are these events.
I agree that this is This is one that's going to haunt us for a long time, as you said earlier. I also think that there are things that are mirrors, you know? And we need to look in the mirror hard and let this teach us things about who we are, what kind of leadership. We have And what kind of citizens and people we're going to be. And this is that category.
And I'm not trying to skirt the ethical issues here. I think we need to be way more quick to say, I don't know, let's just wait. And this is terrible. And stop there at least until we know more. Yeah, the verse that comes to mind for that, John, comes out of James.
talking about the wisdom that is from above. And it includes several different characteristics, and one of them is with our part without partiality. And that's a challenge for all of us, especially in an age where technology is what it is. But uh you're you're exactly right. The the challenge of just being impartial enough to say, I don't have all the facts yet.
Educators, join us in Colorado Springs June 15th through the 17th for the 2026 Rooted Educators Worldview Summit. This year's theme is created and called Biblical Anthropology for Christian Education. We'll hear from John Stone Street, Sean McDowell, Megan Allman, Elizabeth Urbanowitz, and more. Save $50 when you register by March 31st with the code Rooted50. Register at colsoneducators.org slash rooted.
That's colsoneducators.org slash rooted. Let's talk about One positive thing happening. That reflects a growing shift in our culture, but towards. What is good, at least what is informed by nature. And tell us a little bit about the Greater Than campaign.
It was started by our friend Katie Faust. And I see Coulson Center, y'all are all over it already.
So tell us tell us what it is.
Well, you know, listen, there was a moment after the passing of Roe v. Wade over fifty years fifty years ago now where People had to figure out and think through. what it means. To speak the truth in a culture now in which there was a A law that is a lie. And not only a lie, but a lie with victims, real tangible victims, and a lot of deaths.
And that really was Roe v. Wade. There was a legal side of that, there was a cultural side of that, and what that looked like. took many forms. We have another law that tells a lie, and it's 10 years old now, and we're probably overdue, not probably, and trying to figure out how to push back.
But we also have lessons, the lessons that we can learn from the previous 50 years. of activism. Uh for example. That something that law can be overturned. And there still be cultural realities in place that can create an awful lot of problem.
A national or federal law or judicial decision like Roe can be overturned, and they're still. The way the states work in the American context and how that balances out. And so we're still very much in the middle of the abortion issue. But there was that realization, and somebody. I don't even know who coined this phrase that the point of the pro-life movement is not just to make abortion illegal, but to make it unthinkable.
And this is the same thing when it comes to same-sex marriage or so-called same-sex marriage, because same-sex marriage throughout the history of the world was unthinkable. Even in cultures that didn't have a biblical or Judeo-Christian framework for sexual morality, cultures that cultures that fully embraced pederasty, the sexual abuse of children, treating children like. property did not even Think. And homosexual lovers on the side did not even think it was the same thing as marriage because the inherent connection between marriage and procreation. The Supreme Court of the United States was the first to really come up with this brand new idea.
Or force the brand new idea. There were a couple states that had been tolerating it. And the other parallel with abortion is that as Brian Anderson and Alexander DeSanches wrote after the Dobbs decision overturned Roe, Roe has poisoned everything. And the Obergefeld decision also has poisoned other things, particularly our understanding of children and our understanding of. Moms and dads.
So we say things like kids need two parents, but that's not what the research says. Research says kids need mom and dads because moms don't dad and dads don't mom. Mom's mom and dad's dad, and they're both better at it than the other can ever be. And, you know, other cultures saw this as self-evident, but you know, Romans 1 is pretty clear that we have an amazing capacity to stamp that stuff out.
So. The greater than campaign is basically an attempt to. Not just overturn. Obergefell, although that is a stated objective of the campaign, but also to figure out what legal steps need to be taken and what cultural and church steps need to be taken so that something like same-sex, so-called same-sex marriage, or polyamory, or paid surrogacy. And surrogacy in general, that all of this becomes unthinkable again.
Not just because it's not technologically available, because it always will be, but because it's ethically problematic. And it's really, really bad for kids. The reason the greater than name came from, and if you go to the website, you'll see the The sign. And discerning viewers will notice the similarities between greater than and the human rights campaign. Little equal sign.
Yeah.
So that's the greater than language, right? You remember math, greater than, less than, and equal. We were promised equality. Because of so-called same-sex marriage. What happened is children are now considered less than, and we need to make children greater than adult desire.
And that's what it means to change the way people think and have laws that reflect that reality instead of victimizing children. Uh what a powerful shift in the conversation. Because as you said, most of our public discourse has centered around the emotions, desires, and ambitions of individual people. Without talking about the effects that those have had on a new generation, a generation of children. And certainly we see.
some frankly horrific abuses of it with with surrogacy. With adoption among same-sex couples. I know there will be some people who tell me I am. Just zeroing in on the extremes, but extremes happen. And and I would also ask, how many times does something quote unquote extreme have to happen before we would look at what is producing it or enabling it and say that there's something wrong with it?
So I think this is going to be A very important conversation, John, not just between Evangelicals, Christians, and those who disagree with a biblical sexual ethic. But I'm gonna go ahead and predict that some of the toughest conversations and reactions are going to come from within. The camp. From within the family, if you will, of other believers who say, I agree with you in the morality of it. But It's been law for 10 years.
It's been, we now would end up breaking up families, like all of these sort of pragmatic considerations. That would basically say, you know, Christians, just stay in your lane, focus on winning people to Christ and eliminate same-sex marriage that way. What would we say to the believer? Perhaps they have someone who is legally married to someone of the same sex in their family. And they would look at this and say, you know, you're really stepping on some toes here.
Could you just stay in the lane of theology and not law? Yeah.
Well, I think that's going to be, as you said, some of the hardest conversations. And that pushback has already happened and it continues to happen both to the campaign and for those of us who have been talking about marriage. I mean, last year, 2025 was actually the 10-year anniversary of a Bergefell. We did several conversations and we got that response. What are you going to do?
This is not just a theoretical conversation. We had a, believe it or not, a same-sex couple show up at our church. It was about, I guess, three or four or five years ago, two wonderful guys, and left the liberal church because they said they only celebrate us and we need to know what God really thinks. And I thought it was a fascinating conversation.
So, I mean, we bless them. Wow. Yeah.
I know. Isn't that amazing? And then, but, but he also said, We're married and The idea that it's not legitimate or that we have to end this marriage, that's not even on the table for us. And that was the impasse. That was the impasse for us.
We, you know, shook hands and went separate ways. And I don't just mean us, I mean, because we had become friends, but also because of the church. And I respected the honesty up until that point. And you want to say, look, if you want to follow Jesus, are you really willing to do that?
So it's a real. It's a real question. It's a real conversation. But, you know, if you're headed. on a a one-way road off of a cliff.
You don't keep driving. You have to turn around. And. I think what the campaign, the greater than campaign, has argued very, very well, and there's tons of resources, answers to tough questions, including this one on the website. I think what it's done is pulled together answers that show just like this isn't just the difference in opinion.
Like, this is a really bad step for our civilization. You know, like embracing communism or something really bad like that. Like, it's going to have. uh generational bad consequences and There's no way forward except to stop right now. And we have to do it.
And, you know, what the mechanics of that are: do we grandfather people in? Do we set up a statute of limitations? You know, at some point we have to get to that this is not marriage and let's stop pretending as if it is because marriage is gravity, not a speed limit. It's fixed, it doesn't change. You know, it is a serious thing.
But let me also say too, the other opposition that I've already seen this week. To the greater than campaign. And by the way, there are 40-some different organizations and leaders focus on the family. FRC, Robbie George, you mentioned Katie as the kind of the orchestrator and You know, she's a force of nature in this kind of thing, right? And just has been given great favor with a lot of people and is.
Completely committed. um you know to this cause and we're we're pleased to back her But the other place we're going to get this... And we're going to have this conversation here about the life issue in just a second, I think. is from political conservatives. Who says Too much is at stake at the midterms.
It's you can't. You can't tick people off this way. This is going to distract the results of the election or that sort of stuff. And um We already got that. I think it's a very, very telling thing.
First of all, logistically, like, okay, if we can't do it before the midterms, when can we do it? Because it's either before the midterms or it's before the next one. You know, the president's every two years. That's right. Yeah.
Exactly. Like, there's not a good time. But also, Listen. Christian conservatives at times, and this is one of them. They have to decide, are we fundamentally and primarily loyal?
To getting people elected and having a party in place or primarily loyal to what's. What's true? And I think at the same time, when we always cave, when somebody says, oh, we're going to lose voters or whatever, then we never succeed in moving the party in the direction where it needs to go for those of us who want to have that, who need to have that sort of political influence. And this is what we've seen. You know, abortion was a very, very good and convenient issue.
For the president in the first term, he followed through with Supreme Court justices and other justices. Roe is in the dustbin of history, praise God. He told us coming into the second term that he did not have the same. That was the extent of his convictions. I mean, he all but said, I did this.
That's all I'm going to do.
Now, he didn't tell us he was going to let the FDA regulations on Mifipristone stand. He didn't tell us that, you know, the FDA was now going to push a. A generic version of the abortion. The Hyde Amendment is apparently flexible, negotiable. We should kind of all get over it.
Yeah, I mean, look, he was. Listen, we all say that Trump is a negotiator and he throws these things out to see how they're float. That's what he just did to pro-life. He did. He floated out the Hyde Amendment comment, hoping that we wouldn't blink.
Yeah, which uh all the more reason. Blink loudly. Blink very loudly, people. Like, just, you know, raise your voice to talk about how, like, no, we would not support that. I've been very encouraged to see.
some very political stalwarts among conservatism come out. Against that as well. It just reminds me that, you know, we really are very, we are principled and ideological. Yeah.
Well, we need to be. And when we can't, you know, politics is the art of the possible. We do have to be pragmatic at times, you know, in terms of choosing the lesser of two evils, or as my friend Kevin likes to say, choosing to lessen evil in any way that we can. Yeah, that's really good. Which is, I think, a much better framework.
And so this isn't about that, but it is about, listen, we can't turn around and pretend like. you know That that this is a Something we should tolerate. We absolutely should not. It would take nothing. It would take absolutely nothing but a stroke of a pen.
And I appreciated Marjorie Danenfelser saying this, I think at the March for Life. Even right before the vice president spoke. Who I think is more clearly pro-life than President Trump and should be. But, you know, basically saying, look, all you got to do is go back to Biden-era regulations on the FDA or pre-pandemic levels. Just return the doctor's visit.
Why wouldn't you want to do this? This can be done in the name of. of all kinds of health and Yeah. The HHS has a big agenda, and I think the abortion question, particularly chemical abortion, because it has so much to do with pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical policy, is just being swept along in this agenda. And then, you know, then we're like, oh, we gotta.
We have to go along with it. No, we don't. We can't. It matters. No, it absolutely does.
And just really the height of hypocrisy from this Maha movement that they. They would stomach that. Frankly, d you talk about one in eleven women being sent to the hospital. But whatever we do, get the chemicals out of foods, right? And both of those are.
To varying degrees of severity, noble goals, but just the way that our current HHS talks about certain priorities and dusts a few others away is purely ideological.
Well, so let's talk about it. By the way, I like those pods. I like a lot of those possibilities. I like them too. I think they're great.
I think they're great. The hierarchy is wrong. Yeah, yeah, but exactly, exactly.
So let's talk about the issue of March for Life. Um coming out of that, you mentioned the The lack of regulations regarding mifipristone. One of the other deregulations in the latter Biden years was: you can get it in the mail. You can just get it in the mail.
So, um, a drug that causes one in 11 women to have to go. to the hospital for Severe complications is not even dispensed in a doctor's office. If this were any other drug, Any other drug for any other purpose, it would be pulled from the shelves and you would have congressional hearings about it. But because it's about abortion, people are looking the other way. Let's talk about Vice President Vance.
This article that we've been talking about discusses him. I do believe that he is ideological. I also and I say this with grace in my heart know that he's probably runnin'. In a couple of years. And he will be faced with the question that every politician is: is at what point does your your ideology.
These core beliefs about things like life get in the way of, so to speak, your campaign.
So, what do you think?
Well, I don't know. I think that it's h his faith seems sincere and the outworkings of his faith seem sincere. He has taken a tack as a vice president of loyalty and same way that Marco Rubio has.
So I mean, and that's kind of political. Navigation and all that. Um, so it's hard to it it's it's hard to uh Really know for sure kind of where everything is. I do think, though, that the. The pro-life movement came out of this particular March for life, and there's some fighting.
There's some people calling other people compromisers and. There's attack from some of those that are the most vocal. To try to be, you know, basically like Trump. I mean, it really is a Trumpy way to do things. And there's division.
And I think part of that is, is we. It's not unlike the team that builds a big lead and then against a team that they think they're going to lose to. And then, you know, all of a sudden they have to maintain that lead, and then they lose that lead. And now, what do they do? And that's the pro-life movement, right?
There was no sense in 2015, which, by the way, was the last time a big. epic snowstorms stare down the march for life. I was there. It was depressed. I mean, people were like, you know, counting the days and saying, oh, it's going to get worse.
And the Supreme Court. If we don't get that, and there's no way to get that, and you know, because it seemed like the Democrats were going to be re-elected. And then all of a sudden, we get this win, this huge win, this upset victory that surprised everyone. And now we don't know how to keep the lead. We don't know how to actually play with something like that.
That's such an incredible gift. And there's real differences in strategy and there's real infighting. And you have the progress that was made had a lot to do with a politician that a lot of people don't like. And so there's a real mixed view on him and within the movement. And um Also, those that came around because he gave them this victory.
But aren't willing to give him the benefit of the doubt if he won't take care of, you know, Miffopristone.
So. I can explain where the conflict's coming from. It makes perfect sense. And you've got people involved in different parts of the movement. I just know we can't sit this one out.
We got to stay in the game, but we're going to have to figure out at some level how to. how to work together again and how to respect each other again. For this common cause. And that to me is what's at risk right now in the pro-life movement. Yeah, it's it's uh really the the kind of intramural Fighting among other pro-lifers, conservatives, or even believers instead of, and it just almost sounds.
It's I hate this, John, but it sounds squishy. today to talk about where can we agree, you know, can we find common ground? And yet The tribalism, not just partisanship, really the subcultures now within the pro-life movement of either you agree with this or you're not really pro-life. And you're right, we had a far more common goal. when Roe was still the law of the land.
It was a very clear objective, clear trajectory. And now that I wonder if now, because it's become such a decentralized issue, it's almost like the strategies to fix it, the opinions about it become decentralized as well. I don't know what the solution is for that. I know sniping at each other is not going to help anything. And it looks a lot different in a pro-life state like Alabama and covering the ground you can versus Colorado, where we're basically just trying to keep our pregnancy resource center directors from being, you know, arrested and thrown in prison.
Exactly. It hasn't gotten to that yet for the record. I'm not saying that it has, but they do want to make it illegal. This is back on the table to prescribe the abortion pill reversal.
So, here you have the most acute, direct expression of pro-life activism right now. Getting to the woman. Here you have You know, basically, a network and a way of saving a lot of babies who are at great risk. We know the woman's abortion-minded. Has second thoughts, chemical abortion.
not in a hospital, doing it at home. And yet there's a way we can actually get to that baby and help that baby. And Colorado wants to make that illegal.
So it's going to run directly in the face of what we all know we need to be doing.
So it's a, you're right, it is a challenge. We are going to, by the way, address some of this at the Colson Center National Conference because the theme is trying to make sense of the moment that we're in. And the pro life moment that we're in is a really difficult one. And we've done it the last two years, kind of talked about that.
So I hope we can, you know, maybe shed some light on things. And maybe that would be helpful. But you know, one of the things I did want to mention, if that's okay, we jumped off the Greater Than campaign because of the jump to abortion. But go to thegreaterthancampaign.com. And there's some videos there.
There's some answers to these questions about Obergefell. And maybe, maybe this movement can learn from the infighting of that movement so that we don't reinvent the wheel or as. My friend Steve says don't reinvent the flat tire. And uh that's uh that's the risk, I think. Yeah, that's really good.
That's really good. Greater than campaign. Is it greater than.org? Greaterthancampaign.com. Greater than greater than campaign.com.
All right, John, last topic for the day. I can't believe we're even asking this. I can't believe this is a thing. But it is, so I'll just throw it to you. Is interracial marriage?
Or by that I think we mean inter ethnic marriage. A sin. Yeah, I can't believe we're having this conversation either. I didn't want to have the conversation. And some people are like, why on earth are you talking about this?
now and the reason is is because there is a segment of What would you call this segment? I don't want to really call it religious conservatism because it's not conservative and. any sort of real sense. People place it more on the right. It is.
It's that kind of hard right politically, and that sort of, I don't even know what you would call it. Yeah.
You know, I think a lot of it. Uh, spawns on X, which is not where you should go and get all your topics clearly for anything. Uh, but it has turned into a live debate, it's connected with. The thing that I had really hoped, and I was naive probably to say, you know, these guys, it's not that many of them. They're in a basement somewhere.
Is there really a rise of. Kind of white supremacy in the name of Christian nationalism, but there is. I don't think it's as big as people make it out to be, but it is. there and it's awful and the conversation was About interracial marriage. And what's interesting is there are voices.
On that side, that even says, you know, you oppose same-sex marriage, why don't you oppose interracial marriage? And it's such a weird comparison. And honestly, it's the same comparison made by the human rights campaign and the ACLU. Have you seen the ads for the ACLU about justice shall flow, like whatever? And it goes from Loving versus Virginia.
Which is the Supreme Court case that had to do with interracial marriage? To modern-day so-called same-sex marriage or polyamory or something like that. Listen. Interracial marriage is not a sin at all. Here's how we know: when Jesus was asked about marriage, particularly divorce, He went back to the garden.
And in the garden, he points very specifically to three things about marriage. Number one, that it reflects complementarity, male and female. Number two, that it's unitive and not just unitive. Emotionally or spiritually, but physically, one flesh. And that served the purpose that God gave.
Adam to be fruitful and multiply, which is why it was a good that he was alone. Not because he was emotionally lonely, but because he couldn't actually fulfill his God-given purpose. And then, third, there is a permanence. Jesus concludes that if because of the complementarity and because of the oneness, then there is. An exclusiveness and a permanence that's to be a part of marriage.
There's nothing about being. Asian African Californian. You know that that has anything to do with any of those things. Right. Right.
Image bearers come in two forms: males and females. And that's right. Um There's not a different form of image bear if you're black or white. If your eye slant is at this angle or that angle, or if your ears are this size or that size, or if your hair color is this or that or the other. Interracial marriage.
is marriage in every single way that Jesus talks about marriage. and points to genesis which describes the purpose of marriage. Same-sex marriage is not. Same-sex marriage cannot be one, it cannot be procreative, it cannot serve that purpose, it does not meet the standards of complementarity. And by the way, what we now know, and this was a recent study that is updated again, doesn't, by the way, meet the standards of exclusivity in practice.
By the way, heterosexual marriage doesn't always, but homosexual marriages are at another category in terms of unfaithfulness. But the point is that you're talking about something completely different. And interracial marriage meets the. The criteria in every way. And to call it sin is to add to the Bible.
It's to corrupt the teaching about what it means to be made in the image of God. It's to confuse what sin is. People say, well, it would be more culturally difficult for my kids. Yeah.
That doesn't make it sin. That's a totally categorically different thing. Yeah, right. Not viewing porn will make it more culturally difficult for your kids, but that's what you should do. We're just not on.
Yeah, it is. It's crazy that this is a topic right now. Yeah.
And to your point about, you know, asking. First of all, not conflating the two conversations. Are you talking about something is sin, morally right or wrong? Preferable, easier. Those are two different categories.
But for one, we can find. All throughout scripture, scripture is clear on this, Christian, historic Christian practice is clear on this. That there is no case in which homosexuality is approved. In scripture. We do actually find a lot of interethnic marriage in Scripture.
In the lineage of Jesus, in fact. And so and there's not one place where that is condemned. Not even a place where that is considered unwise. The the only place I can think of you you have Ezra, the book of Ezra, where the people of Israel They're inter-ethnic marriage. The only problem, the problem is not that they are different ethnicities.
The problem is they serve other gods. And that takes us to 1 Corinthians. To don't, you cannot be unequally yoked and serve two different gods. And so it's really a very perverse melding of. cultural ideologies Twisted Theology And then a lot of technology.
As you said, it went from being very much on the fringes to people are getting far more vocal about this. No, and it's clear that. This is Coming out of the immigration conversation that's happening. And listen, you can be for strong borders and not letting in and vetting those who come in and not have to be a racist folks. Christians can be for the rule of law and also for the humanity of people and be clearly for it.
And it's going to require that our fundamental loyalties are to what's true, not to what somebody says I can say. And our fundamental loyalties are, you know, first and foremost to the biblical categories of what it means to be human. There's one story, by the way, in the Old Testament, right? I mean, where.
Somebody critiques. a marriage for being Inter-ethnic and actually is punished for it, right? I mean, are we talking about Moses and Miriam? Yeah.
Which is an interesting account there because it's really clear what the problem is. Our problem is. Her partiality and the conclusion. We also had this really interesting conversation today. And I don't know enough about this, but we're going to be doing some stuff on this.
And our resident Gandalf Glenn Sunshine at the Coulson Center and Tim Padgett, who also knows a lot about a lot. You know, talks about that to call a person 150 or 200 years ago. White. Would have not been descriptive at all because the inter-ethnic conflict was between the Irish and the Scots and the Scots and the British and between you know that sort of stuff.
So our understanding of what counts as what. has dramatically changed and obviously is more influenced by cultural factors than anything that's a fixed category of this or that or the other. Yes, fascinating too, to kind of get down to are we talking about ethnicity and culture? Are we frankly just talking about Shades of melanin. Are we talking more about color?
But, you know. There's always going to be some fringe thing that is clamoring to be. the main thing, but what we have to do as sojourners and pilgrims in this world, is Keith the main thing the main thing? And we know from scripture what those things are. Are we out of time?
We're out of time, but you have a minute. You don't always get to sit in here, but it's been good for you to do that today. Thanks for joining us. But so I need to give you at least a chance to give a recommendation. You told me you had a good recommendation in mind.
And so you get the only recommendation. We had some great questions that we're not going to get to, but let's do the recommendations. All right.
So I read a fascinating article on a website called The Comment. And it was talking about how Sweden is not quite as secular. As certainly it has been, and people might think. And that, you know, we talked about kind of the flattening of culture. We're seeing that even in some of the most hyper-secular cultures in the West, like Sweden, where Gen Z is trending towards the religious.
And this author actually goes so far as to say, you know, it isn't just because of mass migration and immigration, people bringing their religions with them. No, this is actually a turn towards. Theism. And a turn towards religion. And now it is no longer something that someone should be ashamed of or embarrassed about.
And so, really fascinating moment that we're in. It's a little bit like we've got a clash of different ideas coming from very different directions. Secularism. Islam, pull back towards Christianity. And we are really living in a moment of kind of a tug of war of a lot of these ideas.
Well, listen, that's a good segue to my recommendation, which is the Colson Center National Conference. And I recommend it for two reasons: three reasons. Number one, it's awesome. Number two, we're going to talk about this. I think, at least in the American context, one of the most important voices on the statistics of these things, Ryan Birch.
And Birch even just recently was on Ross Dalthitz podcast. And we're also, of course, going to have Oz Guinness and Carl Truman and some others kind of give us the lay of the land. Both on a redemptive history level, a civilizational level, a national level, and a cultural level. And the theme is like. Where are we in this moment?
But the third reason that I will recommend this is: we've got like four tickets left. For the Colson Center National Conference. Yeah, we're just about sold out. We may have some room to move.
So go to ColsonConference.org and you can sign up right there. Don't wait. We also. Have the Wilberforce Award Banquet, which that is already sold out. We'll have a pre-conference.
We're going to announce a very special pre-event, which is for pastors and church leaders to wrestle with what it means to be voices of courage. There's a lot going on, and you can find out by going to colsonconference.org. And seriously, don't wait. I think by probably by the end of next week, it'll all be over. That'll be it.
That'll be it. Nothing left.
So we would love for you to join us if you've been thinking about it. It'll be in Knoxville, Tennessee. Haven't been in Tennessee in quite some time, so it'll be a lot of fun. And I think it's a really important time. I mean, as we were talking, right?
The ground is shifting still. Things are happening, things are moving fast. Technology is moving things fast.
So we have to, every once in a while, stop and get our bearings. And that's what this conference is going to be about.
So good.
Well, hey, thank you so much for having me. It's been so fun, always great, and very informative getting to talk to you, John. This has been an episode of Breakpoint Podcast from the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. I'm Katie McCoy with John Stone Street, president of the Colson Center, and we will see you or hear you next time.
