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 Mormons and whether they should be classified for government purposes as Christians. We're also going to talk about new highly specific gene editing technology. We're so glad you're with us. Stick around.
Welcome to Breakpoint This Week from the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview. I'm Maria Baer, alongside John Stone Street, president of the Coulson Center. John, I want to start this week with something I heard you talking about on the world and everything in it. You know, this is a story that. Normally, it might have gone unnoticed, but maybe in our world is getting a bit more attention.
So, the Department of Defense has a classification of. Religions for the purposes of like its chaplaincies and how they treat soldiers and the services that they offer. And there was an effort to consolidate some of their definitions. There were like hundreds of religions that were included in there, and they've consolidated them, but they did not include, notably, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Mormon Church under its Christian classification. And this caught the attention of Utah Senator Mike Lee.
Obviously, Utah is a largely Mormon state. Who was pretty upset about this and wanted it to be included? This is an ongoing conversation between Mormons and Christians. I know Mormons in my own life who. Consistently, you know, say that they are part of the Christian church.
And of course, the. title that you know they call themselves the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints We had, I think, a helpful commentary at Breakpoint this week about the differences between Orthodox Christianity and Mormonism. But can you kind of walk us through that now? Yeah, it was an really interesting story, and it's interesting in a good way, I think, because a lot of Christians are going and actually researching this. That's one of the things that I've seen come out of this.
And that's a good thing. We should know some of these differences. The first thing we got to start with is it's not the Department of Defense anymore, Maria. It's the Department of War again after a couple hundred years. Listen, the classifications had gotten out of control.
So, the effort from the Department of War, from the Pentagon, to reduce the list and make them legit, that actually was necessary. I've got some friends who. Work in the chaplaincy, and they told me in the past about how many young men are, you know, worship the Norse gods like Thor so that they can have facial hair. You know, that's the religious exception that they want to claim.
So, some of that had to be reined in. And the original list had a list of different denominations because these different Christian churches all present chaplains and endorse chaplains within the military. And so it was like Christian Assembly of God, Christian Methodist, Christian. Anglican. And it was interesting and weird that at least two of the churches listed as Christian were not like Jehovah's Witnesses, who themselves reject that designation, as I understand it.
And then also. a Scientology, which is a new agey kind of weird cult. Uh kind of thing. But it did not list the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And Mike Lee protested in it.
I appreciated his tweet, which was, Can anyone tell me why this isn't listed? And then he had like 7,000 responses that told him this is why, because it is not Christian. It is, by the way, a very recent thing, and this is a source of confusion. I need to say this. Because we had a very robust discussion with someone who came across one of our commentaries from a couple months ago and And she and I Went back and forth a number of times on the differences between the Mormon Church and Christianity.
We hashed a lot of this ground. And one of the things that I want to say is that there's a source of confusion here that should be. Understandable for us who claim to be Christian. Number one is, The m the Mormon Church was founded out of Basically, accusing the history of Christianity of being the victim of the great apostasy. In that sense, it's not unlike Islam, who even though they claim that the Old and New Testament and that there are prophets that make up Christianity.
That it's all been corrupted. And so it's the corrective. Absolutely. That's what the Mormon church was founded to say. Secondly, the use of the term Mormon.
This was a listener or not a reader who came across our content and said, Hey, you can't use that term. It's derogatory.
Well, it's derogatory as of yesterday. Because, do you remember? It was just like less than a decade ago that the. the LDS church did this massive campaign. On with commercials showing these wonderful families and all that, and said, I'm a Mormon, I'm a Mormon, I'm a Mormon.
The book is called The Book of Mormon. The official teaching is that we don't like it anymore, but some people will still use it and it's not a big deal. Mike Lee in his protest to this whole thing called himself a Mormon. It's just that the goalposts are moving and it's really hard to keep track of. And I think that's another thing that needs to be said about all of this.
But at the end of the day, to be Christian means not only to believe in Jesus Christ, but to believe specific things about Jesus Christ. that are revealed in the Gospels because all of this has been adjudicated. Of who Jesus was, what he was here to do, including the fact that he was God in the flesh. This is all part of the message from the very beginning. Mormons reject the Trinity.
There are not three persons within one Godhead. There are three gods. They all became gods. They did not start this way.
So there is a... A rejection of the historic teaching. Of God being the same yesterday, today, and forever. How one becomes. Made right with God.
It's not because of anything that we do or certain obedience to certain traditions, it's because of the work of Christ Jesus. And our faith is put in him. And so, yeah, Mormons are Christians, except for what they believe about God, what they believe about Jesus, what they believe about the Holy Spirit, what they believe about the Bible, what they believe about additional revelation, what they believe about sin, and what they believe about salvation. But other than that, we're all the same. Look, at some point, we're talking about something that's dramatically different.
Different, and that needed to be adjudicated.
Now, the end of the story. Is that the Pentagon reclassified? And they should have because I think that it's not the Pentagon's job to do theology. We don't want the Pentagon to do theology. We don't want the Pentagon to draw these sorts of lines and be the one that says that Latter-day Saints are not Christian, but hey, the Church of Scientology is.
That's not their job.
So, what they did is they went back. Release the list again and just remove the word Christian and just identified the groups as separate, which is what their job is: to determine which groups should be allowed.
Now you can Fight over, you know, they should have left in the Norse gods and they should have removed, you know, you know, somebody else. I mean, that's a legitimate thing for citizens to complain about. But other than that, this and by the way, Senator Lee was happy about it and Ted Cruz was happy about it.
So if you make everybody happy, good job, Pete Hegseth. You pulled it off. I think there was a level of surprise by the reaction, but I think it ended up being the right thing. And a whole lot of Christians now know more, hopefully, about the differences, which is important.
Well, I mean, I would just hope that I wouldn't want to. Find myself speaking to a chaplain who was Mormon. In the armed services, being a Christian person. I guess that would be my only concern, but I don't know how that works, I guess. How they assign people to other people and whatever else.
That's probably beyond my concern.
Well, it's self-selective. I mean, it you know, essentially these are individuals that serve. The chaplaincy is is a remarkable thing. Um, and the people who serve in the chaplaincy are a remarkable thing. But Again, there is a responsibility that government entities have to allow religion.
And to encourage it, even. I think you can see historically. while not determining this is it's this and not this. And so I think this is the right uh resolution. It is interesting to me because my only explanation for this is, I think, too cynical to be correct, unless it is, I guess.
But It is interesting to ask why, whenever, because this conversation has come up before. Why do Mormons want to be classified as Christians or want to be considered part of the Christian church? Because I've spent my time kind of diving into the Mormon faith. I read their catechism several years ago because I had a friend who was deeply involved, and I wanted to feel like I had my footing when we had conversations about it. And it is dramatically different.
I mean, obviously, the central tenets that you're describing, but then lots of other things. I mean, there's. There's outright belief in, you know, the longer that you are a Mormon and the more impressive things you do in regards to like the level of status that you reach within the Mormon church, that is all directly related to the type of heaven that you get to enjoy. Like there's a lot of strange things that are just directly related to the people. Thank you.
That's the afterlife. That was the other thing where we have an incompatibility. Thank you. But so if you believe those things, you're a Mormon and you've chosen to believe those things. I can't understand why you'd want to be included in the Christian faith because you would consider that every other Christian person is dramatically wrong.
And that's why I'm saying the only explanations I can come up with are cynical because it feels like a political move at some level. You know, years ago, we received an email from a listener who identified as Mormon, but rejected all of those. LDS teachings. There's a sect within it. And you might remember that there was a cultish group that dates back to the.
50s and 60s. They were known for their flirty fissures. Basically, sending young women out to attract young men in all the ways that you might imagine into their religious group. And they had a complete. Revival of It wasn't revival because they basically rejected all the teachers.
That had led them astray in all the teachings and re-embraced Holy Scripture within a group.
So it was like within this cultish group, they all became Christian. And that's kind of how this guy described it. And so he and I went back and forth a little bit on it. I was really grateful to know that this group existed. This is a group that rejected.
Joseph Smith. He said, oh yeah, he's a pedophile. We don't want anything to do with him. And you're like, well, at what level then? Why why Why refer to yourself as Mormon?
They embrace that title. that group. And, you know, I and listen, I I think Someone A follower of Jesus is Their understanding of who Jesus is and their commitment to embrace what he has done for them. And by the way, the first part of that. It's not a huge understanding.
You don't have to understand all of it. Like, you don't have to have all the terms in place. I mean, we can famously talk about the thief on the cross, and he knew very little, but he knew that he was relying on this guy. You know, that was that wonderful Alistair Begg sermon that circulates around every Good Friday, which is fantastic. He's like, The other guy on the cross told me I could be here, you know, kind of thing.
So there is a at some level it's a it's a low bar, but you can't say Jesus is this over here. When the scriptures reveal Jesus as at least this, there's a difference between not knowing everything and believing something that's completely contradictory. And then you got to wrestle through what's the proper use of a name. And, you know, I. I recommended they drop that term Mormon from this group, but But who am I?
Like, you know, I don't know if they did. I don't know if they didn't. It didn't make sense to me as well. But the upside is, is we have a God who reveals himself. And if he reveals himself, we are Not only dependent on that revelation, we're allegiant to it.
Like we don't have a choice. That's our information. You know, we might make stuff up. But the only source we have to come back to is what is revealed. And it's notable, you probably had this conversation with your LDS.
Friends. I've had many interactions with LDS folks, including. this person who recently She and I emailed back and forth a number of times. Like, like, argue, make an argument. And the argument is, you just have to read it, and you'll know.
It always comes back to that. In fact, Mike Lee. On X did that same thing. By the way, Senator Lee has been a remarkable senator. As a leader, I'm a fan.
But he kind of went back and said, Have you read the Book of Mormon? Have you read the Book of Mormon? Have you read the Book of Mormon? And that was the universal response. Which is interesting.
Well, let's shift gears pretty sharply here because there's something else I really wanted to chat with you about. And this was a story from the New York Times this week. About new science in gene editing. We've talked about gene editing before. Obviously, we've talked about CRISPR and this idea that you can.
Edit human embryos to supposedly get rid of certain characteristics. I think the FDA approved a method several years ago that they believe can remove sickle cell anemia from embryos. The implications of this scientifically and morally. Are huge, obviously, but this week. This report, anyway, in the New York Times out of Columbia University, is that there's new technology that seems to suggest they can do this far more accurately now than they used to.
So, really isolate. portions of the gene and either change them or repair them. And this is kind of the gateway to what we've talked about before with this kind of technology, which is. Moving away from, you know, repairing something like sickle cell anemia and. Choosing a hair color or choosing an eye color or a sex or something else.
Huge, huge implications. How quickly do you think this kind of thing, I mean, are we primed right now culturally to accept this as a good thing?
Well, let me just tell you where we're at because this thing always follows a script. And I just want to say where we're at on this script. First of all, all of us forgot about gene editing because we've been thinking about AI and you're like, oh yeah, that CRISPR thing that everyone panicked about just yesterday. What happened was with the CRISPR thing is that there was a Chinese scientist who created embryos and the whole world panicked and freaked out and condemned him, including the CCP, which was completely a farce, if you ask me.
Now, I did not get the official memo saying, hey, this is a farce. But really, what happened was the CCP wants this research to go forward, which is also kind of driving the. The the the the the the ground war, right? It's kind of a it's kind of what dr drove nuclear technology, this assurance of mu uh mutual destruction. And the same thing is happening with AI, and the same thing is happening here.
So in China, this guy does this, very, very risky. Earns the condemnation of the whole world. The CCP feels like they got to put him in prison. They put him in prison for a couple of weeks and then maybe more than that. And then they let him back and he's back doing exactly the same thing that he always has been.
In fact, I think now he's in the United States. Yep. And he's like, the kids are beautiful and nobody's seen that. No, that's right.
So here's the geneticist at Columbia University. Here's where we're at. Who led this research? We need to have a public conversation. about the pros and cons of this.
Right.
So the ethical concerns Are really, really clear, right? What it could potentially introduce into. DNA, what it could potentially introduce into the world is unknown. We don't know. And whatever we're doing, it puts downstream.
Into the system, things and changes that we may not want. And oh, by the way, we're experimenting on. Individuals who don't have a say in it.
So there's no way to get consent. But what happened was it's like, oh, we can't do it. We can't, oh, that would be, well, we can do it.
So let's, you know, oh, and somebody does it, and they're like, oh, that's terrible. And then we're at the point where we need to have a discussion. A discussion means we need to figure out some way to take all the brakes off and go forward 100%. Because the discussion is never, ever. about holding back.
Look. How do we move forward? Because we can do this, so therefore we have to do this, right? There's an ethical framing around all of this. And I think that What I read in the in the New York Times was was quite stunning, right?
Because The promises of this is like all the promises of CRISPR, the gene editing technology from, what, five or six or seven years ago. Only made a lot better. And by better, with a lot more precision, is what the article continues to. To communicate. Andrew Walker had a tremendous piece, I thought, in World Opinions about this.
The other thing is I haven't seen a whole lot of people talk about this. And mainly because maybe, you know, SpaceX had its IPO launch this week and everybody, you know, is still kind of fascinated by UFOs, aliens, and UAPs, or maybe because of artificial intelligence or something like that. But Here you have the ability to edit the human genome. And create lives that have been kind of manufactured to specification. And it's always, by the way, it's always sold.
We can get rid of these. you know, conditions. It's never about enhancing or what this will do kind of in the long term. And it pretends to know how DNA works. We know a lot more about DNA, obviously, than any other generation.
that's ever lived. But we don't know. everything. We we don't know hardly anything about it, honestly. There's so much left to learn.
in terms of how the interplay works. This isn't an addition game that you're talking about when you're talking about DNA. And we've always been talking about both nature and nurture, but also. How nature works together, how genes work together. We don't know any of this.
But again, the ethics of this is we need to have a discussion. You could just predict it. There's a timeline, right? First, there's outrage. You get past the outrage by just doing it and letting everyone, and then you kind of fake condemn it.
And then it kind of continues and then you're like, we need to have a discussion. And that's where we're at on this.
So Look, the promises are incredible. I go back to 10 years ago. on uh one of the NPR podcasts. I'm trying to remember which one it was. I caught it two weeks in a row, which is rare.
And I caught it in my car on the actual radio, which is rare. And one week they were talking about CRISPR and gene editing and how incredible. The potential could be. And they gave kind of lip service to, oh, but you know, there's people who are concerned. The very next week, they were alarmed, panicked.
I mean, like, this is the worst thing that could ever happen to the human race. We need to stop it right now. And it was deep fake videos.
Now, I'm concerned about deep fake videos, right? But it was fascinating. Like they were deeply, deeply concerned. About actually the potential we have to put words in someone's mouth. and create these highly edited videos that look real.
But convinced about the promises of highly edited genetics, you're just like, you know, it's terrible to edit what someone says, but we should edit who someone is. There was just this ethical imbalance that was stunning. That's what's so misleading about saying things like, we should now stop and have a discussion about the pros and cons, because that's already a position, right? Like, so we know that this thing is great and worth doing. And if any of you weirdos would like to suggest maybe reasons we shouldn't do it, then afterwards we can say at least we had a discussion about it.
Speak now or forever hold your peace. Right.
We don't say things like, ought we stop and have a discussion about. Slavery, or you know what I mean? That, like, that's not how we treat things like this. And you'd have to start any discussion about it by asking: what is the end goal? What are you?
Who are we and what are you trying to accomplish? And that question, that ship may have sailed on this issue quite a while ago. I mean, if I'm reading this story. Right.
A lot of the developments they've made in this technology came because they are creating embryos and then tinkering with them. Yeah, you're right. I mean, listen, I. I think It that Stanley Hauer West's famous quote needs to be edited, right? It needs to be updated.
It was: if Christians are the kind that do not kill their young and do not kill their elderly, we will have done well. And now it's if Christians are the kind that actually have real conversations with real people instead of chat bots. And How we make our babies is normal, right? You know, if you think about the push for IVF, the push for surrogacy. Particularly in three-parent or four-parent or five-parent situations or for same-sex.
uh couples And now, this ability not only to have children outside of sex, which is the final separation. The sexual revolution, having separated sex from marriage and sex from babies. and babies from marriage and marriage from babies.
Now we're separating babies from sex. It's the final chapter of this full divorce of the created norms of how God made the world. And so. If it's going to be like, if Christians are the kind of people who still have babies the old-fashioned way, we will have done well. And that includes, that will include, and we're going to head into, I know, after the break, the next story.
the willingness to love children. Two were made. by that union. as a gift of God. And even if they don't meet the particular standards of purity.
And that sounds so racist because that's the language of racism a generation ago. And now it's the language of eugenics to day. Isn't that a fascinating picture? I hadn't thought about it that way. But You know, if we still make babies the old-fashioned way, we'll have done something well.
Isn't that such the pattern of? Of sin, that we would find one of the greatest gifts God gave us, and we'd be like, I bet there's a way around it. Maybe you don't have to do that great thing that God gave you to enjoy. Like, what? Why would we do that?
But isn't that not the lie that sin tells us every time? Like, you'll try this thing you could do, and really it just makes us miss the greatest joy available to us. Is there a better example anywhere of what Isaiah? I think it's Isaiah, right? The clay cannot say to the plotter, Why did you make me this way?
Or why did you do this to me? And um, you know, that's what Isaiah said. I mean, we're this is this is that on steroids. This is that on a fundamental level.
Well, John, let's take a quick break. In the next segment, you have an interview with Robbie George about Fidelity Month.
So we'll be right back with that on Breakpoint this week. Across the country, Christians are asking how to respond to growing confusion about identity, truth, and what it means to be human. That's why the Colson Center created Truth Rising the Study, a resource designed to help believers engage these difficult conversations with clarity, confidence, and courage. Recently, John Stone Street sat down with D-Transitioner Chloe Cole to discuss why this message matters so deeply today. What would you hope and pray for the Truth Rising Project to accomplish?
I want this to reach the hearts. and in minds and frankly souls. of many people, as many as possible, because The message of not just my story, but of this project, needs to go far and wide. People need to know how to engage on these issues and the personal stories of them and the importance of doing so. What happened to me is something that is in some way affecting Almost everybody in this country.
Not only have I and my family been through what we experienced, but over the last four years, I have been to countless churches, communities, colleges. different legislatures and I've been to almost all 50 states. I've been to 49 states as part of my activism and even to, I think it's been four countries now that I've been to abroad. every single place I have gone to.
Somebody has been affected by this in some way. Stories like Chloe's remind us why this work is so urgent. Truthrising the Study is helping equip facilitators to lead conversations in homes, churches, and small groups across the country. And just $200 trains and supports one Truthrising facilitator to help reach even more people with truth and hope. As we approach our fiscal year end on June 30th, your support helps keep this work going and expanding to the next generation.
Give today to help meet our June 30th fiscal year and goal of raising $1 million and be part of shaping the next decade of impact. Just go to colsoncenter.org/slash June. That's colsoncenter.org/slash June. Professor George, it's great to be here in your neck of the woods, Princeton University. I joked earlier, I feel smarter just being in this room, but it's an honor.
Thanks for taking time.
Well, it's my very great pleasure, and what a joy it is to have you right here with us at the Witherspoon Institute in Princeton.
Well, it's just incredible work that is going on here. But really, we're here to talk about Fidelity Month, and it's such an interesting year. It seems for a couple of reasons. One is There's momentum. There's momentum for Fidelity Month.
There's more people that are recognizing it. There's more churches that are doing things to participate. There's. States and cities and municipalities that are when Where did this idea come from? Oh, well, this goes back to the spring of 2023.
I got up one morning and was having my cup of tea and my three biscotti. That's my breakfast. That's where the best ideas come from. Yeah, there it is. And I was looking at the Wall Street Journal.
I think the website. And uh I saw a story about some polling data. data that had been compiled over many years now. About what Americans value, what Americans think is important. and alarmingly, The data showed that The belief of Americans in the importance of some of the traditional values that had.
been our sources of unity and strength as a people. had diminished, diminished very significantly. right down in a line like that. The belief in the importance of religion. believed in the importance of fidelity in marriage.
Belief in the importance of patriotism, love of country, Those were way down. The only thing that uh Americans a belief in the importance of went up with respect to was money. More Americans think that having a lot of money is more important.
Now, I want to be clear. I want everybody to have a nice life, materially speaking. I want everyone to be prosperous. I want people to be able to take care of themselves and their families and have a few luxuries. But, gosh, I mean, Jesus kind of warned against the love of money, right?
I mean, it was pretty explicit.
So, yeah, the love of money should not be on the same scale as love of God. love of your spouse and your children. love of our of our country.
So I said to myself, who haven't. what are we going to do about this? And then it dawned on me, well, you know, we We have a day for this, and a week for that, and a month for the other thing. Why don't we take some period of time, let's say a month? And encourage our fellow citizens, our fellow Americans, to rededicate themselves.
Through the basic principle of fidelity, fidelity to God. Fidelity to our spouses and to our families. fidelity to our country and to our communities because after all John these have been historically our sources of unity and strength. We don't have a lot of other sources of Unity Inspect in the United States. We are a people that uh is not founded on a common race.
or common religion. common ethnicity, common cultural heritage. We're black and white and Latino and Asian. Our ancestors from Croatia come from Croatia and Japan and Armenia and Indonesia and all over the world. Oh, we are Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu.
uh we're a very diverse country.
So what binds us together? What provides unity and strength, especially when times are tough and We need to face some challenges.
Well, historically it's been number one, our shared commitment across religious lines, across racial, ethnic lines and so forth, to our country's founding principles, the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But not those alone, John. We've also shared across the religious traditions, across the races and ethnicities. Love of God? a sense of the importance of fidelity to God.
The importance of marriage and Family. Americans have always considered that to be important. That's not a distinctively Christian thing. Jewish people, people from other traditions of faith, also. value fidelity in marriage and love of your family, your kids.
And same with love of country. If we look at the great wars we've fought, look for example at the First and Second War, was shed by Pe people who are black and people who are white, right? People who are Asian. Native American Indian, Latino, People whose ancestors came from Germany, people whose ancestors came from Ireland, people whose ancestors came from India, people whose ancestors came from. elsewhere in Asia.
So Yeah, across all these divisions, love of country has been a common. Value. part of our strength, part of our unity.
So that's why I think taking some time Let's say a month. to remind ourselves of the importance of fidelity, is very much in our interest as a people. I think it's been such a great example of something that was important to Chuck Colson, that we not just curse the darkness, but we light a candle. We could for that, that's for sure.
Well, and highlight those things which are good, but at the same time, Those are contested principles, right? That our country is a good force, something to be proud of and not something to be ashamed of. That family is something that is fixed and secure, a given, defined, as opposed to. You know, love makes a family, or the kind of the idea of family is a social construct that can constantly be made. and remade and then of course even you know whether Christianity or the belief in God in general has been good or bad.
I mean, we just came out of the realm of the new atheism, you know, a generation ago, which told us that, you know, God's a delusion and religion poisons everything.
So, in a sense, Even though you're highlighting Infidelity Month. Things that we should care about and be faithful to. You're kind of going to war, in a sense, against these other ideas that have quite a hearing.
Well, it's interesting you bring up the new atheism. The new atheisms, the new atheism, so-called new atheism, seems rather old these days. It does, doesn't it? Yeah, some of those guys are changing their tune a little bit.
Well, that's true. Even my dear old friend, and he is my old friend, Richard Dawkins, with whom I was in a senior common room in Oxford when I was a young lecturer, and he was a professor, just about to become a professor at Oxford University.
So we go back a long way together. Professor Dawkins now has taken to calling himself a cultural Christian. Fascination. He understands and is willing to admit that many of the things that he himself believes in. Things that he regards as important values, values that we need to preserve and protect, are the heritage of.
Christianity. Yeah, so Things have changed. Times are changing. They are. Do you sense some of that?
I mean, it's one of those things. I think we should always defend these. First principles. We should always care about them. We should be faithful to them.
We should call people to be faithful to them. But there does seem to be a little momentum here, away from maybe some of the. Um I don't know, the the woke ideas or the other ideas which Saw all of these principles of faithfulness to God and family and country as being something negative. Yeah, that's right. Uh and we see it with Fidelity Month.
So the movement is growing. It's a grassroots movement, John. As you know, it's not a top-down movement. I happen to be the founder, but I'm not the president. We have no organization.
We have no budget. We don't raise money. This is not a fundraising appeal to anybody. We're asking people at the grassroots to build this movement. And now we're seeing that it's getting recognition, as you mentioned a moment ago, from not only from clergy across the religious denominations, but also from political leaders.
We're very pleased this year that Governor Spencer Cox in Utah and Governor Sanders, Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansas have issued proclamations recognizing Fidelity Month in their states. The Michigan House of Representatives has passed a resolution recognizing Fidelity Month in Michigan. Lower level officials around the country are showing an interest in doing the same thing.
So our movement, thank God. Is growing without anybody putting money into it, without there being formal leaders or a leadership structure or an administration or a bureaucracy of any kind. It's a movement that's coming. From People themselves from ordinary Americans who want to do something. And if you want to join them, John, anybody who wants to join us in the fidelity movement.
All you have to do is go to our website. FidelityMonths.com. And there you'll find a menu of ways that You can help. I'm thrilled to be sitting down today with Professor Robert George, the one and only incredible influence nationally in conservative and Christian thought, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, the founder of the Witherspoon Institute, and the James Madison Program at Princeton University. Dr.
George, it's great to be with you. What a joy to be with you. Thank you, John. For 250 years, America has been a bastion of freedom. And as we look ahead to the next 250, we're reminded that freedom is ours to defend.
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Every dollar you give will be doubled thanks to a special matching grant while funds last. Join adf.com slash breakpoint or text breakpoint to 83848 to give today. That's joinadf.com slash breakpoint or text breakpoint to 83848. Um Okay, we're back on Breakpoint this week. John, in the first segment, we talked a little bit about gene editing technology.
And I think this is related. There was a big story this week of a YouTuber I had not heard of, but pretty famous guy, apparently. who has posted about this journey of he and his wife's pregnancy. They discovered that their baby had a Down syndrome diagnosis and he of course announced to the world then that they planned to terminate this pregnancy. There's so much here.
I mean, we could talk about just kind of the sickness of This YouTube influencer culture where you are posting parts of your life and Um you know, interacting with it in a way that's unprecedented and dramatically unhealthy. But also the fact that upwards of 80% of babies, this is the estimate now, in the United States who receive a Down syndrome diagnosis, which by the way are not 100% accurate. The diagnoses can never be 100% accurate. Upwards of 80% of babies who receive that diagnosis are then killed. And we know of other nations in the world, I think Iceland, where there's almost zero babies born with Down syndrome anymore.
This is a really, really tragic story. And I think a Evidence of a much larger cultural problem as well. Yeah, there's a lot, a lot here. I'm always surprised by how many YouTube influencers I'm supposed to know and don't know. This would be.
Another one, but it's it's it This happens. thousands and thousands and thousands of times a day. Why this person thought it necessary to post on social media. This action? The response was pretty fascinating.
There was a moral outrage from some, probably more than. We would expect, and you're like, oh, well, oh, oh, are we agreeing on this? That this is wrong? And then others were like, you should have some sympathy. He just lost his child.
No, he didn't. He didn't just lose his child. He took his child's life. That's a different. thing altogether and we cannot conflate those th tho those two things.
But the outrage was interesting because I have heard on more than one occasion, my wife and I did not have this experience. But I the narrative right now is. For every couple. That receives a similar diagnosis that their unborn child is going to have some sort of disability, which, as you put it earlier, and exactly right, is predictive. We don't always know that it's accurate.
A lot of times, it's not accurate. I mean, how many stories you hear saying, oh, your child's going to be permanently disabled in this way or that way, and it turns out to be completely not true. It doesn't change the value of the child that is given at all, but just we're not 100% on this. And That now the couple has the responsibility to defend their child. to a medical establishment pushing them.
to have an abortion. that this is the right thing to do. This does connect very much when you put all this together to the story that we talked about. in the first segment because It's one thing to have a technology, it's another thing. to have a technology in a particular context, right?
It's one thing, for example, to discover the power of nuclear uh explosions. And be able to harness that. In a peace time, right? When no one has any enemies, right? Like, if that had happened in the 90s, it had been a very different experience than happening.
you know, when it did in in in in the 40s. The context matters. The context of our own moral character as a collective people matter.
So a more precise way to edit Genetics in a context in which medical professionals push couples to terminate the life of their child based on their own confident diagnosis, which we know is not always accurate. You see what I mean? This is the embodiment of what Peter Kraft wrote when he said, hey, just about the time that our. Sticks and stones, you know, and bows and arrows became thermonuclear bombs. We became morally, well, he's called it, he said, moral infants.
In other words, we don't have an ethical framing about our incredible capacity to know these things and to look inside the womb and to do these kinds of things in the making of life as well as the taking of life, which is why these two categories are blurring.
So look, I didn't want to do a segment just outrage at this YouTuber, although I think it's like you do have to ask, like, you made a decision. Why post it on YouTube? You know, and then claim, oh, it's incredibly personal. How can you condemn me? You're the one that put it on YouTube, dude.
Right? Like, that to me is just dumb and infuriating, and a mark of our perpetual adolescence. as a culture But listen, we have medical professionals pushing this. day in and day out. And we have couples making this decision by the thousands.
To your point. Listen, we're approaching 80%. of children who are diagnosed. With having potentially having Down syndrome, uh, being aborted. We're behind the curve when it comes to Europe.
Most countries around the world uh are are are are pushing ninety or or or more.
So, yeah, this is why some of the alarm that we expressed. in the first segment about being able to be more precise in our gene editing. It was just we've proved ourselves to be moral infants. I think we need to remember, too, that the ideal scenario in this kind of situation is not A doctor coming to a couple and saying, Here's the diagnosis we believe your baby has. What would you like to do?
And the couple says, We would like to welcome this child. That is far better than what is happening in this situation, but that's still not the ideal situation because asking the question, What would you like to do? As if having this information, then you have now you've got to decide. It's up to you to decide what's worth doing. We talk about this same principle.
With so-called assistance in dying and euthanasia, right? Which is it introduces, it implies a level of control that you're supposed to take then because of whatever technology is available to you or because of whichever direction the culture is moving. And now it puts this control supposedly in your lap. That's the problem. The ideal scenario here is that a doctor says, I mean, honestly, I could see this happening.
A doctor says, Congratulations, we found out something beautiful about your baby, and now you get to know it early before the baby's born. I don't know if you saw this floating around. I can't really, in good faith, recommend the comedian Shane Gillis. But there is a clip of one of his stand-up specials where he talks about his uncle who has Down syndrome. And he's like, you know, people.
People talk about babies with Down syndrome or whatever, like it's this horrible thing and it's the scary diagnosis. And he's like. Have you ever met a person with, like these are the, some of the happiest people you will ever meet in the world. The idea that they shouldn't be here is one of the strangest. And it's a really sweet kind of challenging of that premise.
But I really do think that the bigger problem here is not that people are making the wrong decision. It's that we've decided this is a decision that's up to us in the first place. Yeah. And of course, you know, there are many diagnoses that come that are. really, really hard and and and are you know, you're dealing with something, you know, not just I agree.
We're not gonna be down central. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And families universally talk about what joy Someone with Down syndrome brings to their families, which is really wonderful. And there are others. And of course Whether they bring happiness or bring joy, or whether it's hard or easy, that doesn't change their value.
The value is inherent. The value is based on who they are. That's exactly right.
Well, John, I want to talk about something else this week. Gosh, there was an ad at HelloFresh. You know, this food delivery service, they bring the meal kit to your house and then you still have to cook it, but you paid them for it. I feel like we just should preempt this by going, this is awful. Like, this segment, by the way, we should have preempted this segment.
But we're going to end with some good news, so hold tight. But. I don't even know how we're going to describe this ad. I was just going to try to turn it over to because I really don't want to describe it. HelloFresh made an ad for Pride Month.
That was a An allusion to homosexual activity. Should I just say that? Yeah, that's about as good as you. I mean, look, it's bad. I'm just going to tell everyone it was vile, it was vulgar.
And the Coupon code or the discount code that was included with it was also. sexually suggestive. Are homosexually suggestive. I don't even know what else to say. It was just.
Remarkable. It was remarkable in that it kind of seemed to me. where there was a wink and a nod several decades ago around pride celebrations where within the community there was a, hey, we need to tone it all down.
Now that didn't always happen at Parades and in the last several years, when the T has taken over the acronym, we've had some very suggestive. Performances from drag queens as part of pride celebrations. in front of children and suddenly it plays by different rule. I g I I have to Veer around the parade every June. I think it's this weekend here in Colorado Springs.
And I always try to stop and ask the cops: hey, would you please make sure that no kids are sexually exploited on the way? doing these things because that's the way these celebrations have gone. But this goes back to A book called After the Ball years and years ago, 85, I think 86, something like that, when it was written. Basically saying, look, we got to tone it down. People do not want to see this.
If we want to be normal, considered normal, we need to start behaving like we're normal. And then you had the shift, right? You had the kind of from the flamboyant characters on television to Will and Grace, where Will was basically, you know, the calm, rational, you know, advice giver to grace and so on. And then that kind of set. And then you had kind of tongue-in-cheek references, but nothing like this.
We've talked about the pear down of Corporations getting behind this. HelloFresh has decided basically to do the pride version of Shout Your Abortion. That's what this is. This is no longer a for them, this company. A, hey, we're going to wink and nod, and we're going to, you know, thank you for your diversity.
And what did President Biden say a couple of years ago? You know, Great contribution to America. We have a cultural corridor in Colorado Springs that is. Either supposed to be, depending on who you talk to, and I've gotten both versions from public officials. About groups that have been oppressed on one hand, or groups that have contributed greatly to the city, on the other hand.
And so, you know, that's the narrative. But this is different. This is like. You remember when it was like we talked about this? It went from being safe, legal, and rare to shout your abortion.
and have a dance party about this, you know, in in the New York state Senate. When they pass a particular this is kind of like that, right? Many companies are backing off, muting that maybe they have a pride flag that you can find in a particular part of the clothing section or something like that. And maybe that's what made this so loud is that in the middle of this muted thing. Hello Fresh just says, hold my beer.
We are all in. And we're not only all in on celebrating pride, we are going to. Make really perverted. Jokes in our advertisement. It was, it's an, it's a, it's a statement.
And I don't usually call for boycotts, but Man. It just has the feel, once again, of Embracing transgression. Like to be cool. It's like a Teenager smoking a cigarette. You know what I mean?
Like you just, you're, you know, you're doing it because. You're trying to be shocking. That's the thing you're doing, as opposed to having a real opinion or real care about something. It's just embracing degradation, which is, yeah, I don't know. Or desecration, if we're going to call it.
Yeah, and I I think he's put his finger on it, right? That that that's really Embrace the transgression. Shout your abortion. Celebrate not just pride, but celebrate the sexual act. Make anyone who would object to this.
have to defend themselves. Like, why are you such a prude? We're just out here a simple old food company making this jo I mean Yeah. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see. What happens here?
I can't imagine. I mean, you remember when it was revealed if you dug around on the target. Website that you found chest binders and things like. transgender items for children, swimsuits, and so on. And there was a big backlash, and they lost a lot of money, or when Bud Light decided.
South Georgia. gentlemen are are going to want to See from a drag. Queen, uh, an advertisement for their beer. It'll be interesting to see. I mean, I know that there were a number of people that immediately posted how they're done.
You know, that, that, that. That's a that's a a step too far and they canceled their HelloFresh services. A couple years ago, you and I talked about Bethany Christian services and They were under pressure to allow same-sex couples to adopt through their agency because the state, it was either the state of Pennsylvania or the city of Philadelphia. Was going to de-license them, basically, not allow them to operate if they didn't. And they changed their statement of faith a little bit to allow that.
So they began to allow adoptions by same-sex couples. They've changed course. They recently released a new kind of edited statement of faith, and they've announced now that they will stop. awarding adoptions to same sex couples. This is good news, John.
Yeah. And it wasn't just that. They shored up the clarity on not only what their Christian commitment is, but what their Christian commitment means in terms of how they live. Several years ago, the reason that Bethany Christian Services gave was to comply with the decisions of the state. You might remember there was a Catholic group in this, also in the state of Michigan, where a lot of this started, who said.
We're not going to, and they won. And it there was a lesson there about prematurely conceding defeat. uh to to the other side on some of these really important issues. And I I think that This is such good news. First of all, adoption.
is as close as we get to behaving. like Jesus. This is Paul talks about other than the the the motif of Husband and wife. And a bride. God's relationship with his children is described in terms of adoption.
And This is unusual in the history of the world, this kind of push that Christians have made. to lead out on this and it's really really wonderful. D does there need to be more, you betcha. But it's really, really wonderful. And to compromise that, I think, was really a shame.
To see restoration like this, to say that we don't have to stop doing the good work that we're doing. in order to Uh, accommodate, we don't have to, you know, accommodate our beliefs in order to keep doing the good work we're doing. I, this choice that Christians have been. And of course, forced with Between truth and love, and so on, and how that has played itself out to reject that choice. and to say we can do both and we will do both and we'll show you that we'll do both.
Man, I am I am so happy about this. Bethany. has done incredible work for so long. I think their supporters should get behind them on this. and express such Thankfulness.
And gratitude to the leadership for what the leadership here has. set forth. This has to do, I think, with Some decisions made by the board and the executive leadership.
So thank you for this and man. Two thumbs up. And keep doing their good work. And I think people should reward them for this faithfulness and this return to faithfulness because it's not a small thing. It's a big thing.
And you know what? I I think Bethany probably knows it some degree. that this puts a target on them. Right? There is a there is a way in which There's been a kind of the lost power to do what I'm about to say.
But when Colorado approved same sex marriage here, one of the social activists Who had really helped orchestrate all this? Famous. Say uh hom homosexual uh Activist. was asked, What do you do now? And his response, I think it was in the Washington Post and New York Times.
His response was We punish the wicked. In other words, we punish those who will not comply. And then, of course, we got Jack Phillips and we got. uh Laurie Smith and we got Baronel Stutsman and so on and so on.
So to kind of capitulate and then change means there's a target.
So let's support the heck out of them in order to help them with that. I mean, look, a lot of the bite of that kind of warning. We will punish the wicked has kind of been mitigated. Thank thank the Lord from strong work from Religious liberty advocates and groups like First Liberty and ADF and others who have. you know, kind of clarified the rights of conscience.
in in in powerful ways. It's a big difference. When you're in a state like Colorado or Michigan or you're in a state like Kansas. you know, or Alabama. Very, very different.
The social cost is big too, and that remains as well.
Well, John, let's talk about some questions that we've gotten from listeners. Thank you for sending those in, by the way. We had a commentary from Kathy Cook a couple of days ago about her new book, Helping Parents Resolve Conflict with Their Adult Children. And so we invited her to share a short commentary on Breakpoint. We had a couple questions come in from that.
Some of them kind of asking why it seemed like Dr. Cook was. Speaking mostly to parents about what they can do to try and repair relationships with their adult children and how they. You know, can be humble in doing so. And they were hoping that there would be more emphasis on the responsibility of children or adult children to their parents.
And I think one of the notable things in Dr. Cook's analysis was she said something like, you know, when you're a grandparent, for example, you need to earn the right to be involved in your in your grandchildren's lives. And you need to you know I think she was speaking against people who might demand access or demand some certain influence over their grandparents' lives. but we got a couple questions back saying this is really the problem is that Adult children will say things like, unless you jump through X, Y, and Z hoop, then you can't be involved. in my life or in my kids' lives?
And what do you do when those requirements are really inappropriate and and wrong. This is a hard question. It's a hard question. And I think that to Dr. Cook's defense.
Her book's fantastic. You should buy it. And people have been asking for it for a decade or more since. Even before you and I, you know, have talked about kind of the toxic label that gets thrown around in this context and the freeze. She has spent so many years ministering to young adults and teens.
I feel like she has the authority to speak on what they're looking for and what, you know, the kind of culture they're swimming in.
Well, I don't think anyone was saying. I don't think she was saying. I don't think she would say. I don't want to put words in her mouth that, you know, it's all the parents' fault and all that sort of stuff. But people have been asking.
How do I you know um Get back in. in in a relationship with a kid who's canceled me and here she gives advice and The advice isn't like, oh, we're in a cultural moment. that you know Feeds this stuff.
So wait until the cultural moment changes. I mean, look, like it or not, this is the reality of what we're in. And you can decide that it's all their fault, and there's nothing that I'm going to do, or you can actually decide: oh, I'm going to do everything that I can. because of of my responsibility.
So I always, you know, I guess at some level I'm sympathetic because I hear this all the time from a breakpoint commentary. Why didn't you say this, this, this, this, this?
Well, I didn't say it because I only have 750 words to say whatever it is that I want to say. And this needed to be said. Oh, and by the way, for 10 years, we've been talking about. This other reality, you know, that, you know, children, we're in a cultural moment in which people are being canceled, and that's not right. And that's a way that the family is being undermined.
That's a way that we're antinatalists. That's a way that we're, you know, gentle parenting or whatever. I mean, we've talked about all those things. I just, I get it. It's not fair.
It's wrong. There have been some ideological differences. A lot of it has to do. with these trends that we're seeing. of where young women are going versus young men and where young women are going versus their parents.
So all this has to be the the the the case. I I think that one of the things we have to decide is which hill are we going to die on. Right now, there are some that doesn't mean you compromise your beliefs, but Some of this division has happened because people have put their political beliefs. at the same level as their Christian beliefs. in other words, the support of Trump, being the same as believing that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.
Those aren't the same beliefs, right? And as a grandparent, should you be willing to compromise maybe your political beliefs in order? Yeah, or at least keep quiet about them because maybe that isn't what's important. You know, or as is important, but you know, what. Whether your grandson is a grandson or a granddaughter, like that's a big belief.
That's something that you can hold. And making that sort of distinction is going to be required of us in this cultural moment. It doesn't mean the cultural moment's right. The cultural moment's terrible when it comes to family relationships. There's all kinds of ways in which the family is being disrupted.
This is one of them. The question is, is how do we live redemptively in it? And I think she has some wonderful advice. in that book. I don't think she was saying that it's all the parents' fault.
But let's also remember one more thing. No one's perfect.
So the parents aren't fully perfect any more than the kids are fully perfect who are now the parents. And everyone's fallen. And you know what? The conflict between grandparents. And parents go back.
You know, the conflict between son-in-laws and mother-in-laws and. And mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws. I mean, this is all well-documented stuff. They make movies about this sort of stuff. My parents give the kind of food to my kids that I was never allowed to have when I was a kid.
And that's great offense at this. Yeah, that's always been a source of conflict. Usually not. It's not cancelable. I don't think it was canceled, but maybe, maybe it is now in our highly cancelable culture.
But but but I I guess at some level what I'm trying to say here is Be willing to look at yourself, right? Just because Dr. Cook didn't say everything. Doesn't mean that what she has to say isn't really helpful and important. And we're all in the same boat trying to deal with this.
I'm grateful. For the in-laws that I have, I'm grateful for the parents that I have. They don't do that kind of stuff to me. And we have a good relationship. We don't do that kind of stuff to them.
And it's wonderful to have them in. my kid's life. But I know a lot of people are dealing with this. It is a cultural reality. I'll just say to people, it's definitely a big cultural reality for people my age.
I feel like this is this trend largely in my age group of people my age saying, My parents are not allowed to visit my kids, or I don't talk to my parents anymore, I've chosen whatever. And All I want to reintroduce into the conversation is like what we were saying before when we were talking about getting a diagnosis of a prenatal diagnosis and then the supposition being now you need to decide what you want to do. It's We're looking at this the wrong way if you're looking at your own family, especially your parents who the Bible specifically tells you to honor, and you're saying, Do I like them enough to allow them to be in my life? That's not a question we were meant to ask.
Now everybody, because we're all human beings and we're fallen, you have to decide how to interact with people, what's safe, what kind of boundaries you want to put in place. All of that is obviously real. But You do. Owe your parents and your grandparents and the grandparents of your children honor and respect. What that looks like in your life might be different.
But if the first question you're asking is, do I like them? And do they only make me happy? And do they only make me feel affirmed? And otherwise, I've got to decide whether I'll talk to them or not. This is not the right framing.
I don't think any Christian can really rightly look at it in that way, those start. No, I agree completely. And you know what? That book needs to be written, you know? Uh which is How adult children get it wrong.
That wasn't this book. The book was how you can maintain a relationship or restore a relationship with your adult children. It was. It was written to a genera to the other generations. That's helpful.
All right, well that's going to do it for our show this week. Thank you so much for listening to Breakpoint This Week. Thank you especially to Professor Robbie George for our segment on Fidelity Month. From the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer, alongside John Stone Street. Wishing you all a great week.
We'll see you all back here next time. God bless.
