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 the massive flooding in China, the death of Dolly Parton, and ongoing conflict over the transgender movement here at home. 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, you and I are recording this on Thursday this week, and we always have a chat before we record. You know, we talk throughout the week about what stories we should cover, and you and I both. There's not a lot of worldview analysis here, but we've both been just utterly shocked, jaws on the floor, at this footage coming out of Nepal.
on the border with China, there was a dam that broke yesterday. and just a total tidal wave of water. that has now flooded. multiple communities, And you know, so far, they're saying hundreds of people dead. I have a feeling that number will climb.
But this footage is just shocking. Yeah, it's it's overwhelming. It it the thing the only thing that I've seen that's comparable in terms of a natural disaster is some of the footage and we didn't have that much back then of the large tsunami. That hit so many places there in Asia and so on. Was that 2004 for some reason?
I'm thinking that's. That's 2000 and that's what's ringing a bell. It could be it could be really those are early aughts, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So I I think that's when it was. But i it's like a movie footage is what it looks like. I mean, you know, you kind of think of a movie like The Day After Tomorrow, which was supposed to You know, describe or portray Al Gore's vision for climate change. And there's this big tidal wave that rushes through New York City. You're just kind of like, oh, they overdid that one.
You know, that's not believable. And then you see this actual footage from Nepal, and it looks like that. I mean, it's just. Absolutely stunning. It is awful early to know and to pretend like we can always have a.
a cause and there's something we could have done. I think it is the impulse that oftentimes is misguided in situations like this. We don't know. There's people quickly leveling blame on various climate theories or whatever else. But the awful thing about it is just the absolute destruction, and of course, above all, the loss of life.
Lots of prayers. We know what'll happen. There'll be a lot of organizations and volunteers that are shaped by a Christian understanding of the human person and a lot of Christian groups. That show up to try to bring some sort of relief. They're there.
typically earlier than anyone else and they need a lot of Prayer for their own sanity and energy and everything else, but. Just overwhelming to watch. I mean, I have no explanation for this either, and I don't mean to suggest I have a spiritual explanation for it. any more than any other kind, but it This footage, you know. We are living in God's world and We are here at his great mercy.
And that these kinds of Images just remind me of that. But there was another loss of life this week here in America. We lost Dolly Parton and. You know, I was never a huge Dolly Parton fan. I mean, I liked her as a person.
She seemed to be. Are you allowed to say that right now? I feel like right now you're not allowed to say that right now. I guess what I mean by that is it came out wrong. I don't mean to say I didn't like her.
I mean to say I don't know that much about her, to be fair. I was aware of her imagination library because we took advantage of that at our pregnancy center that I worked at, which was that she. spearheaded this incredibly logistically challenging operation of getting free books to literally any parent who wanted it and to communities and schools and incredible efforts there. And she did a lot of things like that. She passed away this week at the age of 80.
And I think what's been remarkable for me in the wake of her death is. The reactions to it, because I think the Babylon Bee made a joke about it, saying something like, The last. you know, beloved on all sides of every political spectrum you can imagine. person has passed away. And that's remarkable.
It's remarkable. It didn't keep all sides from claiming her as their own either. You had various groups quickly claiming her. I am very familiar with Dolly Pardon, both in terms of my. upbringing watching the show He-Haul.
uh which was a very popular television show back in the day that uh uh that that uh was a favorite of my father's. Also, living not far from where she's from. The number of times I've heard Sevierville's name be mispronounced this week is pretty astonishing, but. The East Tennessee world, you know, over there by Pigeon Forge and where Dollywood is. I mean, that was not that far from where.
I went to college and where I lived after college for in the early years of our marriage and so on. But she was a larger-than-life figure, not only there, but everywhere else. I said this on the world and everything in it. Look, I didn't agree with everything that she was willing to celebrate or to recognize. There's a lot of celebrities that you say, I wish they.
You know, would be more outspoken on this or that or the other. A lot of conservatives, for example, making a big deal about her stance on vaccines or anything else. But I I'd tell you the thing that I think is A testimony, and maybe is what's behind the spirit of that Babylon B headline you mentioned. Is just how much of Dolly Parton's life was non-political. And not only that, but.
How much of life that she celebrated that was non-political, and it was weird almost. It was like a throwback at a time where so much life. Of our life, of our life together, is political. We've talked about the fact that politics just isn't big enough. To hold up that much, and we have put too many eggs in that basket to mix our metaphors here.
And hers is just kind of a throwback, an example, a remembrance. I think that there's part of kind of the small town vibe and the small town life that she brings. But even beyond that, given her larger-than-life celebrity status, there was just this. This sense that there's just a whole lot more that we should think about, we should care about, we should concern ourselves with, that we should have fun with, that we should love. Then that's not political at all.
And you know, America's robustness. has always been how much of life and our life together was pre-political. And there's a sense in which her career. And her celebrity status exemplified that.
So I appreciate that. I, I, you know. Since I mentioned that on the world and everything in it and culture and the culture Friday recording, which I did a day or so ago. Uh you know, you you see more and more clips of her saying this or that or the other and people, you know, saying, Well, I didn't agree with this and all that. And and I get all that, but you know, this this need to separate ourselves from from everything.
And and also, I think There's been an appropriate warning like no no one should be holding her up as a theological uh you know source of accurate you know whatever you know, Christianity. That that that's not it either. There was clearly an element of faith to her. There was clearly an element of of of celebrity uh that that's bigger than anything else to to her story. It went on for a really long time.
It transcended. She had a really good time celebrating others. I did appreciate that. She was very. Very quick to celebrate others and to do it in a way, I think, that.
again, showed that our loyalty should be first and foremost to people. uh you know beyond anything else so there was a lot to appreciate and man I guess I've been a little surprised. Have you about How beloved she still Mino remained after all those years. Yeah, I suppose so. I mean, it's hard not to be cynical about it.
I think people. The reason it's so remarkable that she was pre-political and she achieved at least the level of that that she did is because she was in the public eye. Because once a person reaches that level of notoriety, There are so every individual person who ever interacts with that name has some kind of expectations that they bring to it. And that the pressure of that is has got to be enormous. And then we put expectations on people to have something to say about everything once they're in the public eye, that we think they should have a stance on everything that matters to us and it should be their right stance and whatever.
And somehow she managed to- They have to bat a thousand with those stances, right? You can't get one of them wrong. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, the fact that she rose above that. I think she was probably a symbol of an era for a lot of people, too.
And that means something to a lot of people, which is great. But I love what you said about her celebrating others. What a mark of. confidence in anybody to have to have that said of them. Man, I aspire to that because especially somebody who's achieved fame and achieved so much, it's very easy, according to all the other folks that we watch go through such a thing to start to trust your own power, I guess.
And yeah, to be someone who celebrates others is something we should aspire to for sure. Yeah. And not that you overlook certainly where anybody else comes from, you know, if they're celebrating sin or something like that. I don't think that that's what we're saying at all. I'm not, that's definitely what I'm not saying.
I know you're not either. But it's just so applicable no matter where you're at. I mean one of the The leaders I respect the most was the founder, is the founder of the Alliance Defending Freedom, Alan Sears. You know, one of the corporate and personal and leadership values that he talks all the time. If you've been around him, you know, more than a couple.
At times you'll hear him talk about how important it is to him to make stars of others, and that's what you want to do. I don't know if you ever played the game like, okay, which Which song? Was redone better than the original. Have you ever done that? Oh, yeah.
That's constant argument. Yeah. And without question, probably the most prominent example is Whitney Houston's cover of Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You, right? I mean, it's the most obvious.
Well, there are a couple versions of Jolene. Jolene's such a great song. I don't know that anyone's topped her version of Jolene. I don't think they've topped it. Maybe because.
That's because you're a millennial. But no, I mean, it's funny that we're having this conversation, but she did so celebrate Whitney Houston at the time, which was really a wonderful thing to do. And kind of in an unthreatening way. But to your point, I think. When you talked about an era past, or I forget how you put it, but She she established that lane decades ago.
And so it's almost like you're looking at it now going, that's weird. Why would somebody do that? But she did it. And maybe there's something that we can learn there without making her a saint, she wasn't, without kind of elevating. This isn't a statement of.
You know, her Christian commitment. I don't have any knowledge of that other than she was quick to sing hymns and things like that as well. But it is interesting to see when a death hits this hard, it tells you a lot about the life.
So it's an interesting thing to look at. You know what else I think stands out about her? Vibe. Is her cheerfulness. And I don't mean that as a light word.
Like that is a, I mean that with incredibly deep respect because I am not naturally a cheerful person.
Now that might surprise you, John, but she just exuded that, right? She didn't, she didn't complain. She wasn't like, I feel like. It's a big trend now in our among our pop stars and TV stars that everybody's beefing with somebody. And it almost feels like you're supposed to be that way.
Like all of my Ariana Grande's songs are her somehow sticking it to somebody who said she'd never amount to anything. You know what I mean? Like that's the vibe. And To have someone be really beloved and famous who was just happy. My husband always tells our girls that they're There's two superpowers in life.
One of them is self-control. And the other one is truly caring about something.
So three, sorry, self-control, truly caring about things. And number three is cheer being cheery. Being cheerful. Just choosing to be joyful and cheerful. And I think.
When you see it, it sounds like a light thing. Or somewhat frivolous, but when you see a life lived in cheerfulness, like it seems like she did. You can see the impact it made on people, especially in a cynical time. I think we're telling my kids they have a really cushy life and they should be grateful, but. How'd that work?
You know, sometimes. All right.
Well, let's talk about another story this week.
So, the log cabin Republicans, John, this is a group of, this goes back to the early aughts, I think. This is a group of Republican thinkers and writers who have long been advocates for so-called LGBT rights, right?
So they back in 08, you know, they were advocating for. The legalization of a concept called same-sex marriage, but they maintained their Republican bona fides kind of more in an economic, free market, small government kind of way. And they're still on the scene. And this week, the head of the Law Cabinet Republicans wrote an op-ed in town hall saying. They've officially, you know, as an organization, they're cutting ties with.
Transgender advocacy. And there's a couple really monumental quotes in here of things that you have talked about before. that basically the T in the LGBT acronym has overplayed its hand. And that this was inevitably going to happen. The main argument from Ross Hemminger, who's the head of Law Cabin Republicans, was that transgender advocacy is no longer about human rights for adults, which is how he couched his.
Um Same sex marriage advocacy, but has become about children. He says the transgender movement has ceased focusing on adults at all. Nearly all of their efforts and those of their aligned special interest groups focus on minors. They're pushing schools to teach radical gender ideology. They want men and women's sports regardless of the consequences.
Perhaps most offensively, they support gender reassignment treatments for minors, often without the knowledge or consent of the parents, knowing full well these treatments are Mostly irreversible. Here's the part of his op-ed that really stuck out to me. We've come a long way from the founding of our organization. We fought for the right to legally marry who we love, to serve our country and our communities openly and proudly.
So they were kind of founded during the Don't Ask, Don't Tell era. and to enjoy the same inalienable rights afforded to all law abiding Americans, and we succeeded.
However, The new era of gender identity politics is not the movement we supported and fought for. Gay men and women are losing support across the country. Support for gay marriage and other once widely accepted rights is eroding. Why? Because many voters today were not cognizant of the politics of gay marriage winding its way through the courts, and their view of the gay community is based on today's radical trans activists with their unnecessary and discomfiting focus on America's youth.
There is a lot to say wow about. I have kind of mixed feelings on this. I mean, from the very beginning, it seemed to me that there was an ideological misalignment between the L and the G and the T. And that just had to do with the popular slogan, right? I mean, same-sex marriage and the LGNB rights.
all progressed Along this mantra of born this way, born this way, born this way, I can't change. Transgender ideology fundamentally, you know, started with I was born the wrong way and I must change.
Now, unless you turn that completely Gnostic, which of course the T had to do. That who I really am is what I feel and not all the ways that I was physically in real life born. But it was inconsistent, right? It was inconsistent.
Now, part of that was based on a myth as well, which is that there was a gay gene or there was something that would come out of scientific study of twins or something else that would demonstrate some sort of born this way reality, which was never the case. Never have we found a gay gene. Never have we found compelling evidence from twin studies or something like that that justifies this category of sexual orientation that was invented, you know, just about 10 years prior to the T was added to the acronym. It was never there. If you go back to the kind of definitive work on how to advance gay rights, it was a book called After the Ball.
Which was written in response to some actual gatherings and meetings trying to put together an agenda for the 90s. It was written in 1986. You'll see there that they'll say that born this way, will be effective.
So we need to use this as our key talking point. But we know it's actually not true, right? The question between nature and nurture, we know it's both, but nature is irrefutable.
So then you have the T's just kind of jumping on this. And how did they do that, even though it was so contradictory to this born this way narrative?
Well, it was done on critical theory, it was done on the narrative of injustice and oppression. And it was done without any sort of rationale or reason. It's certainly not the same sort of even history.
Now I think You know, the gay rights movement certainly hijacked the civil rights movement in a way that was completely inappropriate and overstated things like oppression and narrative. And they had to have victim stories like Matthew Shepard that turned tended out, tended to not be true or turned out not to be true. The T's took that to a whole nother level. I mean, the victimshood kind of narrative became something so far over the top. And all of a sudden, I think that there was a real Pickle that the movement was put into, right?
Because if you're saying we're a victim, but you're not that big of a victim based on what? Based on sexual freedom categories, which is supposed to be the fundamental identity of who we are. See, that was the thing that the gay rights movement did by embracing that born this way narrative: it took sexuality from behavior to identity. and made identity a matter of personal preference and imposition on others.
Well, where do you draw the line on that? It becomes absolutely impossible.
So, where's this level of discomfort coming from, right? You embraced kind of a logical inconsistency, you allowed a historical revisionism. How is it that now you're turning around and saying, Here's what I think. If you go again back to after the ball. And you look at what was said in terms of how and literally the subtitle of that book.
I don't know if you've ever seen it, Maria, but the subtitle is How America Will Overcome Its Bigotry and Accept Gays in the 1990s or something like that. Like this is a game plan.
Now, many people say, well, no one's ever read the book.
Okay, fine. You look at the strategy and that's exactly what was employed. By individuals and so on. It became kind of a way to do it. One of the things was: fellas, we gotta tone this down, especially you fellas.
The the the the the the ickiness uh the uh hypersexuality on display Specifically, they are mentioned the behavior of gay men in pride parades. Things that were really hidden in San Francisco and all that sort of stuff that was now on full display, kind of the super, you might remember the shift. From any gay characters that were super flamboyant on television in the 80s to Will and Grace. in the 90s where Will was kind of the Uh you know, the the guy who is the The character that helped heterosexual Grace answer all her verb problems in this really calm, professional sort of way. Right, that was like we got to calm this thing down.
Well, the teas then jump onto the movement a decade later, they don't calm it down, they ramp it up. And to the point of this author who wrote this, who was it that the head of the Log Cabin Republicans? You mentioned his name earlier. This whole movement, the T part of this. didn't just ramp it up, didn't just get obnoxious.
They did it in front of children intentionally and to children intentionally. Right, all that stuff that was supposed to be toned down and was in the 90s and 2000s. And the T's, who then claimed bigger victimhood status, even though there was no justification for that, claimed an identity that was completely disconnected from biology, even though there was no justification for that, suddenly claimed this kind of prerogative to be as misbehaved as possible. And we need to do it in front of children through drag queen story hours and the ideological imposition through health care, even. In terms of Experimentation with hormones, and we've talked about this a number of times: hormones, and chromosomes, and then surgical interventions.
That were aimed again at? children. And what was the point of doing that? just to make it a rational category that could then turn around and justify someone's own choices. It's just a remarkable history.
And to see. you know, this kind of breaking up at a higher level, I think there's two things. Number one, this was never a marriage that made sense to begin with, other than on the level of just flat out sexual autonomy, and the gay rights movement made that bed first.
Okay, so the the the they just They just played by the the T's played by the same rules only. Louder, and you could say better, but I don't mean that in a moral way, obviously, but in a a strategic kind of kind of way. And then second, it doesn't under cut at all. And I think this is the fear That sometimes when you have a kind of a common enemy, you kind of back up. I think there's a real crisis in the conservative movement right now.
What is worth conserving in same-sex marriage is not worth conserving. It is not marriage. It is an innovation and an imposition. And once you start fiddling around and inventing categories of sexuality and marriage, you're violating gravity. This isn't about redoing the speed limit.
This is about saying that up means down and down means up, and marriage isn't actually a design thing. This is not something to take as a win or to take as a kind of a necessary requirement for pushing this other group out of the movement that is so harmful, in fact, that it's obvious to everyone. Yeah, I agree with you. I think I struggle to have. compassion on the situation that the Law Cabin Republicans are in because They've drawn what appear to me to be arbitrary lines that are kind of indefensible morally, if you drill into it.
Like, are they suggesting that transgenderism is? Irrational? Because if so, why?
Now it is, but it seems like what they're claiming is. We don't like how focused it is on children, but why? I mean, why? Like, I'm glad that you don't like that, and you should not like that, and I find it repulsive as well, and I find it. Motivating to do something about it, but why don't you like it?
Because if it's true, then what's the problem? And if it's not true, then why? And if it's not true, then the reasons it's not true. Point you against your own advocacy because either bodies matter and they tell us something about sex and sexuality and how we are to behave, or they don't matter. And what matters is our yearnings and desires.
You can't say that they matter over here and they don't matter over here. And you can't say, I mean, I agree with you. Like if the Ts took this to a place that you didn't like it and you feel embarrassed by them. I mean, you've got to look, what is your own movement and advocacy doing to children? It's robbing them of parents.
Your movement has gone from saying, I want to be able to visit my partner in the hospital, to I have a right. To a child and to someone else carrying it for me and then giving it to me. Like those, that is happening under the movement that you advocated for, under the same moral reasoning, if we can call it that, that the transgender movement has used.
So, if you're going to disavow them. Like, you gotta draw better lines than just weird we feel weird about how much they're focused on kids. It's like this group is saying, I don't like the paint job of that house rather than, hey, the foundation is crumbling and the walls are collapsing and every window has been broken and there's big holes in the roof. Right. This is not just a matter of bad taste.
This is not just a matter of taking something to the extreme, although it is. This is a group that has played by the rules you established. This is a group that has basically taken something. And just taking it to the next level. And yeah, we no one likes it.
The reason no one likes it is 'cause it's icky and it's awful and it harms children. Everything false and evil will harm children. And if you know, you can dress that up, but it will happen eventually. And You can't pretend that it's a different movement. Which is why I found it so interesting today.
And my breakpoint commentary. for for today, and I mean Friday when people are hearing this, is this gaslighting thing that took place this week, which was just overwhelming. I think it's worth mentioning that because I want people to understand and know and be equipped on it. It was so interesting that this week, earlier this week, the president and Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education. Basically just announce publicly and they Trump was very clear, like, if you were going to hide.
This transgender stuff that kids are going through from parents, you're guilty of child abuse. And he said it pretty as a school, as a school, and as a district, and as school officials. And this is basically announcing that we're going to take this policy, and it's policy that predates this, but. We're going to take this seriously. And I don't know if you saw this, but immediately all I heard was people from the other side of the political spectrum saying.
It's not happening, it's not happening, it's not happening, it's not happening, it's not happening. And this gaslighting that it never happened, it never happened, has been so thoroughly refuted. And so we put together basically the data. Aaron Lee here in Colorado, who has her own daughter, went through this and it was hid from her. We can talk about all kinds of names and so on.
ADF represents a number of these clients. But and so all of this data, so you know, if you hear somebody says, well, that's not really happening, that's just manufacturer, no, no, no, no. Basically, what you could say is, is, oh yeah, like school officials aren't handing out puberty blockers. What school officials are doing are socially transitioning, using the wrong name, and then hiding what they're doing at school from the parents, and then helping students, even in some case, look up and find medical information, quote unquote, it's misinformation, about how to, you know, go further. And that includes, of course, the cozy relationship that some of these schools and school districts have with Planned Parenthood.
So the gaslighting here is remarkable. It is a remarkable thing to say it's never happened.
So check out the breakpoint commentary. I refer to Erin Lee's ex-post in which she just basically laid it out. Justice Alito, in a recent opinion that he wrote, basically quoted the estimate, cited the estimate that 6,000 public schools in America are under the policies that basically enable school officials to hide this stuff from parents. And we have six cases that are in front of the Supreme Court. We have more cases that are in the courts, lower courts working their way up.
To say this isn't happening is an astonishing piece of journalistic malpractice. And it's something that needs to be, I think, Christians need to be ready to say: look, if this mom and this dad and this grandparent were courageous enough to stand up and say and fight for their kid, you and I need to be at least courageous enough when somebody says it ain't happening to say, yeah, it is. And it needs to stop.
So yeah, I just thought it was a fascinating thing to watch this week. It's just like Do you think we haven't been paying attention? I mean, do you think we've been blind? It's also just rhetorically wild because is it like if it's not happening, then should like, is that good? Should it be happening?
If this is a real problem, do you want it or do you not want it?
So, first of all, they're wrong to say that schools can't do this, but it's never happening to you. It's never happening. It's crazy. Ugh. Let's take a quick break, John.
We'll be right back with more breakpoints this week in just a moment. Christian Educators. This is Billy Hutchinson with Colson Educators. As a former teacher myself, I know you're busy, and I know you want to teach like a Christian, not just be a Christian who teaches.
Well, that's why we created the Colson Educators app. You can get practical worldview training wherever you are, complete courses on your schedule, earn CEUs, and connect with a community of like-minded educators. Download the Colson Educators app on the Apple App Store or Google Play. We're back on breakpoint this week. John, I have seen passing reference to this now enough times that I need you to explain it to me.
People are talking about woke 1.0 and woke 2.0. I'm just barely getting my head around what Woke 1.0 entailed. But what is the differentiation here? What are we talking about? I don't think people know.
I mean, I think it's really right now it's become part of the parlance, so I wanted to talk about it. It's something that owes, I think, to a reference from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who actually said in this publicly, I think in a speech or in an interview or a podcast. And other people now kind of took it and ran with it. Like, what does she mean by that? And she.
She upset a lot of people on both sides when she said that Woke 1.0 was out of control or something like that. Woke 2.0 is going to be better. And so you had people who are still like, wait, I'm still on board with Woke 1.0, feeling like they lost an advocate. And then you have everyone else going, well, what's the difference between 1.0 and 2.0? Or also, weren't you a chief architect of 1.0 anyway?
Yeah, well, no, exactly. I mean, she was, at least on a public scale or in terms of kind of public imagination. But I think what's more important here is to ask a different question, which is, is that could Woke 2.0 be different than Woke 1.0, right? And it's kind of like asking, hang with me here, is it possible for someone to take Islam seriously? And I mean on face value, and then somehow end up with a society that doesn't have the oppression of women and doesn't have the things like violence?
And really, the fundamental question here is: you can look at throughout history at worldviews being applied wrongly. And say, listen, Christians, or have done really bad things. And say, yeah, I could say Christians have really done really bad things. And when Christians have done really bad things, they are violating the teaching of Jesus. That's different than saying Moslems have done really bad things.
When they think they're actually following, They're actually doing what the hadith, for example, says, which is do what Muhammad did, right? What Muhammad did was he married a six-year-old and consummated the marriage when she was nine. And then, you know, that became something very common in those. And then you also have other examples that emerged culturally that are expressions of the ideas and the practices that he actually embodied. In other words, If Woke 1.0 was a disaster, and I would be the first to raise my hand and say that it is.
I'm not sure that, you know. There's fully been a new version released from whoever the programmers are. But if it was, was it because someone misapplied the fundamental ideas upon which it's based? Or is it because they rightly applied and those ideas are terrible? And that's the measure of a worldview.
We call it in the book, Making Sense of Your World. We put out four tests. Of a worldview, and one of them is the test of the real world. Like, something can look really good on paper until it's applied. Like, you know, the idea, each according to his ability.
From each according to his ability to each according to his need, which is a Marxist idea that we've heard obviously repeated. But when that's actually lived out in the real world, Does it actually work, right? Do you actually have more people taken care of? Or do you actually run out of resources because you misunderstood? The nature of the human condition, and now the problem is too many people, and you sacrifice the individual on behalf of the community.
Let's get rid of the eaters. You know, it's not let's get more food, it's let's get rid of the eaters, right? When you play out an idea in the real world is what you get, what you want. If AOC says Woke 1.0 wasn't what we wanted, is it because those ideas were misapplied or is she really willing to go back now and say, you know, what we said about oppression? what we said about oppressors, what we said about intersectionality and the various categories that make us who we are.
What we said about, you know, certain people are guilty because of, you know, their race or their ethnicity or their gender or, you know, their biological sex or whatever. What we said about biological sex being an illusion and irrelevant or whatever, is that what's the problem or did somebody actually take it and misunderstand, you know, and just, they just applied it wrongly?
Okay, so John, I have heard that argument made whenever communism is criticized, that the ideas are sound, that it's a great system. But that just everywhere it's ever been tried. It's people have done it wrong. And of course, me, the speaker in this case, is going to do the right thing, right? I'll do it right.
So you should trust me to do it right. And okay, so I find that argument compelling with regards to Christianity because I believe Christianity is true. I believe Jesus raised from the dead. And I see in my own self the tendency to do things that I wish I were not doing and to not do the right that I want to do.
Okay.
So all of that is clear to me. But how, why does that argument like fly with regards to Christianity, but not with communism?
Well, I think that you hear that in both ways with communists, right? Number one is you have people that defend it that suddenly say, you know, It's never been tried rightly and I'm going to do it rightly and one should have Enough skepticism. I mean, listen, the second person that says that, or the third person that says that, okay, maybe, maybe give them a shot. We're way down the line. We're after 100 years of trying that.
I know. And what I love about it just rhetorically is that I feel like I could make a really compelling woke 1.0 case that that's a really racist thing to say. Like, oh, because the brown person who tried it in Cuba didn't manage it, but you, the white woman, are going to do it well. Interesting. Yeah, I think that's a fair question.
I think it's also. you know is did it fail because of you know somebody was like extra mean like lennon Or did it fail because if you actually think that people who, no matter how hard they work, are going to get the same amount of reward, so they're going to work really hard for the good of others because people are inherently good. In other words, do you see, like, you got to figure out where did this thing break down? And yeah, certainly communist experiments have certainly broken down among the tyrannical leader, but that in and of itself tells you that what it says about the human condition is wrong. Because basically, most of the tyrannical leaders started out wanting to make the world a better place for everyone.
But suddenly, what's good for you is good for me became one for you and two for me and three for me. I mean, you can look at the dictators behind the Iron Curtain. When all that fell in the 80s. And there was just, you know.
So so many of these nations where the people were starving You had just, you know, warehouses of rotting food. I was in Korea earlier this year. There's not another, this is the example. There's not another place on the planet and another example in history. Where you have the same date, like go, right?
Both have been war-torn, North Korea and South Korea, 1953. The armistice is signed. You have the same people, the same ethnicity, the same history, the same language, the same natural resources, the same culture. And then you say, okay, just two different visions of how we should do life together. And then compare what's happened in South Korea.
It's the ultimate twin study. It is the ultimate twin study, and it's tragic and it's awful. And you know, there is a family that lives really well, and then there's everybody else that does not. And so. Um I think that's the case.
Now. The question then when you look at Christianity Is Christianity's understanding of the human condition and Christianity's mandate for us to love our neighbor. And Christianity is its take to live for others outside of ourselves. And then you can also look at the historical track record, which of course have been misstated and has been misstated. And you don't have to look and say that, you know.
Christians have been perfect. Because you can look, as Tom Holland and many others have, and say the ideals at the heart of Christianity. have brought good to the world. often in spite of bone-headed Christians. Right.
So, you know, this is, I think, one of the big differences as we look at. Whatever woke 2.0 becomes, I don't know what it's going to be. I don't even know what they mean necessarily or. By Woke 1.0, other than maybe we got a little out of a hand, you know, basically saying that drag queen story hours for little kids are good things as opposed to bad things. Maybe that's what they're talking about.
I don't know. But the question is: is there a fundamental difference in the ideals? Like, with the application of this. worldview and Critical theory is, in many ways, at least an expression of hyper-postmodernism. If not, you know, we can call it a worldview in and of itself.
You know, will the consistent application of that something new and different. in a 2.0 than it did a 1.0. You know, consider me pretty skeptical on that one. Here's what I know: the pressure to conform. with whatever the What do I want to say?
Like the right way of thinking, what we're being told is the right thing to say and the right way to think will always be there, regardless of the content of those claims. That pressure can be very immense because I've watched people I love and respect and fellow Christians and people cave to that pressure. And I'm sure I've done it in a million small ways too. And it's just a reminder that whatever is held up as like we've arrived at the right conclusion of what to say and think and do today, it will change. I promise it will change.
In five years, it will be different. It might even be diametrically opposed to what they're telling you today.
So just let that be a little bit of a thorn in the side of your own confidence. in whatever you're saying or going along with. And a thorn in the side of the pressure that you feel, like the pressure will relent at some point because these things always change. And that's just wisdom for everybody, I think. Who am I?
Why am I here? Does my life matter? Only the Christian worldview provides rock-solid truth about who we are and why we're here. Truthrising the study will help you understand human identity through the essential relationships for a Christian, starting with our relationship to God. Start the study today at colsoncenter.org/slash study.
That's colsoncenter.org/slash study.
Well, John, speaking of culture change and what is held up as good and not good. There's a new study out from the Institute for Family Studies who have been looking very compellingly at particularly the challenges facing young men. And it's it does not look good. The economy has changed, the social landscape has changed. And we've reached, I think, crisis levels.
We know fewer people are getting married, fewer men are becoming fathers, fewer women are becoming mothers. Unemployment is high. There was another piece this week looking at the usage of. Pornography and internet gaming on the part, I think it's one in eight young men say they engage with at least one or both of those things every day. That's one in eight that do all of them.
Gambling, I think it's sports gambling, pornography, and what was the And play video games.
So, one eighth do all three of those things every single day. Oh, goodness.
Okay.
How does this relate to the way we culturally look at the world? Like, what messages are we sending generally that could be contributing to this?
Well, it's I don't know. That's a good question. I I I think that um There's a lot of interesting things worth seeing here. I guess the highlights of IFS's report, and it really has, it's the second part of a. of a series.
It's called America's Demoralized Men. And if you look at the headlines, the headlines are really this, that An incredible number of young men. in America Are emotionally isolated and emotionally and relationally isolated.
So they feel lonely. They also don't have a lot of friends or no friends that are face to face and sincere. And we know that loneliness has incredible Ramifications. One of the things that reflects about culture is that we're a culture that has less of those. uh opportunities for connection.
If you think about the voluntary associations and the intermediary institutions, the voluntary groups at Alexis de Tocqueville. wrote about when he came over and studied. The American experiment. Those things are just. low uh you know Four out of ten young men have two or fewer close friends.
One in three. With one to two, and almost one in ten who have zero close friends, that's ten percent.
So, when you add all that together, the vast majority don't really have a lot of strong connections. That means another finding that they reported social, civic, and religious participation is low. and what they're turning to Instead, as these electronic substitutes, things that what's a replacement for work, that kind of feeling of taking a risk, and sports gambling puts that right in your lap. What's the substitute for, you know, going out on a date or pursuing? uh a marriage or something like that, obviously pornography.
is an example of that. accomplishing you know something video games can you know, provide maybe some of the the the feeling that you're looking for from having accomplished something. In other words, it's a virtual reality kind of way of... of living.
Now, what's interesting is, is also this past week, I found an article that was published at Virtue Online. David Virtue writes a lot about global Anglicanism. But he spoke specifically, published an article from a young man, basically saying, Look, it's terrible to be a young man these days. I sent it to a. A friend of mine said, How would you respond if this was a young man in his life?
And he said, I'd tell him to buck up and. you know, stop being so fragile. And I'm torn in between those things because I don't think my friend who said that is wrong. There's a lot of these, like, okay, this is your situation. You're going to have to have a level of resilience.
If you consider yourself a victim of everyone else, listen, every time we talk about the state of young men, we hear from young men saying, it's not my fault, it's the women's fault, or it's not my fault, it's the state's fault. I think the answer is probably all of the above, but the question is what are you going to do about it? And I think that you're seeing this push towards more radicalized young men. It's a result of It's a pushback against this. And so the church has this incredible opportunity.
To show young men a better way, I think older men have an incredible opportunity to bring younger men under their. their wing and help them find the right path. Otherwise, I don't think we can be. too surprised If so many of the resources For young men that have disappeared in recent years. Think about the Boy Scouts, think about employment opportunities, thinking about.
all kinds of other you know actual opportunities to be in relationships. If those things have disappeared en masse, which I think it has, and I think that's one of the things this report points to. We can't be too surprised when these young men who are looking for something turn to either. These Digital substitutes that are really, really bad for them, or they turn to this ideological extremism, which is also really bad for them and for everybody else too. There is a crisis of young men, and there's also an incredible opportunity.
For the church right now to reach out to young men. And you kind of think, well, listen. If God's put us on this planet for such a time as this, I think this should shape the mission and ministry of the church. What if the ministry of the church for the next generation is let's make marriage great again? Let's uh l let's make men and women You know, and family's great again.
But let's make men and women. Caring about others great again instead of, you know, so such this incredible inward turn that's taken place.
So let me, I'm fascinated by this. When you say great, I completely agree with you, but you, you say, make it great again. Do you mean High status. Like what? You mean like that marriage is cool?
Yes. Oh, I mean, that's only part of it. I think there's got to be ideological. It's got to be more than just attractive, right? It's got to be more than just possible.
Although I think there's probably branding to branding work that needs to be done. I mean, there is something about. You know, how many women's publications are so quick to publish these opinion or story or, you know, personal pieces of I left my husband and now I'm super happy. And total cottage industry at this point. Yeah.
And there's also this kind of public. messaging about, you know, men. From some of these ideological extremes, like let me just be a complainer online or out loud on a podcast.
So part of it is branding, but I also think it's substantive, right? I mean, the braining's only going to go so far if We don't actually find ways of making these connections. If we don't actually, you know, fly in the face of social convention right now. I don't know that there's a substitute Boy Scouts out there. God bless Trail Life USA and the work that they do for young men.
And I think Sport, you use sports is out of control in some ways, but it could also provide, you know, some of these. senses of involvement and accomplishment and Not the way it's being done, but. I think Christian colleges have an incredibly important role. And it's a tragic because so many Christian colleges who have the kind of environment in place. You know, they're ideologically teaching things that are against this, either in terms of marriage and family or men and women or something like that.
So I don't know. It seems to me. That there's opportunity there, and it would have to be both substantive and a brand shift. I just think there's a limit to how much you can simulate. Like the type of aspirational masculinity that we need, that men need to be called to.
Like. You know, as you're saying, we've lost some of these civic institutions and all you know, these um volunteer organizations and these ways for men to And I'm picturing like, you know, the rugged everyman Getting out on his horse and his covered wagon and taking his family out west. And such a man, in my envisioning, doesn't have much access to institutionalized volunteer organizations either, but somehow, you know, found a way, at least in my fever dream, finds a way to buck up and make that work and then also lead a meaningful way. No, but what did he find when he got there?
So, but my point is. My my point is. I mean, what did he create when he got there? Right. Right.
So. We need to, I think, I think marriage and men. And motherhood, and all the things that go along with marriage definitely have a branding problem. That's that much is clear to me on the side of women, on the side of men, like that's on the side of young people, yes. But we, the way we help men, generally speaking, I think, is by expecting much of them.
It's not by like giving them a simulation of what, like, here, play this sport. And it will make you like that can fill a need for community, for team, like team building, learning how to be among other people, learning how to work toward a common goal in the same way that it can do that for women. I think different sports would do that for the gender sports. I think team sports do that in a unique way, in a way that individuals. Totally, totally.
And individual sports can do things as well. It's not the all-in-all. But this is where I feel very strongly about this. Like, if I had some kind of, Soapbox to young women, and I hope there are young women that listen to this show. One of the things that I want to encourage you.
To do is expect a lot from men in a respectful and kind and like charitable way towards them. I frankly believe that 30 years of sexual promiscuity on often on the part of women who have engaged in it. because they were told that it was how we liberate ourselves. Has led to, for better or worse, sending the message to men that we don't expect anything from them. And then now we've robbed them of the chance to rise to an expectation that they were built for.
No question. And that's hurt all of us.
So, everyone, I've recommended this a billion times, and I'll recommend it again. What you're talking about is what. The theory, if you want kind of the social theory, it's called the economics of sex. You look up the Austin Institute's video on this, and it tells you, and you're exactly right. The interesting thing, though, that I think also needs to be said is when you have those high expectations for men, make sure they're the right high expectations.
Because there has been such an inward turn.
So I agree with you, you know. You know, if a young man, I tell, you know, I used to tell students this all the time: if that guy's going nowhere, don't jump along for the ride to that. Like, you know, expect more. And a lot of times, if you expect more, they'll perform better. But because the confusion is mutually, is not mutually exclusive, the confusion.
How do we want to say it? Men and women are equal opportunity offenders on this.
Sometimes the expectation young women have are that young men Do everything to affirm them. meet their deepest emotional needs, you know, things that just aren't. what any of this has ever been about to begin with. And there is a sense. In fact, a lot of it's come out of you, and I've had a lot of off.
Record conversations about this horrific trial, about this mother and all that up in. New England somewhere and I I uh But but Part of what's you know kind of Shaping some of the the the the protest on her behalf is this Kind of narrative that women's feelings are the determiner of reality, that women's feelings are never. Are never wrong. And they're Clearly, you know, all of our feelings are wrong. We're all subject to the fall.
in in in different ways. And So Yeah, I mean, you know what I think the answer to this is? The most practical answer to this is let's get a whole bunch of old married couples together and just look at them and study their lives and ask them questions.
Somebody needs to do a podcast series like Lifelong Married Love. I feel like, see, that's hilarious because I feel like my cynical take on the answer to this is we just need a bunch of young, hot, public-facing people to get married and make it look cool so that other kids get married. Like, I don't know. You can only, it's, I just keep going back to like Dare, which was just by all measures, like a colossal failure. And it was just.
Grownups getting in front of high school kids and saying you shouldn't do drugs, and just nobody took it seriously. Because for the same reasons of what we were talking about with Woke 1.0, when the pressure's there and it's from the people you perceive as high status, you will rationalize just about anything.
So you think young cool influencers. Getting married. Make marriage great again. All right.
Well, maybe I would like to think it wouldn't require that. I would like to lie in the hands of Tim Tebow. I would like to think it didn't require that. Like we were for that one football season that didn't work out. Listen, I don't think that that's a bad idea.
Like, let's celebrate it when we see it, like get married young and all that sort of stuff. And it does, you know, having. Daughters kind of hit that age, it requires. You just stop and go, Do I really believe this or not? You know, and to what degree do I believe in young marriage?
And, you know, I just keep going back to this panel I went to at UVA, which was talking about why are women being turned off from marriage. And it was four really accomplished, approaching middle-aged women who were brilliant and had all kinds of differing ideas. And then it was Brett Cooper, the YouTube star who got married when she was 22. And every co-ed in that audience. Wanted to line up and meet Brett Cooper afterwards.
And I had to Google who she was. And that's not a commentary on Brett Cooper, but later I was like, As much as I was compelled by the thoughtful conversation outside of that, I think the most compelling thing to these young women who, frankly, were the people we're trying to reach. Was just the fact of birth. There's certainly part of it that's the art of the possible. I think, though, that the You're talking now.
I remember once a pastor from Detroit telling me about You know, he said the challenge in our community is, is that we're now Every zip code that my church touches, we are 70% of kids being raised in a home. without a dad. for three straight generations.
So now, when you start seeing the cynicism being passed on, you're way further behind the eight ball than just one generation. And I think that's why sometimes young people are so interested in older people, and there's still a beauty to it, and there's still.
Something like that. But I don't know that it has to be one thing. I think it can be everything. I'm really struck right now by people that are in that generation in more than an influencer sort of way that are actually helping us think better. I've been following uh recently Freya India.
This is a young woman who basically has the intellectual heft of a Mary Harrington or. You know, Louise Perry questioning the values that she had been taught. She's only in her 20s. In questioning this, not just in a, you know, hey, I'm cool and hip in that sort of way, but in a very thoughtful way. And I think she's compelling a lot of people too.
So I do think. There's a level in which the chaos gets so stark and the darkness gets so dark. And if this IFS report on young men is true, we're getting pretty close on that, you know, that there's going to be an opportunity to show a better way. And, you know, on his deathbed, Chuck Colson would say that. We don't, Christians don't.
Impose, we propose. That was his last speech. Christians have something better to offer. And I think that that is a this is going to be an arena. where that can take place.
Well, okay, John, before we go for the week, I do want to bring up one question that we received. And I was thinking of this question earlier in the show because you brought up the tsunami that happened in Asia in the early two thousands. And We did not break to look up exactly where that tsunami happened or exactly what year. And for reasons that will become clear in a moment, it made me think of this question. This person writes in and says they would like us to please stop tossing out factually incorrect.
information on breakpoint when we could easily All caps, check reliable sources. And the fact that this person is particularly upset that we did not fact check. is that former NBA player, mister Freedom. Is that Inez Cantor or whatever? Yes, Inez Cantor Freedom.
We said he's maybe 7'2 or 7'4. Which is irresponsible because, according to the World Wide Web, he is actually 6'10. Yeah. I take full responsibility for this significant mistake. Egregious.
Which I acknowledged I was guessing on at the time. And by the way, I did fact check out a spirit. of recognizing and and honoring the the request here. It was in 2004 that the tsunami, the tsunami, the one that we're talking about, took place. What I thought about when I saw this comment was: yes, we do care about facts, and we should do that.
I'm usually darn good on basketball trivia.
So that's what humiliated me about this question. Is just literally a month ago, my wife and I are sitting at this outdoor fire pit outside of this restaurant in New York, and we're out there, and we hear people talking. About they're doing like a little trivia thing, and I don't know where they got this trivia if it was on their phone or something like that. And somebody says the shortest basketball player. That played in the NBA is Muggsy Bokes.
How tall was he? And somebody piped up. He was 5'9 and he was 5'8. And I'm just like losing my mind because I know. But see, here's the difference between my wife and me because my wife would have gone over to this other table with these complete strangers and struck up a conversation.
I'm just rolling my eyes about how silly they are because I know that Muggsy Bokes was 5'3. And I nailed it. And of course, they fact-checked it. And I told my wife, like, I mouthed to her. It's not 5'9, it's 5'3 ⁇ .
And she's like, what are you talking about? I was like, Muggsy Bogs. And I know this too, because Hunter now is his favorite player is Muggsy Bogs, namely because he's short. And so the whole point is, I'm usually darn good. I know stats.
I know names. I know teams that they played for. And I did not know that Inniscana Freedom was not a seven-footer. I just, so I take full responsibility for this incredible mistake. And we will try to up our fact-checking game on these matters of such extreme importance.
We are going to include this on your next performance. Performance review, but I appreciate you taking full responsibility for that. Although I do think, I think the internet lies about people's height. Although I think basketball teams lie about players' height, right?
Well, actors do too. Actors notoriously, their IMDb page will be like, they're 6'5. And you're like, there's no way that guy's taller than 5'9. To a person, coming from a person who's 5'2, everyone to me appears to be at least six foot or taller. And beyond six feet, I really have no every basketball team, once you hit the college level, and most high schoolers lie.
I was 5'11 for my entire career, and there was never a year that I, there was never a chance that I was. What are you actually? I mean, I have shrunk, I'm sure, because, you know, that's what happens. But no, I don't think I ever legitimately hit 5'10. That's 5'11.
Oh, wow. But I was always listed at 5'111, which was never true.
Well, we are the way the Lord made us. Yeah, yeah.
Alright.
Well, that is going to do it for the program this week. Thanks so much for listening to Breakpoint This Week. From the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer. Alongside John Stone Street, we'll see you all back here next week. God bless.
