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 35th anniversary of Breakpoint, and then we're going to talk about notable deaths. This week we lost Gloria Steinem and author Wendell Berry. We're so glad you're with us for this conversation. Please stick around.
Welcome to Breakpoint This Week. From the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer, alongside John Stone Street, president of the Coulson Center. John, I heard you guys talking about this on the world and everything in it this week, but 35 years of breakpoint. That is an incredible milestone. What do you think Chuck would say if he were here today?
Oh, gosh. I would say maybe we could email and ask. The number of people who contact me monthly and tell me exactly what Chuck would think and do, I don't feel like I'm as confident in my understanding of that as some other people. Often are, but you know, it it's interesting when you go back, uh we we aired uh the very first episode where he kind of communicated his own vision. Which was that there was a way that Christians needed to start thinking that they weren't, that there were things that.
Christians were largely taking for granted about the culture that they lived in, about the shared values, about the ideas. They didn't necessarily understand the deep roots, philosophically, ideologically, the worldview roots. That were behind the big shifts that were taking place in culture. He saw some of these. Ships and understood where they were coming from.
And he understood, I think, because he was a student. A thinker's theologian, sociologist, other people. He was always very curious. One of the things that always struck me about Chuck Coulson is that. When he was in a room, even when he was the smartest person in the room, which was almost always, it's hard to imagine very many rooms in which he wasn't the smartest person in there.
But he was so Curious. He just wanted to ask questions and learn. And then, if something kind of like clicked, rang a bell, yes, that's the thing that people need to know. And that's the other thing about Breakpoint. It was always not what can I say that's super cool, although, obviously, he.
had this kind of prophetic magisterial-ish kind of voice. But it was, what do people need to know? What do people need to know in order to follow Christ today? What do people need to know in order to avoid deception? What do people need to know in order to grasp the truth in this cloudy or shady or hard to understand area of life.
And that's what the kind of Seedbed was of what he wanted Breakpoint to be. And uh, you know, but that that's the thing. Uh, you know, we We live in an age at the end of a lot of transitions for organizations where people are always like, well, it's a new day here. We're going to do it differently. We've never really done that at the Coulson Center.
We maybe do some mechanics differently, but the vision is the same. You know, what can people? What do people need to know in order to make sense of of this moment and these weird challenging things. That we face in order to be obedient and faithful and true and not caught up in deception. It's always been about that.
And so it's kind of fun to hit that 35-year milestone. You know, the way you describe him and the way he certainly comes across in all of his writings and the commentaries is a very curious person. And I think our listeners fall into that camp as well. I think you and I, a lot of what we do here is asking those questions. Do you think curiosity is a virtue?
Because I know people who aren't As curious, and I'm judgmental sometimes, but then I wonder if it's a spiritual gift like other things, and sometimes people are happy. Happier to go along to get along, not necessarily caving to deception or to worldliness. I don't mean to suggest that, but do you think curiosity is itself a virtue? No, I think it's a habit. I think it's a posture.
I think it's a good habit, and it's a good posture. But, you know, the thing about postures is that they're a way that you lean into something. And then the question is, what are you leaning into?
So, you know, I wouldn't want people to be curious about everything. You know, you don't want to be curious about how to best get away with serial killing or something like that. That's true. But yeah, but it is a posture. I do think, though, it's an image of God posture, right?
I mean, the curiosity of humans to in fact, if you go back to the very first Breakpoint commentary, one of the things that he mentioned, and And Myrna Brown asked me about this on The World and Everything In It this week. It's like Chuck's line that people just weren't getting to these worldview roots. They just weren't getting deep enough. They were dealing too much at the surface. And I quoted Vaklov Havel, the Czech dissident, who said famously that The problem with modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of life, but that it bothers him less and less.
And that is a feature of a technological age where we can kind of get all of our itches scratched in technocratic sorts of ways without having to actually. Always do the intellectual work ourselves. We can get kind of functional knowledge, but not really ultimate knowledge. We can ask the how do I get to the next step questions. And never really address why am I on this particular path in the first place.
And these are. This is the difference that Chuck was trying to bring. And we've talked about this when it comes to the cultural issues. We've had an incredible moral shift in our culture, but the moral shift itself is fruit of deeper issues rooted in anthropology and cosmology and epistemology. Like, what kind of world do we live in?
What kind of creatures are we as human beings? And how do we even think and know to begin with? You know, you get those things wrong and you're going to get the downstream things wrong.
Well, I want to talk now about some notable deaths this week. Last week, we talked about Chuck. Can I jump in? Wait, wait. I've got to do this because we just talked about Chuck.
And we're about to talk about Gloria Steinem, right? Is that where we're starting? Are we starting with Gloria Steinem? That's where I was going. I knew it.
I knew it. Did you know? I just learned this like three minutes ago. I apparently missed this. I feel like I somewhat remember this headline in 2002.
But Gloria Steinem and Chuck Colson once worked together. On a bill. My curiosity is absolutely aflame. What on earth could that bill have been? The very first human trafficking bill was orchestrated by a guy named Michael Horowitz.
Yeah. And, you know, it was fascinating that the human trafficking movement began. coming out of 9-11. In fact, George W. Bush, there's a Fascinating article about it I read this morning.
We'll link to it in the show notes. We're Michael Hororitz. Work to push this through, and George W. Bush, even as he was talking about. The war on terror and talking about dealing with radical Islam and addressing some of these Islamic regimes that there's this great evil.
Where more people are trafficked today, and it became this issue shared by both right and left. And, you know, that was one of the headlines in World Magazine. The Bob Jones III, who used to write for World Magazine, talks about like on what planet would Gloria Steinem and Chuck Colson work together on something? And they both signed their names to this human trafficking thing in 2002.
Well, good for both of them. That is fascinating. Obviously, for different causes. Right.
So let's talk about Gloria Steinem. She passed away this week at the age of 92, an absolute legendary. you know, champion of feminism, of abortion. She started Ms. Magazine, you know, big supporter of women in the workplace, women in media, very outspoken, all the way really to the end of her life.
And from decades earlier, so had just an unfathomable amount of energy, but leaves a very certain kind of legacy. She was certainly a polarizing person. What do you think that legacy will be? Just on the numbers, it's hard to imagine too many. individuals more impactful in terms of shifting culture in terms of getting what she wanted, in terms of leading a movement.
I mean, Steinem is a monumental figure of the twentieth century. I thought Al Moeller and his piece at World Magazine this morning did a terrific job outlining some of that legacy. And it's hard to overstate that. She's kind of an example. Of the law being downstream from culture.
She did an awful lot of culture stuff. On a popular level, you mentioned. The magazine that she founded was a very influential way of getting feminist ideals out. And then, of course, she was a political activist. She did get.
uh involved in those sorts of of causes. Uh she was uh kind of a larger than life sort of figure in a lot of ways. But you know the thing about Feminism in the 20th century to me. And it's a story that remains to be really written. I think Abigail Favali's book on feminism has done a tremendous job outlining some of this.
But there is something that has to be reckoned with at some point, and I think it is absolutely part of Steinem's legacy. How is it that a movement that began Advancing women's rights. Women's Protections. specifically women's protections from men overstepping and being abusive. ended in a movement.
In which men were claiming women's spaces, women's privacy. and the prerogative to appropriate women's kind of culture and essence. Yeah, that is Listen, it's the same movement. Right? I mean, it's the, you know, if you're on, if you, if you start at where this thing ended and backtrack, you're on the same road.
It's curvy. It's a curvy road. But how is it that we got I've got a theory. And I think that it can help explain it. But that's the thing about.
20th century feminism, and that's the things particularly about Gloria Steinem kind of feminism because she kind of. presided over That what's the word? I the the shift, the the first shift from first wave to second wave feminism and then the next shift from second to third. And some people put it in fourth now. I don't know that that's necessary, but Y you you It is a remarkable thing in history that a movement that started.
Advancing women's rights and protection specifically from men. Landed. With men claiming the rights to women's private spaces, And to to basically appropriate Oh, when it so. To just directly endanger them. How did it happen?
Yeah, I don't know. I think It's Starting any movement is dangerous, is inherently risky. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, but. I think It is Just from my observation, it's incredibly difficult to ever Announce or accept that what you were after has been accomplished. I think once you start something and you get attention for it and it starts to build.
And You know, I don't want to talk about her personal motivations because I don't know her, but I'm just talking generally about human nature. You start getting attention, you start being seen as the symbol of something, as the champion of something, and then say the things that you are after have largely come to pass. Like more women are represented in the workplace, women are paid more, women, whatever. I think it's incredibly difficult to just be like, we did it. And I think it just always ends up morphing.
I think we're still. It's hard to raise money on that, right? I mean, it's hard to raise money on writing the letters saying, hey, remember what we said was the greatest cause of our lifetimes? We did it. And now.
Give us money for mission accomplished. I mean, I also think that with regards to feminism, now I struggle whenever anyone claims to be my champion. And that doesn't mean I don't appreciate women who advocate for other women or Christians who advocate for other Christians. But just when someone sets themselves up and says, I'm the champion of women, especially someone who's then gonna go and champion the killing of our children, I really struggle with that. I just don't like it.
I think a lot of women don't like that. But I think when you're setting up a movement like that. That inevitably, like it began with tension between the sexes. And I think that's very spiritual. Like, I'm thinking of Genesis 3: and your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.
Like, that. the tension and competition that came as a result of the fall between men and women. Will always be with us until Jesus makes all things new. And I think when you start a movement based on that, and I'm not saying that first wave feminism shouldn't have begun or wasn't necessary in a lot of respects, but. It's really hard to then walk away from that tension.
There's a lot of energy and momentum and fervor to be had if you're stoking. the tension between men and women. But then again, I mean, your question about how does that then become men can be women and have the ultimate authority over what a woman is, I don't have an explanation for that other than the spiritual blindness.
Well, I appreciate you bringing up Genesis 3 because I've thought a lot about, you know, the curse and how it... It impacted particularly the relationship between men and women. And really if you look at that, what God says there, it wasn't even so much like, this is what I'm doing to you. Like what he did with the serpent was like, hey, you got to crawl on your belly now. It was almost like a prediction.
Like, this is what's gonna happen. You're gonna wanna do this, and he's gonna do this to you. And I don't know that there's another greater cultural systemic example. of that coming true than this shift from a movement that was about equal rights and equal protection and ended up being about the exact opposite. But I do think it's important to note that what Steidem did in that first swerve of between first and second wave feminism is change the game.
She changed the rules pretty dramatically. First wave feminism was more about calling men to responsibility. Then calling women to rights.
So, you know, for example, the connection with the prohibition Movement. Why was that?
Well, because women did not have access to the same sorts of rights and protections. And so men could make money, get drunk, and then they would be left impoverished. And then they would be drunk. And if they were violent, there was no recourse. In other words, they didn't have the rights to equal protection.
in many places, particularly in many communities and cities, They couldn't have their own bank accounts. They couldn't have that same sort of freedom. They certainly didn't have the freedom to vote, to actually speak into issues like pro like alcohol and that sort of stuff. And so you can even see with the causes that they championed that this was about something else. And it was about calling men to moral responsibility.
to try to push for an equality. In a world in which there is moral responsibility that men and women have. Is to assume an essence to human existence. I'm not saying that everyone was super clear on the image of God and male and female, and everyone had Genesis 1 and 2 memorized. I'm just saying that.
You're at least kind of swimming in water in which men and women were assumed to be something. And that and also that we were responsible. To each other and responsible for each other, and particularly men who had more rights. Had greater responsibility, otherwise, women who had less rights were going to be vulnerable. And it was pushing back against that system.
Well, that's not what Steinem was talking about. Steinem was talking about essentially that, you know, what did she say? Women need men like fish need a bicycle. I think that's what Steinem. I mean, now you're arguing against essence in general.
You're not arguing that there's a moral responsibility we have for one another. And so Steinem, as part of her crusade, championed A sexual free-for-all. And, you know, kind of I've often joked that the mantra was like, men have screwed up the world.
So, women, it's our time to act like men. You know, I mean, it was like this weird. Right.
Well, even that quote is like, I don't like what, I don't like your attitude towards us.
So we'll just adopt the same attitude towards you. And you can see how it snowballs. That's what I mean by the tension between the genders. Like if you start a movement instead rather than saying this is about elevating us to equality, like you're saying, but this is about sticking it to you or making sure you're, you know. put in your place then That angers men.
Probably even the beginnings of first wave feminism angered some men as well because change. And then that leads to a backlash to the backlash to the backlash. And now, you know, we're just locked in this gender war. There is a massive difference between a movement that claims equality and rights and one that claims equality and roles.
Some roles do reflect areas in which women were being left out of society unjustly, but other roles reflect areas of design and moral responsibility. And and and that was the thing that got really blurred. And her champ championing abortion for her was about championing sexual freedom. It's interesting that first wave feminists, most of them were pro-life. Why?
Because they knew abortion. If it were legal, gave men an incredible amount of power to behave sexually and not be morally responsible for their behavior. That's not Steinem's trying to get rid of all moral responsibility. She's arguing essentially for equality based on autonomy. This is a rejection of essence.
This becomes something else. And once you put that in the water, that humen and women are self-made. We can do whatever we want to do. No one should tell us what to do. We're not morally responsible to other people.
We're only morally responsible to ourselves. Once that stuff gets in the water, then you can see If you're dealing in a universe, where there is gravity, right? Where if you step off the roof, you're going to hit the ground. Where what God says. With the curse and describing the relationship after Eden between men and women.
If that's actually the world we live in, then it makes sense now.
Well, you've just removed the categories of essence and moral responsibility from the equation.
So what are men going to do? They're going to behave like you let them behave. And the first wave feminists believed that if you gave abortion legal status, Then men would claim it as a get-out-of-jail free card for their own sexual misdeeds. I mean, think about this shift that right before. this kind of craziness we had on the transgender issue.
What did we have? We had the Me Too movement. Where women were trying to call men back to some sort of reckoning for their sexual misbehavior, and rightly so. But on what grounds? It just ended up being kind of a morally confused place.
And what ended up winning the day was what God said: hey, this is what's going to happen. You're going to want this, and men are going to do this. And You know, it turns out the Bible got got the human condition right. Again. That's a real paradox.
I haven't hadn't thought about it like that before, where the Me Too movement assumes a certain vulnerability in women that is baked into reality and asking men and women, but mostly men, to act in light of that, to respect that extra vulnerability. But then to admit that vulnerability is a little bit anathema to the ethos of second wave feminism, which is that we're exactly the same and we should. And we have no moral responsibility. We're not living, we're not morally responsible beings. That's a, see, that's a, it's not just that we have rules that we have to abide by as society.
There was more like. There's a way we ought to be, and we ought not be like this, and we instead should be like this. Th that's in essence kind of Proclamation or a way of thinking about what it means to be human. And that's exactly what Sinem was arguing against. I think I'm sure that.
You know, your your point probably uh on a A functional level, it's like you know, second wave feminism got a lot of the gains that they wanted, and they stopped being able to raise money, so they had to go to a different cause. I mean, I. I mean, I didn't go as far as the fundraising. I'm not maybe not as cynical as you, but I mean, it's hard not to see it that way. I think we're all vulnerable to that impulse.
Like, you become seen as a champion, you're getting a lot of notoriety, people admire you, you're a hero. What do you do when you're the dog chasing the car and you've got the car, right? It's just yeah, there's no question. I don't think that we have fully reckoned with what the anthropological crisis of the mid-20th century. Enabled.
It really was. It just, it went just, it just, it just pulled off the guardrails. It's like, You know, you're bowling with a two-year-old and suddenly you lift those little bumpers out of the gutters and that that you know, suddenly the ball's going four lanes down. You know, it's just I'm mixing a lot of metaphors today, but hopefully. I see your brain.
Well, speaking of using metaphors deftly, how about that segue? Before we take a break, there was another notable death this week, and that was of writer Wendell Berry. Your thoughts on Wendell Berry, John? You know, I wasn't overly familiar with Wendell Berry other than the millions of people I feel like who told me, you need to read him, you need to read him, you need to follow him. Certainly, a fascinating figure, and in many ways, the exact opposite, pushing back to a Kind of an essence, a moral responsibility.
He certainly understood it differently than a lot of conservatives do. Incredibly talented guy. What I have read is, you know, he was a master, you know, with language and. And that sort of thing. And he he made a a difference for an awful lot of people.
Yeah. He was a lovely writer. I think I I read a few of his books and I love that he lived the way that he said he wanted to live and the way that he wrote about, which Not many people do. That's not like in vogue to do anymore, to actually live according to your convictions. And he seems to have done that.
I also loved the way he wrote because to me, he wrote as someone who was not trying to write beautifully. but just happened to have beautiful thoughts and he knew how to write them well. It wasn't my favorite kind of writing. I have my own criticisms of it, but the week of his death is probably not the time to share those.
So if you haven't read Wendell Berry before, I mean, his poetry is also really lovely.
So. Read some Wendellberry. You just reminded me of a line. I've never said it on Breakpoint this week, but it's one that Michael Bauman, a longtime professor at Hillsdale College and teacher at Summit Ministries, used to say that. He said sloppy language makes sloppy thought possible.
And it uh you you reminded me of that when you said uh you know i his Beautiful writing reflected a beautiful way of thinking, or his elegant writing reflected elegant thinking. And I don't think we oftentimes make the connection between whether we can. Think clearly. and then speak clearly and write clearly, but It's all done in words. Words are the fabric of the universe.
So there you go. I once called a friend of mine who was a former editor at the Gospel Coalition. This was when my second daughter was like six months old. And I called her and was like, I'm having, I think I have writer's block. I'm really struggling to write.
What is my problem? What should I do? How do I fix this? And she was like, I'm sure you can write, but you can't think right now. And if you can't think, then you can't write.
And, you know, she was like, we think of writing as sitting down at your computer and typing, but you need to, you're not thinking of like the eight and 10 hours that you need to think about something before you start that part of it. And at that season in my life with a baby, I was not getting that amount of time. And that was very freeing for me. And I think that's also very wise. Most good writing is really just.
Good, thank you. All right, we'll be right back with more breakpoint this week in just a moment. As we get ready for a new school year, I'm reminded of the crucial role educators play in shaping the next generation. Teachers don't simply communicate information, they shape how students understand truth, purpose, and their place in God's story. And the way educators see the world ultimately shapes the way they teach.
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Give Today at ColsonCenter.org slash September. We're back on breakpoint this week. John, this news had broken really late last week before we were recording. We didn't get a chance to talk about it, but I do want to briefly bring up the settlement with Meta, so parent company of Facebook. that reached a Record-breaking $17 billion settlement after a lawsuit about its apps being intentionally designed to hook young users.
And along with this giant settlement, Meta announced this slew of changes that it's going to voluntarily, quote unquote, make to these apps, to Instagram, to Facebook. To make them safer for kids, and those include things like you can't access them, the apps overnight if you're under 18. The notifications default to going dark during school hours. There's a, I think, a two-hour daily limit for the apps for being signed in and using it when you're a kid. They'll start to notify you.
I think they notify you every 15 minutes if you're under 18. You know, you know, it's been 15 minutes. Do you want to still be on it and all that kind of stuff? You know, I guess any development like that is positive. I will confess, I read the list of these changes that they were making.
And of course, their tone was like, we're going to save you. Like, we're willing to. change and do all of this. And I'm reading this thinking: if an alien came down and didn't understand social media and was reading what you're offering to do, would they not ask, why is anybody using this at all? Like, why does this exist?
Like, just go dark, turn this off. Like, what a strange thing to read. Is this a pod? Is this gonna help actually, do you think? Or is this just a?
you know, spitting into the wind. You know, here's the thing about virtue. To be a virtuous person, you have to. do virtuous things. The shortcut to virtue is to add additional rules.
you know, build additional fences and If you grew up in a high kind of legalistic rule-based environment, And you were not necessarily a virtuously formed person. And you added Additional regulations to your life, or sorry. These regulations were added to your life externally, let's say by a. Strict. Sunday school teacher or parent or something like that.
What did you get better at? Evading rules. Yeah, getting away with it. Yeah, you got better at skirting around. This settlement is purity culture for social media users.
There you go. There's your headline. I just, you're welcome. You're welcome. You have to give me credit for this.
But this is really important. And some of us who. Who maybe experienced some of that growing up, we understand that you just add rules. To someone.
Now, listen, do you have to crack down on somebody that's misbehaving? Yes, that's true of children, that's true of teenagers, and that's true of adults. That's the conscience or the constable question that also is, I think, playing itself into this in terms of do we really want the government? Protecting us from social media. What does that do to freedom of speech?
That is a real question. That is a challenge. Just this summer, I had like an a long conversation with someone who I trust and who I think thinks really well about this in terms of do we want the state imposing on AI and social media and that sort of thing? And I was just like, yes, please save us from ourselves. And he was like, whoa, you don't want to do that.
And blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he spouted out a lot of those reasons. And it just came back to the same conversation that you and I've had in the past over after mass. Acts of violence or shootings. Like do we want gun regulation?
No. Are we going to get it? Yes. Why? Well, because this is the way the world works.
If you can't rule yourself internally, you have to be ruled externally. But that's the thing as well. The other thing is that virtue has to be formed. If someone is about to drive off the cliff, it's okay to constrain them with some sort of rule, regulation, or fence. But that fence and saving them from absolute disaster doesn't necessarily turn them into a good driver.
You know, this has to be practiced. This has to be cultivated. This has to be something that people own in and of themselves. And I don't think that we're here. I do, by the way, think that what's going to save us.
Is a generation of young people who are themselves throwing off the shackles of social media and meta, saying, I don't want this anymore. This is not good for us. I don't want to actually get distracted by this. I think that number is. too few right now.
But it's a growing trend of people my daughter's age. And they're not like, you know, the generation just above them or the part of their generation just above them. They saw that and they're like, I don't want to be, you know, kind of brainwashed and blurry-eyed and a zombie and so on.
So. You know, look. To me, this has more to do with the exchange of money. It's a way to distribute the wealth more than anything else. Because this isn't fixing a problem.
You know? Good for them. Every one of these have workarounds, just like every rule that we ever had to get a demerit at our Christian school. There's always a workaround. There's always a way to get around it.
And that's what humans do in their fallen condition. This goes back to what we have talked about. I've used that example many, many times from Peter Kraft. You know, our weapons went from bows and arrows to nuclear bombs. We became moral infants.
That's the math problem we have to deal with. Right, our technologies are more powerful. We thought social media was a problem.
Now we've got AI-ish slash social media. and companions, you know, we're so far down this rabbit hole. The question is, what kind of people are we going to be? And that always is the question in whatever technology you put into our hands.
Well, let's talk about the mental health of that generation.
So I'm fascinated and very encouraged by what you're saying about your daughter's generation, that they're choosing. Like they're seeing the wreckage that this has wrought on the generation above them and they're maybe choosing to avoid it. But there's a new study.
Well, I mean, keep reporting on how that's going because Yeah, because I see that same desire among kids too, but I also see that a lot of times kids and adults. don't have the internal Like ability or strength or maturity yet to be able to pull it off. They might want to, but they can't, which is part of the evil here. It's all in C.S. Lewis, right?
I mean, this is the chest. You want to do the right thing. You have the. You know, Lewis talked about the chest as a way to govern the belly. The belly being passion, the head being reason.
Yeah, and you're right. The question is, they could see reasonably. that this is bad for them. It feeds the belly. Anytime we're in a battle between our head and our gut, our gut almost always wins, right?
Because, you know. I always love the illustration of Michael Matheson Miller from the Acton Institute used to say this on the very first set of speaking things that I did with Chuck Coulson on virtue and morality. And he would be like, you know, the. The belly is like the 800-pound gorilla. Going by the way, these are Aristotelian categories.
Aristotle said that the belly is the seat of the passion. He's like, The belly's down there going, I want, I want, I want. The head is like the 80-pound professor with a bow tie, you know, and he's up there going, you know, we ought not. And so the gorilla always beats the geek. That just is the way that works.
So Lewis is like, you got to have something else. You can't just. Train the rational. That was the Stoic answer. You just, you know, you just train the rash.
No, you need the chest. You need this kind of moral will. And you're right. That's what's not cultivated here. Yeah, I love that picture.
I think what happens even more often is that the gorilla just bullies the professor into being like, how can I rationalize what you'd like? Like I wanna feel good about the decision. Like we're gonna go with your thing, but let me find a reason for it so I can still live with myself. And then the chest is the contrarian who can maybe uh keep you away from that. But What I wanted to bring up was this study out of California.
It's a relatively small study, but still alarming and probably illustrative of what's going on around the country. Thirty nine percent of fifth graders Said that they felt the need for more mental health care.
Okay, I don't know how this was administered or what exact question they asked, but this got me fired up for many reasons. I mean, we can just look at that at first glance and say the fifth graders are not all right, but there's more to that story.
So I recently took my fifth grader in for her annual physical and The doctor's office said, Oh, well, she's at she is now at the age where, Mom, we have some forms for you, and then she gets her own forms. And I said, I will take those, please. And they said, No, they're for her. And I said, No, you will give them to me. And it took about three rounds of this until they gave them to me finally with a strange look.
And all the questions were, it was whatever the DSM, whatever a bunch of academics have come up with in some boardroom somewhere to ask kids if they feel anxious. And my daughter said, Do I need to fill that out? And I said, You will not be looking at this form or answering any of these questions because. What happens when you look at an impressionable young person who's already on the cusp of or in the middle of one of the most tumultuous times in your life? And you say to them, Have you checked internally whether you're sad or scared?
Sit and think about that for the next 10 minutes. Might you be scared? Maybe invent some reasons why you might be scared. Because an adult that you trust, who might even be in a white coat, is suggesting to you that it's probably likely you're scared or anxious.
So maybe think about why I'm asking you that and invent some reasons why I might be. And then later tell me how you're feeling and if you're okay. Yeah, they're gonna tell you that they're anxious. If they're not, then they have like reading comprehension problems and that's another issue. But when you make everything about your mental, when you force kids to start monitoring their inner experience.
For signs of danger. kids are gonna find signs of danger rather than treating it treating any discomfort and general anxiety as a normal course of growing up human, you're going to introduce the harm that you're supposedly trying to fight. And I'm not the first to observe that. This was in Abigail Schreier's book. But I just feel really, really frustrated about this because I intervened at my daughter's doctor's appointment, but I can only intervene so much.
I mean, I don't know where else she's going to hear and see this stuff. I mean, I think that's an example that says everything we need to say about this. This falls into the category of we invented this crisis. It also ties back wonderfully to our whole sloppy words, you know, make sloppy thought possible. And here we have these categories.
And you know, you hear young people, we've worked in. You know, a high school youth group now for several years, and you hear young people say, Oh, I had a panic attack. No you didn't. You had a moment that you were scared that you know what a panic attack is? Speak I mean, let me just point of privilege.
As a person who's genuinely had them. Um, I faint and people call an ambulance. It's a situation, it's horrible. It's like a real even in my life, it's been very rare, but it is not. You can't say, I got nervous before my softball game and I had a panic attack.
That is something very different. Yeah, it is fascinating. I guess my point is, is. And you said Abigail Schreier, again, we can go back to Philip Reef's The Triumph of the Therapeutic book, which started talking about this, where we were therapizing. I don't know if that therapeutizing, therapeutizing, apologizing.
Well, we were introducing these categories.
Now, sometimes you have these things. Where you need a name for them, and maybe in a culture past, you didn't have a name for it because there are cultural blind spots. That's certainly legitimate. But we live in a generation where we've invented these categories that didn't exist. you can check out.
one of the most talked about first things articles in history. was a uh an article entitled Against Heterosexuality. in which the author was saying the word heterosexual Exists because the word homosexual exists, and sexual orientation doesn't need to exist as a category of thinking about. anything, much less thinking about a like grouping people together. You know, we just, you start throwing these words out that are based on sloppy categories and.
then they become sticky. This is the definition of a speed limit. This is a social construct then that gets imposed. And I think to your point, there's a lot of these. Therapeutic words.
Now, do we need a word for panic attack? Yeah. But when you start throwing it out there as an explanation for everything, I just hear young people today. use these therapeutic categories and apply into you know i'm addicted i I I I'm I'm I'm just I just can't be with people. I'm 88.
I've been with 24 hours. I've been with people, and I just can't be, I need my space. You know, you're just like, Right, I have this condition.
So this is, I feel so passionately about this, if you couldn't tell, but this goes back to what you said earlier. in the program of and what you're saying now, creating words for something impacts the way we relate to that thing. And one of the things that's happened in the therapeutic world is that it is necessary for us to have and it's helpful to have a shorthand for things that Happen to be communal human experiences, like things that multiple people experience. And it's helpful to have a name for them, especially if we want to talk about how do we tackle that, or if we want to change that or grow from it, what do we do with it? And there are some standardized things that work or whatever.
But in coming up with names for some of these things, we've sent the message that having something called like anxiety is the same in your body as having like an infection. It's like a chemical thing that has happened to you. And therefore, the way we tackle it is also going to be as if your body's a machine and it's plug and play. And we do take this medication or we do this thing and it will help it.
Now, there are real chemical things. I'm completely open to that. I mean, people who have schizophrenia, PTSD, you you know, there are some real bipolar disorder, like real chemical things that happen to people. But I think the majority, I'm willing to say, of diagnoses we give people are more often a helpful name for a pattern of thinking. And that is helpful again because a lot of these things have been studied and have treatments.
I've talked about dealing with obsessive-compulsive disorder before. And every time I talk about it, I always hear from listeners or other people who've dealt with the same thing. I'm really grateful there's a name for it because it's been studied and the treatment for it. Is pretty self-explanatory and helpful. And that's great that someone has discovered it and we've streamlined it and all that.
But I'm fully aware that if you give me an MRI or something, you're not going to see something in my brain. Like I don't have it, I just have a way of thinking that was not helpful. And I've figured out a way forward from that. But what we're telling kids is that you might have something like inherent in there that's wrong. And that is not only like insurmountable, but is an explanation for all of your discomfort.
And therefore, you need accommodation. And that's just a recipe for feeling terrible all the time. Yeah, well and you know to this particular study and it was a small study but We're seeing that is like now we're deep into therapy culture, right? We're deep into. where all of this and our attention on mental health and if if all of this attention and naming and categories and introducing it at doctors' offices and in classrooms and in little children's books of being neurodivergent and all these sorts of things are there, then Shouldn't we be getting better, not worse?
I mean, it's like more people. It's just this kind of growing. You know, self-identification that seems to, you know, to be there. Yeah. And unfortunately, I think it's going to lead to more people being.
Medicalized and on medicine, and that's not a positive development either.
So that's It's tough. Hi, my name is Bill from Port Orange, Florida, and I'm a Cornerstone partner because for many years I've richly enjoyed and reflected upon the work that was being done by the Coulson Center. and I wanted to make the commitment to support this ministry that changes lives, communities, and culture. If you'd like to join me and a thousand other believers in becoming a Cornerstone partner, visit colsoncenter.org/slash cornerstone.
Well, John, I want to talk about another headline that kind of went under the radar a little bit, but the Trump administration is changing.
Some of its rubric for dealing with the homelessness crisis. This is another one of those situations that has, you know, homelessness has been around for generations. And very at various times, generations, a few years since homes first existed. Since homes have been understatement. Yeah.
Since homes happened, there have been people without them.
Okay, at various times, various political leaders, though, have said we figured out how to solve this, right? And there's always been a debate.
Now this is fair to say for generations there's been a debate about How to tackle this problem. And there is a perspective that is treatment first and then housing first. These are kind of opposing perspectives, okay? The treatment first perspective is what the Trump administration is trying to bring back into the way that public institutions deal with these issues. which is that you know most Poverty in the United States today is related to addiction.
And, you know, people always say addiction and mental health, but addiction is considered a mental health situation. And those two tend to exacerbate each other.
So, most American homelessness is related to. Addiction. And so the treatment first policy is that we need to get people into addiction treatment before we start inundating them with resources like housing and free medical care and free everything else.
Now, we have free medical care in this country, if you think about it in terms of like, if you have a medical emergency, you're going to be treated. But the policy before this, this is a shift from the housing first policy, which comes from the perspective that if we just get everybody. Get their basic needs met, such as shelter and safety, then. Treatment will be easier, and then they'll desire treatment, and it will solve it. That's been the perspective that's been largely in practice from the government side for the foreseeable past.
And I think we can all agree it's not working. I have a lot of thoughts on this, but do you think this is a positive development? It is. I mean, it requires more than just saying, okay, we're going to deal with addiction because addiction itself is, is it the fundamental problem that needs to be addressed or is it reflective of a deeper problem? And I know that you keep saying, well, what caused this and what caused this?
And pretty soon you're back in a garden with a snake. But at the same time, you do need to answer that question. What's the fundamental problem that needs to be addressed here? And that is a worldview question. This is asking, for example, the kind of creatures humans are.
Are we fundamentally creatures who need these basic set of needs? Who did the hierarchy of needs that we have? Maslow. Maslow. Yeah.
Yeah. So that was a framing of humans. If you start there, then the first thing people need is this, this, this, and you see them as fundamentally physical beings and not relational or spiritual or anything else.
So all this goes back to an anthropological question at some level. Um I I think also there's the the issue of Who's doing the treating? There's a difference between the the government doing it and the government encouraging uh enabling, subsidizing. uh private practitioners who who who have an expertise in this. And that's because, look, the the government has a set of tools.
Sometimes you need those tools.
Sometimes, though, you need something that's more precise. You need something that's more individualistic. And the government. Has a limited amount to do that. It's kind of like, you know, sometimes a chainsaw is great.
If you're clearing a forest, if you're repairing a flood zone, you need a chainsaw. Chainsaw is not the best thing if you're doing surgery, right? You need something more precise. And it's not the government's fault that they don't own scalpels. The government has chainsaw.
That's what they do, right? They have to do it. In a broader context, they have to do it in a more generalized way and so on.
So all that kind of is what's at root here, but in essence, what we're doing is back to the question. What's a human being? What kind of creatures are we? And You know, Chuck Colson used to say this all the time: that if you really want to tell the difference between worldviews, All worldviews ask what went wrong. And also, you know, with the world, but also with specific things.
Like, here you have. you know, the the neighborhood in Colorado Springs where there's a A homeless village that's been built up, right? And you look at this and you say, okay, what went wrong here? How you answer that question. It makes a big difference into whose job is it to fix it.
And that plays at the heart of this. Yeah, it is it's a human nature problem. I think What happens with so much like the homelessness crisis is that People who've never dealt with it or have never been close to it look at it. Try to think about, try to imagine what would lead a person to being in that situation. believe that they've come to the conclusion.
It's like, well, they just don't have enough to eat. They weren't given this, they weren't given that. And so we just provide that and it solves it. And you know, this I'm speaking in generalities. There are lots of individual situations that may be different.
But for the most part, in 2026 in the United States, that is not the case. That's just that's not how it happens. And that's not to say that if Either one of us were dealing with an addiction, God forbid, something happened. I don't know how we would act. I mean, the.
the fundamental nature of that is irrational. And so That's a part of it. But we have to look at, you know. When I did the story that I did about addiction treatment centers in Portland for Christianity Today. I spent four days.
Riding my bike around Portland and asking people who were living on the street what they wanted. And if they wanted a different life or if they wanted to do something different. And I didn't speak to a single person who said yes. And I, they were in the throes of addiction. They were open about that.
But I would say to them, if I, If I could offer you recovery and a free house, but you had to stop using and you had to give up your phone, would you do it? No. No, no, no, no, I wouldn't do it. And part of the reason they wouldn't, when I would talk to them, is: I've got everything I can get, free clothes over there. There's a free medical clinic over there.
I get three meals a day over there. I got a free tent from right there. What else do I need? And I mean, I'm going to take them at their word.
So I think a lot of times what helps people who are in a desperate state like that removing the Other options, right? How many people say they have to hit rock bottom before they make changes? And if we say we've got a limited number of resources, we've got a limited number of housing. And you have to be clean or you have to be in this state before you can come in here. I imagine that that would help.
And that's the end goal: helping. It's not to be uncompassionate. But it's it's helping this crisis. Yeah. Well, at some level, you're talking about scalpel work, right?
I mean, I think you have the general reason, and then you've got where people are, people are different. places in proximity to rock bottom. And that's why it's hard to treat it all at once. In a sense, this reminds me of the conversation that was had I contributed, I think, to a national review panel. I think that's where it was.
on the war on poverty after 50 years and And basically, the consensus from all of us, and I was one of a hundred or so people that. contributed it's like yeah that we fought it and we lost And part part of it is because if you think that The fundamental issue at poverty is the catastrophic loss of dollars. Then the Answer is Give them dollars. Have been very, very moved in the conversation around homelessness. by the only really successful program that I've ever seen.
And it's been people have tried to mimic it. And it It has been very difficult to mimic. Because you realize it's not just one thing, it's a whole lot of things coming to bear. And that is the remarkable uh work of Alan Graham. In Austin, Texas.
He's the founder and CEO of Mobile Loaves and Fishes. He developed What's called community first, the community first tiny home village. And it's interesting because. he would say in his fundamental answer to what went wrong here, He sees he he's famous for saying the Homelessness is not about the catastrophic loss of homes. Homelessness is the catastrophic loss of relationship.
And his program that that helps people Puts them in relationship with each other, with the church. And sense of a mutual moral responsibility to one another. And, you know, nobody bats a thousand. Uh but this is something that has done incredible work. in helping people deal with addiction.
helping people take responsibility. helping people move forward to the point that people have been trying to mimic it. in communities all over America. But you need like this whole Yeah. group that kind of surrounds th this program And surrounds these individuals and brings relationships.
And is everyone ready for it? Nope. Is everyone ready to help? Nope. But the ones that are can be helped, and they have been helped.
And it's really a remarkable work. But you know, he If you understand, this is the nature of what we're dealing with going in. You're just at a very different place than thinking, oh, well, these people without homes. The obvious solution is to give them homes, but that's not the problem, just like you know. understanding who they are and who they are in relationship to other people and And their own agency, their own responsibility.
That community part is really delicate, too, because I've seen my. But that's the thing, is you don't hold it to a perf a perfect standard. The success of this program is remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. It just requires an understanding of what it's like to be in that situation.
My church is a part of a ministry that works with people, particularly moms who are homeless or struggling economically. And I went to a training for it, and I, at one point, raised my hand and was like, What do we do when they ask us for money? And the trainer was like, ah, so you've worked with this population before. Good.
Okay.
So we can get in because. And this is like a taboo subject, and even still among my church family, this is taboo, where we I see well-meaning and lovely friends of mine who want to build community for women and people who've never had it. Then Take the agency away from people, like do too much for them, I guess is what I'm trying to say. In a way that just exacerbates the problem. There's such a delicate, hard balance between.
empowering people to take charge of their own life and often people don't want to do that. and trying to build community for people who've never had it before. This is just really, really hard work.
Well, John, let's get to some questions that we received this week. I want to ask this first one in particular before we need to go. This was from a person who is hoping to become a librarian. And they write that they're working currently at a library and within the first month, they found a slew of books with LGBTQ themes. And so they're thinking through how do I deal with this while at the same time not wanting to lean too heavily into censorship because we've seen that, you know, this person says that they've been in other contexts where they know the Bible is banned in certain libraries or that libraries won't carry it.
So we don't want to lean too heavily into that. side of it either. How do we strike a good balance when we're thinking about Libraries.
Well, I don't know any books on this. I don't know any training on this. I do think, though, that when you begin with these kind of social institutions like libraries, A lot of times we want to jump to, and I think this is the issue in a lot of, for example, public school libraries. It's like, well, no one belongs. Between A child and anything that child wants to read, right?
That, like, is this child is a radical individual and doesn't belong to a family and doesn't belong to a community that has. has a sense of moral responsibility for who they are, and that's just insane. You people try, and I appreciated how this question kind of came through. Um we're actually kind of keeping it a little bit uh anonymous here uh by request of the questioner here But you know, you you in a sense Trust your kids to a library. I mean, that was one of the places where.
You know, we would go as a kid. My mom would take us to this room where the kids' books and say, Okay. Run wild, and you can't do that anymore, right? You can't just do that almost anywhere. Parents need to walk through this with them.
And I think that one of the most A strategic things you can do if you are in this role as a professional and are struggling. Is to change the posture because the posture of most of these places are. Parents don't belong here.
Now, some places that's explicit, right? If you go to the Colorado Springs City Library, you actually have signs that say this is a safe place from your parents, basically. Yeah, we got a future. Yeah, if you're at a private institution with a library. I would suggest, and you feel like something needs to be held accountable in a way that it's not?
I would start having parents' nights. I would start inviting parents in. I would start doing parents' reading clubs. I would start bringing them in. I would involve them.
And I think this is especially true. You know, we have talked in the past when it comes to, for example, Christian schools. What makes a Christian school Christian?
Well, certainly. the the moral environment, certainly the spiritual elements that are added to it, certainly the integration and the discipline so that you're talking about history as a Christian, not as a secularist. But I think also it's how you understand the administration and structuring of the school. And there's a whole lot of Christian schools that think it's their job to raise kids, not their job to help parents raise kids. I mean, we encountered that so many times.
I just can't even tell you. At every level, parents are not to be involved. Parents are not to say anything. Parents are not to do this. Listen, I get it.
Parents are annoying, but you signed up for this as a Christian, dude. The kids belong to the parents, not to you. And that needs to be reflected in there. And I've seen Christian schools that invite parents into the ethos of it. And they figured out how to do it in an appropriate way.
And you know what? It makes everything better. You know what it does? It means the parents own what's happening to their kids. And do you want parents to own what's happening to their kids?
You betcha, because God did not entrust those little ones to you. As the librarian, God trusted them to these parents. Invite the parents in over and over and over. And you know what? They might end up.
Solving some of this problem for you. That's part of the problem too, isn't it, though? That sometimes parents are like, Well, you should be taking care of that, at least to you know, their children. Listen, I'm not saying pay, of course, yeah. I mean, it goes back to the other conversation.
We're never gonna bat a thousand on this in a fallen world. But you can certainly tell when something's a failure and something's working.
Well, thank you for that question. If you'd like to send in a question or feedback, go to colsoncenter.org and click on contact us. Wait, I got to do this. Before we go, no, no, I got to do that. I at least have to say this out loud for everyone to hear.
In response to a commentary that we did on growing anti-Semitism around the world. And in the United States, we were accused of being captive to both replacement theology. in an anti-Semitic way. And in fallen, having fallen to the Zionist regime that kills babies. It is.
I'm going to make an award for you for this. This feels like an achievement. I it is amazing. The same commentary, we got one person that said the authors have adopted replacement theology. Which by the way, if you don't know anything about that theologically, it's it's um The idea that Israel has been replaced by the church.
And there are people that understand that as being the cause of all anti-Semitism.
So we were accused essentially of being both anti-Semitic and having Yeah. captive to the Zionist regime. I just want to say that out loud. I don't have anything really to say about it. I'm sure we'll talk more about it.
Anti-Semitism, and we can talk more about what is replacement theology, and is it to blame for everything in the world? Uh that has to do with this. Uh but but it it's just not every day. When you get accused of being the extreme evil on both sides of the issue. Don, the theme I'm really hearing here is that you're wrong and you need to sit and think about your wrongness.
Yeah, so Maybe you can do that ahead of next week. Thank you for listening to Breakpoint This Week. From the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer, alongside John Stone Street, president of the Colson Center. Have a great week, everybody. We'll see you all back here next time.
God bless.
