You're listening to Breakpoint this week. We're talking about the top stories of the week from a Christian worldview. Today, we're going to talk about the third anniversary of the October seventh attack in Israel. We're also going to talk about a slew of religious liberty cases once again coming before the Supreme Court. We are so glad you're with us this week.
Please stick around. Welcome to Breakpoint this week from the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview. I'm Maria Bear, alongside John Stone Street, president of the Coulson Center. John, this week marked the third anniversary of the October 7th attacks in Israel. There were protests.
There were counter-protests. There were events of commemoration. There were some events of perhaps muted celebration. It is hard to make sense of where we are culturally. Globally, at this moment, after October seventh, and it's probably not possible to make a single statement to describe it.
But what do you think has changed since then, three years ago?
Well, you know, I think on the global scale, there's a lot has happened—wars and attacks, and you know, all kinds of things like that. I don't think a lot has changed. I think probably the imminent threats to Israel are not what they were, which is good. Certainly, you've had some remarkable, you know, things that have taken place, like the whole coordinated pager attack and basically taking out of leadership of of Hamas. And you've had an awful lot of suffering for an awful lot of people, and it's.
It's hard to ever think that there'll be something like you know peace in Jerusalem or peace in that part of the world in the in the Middle East, or if it is, it'll be this kind of peace where it's basically you know peace by that kind of power, not because there's actual restoration or reconciliation or anything like that. I think we've been reminded in recent days, recent months, even of really what is. What is behind this? And there's a clash of worldviews, a clash of ideologies, primarily driven by Islamic radicalism, Islamic fundamentalism, a vision of the world that sees other people, particularly the Jewish people, as being mortal enemies that are deserving only of death. There's not a a desire.
For for peace from that side, there won't be a desire from peace, and I think it still stands true. I think what I think it was who's the radio host, the Jewish radio host for for for Salem that's had health issues. Dennis Prager. Dennis Prager. Yes, I can't believe I couldn't.
The name just just just blanked on me.
Well, Prager said, you know, years ago, he said, "Look, if Israel laid down their arms, they would be annihilated. If, if, if the the Muslim radicals laid down their arms, these various terror groups, then there would be peace." and And I think that there's a lot of truth to that. I'm not saying that everything that Israel has done in response can be justified, or is that they are without guilt. But I also think that it's still you still see headlines, right? I mean, even on October the seventh, we saw headlines like "It's been three years since the the war between Israel and you know Gaza started," and you are like, "Oh, that's the headline." Not, it's been three years since the you know the greatest attack on Jews.
Of our lifetime, you know, since the Holocaust, the the the way this thing continues to be framed, and not just by college students in Ivy League, you know, quads, you know, with posters, but the way and Macklemore at his concerts. I mean, the way this thing continues to be framed is just evidence that, gosh, that there there there there there's a A deep-seated tendency toward anti-Semitism in this world that just is hard to quantify, and I know that because we'll get a whole bunch of emails from what I just said, you know, in terms of well, you know, but but you know, they're the guilty ones and that sort of stuff, and yeah, I the last thing I'll say is I think that one of the things that was so unique about the October seventh attack is that it was filmed. And distributed immediately around the world, and it was filmed and distributed by those who were committing the atrocities. And so, what actually happened is so widely available, and it is so hard to understand how someone that the brutality behind it. We have you know, audio of phone calls that were made by those who were committing these atrocities, celebrating.
You know, Dad, I killed a hundred Jews today, and you you just hear that, and and there's footage of women and children, and I don't recommend going to watch it. I don't recommend going to see it, but it's there, and when you do watch it and you do see it, it's just so hard to fathom how the headline can be anything else. Yeah, and we we've talked before recently. I mean, when we were talking about nine eleven, about you know the impact of worldview on how you make sense of what you're seeing, and you know I'm watching kind of a silly like British crime drama right now, and the premise of it is that the government is involved in deepfake technology, and they're doing it. In order to prosecute cases for which they have little other evidence, so they're like, we know that this happened, but we just don't have evidence of it.
So we'll make the CCTV footage look like it happened, so that we can prosecute. Anyway, clever premise for a show, but it is unnerving to watch it because you're basically the storylines are people reckoning with not being able to believe anything that they're seeing, and. I do feel like this is an example. October seventh is an example of having explicit footage of what happened. People describing, as you said, in real time what they are doing, and still people watching it and not willing to accept it for what it is, or having to bend over backwards to you know claim context is needed or some some kind of argument against it.
Which just feels ultimately spiritual. That's the question I wanted to ask you because I, in addition to watching this silly crime drama, I'm also reading through Ezekiel. I just finished Jeremiah. I'm on to Ezekiel. It is as one should, as one should, not doing them at the same time.
Don't worry, but it is unnerving to read through, you know, the these proclamations of utter judgment on Israel from the Lord. And to hear, you know, about the destruction that is coming, and that there will not be peace on this mountain, and that people need to turn back to the Lord, and then to look at the headlines of what's going on today. I think it can be risky to try and put everything we see each new day into, like, directly into a biblical slot. Like, oh, I know exactly where this fits and what's happening, but. Are we able to do that in any way?
Can you spiritualize these headlines?
Well, look, I don't think we need to spiritualize it to get to the same kind of conclusion of you know not all moral actors are equal, and democratic societies are better than totalitarian societies. I mean, from a completely geopolitical you know view, you have Israel in the middle of all these ideologically driven places that. You know, really want Israel to no longer exist, and they're driven clearly from a a political view that's driven from a religious view that there's not a compromise for it. Islamic societies are not humane societies. You know, Islamism is the application of the Islamic religion.
To the geopolitical framework, which it wants to have, and when it gets applied, it becomes less humane, not more humane. It becomes less tolerant of other groups, not more tolerant. And this is just the way that it is across the board. The Islamic societies. That are tolerant of others are those that have Westernized, those that have become more secular, not more religious.
We talked about this a couple weeks ago. The more like Muhammad you become, the less like Jesus you become. Right? This is the way that that this math works, and the only way to misunderstand this, which is clearly what's happening, I think, in the secular West right now. Is to see religion through a secularized, in other words, to refuse to understand the true believing nature.
Of what what Islam demands in terms of conformity of individuals and of societies, or it's to see it through this critical theory lens, and then go ahead and decide up front before anything happens and before anything else, who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, who are the oppressed, who are the oppressors, and then you have to look at something like October the seventh and flip it completely upside down and and and call evil good and good evil like the Bible talks about. And I think that that's really the framing that we can bring from Holy Scripture, you know, to this is absolute truth and absolute vision of human dignity and absolute vision of what the human condition is, and then see nations and states and communities through that. The danger of trying to do biblical application here, and it's I think endemic across how we think about the Middle East in particular. Is to take this land with such a a rich history that is reported and described in the Bible, and then kind of jump out of the story. And what I mean is Ezekiel was.
Written at a particular time in a particular place to a particular people, even if he's talking about the future in in many places, which he is. But what you do is you drop these phrases or or verses out of the story, and then you shoot them ahead twenty five hundred years and make a direct application, and that always becomes, I think, a problematic thing. I mean, think about the way we, I think, most typically do it in the United States. Second Chronicle seven fourteen I think or fourteen seven is the seven fourteen to fourteen seven. If my people who are called by my name, yeah, it's one of the two.
I always get in the middle of quoting. It's like when you're teaching and you start to spell a word on the board, and you're like, "That doesn't look right, but it is right." You know, and then you're committed, and you just go forward. Yeah, you just pretend like, "Oh, it's a simple mistake." So anyway, the the Second Chronicles verse: If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and repent and turn from their wicked ways, then I will heal their land. And what a lot of Americans want to do is take that verse, pretend that it wasn't said by a particular person to a particular nation, drop it out of the story, shoot it ahead—you know, thirty-five, forty-five, thirty-five hundred years—as if it applies to America.
Now, what does apply to America?
Well. That there is a moral framework to the universe that applies to us, just like it applied to Israel, and that's because the Bible tells the story of the whole world, not just the story of Israel, and it gives us these moral norms, including principles that nations can live by. Second, that repentance is a good thing. If you've done bad things and you're headed to the moral cliff, the best way forward is to turn around and go backwards, and that's what repentance is. But the challenge is this: the kind of promise that America is "quote unquote" my people, like Israel is "quote unquote" my people.
The self, kind of conscious understanding of the founders that they wanted to see things and build things around a Christian understanding of who people are, how people work, the human condition, and so on. Doesn't make us God's chosen people in the way that Israel was, right?
So there's a lot in Saint Chronicles that we can apply to us, right? The moral framework, the repentance, the promise of restoration, and that's promises that are given to us throughout Scripture to individuals, but it's not given to nations. But nations that go along with God's way are going along with the grain of the universe, as opposed to against the grain of the universe. And so we can make real moral judgments that can apply. And if we make the good moral judgments, then things are going to be better than if we call evil good and good evil, like is happening in a lot of these protests.
So it is a challenge to make some of these hermeneutical. Applications. We've got to do it because we're dealing with absolute truth, but we can't jump out of the story. And I think that's the the the the principle that can be helpful. Let the story speak for itself.
Let the story shape how we think about humans and how we think about marriage and relationships and our place in the world and our relationship with God and with each other. We allow that to happen, and we can have clear ways forward. And I think that's when when those applications happen. Those are the legitimate applications. We we don't just need to kind of claim every.
Promise of the Old Testament that was made to a certain group of people, as if it were made to us.
Well, John, normally we would wait till the end of the program to talk about questions from listeners. Which, by the way, if you don't already, if you listen to the full Breakpoint podcast, you can hear us do that almost every week at the end of each episode. But I wanted to. I think this would be a good time to get to one question in particular because it's relevant to what we're talking about here. Recently, someone wrote in and asked if we were conflating what they call Islam with Islamism, and I, they're trying to make a distinction there.
They say, "I want to send this podcast to friends, but I can't send it to people who will feel that you're using a broad brush to paint all Muslims as terrorists or as supportive of Sharia law." And this person goes on to say they have friends who are Muslim who do not in any way support, for example, child marriage or forced marriage. That they wouldn't do anything like this to their daughters, and they believe that the majority of Muslims in America also would not hold to those views.
So they say there's a difference between Islamic believers and Islamist believers. Is that a distinction that you think is is relevant? It is. It's a distinction actually that we made in that program.
So I'm not exactly sure what the the idea that we painted everyone with a broad brush is. What we are saying is that if you become more like Muhammad, you become more Muslim. You become more Muslim. You become more Islamist. And Islamist nations, the more Islamist a nation is.
Then the the more totalitarian or in in living in some kind of beleaguered state, the more tendencies towards terrorism you have, or to sponsor you know some of these proxy groups like Hamas and all that sort of stuff. In other words, the more Christian you become, the less you become like that. The more Muslim you become, the less you become like that, or the the more you become like that. And what we have is since nine eleven. Is a group of nations that have become less Muslim, more secular, and that was the hope of a lot of people because at that point they're more willing, for example, in the Abraham Accords, to walk into some sort of alliance with Israel or to be less likely to become, you know, to fund terrorist groups and things like that.
What I don't want to say, while I make that distinction, you know, that not all Muslims are terrorists and that sort of thing, which is obviously true, is that. You know, all religion. I don't want to somehow be communicating.
Well, all religions are the same, and people are inherently good, and all the sort of ways that this was kind of framed after nine eleven. No, Islam takes you in a particular direction. The more Islamic you become, the more in that direction you go, and really, the more like Muhammad and the in the history of this religion and this religious people that you become, and that's where it goes. Let's take the issue of child marriage, which is what we were talking about a few weeks ago. Why?
Because the the UK has a task force against child marriage. The fact that you have to have a task force, it says an awful lot. And why do you have to have a task force? It's not because of Christian immigrants from Africa. It's because because of Islamic immigrants, you know, from other parts of the world.
It's not because of Westerners. You don't have any sort of sect, any sort of subgroup, any sort of religious group within the West or that's indigenous to the West that is basically saying, "Yeah, we want to marry off child brides." It's the exact opposite.
Now, we might say we want to have drag queens in their elementary schools. We do that. That's the sexual abuse that comes out of the West. But child brides—that's coming from one place on the planet, across the globe. It's coming from one ideological source.
It's not secularism. It's not Christianity. It's not Hinduism. It's coming from Islam, and to pretend like that's not the truth is not to say is is is just wrong. I mean.
That's the source of it, and you have to say it because it's rooted in a particular ideology. That doesn't mean that every single Muslim endorses it. Of course not. Maybe not even the majority of Muslims in the West endorse it. But that's because they're more Western than they are Islamic, at least in this area.
I just don't understand this impulse because any time we criticize, let's say, the actions of some Christians, I mean, it's rare that we would get any kind of pushback. Like, oh my goodness, now I can't send this podcast. To Christian friends, or I can't because now you're painting. It's just such a strange. It's like whenever we talk about this one particular group, we have to be so extraordinarily nuanced that there's another group too worth saying.
There's not just there's another group too. No, there's another group. Whenever we we criticize it, then it becomes. Do you know what I'm talking about? Which group I'm talking about?
I'm guessing homosexual people. No.
Well, maybe that that's true. LGBTQ. No, no. Mormons. We hear that same critique on Mormons.
Like, well, there's just there's just not an allowance of critique. Most Mormons are good people. Most Mormons are. Yeah, we we just don't apply the same rubric to almost anything else. But what I wanted to say is that Islam fundamentally preaches that women and females are inferior.
To men, I don't know how else to say it. Like there's, there's probably a a more dressed up, like intellectual language that somebody would put that in, but that's just a fundamental tenet of Islam. And if you take that seriously at all, even partly, the extrapolation of that is going to be fundamentally incompatible with any Western values, but particularly Christianity.
So, regardless of how far an individual Muslim person is willing to take it, that is just a reality of this worldview, and that's relevant to. Every part of life. Yeah, you're exactly right, and I think it's notable too. Do you remember in the days after 9 11, who got in the most trouble for not, you know, kind of always hedging?
Well, not all Muslims are violent, and and people who said, well, you know, violence is more likely to come from Muslims than from Christians or from secularists. You know, who got in the most trouble for saying that? Anne Coulter, atheist. Anne Coulter. No, it was Bill Maher.
You know, Bill Maher would basically say, "I'm not worried about radical Christians. I'm worried about radical Muslims." Right? Listen, my my husband spoke at an event recently, and someone in the audience criticized him because they claimed that he said he doesn't want any Muslims in this country. I I don't even know what they were referring to, but I went over with Aaron to talk to this person afterwards, and he did not want to shake my hand because I'm female. I mean, just get real.
Like, I I don't know. Was it a Muslim? Was it a Muslim? Yeah, it was a Muslim man. Yes.
Well, listen. There's no question that it's been extremely difficult to be Muslim in America after that. Uh, not nine eleven. Uh, and in fact, there were plenty of examples of people who weren't Muslim.
Okay, well, when Christian people do something fundamentally embarrassing, I feel embarrassed because I don't want to be in their tribe. I don't get mad at the people who conflate us. I I get mad at the people who tarnished the name of Christ. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, well, you're you're you're right, and and you have to.
Call a spade a spade when you're talking about such you know critical issues. I used to do a radio segment every week out of L.A. and the years after 9/11, and I usually would follow this Muslim cleric that was out there, and I was always fascinated to get on early and listen to this guy because this guy basically was a Muslim who was calling for Islam to become more secularized. He just would, and he recognized, like, look, if we don't separate ourselves from these radical elements, our only hope is that we become more secular. Otherwise, the West—they're not putting up with it.
They're going to wipe us out.
Now, well, the fast track to what he wants to accomplish is to lay down your Islamist faith. Then, right, and he—I mean, look, if you really believe it like he did, you're not going to do that. And and and he got part his wish partly became true, and his also. Assumption that the West had had enough and they weren't going to put up with anymore—that certainly proved to not be fully true because the West has proven an unbelievable, especially a progressive vision, a tolerance for that sort of thing. But it's it's it's it's it's interesting that there were people within the tribe that recognized that, and and it's when a Muslim says that they don't get in trouble for it when it.
An atheist said that. I mean, Bill Maher got into some trouble for it, but Christians are the ones that are blamed for saying these things, and some of us did. But really, part of it is if you recognize the reality, there is one source for child brides in the world, and that is coming out of and you know Islamic nations. That are shaped by an Islamism and have that vision of women that you talked about and girls that you talked about, and some of it's tribal as well.
Some of it's you know part of the culture of that people. But again, Christianity comes in and transforms that. Islam comes in and reinforces it and makes it worse. It's just we're not talking about apples and apples. We're talking about apples and oranges here, John.
Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back with more BreakPoint 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.
We're going to have a segment now about religious liberty because there have just been a slew of cases that have come up recently where this issue is once again back in the courts. You just want to feel like it's settled, you know? The Supreme Court writes a beautiful decision in, you know, Trinity Lutheran or Jack Phillips case or whatever, or three hundred three. Like, how many times are we going to tackle this? And then somehow we find a way to get it back before the court.
So I'm just going to run some of these by you. First is the case of. Of a Jewish man here in Ohio who wanted to host a prayer meeting at his home, but was told that he couldn't because once ten or more people gathered at his house, that was considered a synagogue and violated zoning laws.
So it looks like ADF is going to be arguing on behalf of this man before the Supreme Court. What do you make of this case?
Well, I think it's going to be an open and shut case. I don't think he has a chance of losing this one. You know, it's just egregious that this kind of arbitrary rule would be imposed, and and and and you know, it's just bizarre.
So, I I don't think they have a chance of losing this one. But but a lot of these cases, I think, if they go to the Supreme Court, are you know going to be decided the right way. I think we have a court that has demonstrated that it's willing to put the onus on government to prove that they have to work really hard to burden an individual's religious freedom. That religious freedom should be considered in an expansive way, and not just kind of in a personal, private sort of. Right to believe what one wants, you know.
This is what they've demonstrated time and time and time again. I think, and again, this is just one case. I mean, take a minute, just real quickly, and just read off all the others. I mean, there's there's actually a bunch, and I was surprised by how many are kind of front and center right now. What else do we have?
So, there's a family in Massachusetts who lost custody of their teenage daughter because they refused to move forward with cross-sex hormones for her. As she was dealing with her gender, there is a Catholic family. I think right.
Well, there's a Catholic family in Colorado. I don't know if this. Oh, yep, you're right. the The family in Massachusetts is Catholic as well. Then there's a case in Colorado in which a Catholic elementary school has been excluded from the state's so-called universal preschool program, which that kind of thing has been, yep.
And then there's another case in Colorado with Camp Idrahaji, which we've talked about before as well. The state trying to force the camp to, you know, affirm whatever the LGBTQ mantra du jour is before they can. Be free to operate. There is an interesting case I wanted to talk with you about as well, out of New York, with regards to the state. Which has typically, until now, allowed Amish schools to operate outside of the vaccine regulations that apply to most schools, there to public schools.
But now they're changing course and they're trying to order these Amish schools to administer the vaccines.
So I feel like there are some critical differences to that case than these other ones, but it certainly does seem like there's a lot going on. And then I will also mention there was a case recently in Illinois in which a high school teacher. Was fired and then was charged in a civil case because he was a teacher in a public school and had a Muslim student who asked him some questions about the Bible. And rather than you know have a conversation with her fully about the Bible at school, he gave her the names of some churches in the area and some resources. And she ultimately became a Christian.
And her parents sued. And the teacher won that case, but there is still some aspects of it that are are in the court. There is some nuances there, but it seems like this religious liberty thing just isn't going away, John.
Well, I don't think it ever will. I don't think that should surprise us. And I guess when I saw the kind of lineup, and I think there is even a few more cases as well. That are front and center, either at local courts or even headed to the Supreme Court in one way or another. That either are all about religious freedom and religious expression, or at least partially about it.
It just makes me think of you know a pretty. Popular, common opinion writer for the New York Times saying that the religious liberty issue is basically settled in America. We need to stop freaking out about it. Oh, and the reason we well, the the problem with that is is that it's like any freedom; it's that you have to actually exercise it, or you lose it, and then you have to defend it, or you lose it. And we're seeing states go in completely opposite directions on this, particularly Colorado.
There's two Supreme Court cases in about Colorado again this year. I think ADF has like six clients out of the state of Colorado, and some are still headed for you know bigger, bigger courts and and so on. The Jack Phillips trial is settled, and it did not keep. You know the state from imposing a pronoun mandate. You know on public businesses and people of faith.
You know, regardless.
So the the point is is that in order for religious freedom to be preserved, it does have to be defended, but it also needs to be understood. Despite the fact that there's been kind of a whole slew of wins for religious liberty at the court level. Three things I think to remember. Number one is it has not prevented certain states, particularly progressive-minded states, from continuing to infringe on religious liberty in the very same areas in which they've already been decided. You reacted to the the the the case about a a Colorado school participating in the government funding program.
And whether they could or they couldn't, because they're religiously identified, you said, "Here we go again." Well, what you meant by that was, like, this has been decided so many times, even at the Supreme Court, that if there is a government program that is making funds widely available, you cannot be excluded solely on on the conditions of of your religious convictions. And yet, here we have Colorado doing this again.
So. In other words, the fact that you get a decision doesn't mean you know you shouldn't stand up the next time that that religious right is is is infringed upon. The second thing is really knowing what we mean by religious freedom and religious liberty. I was really struck by this case out of Ohio of this Jewish man who wanted to have a prayer gathering in his home because one of the ways that religious freedom is Taken away is when it is defined down to what Chuck Colson warned about, just kind of being a freedom of worship, and a freedom of worship is you have the right to believe what you want, but you don't have the right to exercise on it. In other words, you have the right to believe what you want in your own head and in your own heart, and typically, it at least involves your own house of worship and your own home.
You know the four H's. That's where freedom of worship is usually defined down to freedom of religion involves all of those things plus the right to actually. Act out of your convictions to order your public life around them. To speak freely about your convictions. To to actually associate with others who have those convictions.
And so here you have the state of Ohio again, or this at least this township trying to define down what freedom of religion is to a very very nuanced and kind of small vision. Of freedom of worship, and those two things aren't the same. You see this, by the way, when you see similar cases pop up in other countries. The First Amendment it ensures a robust freedom of religion, and it is really important for us to maintain that. Other countries have similar kind of language, and maybe their constitutions or so on, but not the same thing.
And it becomes very, very difficult to maintain that robust freedom of religion, as opposed to allowing it to be defined down to just freedom of of worship. And then the third thing you got to remember is that there are limits on freedom of religion. Just because we have freedom of religion doesn't mean. That you can violate other freedoms along that way, and and that's really the conflict I think we have right now with some expressions of Islam. Why it's okay for us, for example, to prevent child marriage in the United States, and and someone claiming freedom of religion doesn't allow the the freedom and the rights and and and and the value of a young girl to be violated like that.
Now this is hard work, a. Proving all this stuff is super hard work. The courts will always be busy. I tell you what: we should not do is prematurely declare victory and then jump out of the fight, because we have one after the other after the other here at a time when we're like, oh, you know, religious freedom has never been more protected than it is right now. That might be the case, but it's only because of that sort of perseverance from people defending it.
Oh, let me say one more thing too. Which is you also need to understand the way the courts work. I think of Jack Phillips a lot on this, from where he started to where it finished was thirteen years of his life. He got death threats, you know, aimed at him and his family. He lost business, he lost revenue.
It took an eternal amount of time and energy, not to mention stress. The fact that that this man remained and is so joyful and peaceful is one of the most the cool things about this. But make no mistake, for the state of Colorado, the the process was the punishment. In other words, you might win in in the end, but that thirteen years in between is an awful lot of punishment, and so that that's another thing where we just can't declare victory and step out of the fight as if there's nothing to defend here, because you've got real individuals that end up paying the price.
Well, speaking of Jack Phillips, maybe it would be helpful here because you know talking about defining religious expression or religious freedom down, people might look at the case that Jack Phillips case or this case. Out of Massachusetts, where the family you know does not want to allow doctors to prescribe cross-sex hormones to their teenage daughter, and say, what does that have to do with religion? How is this involved with religious freedom? How would you answer that?
Well, I think Jack Phillips, that one's more clear. It's a connection. It was always a connection between religious freedom and then all the other freedoms that are guaranteed in the first freedom. In the First Amendment, you have speech, you have religion, you have association, right, and expression. And this is why it's called the free exercise clause.
You can exercise; you can actually live, not just kind of hold your belief in your heart, but you can actually exercise it. And you have to have all of those because if you, for example, stunt association, or if you stunt the the the speech, then you're going to actually chip away at that. Free exercise clause that that that's there the free exercise that's guaranteed.
So I think the Jack Phillips one is always you know I think more obvious.
Now that was argued along the lines, for example, of speech that this would be coerced speech if Jack had to bake this cake and use his creative talents in order to design a cake to celebrate something that he thinks it's wrong that violates free speech. Right? Not doesn't there's two sides of that. You have the right to say what you believe, but you also have the right to not be forced to say what you don't believe, and that's the case here of Jack Phillips.
Now, what the court argued, the Supreme Court found, is that they didn't even get to that because the state of Colorado was so mean and cruel, and and completely demonstrated time after time after time a level of animosity. Towards Jack's religious conviction, they said, "Well, you can't even do that. Like, if you're going to adjudicate this, then that's one thing. But you have just basically shown an anti-religious bias coming into the conversation up front, and states aren't allowed to do that." And of course, what Colorado did is quickly turned around and did it again. And then, when they were threatened, then they backed off, and then they allowed the punishment to proceed through the civil courts, as opposed through the state civil rights commission.
But the civil rights commission was smacked down by the Supreme Court, and it's not the only time. But they were smacked down for their clear anti-religious bias.
So we. You know, this is the level of protections that's in the First Amendment. It's beautiful, right? It's incredible. You just can't be mean to somebody of a religious belief because you think you're more enlightened or whatever.
And you have to actually allow them to have this sort of exercise.
Now, the question on Massachusetts to me is just a little bit different because I don't think you have to go to freedom of religion there in order to say that children should not be harmed. And that this ideology is actually a form of harm, and particularly when you start doing permanent treatment based on medical fantasy or medical assumptions that that is far from being established. As a a a firm diagnosis, like we don't know how to actually diagnose gender dysphoria. There's not a standard definition of that. There's certainly not a standard level of care.
If there is, it's made up and it hasn't been medically proven. And now we have the WPATH emails where they basically admit we were just making stuff up. You know, you go down this line. You don't even have to go to freedom. Of religion or the freedom of religious exercise, and of course, that's another integrated thing where it intersects with who do children belong to?
Do do families have a level of autonomy, or do children belong to the state? And I think that is the if you ask me, that is where all the litigation and the adjudication has to go now. I don't say all of it, but that's going to be if religious liberty was the hottest of the hot issues in the last ten years. This part of it, who do kids belong to? That's going to be there's going to be an awful lot of money that needs to be raised for ADF and First Liberty and and other groups to fight through that kids belong to parents, not belong to the state first and foremost.
That I think there's a whole lot that's going to happen along those lines in the years to come. And I mean, I've always appreciated families and parents. This case out of Massachusetts is not the first one. There was a similar case here in Ohio where parents have lost custody over the transgender issue. And I always appreciate when families are willing to fight for that.
And I, you know, I don't mean to critique anybody's argument or strategy, but it always was. It always felt a little bit like a capitulation to claim this was a. First and foremost, a religious liberty issue because. That feels like acknowledging that you have to have some kind of you know like spiritual or religious belief in order to affirm that girls can't become boys and boys can't become girls and that we ought not to give this experimental treatment. Yeah, I don't.
I think there's tons of medical reasons to believe that. Right, but it still is. It's it's worthwhile. I think to also claim like these are all metaphysical claims on both sides of this argument. And we're just more willing to say that this involves our our cosmic view of the universe and of reality, and that that our worldview happens to include that there's such a thing as male and female.
And I think we're on the quote unquote right side of history there, and so that it makes sense that it would be part of your argument. But whenever states or authorities are challenging religious liberty, or if that's how we would see it, they're never doing it. Openly saying we're just here to challenge this religious expression, like we don't think you should be allowed to express your religion this way. They're always claiming that it butts up against some other freedom that it's in their interest to defend, and that is part of the legal apparatus, right? There are limits, as you mentioned.
I mean, you can't be a Muslim family and allow your child to get married in this country because we have other laws against child marriage.
So there is there. There is an inherent tension between other laws of freedom and pure religious expression, and that's where we get to this case, like the one out of New York, looking at the Amish schools who have traditionally not administered. Vaccinations to their students now. Most public schools require, in the United States, require a certain slew of vaccinations, including against the measles. And we've seen an increase in the number of measles cases over the last couple of months and years.
That's been concerning. My first question to you is: outside of the litigation here. Do you know or understand? Can you explain a little bit about why the Amish community would be adverse to administering vaccinations? I'm just unfamiliar with that.
Can I hit something real quick and come back to that, please? Yeah. Just because the conversation we were having about just kind of the religious liberty claims around the transgender issue and and and hormone replacement and that sort of stuff. I think one of the corners that we don't want to get backed into is someone claiming religious freedom as the reason that they should encourage their child and fund their child, or maybe make the decision that their child is really a girl in a boy's body, or or do you see what I mean? Like if if if it's If it's basically like it needs to be left up to the parent based on religious conviction, I don't want a parent transing their child and claiming religious conviction.
Yeah, I mean, I think it should be illegal across the board for children to to have this done to them. And the laws that are being passed in states such as Tennessee, saying. Children aren't able to make that decision, and we shouldn't enforce. You know, basically make this permanent decision on their behalf. I don't think there should be a religious exemption to that.
So that's the corner we don't want to get back into. And thankfully, there are brighter legal minds than I that are trying to figure this out. On the Amish side of things, look. I mean, the Amish have just always been very, very hesitant to adopt new technologies, medical or otherwise. There's various levels of that that they allow, and you know that's always a conversation.
Whether you're talking about Old Order Amish or or or others, that's why you see some that will ride in a car together but never own a car. That's why you see some that have some form of electricity for their business but not for their home. I mean, there's all kinds of things that they. They navigate. A friend of mine has a owns a home.
She's not Amish herself, but she owns a home in an Amish community, and she has a telephone in her barn that all of her Amish neighbors are welcome to come and use. And they do frequently come and use it because they don't have them in their own. Sure, yeah, yeah. I mean, and and listen, part of that is is you know really, I tell you, if you want to see the image of God and human creativity and innovation kind of lived out. And you watch these these communities; they're just really kind of stunning.
And yet, it's really, really hard to be consistent across the board on your convictions. But I think on vaccines, they have been consistent. They've been consistent top to bottom. And there's a whole lot of conversations around other kind of issues within the Amish community, such as autism, and why is you know it's the the rate's different, and I don't know if that's even true. I mean, I hear that it is, and people post that it is, but you also don't have Amish parents taking their kids to be diagnosed and doctors to be found where they whether or not they fit on the you know on the spectrum or not.
So I I just think. It's it's hard to to make some of those arguments definitively, but this is not new. The Amish have always rejected vaccines. They have been fine as a community, having basically lived without them. That doesn't mean we have to.
That doesn't mean they're onto something we're not. That doesn't mean we should treat all vaccines as the same. I think some some are different than others, but the Amish have been consistent on this point. And let me just also say this: when it comes to the medical treatment of parents deciding their children, if it's not life threatening, if they're not, you know, basically life saving treatments, the the court has been very clear on this up to this point too. They should not be forced by a state to participate in a medical program if they do not want to.
If you're not talking about life threatening and life saving, now New York's trying to do this, and every Several years, some community tries to do this to religious groups who refuse vaccines. They are imposing incredible fines—two thousand dollars a kid—for if a school is to operate. And this is an innovation, legally speaking, because the state doesn't interfere in these schools. And here you have them interfering in this school. And so I don't think New York is going to be able to.
You know, make this last either because again, the Supreme Court has decided this over and over and over again.
Well, that's that's where my question comes in because a very clear and compelling rebuttal, or I guess tension, with religious freedom is public safety, and I think having community vaccines in operating schools, I think you have a compelling case for public safety there, and that's that's different because. You're not just talking about the safety of the individual children. You're talking about the other children at the school now. If they're running their own schools and these aren't public schools where other kids are coming, then I could see that you know that that changes the math a little bit. But in terms of like the the government's compel having a compelling interest in public health.
Obviously, that gets murky. We've seen it get incredibly abused during the COVID era, but just on its face, I can see the tension here. That's the tension. But I'll give you a couple things that I think change the balance of it. Number one is that this isn't new.
It's not like suddenly, all of a sudden, the Amish schools decided not to have vaccine requirements.
So there are new rates of measles, though. Like measles are on the rise. Yes, there is, but I don't think that they have reached the alarming levels that some of the headlines suggest. And I think that's probably an issue. And you've got a whole track record of year after year after year of Amish schools operating this way and doing it just fine without having to have that sort of imposition.
But the standard that's been set by the Supreme Court in understanding the law is that if you're asking who has to bear the burden of this, is it the state having to bear the burden in order to infringe on the religious liberty of people, or do the religious do religious people have to bear the burden for the state? The Supreme Court says it is the state that has to bear that burden. They have to show a sufficient burden. And I don't think the measles, the increase in measles cases, reaches that. I think that the history of of these schools operating the way they have gives them a track record, and I just don't think you can place that burden on this group of of people based on these circumstances right now.
And so, I don't think it's going to go anywhere. Fair enough. Hi, we are Jack and Martha from Santa Cruz, California. We're Cornerstone Partners because we appreciate the Minis Creek tackling head-on the most pressing faith issues of the day, from abortion to immigration to the role of the church in today's culture. The information presented is always biblically based and intellectually sound.
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Okay, well, John, let's get to some of the other questions that we've had. I don't think we had time to get to questions last week, so we've had a couple thoughtful questions sent in recently, and I want to spend some maybe extended time on those this week. The first one is from a mom who is a public school teacher who wrote in. She said she also sent her kids to public schools, and she's heard us talk about this recently. In particular, kind of talking about the differences between you know Christians who are called into the public school arena as teachers or aides or administrators, and how that can be a really meaningful mission field.
But that more and more we're we're maybe advising families to consider educational alternatives just because of that tension you mentioned in the last segment. You know where the state is increasingly asserting. Power and control over our kids, where you know, overstepping its bounds in that arena. Certainly, that's happening at schools, but also relating to just troubling curriculum, sex ed curriculum, all the crazy stuff going on in public schools. But this mom says that she sent her children to public school, and that she's wrestling with what we've said about that.
She says. Teaching kids that public schools are bad and to be avoided, and to tell parents that public schools are to be feared, will not encourage anyone to go into public school as a teacher. Am I off base in thinking these things? After thirty years in education and watching more and more believing families pull their kids out of public schools and into homeschool or choosing private school, my job has become more and more difficult, and I've seen the understanding of what happens in public schools. Become so generalized that fear is taken hold.
Yeah, and then she likens the you know all police are bad police kind of mantra of 2020 to all public schools are bad schools, and she sees a real problem there. Yeah, I don't think those two are equivalent, but I appreciate the the concern here. I do think going into the public school system as a teacher as an administrator is a way of Kind of walking into an opportunity to shine the light of Christ in a in an area that is dark, to be a missionary in in one's vocation, and trying to redeem an area that has been that that is a was birthed out of a Christian worldview to begin with, the idea that all kids deserve an education. Comes only from the idea of the image of God to begin with.
So, you know, compulsory public education is something that is birthed out of a Christian vision of what it means to be human, especially that it should apply to both you know poor kids and rich kids, and black kids and white kids, and everybody else. I mean, this is a a wonderful kind of legacy of it. But we can say that, and we could say that without saying, look, the public school system. Is considered to be the status quo and the norm that should be protected, and I don't think that's the case. I think that it's an innovation.
I think that there are a lot of alternatives, and that those alternatives should flourish, particularly when you see across the board, you know. Rates of literacy and education and character and mental health and all those kind of things that are measured among school children go in the wrong direction year after year after year after year.
Now that doesn't mean that happens at every school. There are many public schools that outperform the others, and the reason that they outperform the others is because of the teachers that are there. And that's the opportunity that a Christian has, whether in a tough school or in a flourishing school, to to to shine and be as Excellent as they can be, but when we say that there needs to be alternatives, we mean it on a number of levels. Number one, that there needs to be alternatives that recognize, at particularly at the level of governance of those schools, that kids first and foremost belong to parents, not to the schools, and that is a rare thing, right? That is that there is a dominant idea.
That the the kids belong to the schools and parents are a nuisance. I'm not saying that every school. I'm not saying that's every teacher. I know that there are plenty of parents that are a nuisance, right? All that's the case, but at the end of the day, when you have a structural violation of a created norm, that's just not something that Christians should support.
So we need to be aware of that, and we need to have other alternatives when those are, I think, appropriate. Secondly, it's not just that there's a a sex education class here or there. It's that we now have system after system after system, and it's dominant in which the the the most common class taught from kindergarten through twelfth grade, or the most common concept taught, is some form of sex education that's based on this kind of sexual self identification. And this is a something that's actually a harmful ideology. We're not even talking yet about, for example, the A mandated secularism that is to be taught in the sciences, or the mandated separation of church and state, understand under understood, I think, in an appropriate way.
That's to be taught, for example, as we talk about government, or the all religions are basically the same, and everyone should be respected accordingly. Kind of muddying of the moral waters. This is all stuff that's mandated across the curriculum by. Schools that have to be secularized. When you look at those that are determining the curriculum, those that are determining the approach to these various schools, the thing we talked about a lot are the master's level programs and the college training programs of teachers that are structurally embedded in these universities.
They're they're they're teaching teachers to teach a particular way, and there is a structural problem that's there, and that can't be supported. That's the other side of this equation for me: is that it's ideologically, it is is an issue. Ideology is an issue in these curriculum, the way we're teaching teachers, and the way we're teaching schools or teaching kids in the public schools. But the academics, like the fundamental. Mission of the public education system and of all education systems is to educate kids, and obviously there are going to be individual school exceptions to this.
But if you look at the national scores on reading, math, and science, they are abysmal. They are getting worse, and the university systems that are teaching teachers have no incentives and show no signs of improving. I mean, just look at the debacle in reading. And the you know the cult of whole language reading or whatever it was that has been the norm now for fifteen or twenty years and just fundamentally has not taught kids to read and has actually kept kids from learning how to read. Like if you're a family and you're looking at school, you've got to send them to a school that's going to educate your kids, and by and large, the public schools generally.
Are doing less and less of that. That is such a huge part of this conversation too. And that's actually, that's actually an argument for more Christians to go into the public school and make a difference, right? But the the thing that we've talked about a lot is that the training programs that allow you access into the public schools as teachers are very often ideologically loaded as well. And as you said, don't don't have the incentive to set the same sort of goals of what an education is supposed to accomplish.
And I.
So, so that's not an argument to stay away. I don't. We always have this kind of line when you're talking about an area that has some pretty severe brokenness, and I think education in America has severe brokenness. And for the record, we have critiqued Christian schools as well, critiqued, for example, Christian colleges, but also, you know, really understanding K to twelve. That if you're going to have a Christian school, you also have to have a vision.
Of education, not just a vision of having chapel or memorizing the Bible. It's not just about longer skirts and shorter hair in order to get a Christian education. Like you know, in other words, that same sort of vision is required of everyone, which is why Christians belong in education, and Christians have always driven education. But I guess I'm recoiling a little bit from the questioner saying that we're you know teaching people to fear them. Public schools.
The hard part is, is you know, to your point, you you look at the numbers, you look at the stats, you look at the data. We're not making these things up; they're just there. You look at the stories, and it's not just what's happening in Beverly Hills and Boston. You know, it's it's it's what's happening in Middle America too, and so it's it's a hard thing. I think it's important to note too the other side of the coin of the state asserting more control over kids.
Is that it sends the implicit message to parents that they don't have the responsibility for their kids that they do? Because I can hear a lot of the pushback to what we're saying from teachers or administrators in public schools saying, "Yeah, maybe the reading and math scores are worse, but parents are helping so much less than they used to in the past. Like parents aren't reading to their kids anymore; they're not helping kids with their homework anymore. They're not." And I see that problem too in my own life, and you know, in friends and. Schools here, but part of that is because they've been told implicitly by the way the public education system works that it's not their job, and actually they're probably not equipped to help their kids learn anymore, and that they shouldn't.
Whatever, it's a vicious cycle, and both parties bear responsibility for it. But that is, I think, a side of the same coin. Yeah, I, I, the the two two of the sharpest students that I ever had at the college level were public school. Students and I'm a public school student. When I, yeah, when I investigated, the the point was they said our parents were just super involved.
They were just involved at every level of our education. They asked us every day what we learned. We continued to have conversations around the dinner table. Learning became a way of life. And I do think, by the way, there's none of this.
It's saying, you know, be afraid of your local public school. It's it's to know what's happening there, what is going on, what is taking place. And I think that there is a big mistake that's made by a lot of Christian families that say, "Well, I don't want the public school. I'm scared of them, so I'm just going to choose the local Christian school without investigating there." Your job, it's the parent. It's it.
Any school that you employ in this process is a subcontractor. You're the contractor. You've got to make the decision. And so, I think that there's also a problem with parents not knowing what's happening and not staying involved when it comes to a Christian school. You can't just outsource it.
And by the way, Christian schools have this vision as well. I mean, there's a Christian school in our town. When it comes to to it, that they basically tell parents, it's our job, not your job, and you hear that all the time. And their official documents will say, "Oh, we partner together with parents," but the actual practice is parents butt out. And I think a lot of parents have had that experience at Christian schools.
Certainly, a lot of certainly the Loudon County schools. Have had that experience, Loudon County parents with the Loudon County School Board because we've seen it kind of on video, and the reputation. I just part of it is the reputation that public schools have right now is is well earned, you know, and so I think we need to to concern that. But the the main thing from a Christian worldview is that it's a parent's job. to to to to to navigate to raise their child to disciple them heart soul and mind what they use to do that is doesn't mean that they outsource it and then lose interest and you know kind of become.
Parental deists.
Well, John, I think that's going to do it for the program today. But if you have a question or feedback you'd like to send us, please go to Breakpoint.org and click on Contact Us. We'd love to interact with your feedback. Otherwise, thanks so much for listening to Breakpoint this week from the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview. I'm Maria Bear, alongside John Stone Street.
Have a great week, everyone. We'll see you back here next time. God bless.
