Welcome to Family Policy Matters, a weekly podcast and radio show produced by the North Carolina Family Policy Council. Hi, I'm John Rust and president of NCE Family, and each week on Family Policy Matters, we welcome experts and policy leaders to discuss topics that impact faith and family here in North Carolina. Our prayer is that this program will help encourage and equip you to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state, and nation. And now, here's the host of Family Policy Matters, Tracy DeVett-Griggs. Thanks for joining us this week for Family Policy Matters.
It can be easy as Christians to become overwhelmed or despairing when we look around at the troublesome crisis in Western civilization today. But rather than lose hope or turn inward, a new project from Focus on the Family and the Coulson Center is designed to help Christians see how critical this cultural moment is, and then in turn, believe that God has called them to it and act with clarity, confidence, and courage to be part of God's game plan for cultural renewal.
Well, today we're joined by John Stone Street, president of the Colson Center, to talk about this exciting collaboration with Focus on the Family called Truth Rising: a powerful new documentary and study. John Stone Street, welcome to Family Policy Matters. Thanks so much. Great to be on with you. All right, so what an exciting way to view the challenges that we see all around us every day.
You are seeing this confusing and difficult time as an opportunity to cultural renewal.
So, what made you come to that conclusion? There's this whole history of really wonderful thought leaders like Francis Schaefer, Chuck Colson, in our film, Oz Guinness, who I consider to be kind of a gandalf of our Christian movement today, who help us understand not just the individual challenges that we face. And I think a lot of us feel overwhelmed because that's how they come at us. It's kind of like playing a game of cultural whack-a-mole that we can't keep up with. You know, this issue and that issue and that issue.
And I've always been struck by how Oz Guinness has talked about our calling to a particular time and place in history. You know, what he calls in his super cool British accent the awa, you know, which I can't really say, but it's very profound. But this is something that scripture teaches: that Christians are called to a particular time and place in history. A lot of times we think about calling as being called to a ministry or called to a job or maybe called to particular good works. All that's true.
But as Paul told the Epicurean and Stoics in Athens, the God who made everything determines exactly when and where we live.
So what does that mean? Rising documentary begins by really trying to put a finger on what kind of moment are we in. Oz calls it a civilizational moment. And that sounds epic, and that's because it is. We think about civilizations as being kind of in history books or museums, things of the past, but the Western world has kind of dominated the planet for a long time.
And it was animated by certain ideas about human dignity and truth and God and morality. And we've severed ourselves from those things. You know, listen, civilizations don't go on forever. They rise and they decline. And there are reasons they decline.
And in this film, Oz interviews an awful lot of wonderful thinkers who really articulate why it is that the Western world is in decline. And then my interest in it is really saying, okay, well, how should we live? You know, that was Francis Schaefer's question and Chuck Coulson's question. What does it mean to be called to this moment? I know that a lot of the really good Christian people that I know don't want to engage here.
I mean, they feel like it's a more godly stance to take a step back and just concentrate on sharing the gospel and their. Local neighborhoods and not get involved.
So, is that what you're finding? And what would you say to those people? You know, that's a great question. I think for some people, there's a really profound lack of confidence. What we see is when Christian moral claims or even just basic fundamental truths that are obvious to everyone are challenged in our culture, there's an awful lot of Christians who either go silent or who go really angry.
And some things are worth getting angry about, but then what do you do next? You still have to be able to respond to them. And I think that when you are really angry and worked up about something, or you're really silent and refuse to say anything at all, it really betrays a lack of confidence, a lack of confidence that Christianity is actually true. Chuck Holson used to put it this way: Christianity is personal, but it's not private. It deals with public truths.
And what if we had confidence in that truth? And what if, in this civilizational moment, that's what our calling is, is to confidently stand on those truths. I think it was George Orwell who said, in an age of deception, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. And in a civilizational moment like ours, Where there are so many different ideas deceiving people. The old phrase, ideas have consequences, and we often add bad ideas have victims.
We see these real victims, and we're called to love our neighbors. Part of loving our neighbors, part of honoring what is true about Christianity, is taking that courageous stand.
So, this is a documentary project that begins by articulating the challenges of the moment, the things we've untethered from. And it takes us to five courageous stories: five people who, in the face of tremendous opposition, decided to tell the truth. None of them are rock star heroes that you would just say that they're different, they're special from the rest of us. These are people who are confronted with an opportunity, and God has used their stand in unbelievable ways. And now we see, you know, this kind of new moment that we're in in our culture.
And the idea here is that all of us are called to the truth. All of us are called to be people of courage in this time and place. Tell us about these five courageous stories. What are The five. And do you have a favorite?
I do, but I'm not going to tell you. No, I don't want to give any of this away. These are incredible stories.
Some of them people will have heard. Like, for example, Jack Phillips, the remarkable man, incredibly talented cake maker in Colorado, who was attacked for 13 years for refusing to capitulate to what the state of Colorado and the Civil Rights Commission said he should say about marriage and then also about the biological identity of humans, male and female. There's also Seth Dillon from the Babylon B.
Now, I'm partial to that story just because I too have the spiritual gift of sarcasm. But, you know, the Babylon B faced a real moment in the middle of cancel culture. I mean, we're all here old enough to remember cancel culture, where especially if you were a media company or a public figure, you say the wrong thing and that could cost you dearly. What cost them an enormous audience? And yet they stuck by what is true.
They refused to cave to what is not true. And how God orchestrated the events after that and the impact, like the downstream impact of that decision is. Really remarkable when you look at it. A story that's captivated many is Ayan Hirsi Ali. Ayan, of course, grew up in a radical, fundamentalist, Islamic, oppressive position in a country and in a family, and then fled to the Netherlands and then really started to speak out, particularly against Islam's treatment for women, for which fatwa was placed on her head.
She actually also became an atheist, an outspoken atheist, the kind of the female counterpart to the new atheist of the 90s. But just in the last couple of years, she has been one of the loudest voices saying we need to reconnect with Christianity. We can't abandon the Christian roots of Western culture and expect to go on the way that we have. But even more than that, she's personally found Jesus Christ and she tells that story in remarkable detail and truth rising. And what courage it takes to admit that you are wrong?
What courage does it take to actually say out loud, no, this is what is true? And not just true for me, but truth with a capital T. Chloe Cole is another story that's featured. Chloe was a victim of one of the biggest lies of our culture over the last couple of years, the gender. Ideology in which she was convinced she was born in the wrong body to the extent that she had a double mastectomy at age 16.
Now she is one of the most articulate, mature, clear-minded voices about how God actually created us in his image, male and female, and why that's a good thing. And she's bringing hope to a lot of people by just being willing to tell the truth. And then Katie Faust. Katie Faust has become one of the foremost defenders, really on the planet for children's rights. And for her, it was a matter of having that step of courage.
Listen, courage doesn't happen by accident. Courage requires confidence. Courage requires when that moment of decision comes, you trust what the Lord is going to do. And then that means that none of these five stories are particularly special in and of themselves. They're because God chose to elevate and use them, and they were willing to make that hard decision.
That could be something that all of us have to face. In fact, I think it is. Maybe not on the world stage like Ian Hersey Ali, but maybe in just a quiet business like Jack Phillips. And who knows where it's going to go from there?
So I'm partial to all the stories. I really believe that each of these stories tell us something different and unique and profound about being a truth teller in this cultural moment. And we need to know all of those things.
So why did you choose stories? Why the documentary style? And then of course accompanied by a study, why did you guys feel like this was the way to attack this? You know, we have a wonderful partner and focus on the family. We knew that what Oz Guinness was saying needed to be platformed and needed to be extended.
And he was saying something really, really important. And we were all at this place, I thought, where we needed a you are here. You remember shopping malls?
Well, they once were filled with stores. And if you wanted to find those stores, you went to the map. And one of the things you had to find on the map was not only the store you were looking for, but the you are here. And given all the up and down and the change of the last decade or so, where things went from being unthinkable to being unquestionable overnight, when there was really an incredible cost for saying things that were considered common sense yesterday, I started really getting the sense that things were just really, really unsettled. And we do.
On this documentary, I asked the audience to go on quite a journey. I mean, we're talking about what can we know about civilizations, what made Western civilization what it is, why Western civilization is in a time of such steep decline right now, how we've been cut off from those ideas and animated. But even more than that, whether we'll see our civilization renewed or not is not up to us. That's up to God. But what we're called to be are people that are courageously standing on what's true.
And in our particular moment, we had to tell stories of people who faced cancel culture and didn't back down, who just took a courageous small stand and had no idea what God was going to do with it afterwards, who had to have the courage to admit to themselves that they were wrong and then say that out loud and really backpedal. I remember Peter Cruft saying, when you're on the edge of the moral abyss, the only way forward is backwards. You got to turn around. You got to repent. And that's a courageous act too.
But then putting it all in the hands of God and trusting him. That's what people needed to hear. Like, yes, you're called to this moment. This moment is huge. There is incredible gravity to this moment, but God wanted you.
You in this time and place.
So, how are you going to live? The study, by the way, just follows up on that. The study really takes that call seriously and unlocks it and says, you know, if you're going to be a courageous voice in this time and place, there's going to be four ingredients: hope, truth, identity, and calling. You got to be really clear on what's true about our moment, what's true about reality, what's true about the human person, and what's true about how God wants you to live. Hope, truth, identity, calling.
And that's why for us, for Focus on the Family, who's been such a wonderful partner for us, this is not a film alone. The documentary is part of a project. And we really want to see and we're praying that God calls Christians. I mean, imagine if our country, if our planet were filled with Christian voices everywhere, just willing to say the next thing that's true, to do it in love, to do it in the right way, but to take that courageous stand. There's a million little courageous stands that need to be taken every single day.
And we believe God's put you there to make that stand. And that's what we want to see. That's what we want to encourage. Wow.
Well, your audience is Christians, but you are hoping to cross the line and that this. Will resonate with people who are not Christian as well? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it can ultimately point to God. I mean, that's one of the interesting things about Chloe's story in particular, Chloe Cole, is that she actually came to the truth about who she was as a woman before then coming to who created her in his image, female, if that makes sense.
In other words, she didn't become a Christian and then question this ideology that she embraced. She started to question the ideology because there was dissonance for her. And I don't want to give away the story. It's remarkable where she saw something and she realized, I will never be able to do that now that I've made this decision. And it started this kind of unraveling for her of this lie.
But it has led her not only to re-embrace the truth, but to an incredible life that God is using. And of course, that's the message of the gospel: that God forgives. That possibility of salvation is there. And we certainly want non-believers to see that. But one of the most interesting parts of the documentary in the first part of it is how many non-Christian voices are saying the exact same thing.
There's several believers that are. Wonderful thinkers about the Western world, Baroness Philippa Stroud. Neil Ferguson is a new believer, one of the top intellects on the planet, particularly on the history of civilizations. But then you have a guy like David Berlinski, who's a mathematician, not a believer, but he understands really clearly that secular progressive values has become just destructive. He has an incredible line there that says there's people now that are just interested in tearing things down.
They're not interested in building.
So we're at a point where the people have an enormous power to tear things down. And someone who couldn't build a pigsty could tear down a chateau.
Well, thank you so much. I wish we could continue this conversation. We're about out of time. I'm excited that if people are hearing this, that they can go very soon. I understand that this releases in early September.
So how do people go to find this documentary and learn more about the study that accompanies it? The global streaming release is September the 5th, and so it's going to be available to everyone. One of the points that Jim Daly and I just agreed on from the very beginning, we wanted to remove all cost barriers to this. This is a calling. This is a movement.
And if you go to truthrising.com, you can sign up there to access the documentary on September the 5th to host a viewing party. If you're a pastor, there's a whole set of resources to start this conversation within the context of your church body. The study ends with the basics of a plan. Where to get started? How do we become agents of renewal in this cultural moment?
Well, thank you so much. John Stone Street, president of the Colson Center, thank you so much for being with us today. on family policy matters. Thank you for listening to Family Policy Matters. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the show and leave us a review.
To learn more about NC Family and the work we do to promote and preserve faith and family in North Carolina, visit our website at ncfamily.org. That's ncfamily.org. And check us out on social media at NC Family Policy. Thanks and may God bless you and your family.
