10/11/2019
Batman’s arch-nemesis is back on the silver screen in full face paint and purple suit, along with the uncomfortable questions his character raises about the state of our culture.
10/10/2019
At the heart of a pending Supreme Court decision, one of the most significant since Obergefell v. Hodges, is whether or not the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
10/09/2019
On Sunday, President Trump announced that some 1,000 U. S. troops would be withdrawn from Kurdish-controlled regions of Syria.
10/08/2019
Wise parents try to keep their kids from being influenced by the lies in our culture. That often means not taking them to certain movies, not letting them watch certain shows, play certain games, or listen to certain music. And we have to keep an eye on their friends too. It can be exhausting.
10/07/2019
Back in February, federal judge Stephanie M. Rose ruled that the University of Iowa could not strip recognition from Business Leaders in Christ for requiring leaders to follow traditional Christian teaching on sexual morality.
10/04/2019
In Psalm 60, the Psalmist describes the totality of God’s victory over Israel’s foes, proclaiming “Moab is my wash basin; upon Edom I cast my sandal.”
10/03/2019
Last week, before news of an impeachment inquiry stole the headlines, sixteen-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg grabbed top billing with her “How dare you?” climate change speech at the United Nations. In fact, even before Thunberg had been declared as the voice of a generation, the ultra-liberal Church of Sweden tweeted that Jesus had appointed her as one of His successors.
10/02/2019
There are reasons that religious freedom is the called the “first freedom.” Of course, it’s listed first in the Bill of Rights, but more importantly, it is a freedom on which all other freedoms depend. Chuck Colson once said it this way: “Our founding fathers ... believed, as I do, that without freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, all of our other freedoms aren’t worth the paper they are written on. If government can dictate what we may or may not believe, or how we may or may not live out our beliefs, then we are no longer a free people.”
10/01/2019
If someone described a preacher’s style to you as “robotic,” you probably wouldn’t consider it a compliment. For worshipers at one Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, however, robotic qualities are not a bug of their new clergy; they’re a feature.
09/30/2019
So far, in each of the movies in the “Jurassic Park” franchise, the genetically-resurrected dinosaurs that terrorize tourists, lawyers, and scientists mostly stay on the island. But in the newest movie, the dinosaurs escape and terrorize America, doing… what movie dinosaurs do best: victimize people in increasingly creative ways.
09/27/2019
Even before he was sworn into office, President Trump’s political opponents were talking impeachment. Still, nothing so far – not pressure from “the Squad,” not the Mueller Report—has been able to move House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in that direction. That may have changed.
09/26/2019
On Friday, tens of thousands of students around the world staged a walk out, leaving their classes to demand action on climate change. Well, some students walked out. Many school districts, including across the state of New York, just gave students the day off to join in the protests. It’s still unclear how many students joined the protests and how many enjoyed an extra day off.
09/25/2019
If a time-traveler from the Early Church secretly followed you from Monday till Saturday evening, would they be able to tell you’re a Christian?
09/24/2019
This story has everything … Reproductive technology? Check! Same-sex union? Check! Autism? Check! Lawsuits? Check! The assumption that a child “product” of reproductive technology that someone paid for is “defective”? Check!
09/23/2019
Six years ago, Sean Tagert of British Columbia was diagnosed with ALS, better known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”
An ALS diagnosis is essentially a death sentence. There is no known cure. People with ALS eventually lose control over most of the muscles in their bodies–including the ones that enable them to breathe.
Despite his grim diagnosis, Tagert decided to live as long as he could for the sake of his son, who was six-years old at the time. For five years, he advocated on behalf of ALS patients and became a symbol of someone who refused to give up.
Then, last month, Tagert informed his friends he had decided to opt for physician-assisted suicide under Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying law.
09/20/2019
Earlier this month, South Bend (IN) Mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg quoted the Bible in an attempt to speak to the question of abortion: “There [are] a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath, and so even that is something that we can interpret differently.”
09/19/2019
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court of Arizona issued an important decision in the Brush & Nib v. City of Phoenix court case, another case located squarely at the intersection of religious freedom and the new sexual orthodoxy.
09/18/2019
One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from Abraham Kuyper and was repeated over and over by Chuck Colson: “There’s not a single square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry out: ‘Mine!’” Working out the implications of that grand truth in the reality of our everyday lives will take a lifetime.
09/17/2019
One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from Abraham Kuyper and was repeated over and over by Chuck Colson: “There’s not a single square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry out: ‘Mine!’” Working out the implications of that grand truth in the reality of our everyday lives will take a lifetime.
09/16/2019
The infamous “Millennials” are the generational cohort born between 1980 and 1997, and they may be most-overanalyzed demographic group in American history. Unlike previous holders of that title, the “Baby Boomers,” most of the analysis of the Millennials has been negative, and has included words like “privileged, narcissistic, entitled, [and] spoiled.” That’s quite a cynical conclusion about more than eighty million people.
09/13/2019
Last week, the government of Hong Kong finally withdrew a proposed extradition law that sparked mass protests which have rocked the territory and rattled Beijing for weeks.
09/12/2019
Despite our ever-greater mobility and even more efficient connectivity, sociologists continue to note that Americans struggle to form lasting, fulfilling relationships of all kinds, but especially marriages. We face a very real epidemic of loneliness, one that is, not coincidentally, accompanied by a steady decline in marriage.
09/11/2019
It’s inevitable. Someone—maybe your kids, a co-worker, crazy Uncle Bob at Thanksgiving—is going to ask you a tough question about your faith or Christian convictions.
09/10/2019
Could you even imagine a sports car with such a powerful, finely tuned rotary engine, whose rotor, drive shaft, and subunits work together so smoothly, that the engine can hit 42,000 rpm and achieve 100% energy efficiency? Well, no… as amazing as cars are these days, the best redline at 10,000 rpm and achieve below 50 percent energy efficiency, meaning that less than half of the power produced actually propels the car. The rest is emitted as wasted heat.
09/09/2019
“Controversy erupts around Drew Brees,” proclaimed news outlets on Friday, the very same news outlets who erupted the controversy engulfing one of the NFL’s best quarterbacks.
09/06/2019
For years now, Christians defending the biblical definition of marriage have dealt with a particularly frustrating retort: “Well, Christians used to be against interracial marriage, too,” people will say.
09/05/2019
Imagine Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn,” only with a crab-pot thief and a young man with Down syndrome, instead of Tom and Huck. And instead of the mighty Mississippi, imagine the estuaries of North Carolina. And instead of skipping school to run away, imagine running away to attend school (well, wrestling school).
09/04/2019
Usually, infringements on religious freedom come from the government: legislatures, regulatory agencies, or local agents of inquisition like the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. But emerging and serious threats to religious freedom are also coming from the private sector.
09/03/2019
Every day on BreakPoint, our goal is to equip believers to live out their faith in the public square with clarity, confidence, and courage. It’s the same mission Chuck was on when he launched this commentary decades ago.
08/30/2019
According to the records, in Fiscal Year 2018 the U.S. Health and Human Services Civil Rights Office received over a thousand complaints, alleging conscience violations or religious discrimination. That’s significantly more than in any year recorded under the previous presidential administration.
08/29/2019
Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has famously compared having an abortion with getting your tonsils out. It’s not a fair analogy at all. Minors always need parental consent for a tonsillectomy, but in many parts of the country, a teenage girl can notify school officials she’s pregnant and walk into an abortion clinic without her parents ever knowing.
08/28/2019
Anyone else dizzy by how quickly some things went from being unthinkable to unquestionable? Just in the last few years? Although the most recent demands of the Sexual Revolution are more radical than ever, people seem to be embracing them more quickly than ever.
08/27/2019
While they do business with anyone regardless of race, sex, gender, etc., the couple will not create videos that "contradict biblical truth; promote sexual immorality; support the destruction of unborn children; promote racism or racial division; incite violence; degrade women; or promote any conception of marriage other than as a lifelong institution between one man and one woman."
08/26/2019
New Jersey is the ninth state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. According to the state’s Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act, attending physicians can “write a prescription for medication that would enable a qualified terminally ill patient to end his or her life.” And what happens if the doctor’s conscience prevents him from writing the prescription?
08/23/2019
Few things will bring on the goosebumps like listening to Winston Churchill’s 1940 “fight them on the beaches” speech, easily one of the strongest statements of national unity and patriotic defiance in all of human history.
08/22/2019
My pastor recently told me that 25 years ago, the first person that people would contact when they faced a marriage crisis was their pastor. Ten years ago, he continued, it was their counselor or psychiatrist. Today, it’s their lawyers.
08/21/2019
I’m unapologetically Protestant but, as I’ve said for a while now, our Catholic friends have long led the way on many bioethical issues like abortion and assisted reproductive technologies. For example, back in 2008, the Vatican released a document called “Dignitatis personae,” which said that “The desire for a child, while good, cannot justify the ‘production’ of offspring, just as the desire to have a child cannot justify the abandonment or destruction of a child once he or she has been conceived.”
08/20/2019
In Jeremiah 15, God tells the prophet that “I will make [Jerusalem] an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh, son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.” Can you imagine God saying that He’s going to make you “an object of horror”?
Well, as God does, He kept His word. The wealth of Jerusalem’s inhabitants was given as plunder to invaders, only after they were starved, put to the sword, or enslaved.
08/19/2019
Last week, following the high profile falling away from faith of Joshua Harris, former Hillsong singer and songwriter Marty Sampson posted this on Instagram: “Time for some real talk…I’m genuinely losing my faith…and it doesn’t bother me.”
The next day he deleted this post and clarified that he hasn’t fully renounced Christianity, at least not yet. Still, he admitted, his faith was quite shaky. He then reiterated his doubts and said that “the majority of a typical Christian’s life is not spent considering these things” because they fall into the “too hard basket.”
Sampson’s claims, I’m sad to say, are not uncommon among young evangelicals.
08/16/2019
There’s so much talk these days about so-called “Millennials.” Millennials are the generation born between 1980 and 2000. They are “digital natives,” and the defining events of their lives include the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, the War on Terror, Harry Potter, the Great Recession, and the birth of social media. Oh, and by the way, they love avocado toast.
08/15/2019
The words “endangered species” brings to mind fatalistic headlines about animals on the verge of extinction. Landing on the endangered species list is, in the minds of many, as good as a death sentence. Lately, however, endangered species are more often making the news for being removed from the list, not making it.
08/14/2019
Here’s a prediction: Thousands of years from now when archaeologists excavate American churches, they’ll identify the 1990s era by “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelets, DC Talk CDs, and purity rings.
08/13/2019
Americans are afraid… perhaps more than at any time since 9/11. It’s understandable. Despite the fact that most of us are safer today than we think, the sheer evil that’s behind a mass shooting or a violent attack is put right in our face by the 24-hour news cycle.
08/12/2019
Recently, a friend shared with me a statement on a personal issue that she wanted to post on social media. I urged her not to do it, partly because of my own experiences with social media, and partly because I’m convinced that what happens on these platforms isn’t nearly as consequential as we often feel they are.
08/09/2019
In his book, “The Reason for God,” Tim Keller argues that Christianity is the only truly global religion. Indeed, within a few generations of Christ, the Christian faith had spread across much of the known world—from India to North Africa to furthest reaches of the Roman Empire and into the barbarian lands of Northern Europe. Yet up until a hundred years or so ago, for all kinds of historical and sociological reasons, Christianity became a predominantly Western religion.
08/07/2019
The state of our national discourse is, to put it mildly, discouraging and unhelpful, and the reaction to the recent shootings only amplified how bad it is. Once again, everyone took their place along partisan battle lines to pound the same old drums, but it’s past time we admit that there’s something deeper going on in America than too many guns, or too few guns, or violent video games, or the President’s rhetoric, or even the evil of white supremacy.
08/06/2019
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds,” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.”
08/05/2019
A few weeks ago, I came across a video that you might call “YouTube Gold.” That’s the phrase used these days for “an oldie-but-a-goodie” video. It was a classic Chuck Colson speech. He was speaking at a conference that was otherwise overly-academic.
08/02/2019
In the 1998 movie “Armageddon,” the Administrator of NASA, played by Billy Bob Thornton, informs the President that a huge asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. The President then asks, “Why didn’t we see this coming?”
08/01/2019
The word “vandalism” comes from the Vandals, a Germanic tribe that sacked Rome in the middle of the 5th century. These “barbarians,” as Roman writers called them, actually behaved much better than their name might suggest. For example, they spared the lives of most of Rome’s citizens and left her buildings standing—including, notably, Christian churches. This was because the Vandals themselves claimed the name of Christ—although their theology was of a type condemned by orthodox Christians.
07/31/2019
Yesterday I told you about a district in northern India where, according to reports, not a single girl was born for three months. The main cause of the shocking gender imbalance we see around the world, and especially in India, is sex-selective abortion. In reaction, some of us may be tempted to think, “well, what do you expect from people who worship idols with blue skin and elephant heads?”
07/30/2019
Until recently, Uttarkashi in northern Indian was noted primarily for its beautiful scenery and Hindu temples, and because it shares a border with Tibet along the foothills of Himalayas, the region attracts many Westerners in search of “spiritual enlightenment.” Its most famous seekers? The Beatles.
07/29/2019
Between 1997 and 2016, researchers at an excavation near Ashkelon in Israel examined the remains of more than one hundred humans, remains that dated from the 12th to 6th centuries before Christ. The researchers hoped to find human DNA in order to answer an old question: Who were the Philistines? Where did they come from?
07/26/2019
You might think this is another story about transgender activism. And in a way, it is. But at an even deeper level, this is a story about postmodernism. Stick with me on this.
07/25/2019
One of the most repeated themes of science fiction movies is humans merging with or being replaced by machines. Entire movie franchises are built around these ideas, such as “The Matrix” and “The Terminator.” One of “Star Trek’s” most iconic antagonists were the “Borg,” a blend of biological and technological elements that were pretty-near invincible. They told every species they encountered that “resistance is futile.”
07/24/2019
More than twenty years ago, the late Father Richard John Neuhaus penned one of his most memorable sayings. When you come across an article titled ‘Whither Incest?’, he said, it’s safe to assume it won’t be a “vigorous defense of traditional morality.”
07/23/2019
The year 2019 is the ten-year anniversary of a statement that drew the line for Christians on three central issues: life, marriage, and religious liberty. There were many prophetic lines in the Manhattan Declaration, which was co-authored by Chuck Colson, Dr. Timothy George of Beeson Divinity School, and Dr. Robert George of Princeton University, but none were more important than the last line: that “we will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,” but under “no circumstances” could we “render to Caesar what belongs to God.” Half-a-million Christians signed on.
07/22/2019
Back in January of last year, Cecile Richards stepped down as president of Planned Parenthood. She left behind her a political lightning rod of an organization—plagued with scandals involving the sale of fetal body parts, illegal and underage abortions, and fighting for its millions of dollars in annual federal funding from Congress.
07/19/2019
Planck’s constant is “the amount of energy carried by a photon with the frequency of its electromagnetic wave.” For the curious, it’s 6.62607015* times 10 to the negative 34th Joule seconds. A curious thing about Planck’s constant is that it changes every few years, as physicists make ever more precise measurements.
07/18/2019
Back in 1970, the Nixon administration enacted the Title X Family Funding Program. As described on the HHS website, “For more than 40 years, Title X family planning clinics have played a critical role in ensuring access to a broad range of family planning and related preventive health services for millions of low-income or uninsured individuals.”
07/17/2019
While the loudest voices in our culture continue to insist that men and women are interchangeable, science is offering more evidence than ever that the two sexes are anything but interchangeable. Nowhere is this uniqueness more apparent than in the distinct and very real transformation that both men and women undergo on becoming parents.
07/16/2019
When the Communist Party took over mainland China in 1949, there were an estimated 5 million Christians. Three-plus decades of severe persecution under Mao nearly succeeded in eradicating Chinese Christianity.
07/15/2019
All of us have times when we want to be pampered. For some, that means a few hours at a day spa or a hike in the great outdoors. But another option is now available, courtesy of a farm in upstate New York: cow cuddling.
07/12/2019
One of the defining features of God’s Word is how often it points us to God’s world. Much of Scripture, in fact, assumes a certain level of understanding about nature. So, it would seem, if we fail to go outdoors, if we fail to experience and engage in God’s creation, our faith could suffer.
07/11/2019
The scene is movie legend: Morpheus sits with Neo beside a fireplace while a storm rages outside, and tells him that the world he calls reality—what he sees when he looks out the window or turns on the television, when he goes to work—it’s all an illusion. If he takes the blue pill, Neo can remain comfortably in the illusion—you know, “The Matrix.” But if he takes the red pill, he will wake up to a very uncomfortable real world.
07/10/2019
Here’s something you may not realize… officially speaking, the emerging generation are not “the millennials.” Anyone born after 1997 is part of the generation that has been dubbed, for reasons I’m not completely sure about, “Generation Z.”
07/09/2019
Most people don’t know this, but early feminists—including suffragette Susan B. Anthony—were deeply opposed to abortion. A surprisingly honest Saturday Night Live sketch from a couple of years ago captured the shock of a group of progressive young ladies, who when they meet Anthony are shocked to learn her less-than-progressive views on a woman’s so-called right to choose.
07/08/2019
For the past five years, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD, has conducted a survey of U.S. adults measuring what it calls the “accelerating acceptance” of LGBT people. Up till now, they’ve used these survey results to drive home the “right sight of history” narrative that seems so effective for the movement.
07/05/2019
America’s founders believed that the freedom to express political and religious opinions, even unpopular ones, was central to self-government. Still, the freedom of speech, like all freedoms, has its limits. We can’t just shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater, for example.
07/03/2019
Imagine you’re a college student, and your professor claims that science has disproved the idea of God, of the soul, of ultimate meaning, and of truth. What do you say to that professor?
07/02/2019
The 1999 movie “The Cider House Rules” won writer John Irving an Oscar, and elevated him as a pro-abortion apologist. In his acceptance speech, Irving thanked Harvey Weinstein’s movie company Miramax for “having the courage to make this movie.” He then thanked the Academy for honoring a movie about abortion, as well as “everyone at Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Rights League.”
07/01/2019
In “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon blames Rome’s demise, at least in part, on Christianity. He wrote, “The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged, and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister [and] a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion...”
06/28/2019
Evidence suggests that Muslim Uighurs have joined Falun Gong practitioners on the list of China's involuntary donors. And it’s hard to imagine that Christians will not soon be added to that list, unless something changes.
06/27/2019
The saga of one of the best female soccer players in the world is only the most recent evidence that American Christians need to develop a theology of getting fired, or if you happen to be in Jaelene Hinkle's profession, a theology of getting cut from the team.
06/26/2019
Eugenics is a bad idea, a bad idea that, like all bad ideas, has victims. Efforts to keep those deemed inferior from reproducing or even existing were a central part of the Nazi experiment in Germany, which upended the entire world and led to the extermination of millions of so-called “lives unworthy of life.”
06/25/2019
A recent story in New York Magazine asked readers how many bones they would be willing to break in order to attain intimacy—or something to that effect.
06/24/2019
Back on October 22, 1844, tens of thousands of Americans who followed a preacher named William Miller, eagerly awaited the Second Coming of Christ. By “await,” I don’t mean that they had a general hope or belief, as in, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”
06/21/2019
Every Johnny Cash fan remembers that song, “A Boy Named Sue,” about a young man’s quest to find his dead-beat dad and punch his lights out for giving him a girl’s name. Well, in a completely unrelated factoid, “Sue” is also the name of the Chicago Field Museum’s famous Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, one of the largest ever unearthed.
06/20/2019
For years, LGBTQIA activists and advocates have proclaimed that their view of human sexuality and Gender Theory is historically inevitable, and that any and all who resist will be swept into the dustbin of history along with the racists.
06/19/2019
The past twelve months have been anything but a cakewalk for religious bakers. On Monday, the Supreme Court gave what is, to many, an unexpected kind of victory to Melissa and Aaron Klein, the owners of “Sweet Cakes by Melissa” in Gresham, Oregon.
06/18/2019
Last week probably marked a milestone in American political extremism. For more than forty years, former Vice-President Joe Biden held what he called a “middle-of-the-road position on abortion.” He backed bans on late-term abortions and voted more than fifty times on Capitol Hill to uphold the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for abortion.
06/17/2019
If it weren’t so jarring and tragic, the contradictory laws and language tolerated in our country about abortion would be laughable.
06/14/2019
Two weeks ago, Narendra Modi was sworn in for a second term as India’s Prime Minister. His party, the BJP, won a resounding victory in parliamentary elections.
06/13/2019
On the second Sunday in June, hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of Hong Kong to protest a proposed law that would allow people to be extradited from the former British colony to mainland China.
06/12/2019
In June 2015, Dylann Roof, a 21-year old white supremacist from North Carolina, drove to Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and committed one of the most shocking mass murders in American history.
06/11/2019
In one of Marvel’s recent blockbuster superhero movies, a genocidal alien-arch-bad-guy named Thanos acquires an “Infinity Stone,” which allows him to change the world around him at will. With this stone, he says, “Reality can be whatever I want.”
06/10/2019
I’ve mentioned a few times that the possibility that Roe v. Wade might be in play, overturned, or at least rolled back, has prompted a significant uptick in state action on abortion. Some states are moving to limit abortion, hoping to be the source of the case that will be considered by the Supreme Court. Other states are racing to ensure that unrestricted abortion remains available within their borders.
06/07/2019
Last week, international news outlets reported that a 17-year-old Dutch girl named Noa Pothoven legally secured a physician’s help in killing herself after years of battling trauma from childhood sexual assault and rape.
06/06/2019
06/05/2019
In early May, HHS announced new rules to ensure that “healthcare professionals will not feel compelled to leave the practice of medicine because they decline to participate in actions that violate their conscience such as abortion, sterilization, or assisted suicide.”
06/04/2019
For two months in 1989, students gathered in Tiananmen Square demanding political reforms analogous to the economic reforms instituted by then-Chairman Deng Xiaoping.
06/03/2019
Nearly thirty years ago, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen wrote an essay in the New York Review of Books entitled “More than 100 Million Women are Missing.”
05/31/2019
One of the most important developments in American culture over the last few years has been the elevation of women. Especially since the #MeToo movement inspired victims to come forward, we’ve become serious about ending the harassment and silencing of women.
05/30/2019
“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” God’s commandment to Israel could not have been clearer, but for Israel, keeping it was not so easy. Each time God’s people turned to “other gods” like Baal or Molech—despite the dire and repeated warnings by the prophets—the result was disaster.
05/29/2019
One of our world’s most persistent myths is that religion is the enemy of good sex. The idea of Christians as repressed Puritan prudes—as historically inaccurate as that is—still exerts enormous power over our imaginations.
05/28/2019
According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control, the number of births in the U. S. has dropped to a three-decade low in 2018. In just one year, the birth rate fell seven percent among women 15 to 19; four percent among those between the ages of 20 and 24; three percent among 25-to-29-year-olds; and one percent among those between the ages of 30 and 34.
05/24/2019
If pro-lifers are going to oppose the killing of unborn children, we are told over and over again, then we must be willing to take care of these children and their families even after they’re born. And since we don’t, it’s widely assumed and repeated, we have no right to oppose abortion.
05/23/2019
05/22/2019
On Sunday May 12th, between 20 and 30 gunmen entered a Catholic church during Mass in Dablo, Burkina Faso, and started shooting the congregation. Six people, including Father Simeon Yampa, were killed. The attackers then set fire to the church with some worshipers still inside.
05/21/2019
The idea of sentient artificial intelligence, complete with a personality, has long been a central theme of science fiction. The Oscar-winning 2013 movie “Her,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and the voice of Scarlett Johansson, told the story of a relationship between a lonely man and an AI named Samantha.
05/20/2019
God is a big fan of metaphors. He built them into His world in all kinds of ways, and then He points to them throughout Scripture, all to help us understand who He is, who we are, and what our role is in creation. The metaphor God uses throughout the Bible more than any other might surprise you: trees.
05/17/2019
As Christians in an age of skepticism, we often talk about making the case that Christianity is true. But more often than not, the question of our culture today is whether Christianity is good? Does it make the world a better or worse place?
05/16/2019
We’ve not seen in the United States, at least in recent memory, so many efforts to force Christians to act in ways that violate their consciences. Almost always, these demands are made in the name of sexual freedom—whether we’re talking about nuns being forced to provide contraception, bakers and florists having to participate in gay weddings, or adoption agencies being forced to place kids with same-sex couples.
05/15/2019
Around the Colson Center we often talk about “zombie arguments,” ideas that—like the undead so popular on television—just keep getting up and shambling around, no matter how many times you kill them.
05/14/2019
On April 13, 2029, a 370-meter wide asteroid formally known as 99942 Apophis will pass by Earth at a distance of about 19,000 miles. While 19,000 miles sounds like a long way away, in astronomical terms it’s actually the equivalent of having a bullet whiz by your ear. There are man-made satellites that orbit farther from Earth. Even scarier, it was initially believed there was a slight chance Apophis could strike the Earth in 2036. That’s why, when the asteroid and its trajectory was discovered in 2004, scientists named it after the Egyptian god of chaos who, by the way, is also the villain in the TV series, Stargate-SG1.
05/13/2019
What is Restorative Justice? “Restorative justice seeks to heal the harm caused by crime. Instead of focusing on retribution, it focuses on rehabilitation. At its core, it is a process that offers both victims and those who caused harm an opportunity to seek answers and accountability to begin to repair the damage caused by crime.”
05/10/2019
After passing the House Judiciary Committee, the “Equality Act” will soon be passed by the House and will then be sent to the Senate. This legislation would extend the federal level protections of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
05/09/2019
On Mother’s Day, most of us take intentional time and effort to show our moms how much we love and appreciate them, and how much we’re thankful for their love and sacrifice. I’m not always as intentional as I should be about honoring the moms in my life, especially the one who gave me life and the one who’s currently doing the really heavy lifting caring for our kids.
05/08/2019
Imagine if tomorrow, a judge in the most liberal state in the country announced children no longer belong to their parents, they’re no longer under their parents’ authority. From henceforth, says the decree, kids belong to the state. Outraged parents would take to the streets! Angry and refusing to capitulate.
05/07/2019
Nearly twenty years ago, Chuck Colson told BreakPoint listeners the story of Gauvin Hughes McCullough. His parents, Sharon and Candace, in addition to being a same-sex couple, were also deaf.
05/06/2019
The year 2019 is the ten-year anniversary of a statement that drew the line for Christians on three central issues: life, marriage, and religious liberty.
05/03/2019
In a recent opinion piece at Business Insider, Shana Lebowitz proclaimed, “Divorce isn’t a failure…In fact, it could mean your marriage was a success!” According to the relationship experts cited by Lebowitz, the goal of marriage isn’t that two people become one flesh, or create a family, or even share lifelong love. No, the purpose of marriage, these so-called experts claim, is that we grow as individuals. Even marriages that end in divorce can accomplish that goal!
05/02/2019
No one names their son Jehoahaz. It’s just too tough to pronounce. On the other hand, most of us know a Josiah or two. Not only is it a much more pronounceable, but as we read in 2 Kings chapter 22, “Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem thirty-one years… He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and followed completely the ways of his father David, not turning aside to the right or to the left.”
05/01/2019
Remember that 1980’s cough syrup commercial when Chris Robinson said, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV”? I wanted to paraphrase these immortal words when I read what actor Joaquin Phoenix of “Gladiator” fame said about his role as Jesus in the upcoming movie, “Mary Magdalene.” Phoenix is not the Son of Man, but he plays him on the big screen. His is a very different Jesus than the one we meet in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.