BreakPoint Daily Commentary

Historically speaking, equality, human rights, and protection of the weak aren’t “self-evident.”

We will answer before God whether we remained silent or dared to speak?

State report cards should be helpful in diagnosing the crises facing public education, but they aren’t.

The best stories are not merely well told. They also wrestle with ultimate ideas.

In the digital age, distribution and access became easier and instant and the content grew darker. More people are admitting that, though it was never harmless, this content now poses a life-altering danger to those who stumble across it—especially children.

In 2020, January Littlejohn’sdaughter came home confused about her sexual identity after three of her close friends at school began identifying as transgender. Littlejohn, herself a licensed mental health counselor, did her best to support her daughter, opening the door to conversation and seeking out a mental health counselor. But as she relates, the real surprise came later: When school started, my daughter got into the car and said, “Mom, I had a meeting today at school, and they asked me which restroom I wanted to use.” … What we learned that the school had done was socially transitioned our daughter without our notification or consent. And then they did something particularly nefarious: They asked our daughter what name they should call her when speaking to her parents, and that was to effectively deceive parents that these gender support transition plans had ever taken place. 

What we “should” or “shouldn’t” do with AI depends heavily on the kind of world this is and the kinds of creatures that human beings are. If, as some have argued, AI is to be accorded the same dignity as human beings, then replacing humans in entire industries and putting tens of thousands out of work is not morally problematic. If human beings are unique and exceptional, and both labor and relationships are central to our identity, the moral questions are far weightier.

Teens who abstain from sex are healthier than those who don’t. Once again, research backs up the life-giving moral claims of a Christian worldview.

Many Christians wrote off the Pixar classic Wall-E because of its hyper-environmentalist message. However, the film’s commentary on human exceptionalism and vocation, specifically the inability of our machines to do our most important work for us, was spot-on. In the world of Wall-E,human beings have a purpose, or a telosthat cannot be reduced to maximizing comfort, safety, and convenience.In the biblical account of reality, humans exist to glorify and love God, and to serve as His special representatives and co-rulers in creation. Human inventions should help towards achieving those ends, extending our abilities, and mitigating the effects of the Fall. Wanting to replace ourselves with our devices assumes that humanity is the central problem of the world that needs to be solved.

Years ago in a Breakpointcommentary, Chuck Colson described the jury selection process in the trial of Jack Kevorkian, the doctor accused of helping at least 27 of his patients kill themselves. Kevorkian’s lawyer attempted to bar anyone who said their Christian faith forbids suicide from serving on the jury, claiming that belief made them unfairly biased.Religion has been increasingly relegated to the private sphere. Christians are welcome to participate in public life only if they leave their faith at home … [but] [t]he logic of Kevorkian’s defense attorney could be applied to any criminal trial. If potential jurors can be excluded for believing that assisted suicide is immoral, what will be the next step? Will the attorneys of accused murderers be permitted to exclude jurors whose religion teaches that life is sacred?More than 25 years later, that dismal hypothetical seems less hypothetical.

If all there was to go on were sitcoms, movies, and mainstream editorials, we’d have to conclude that marriage is a direct path to misery, the “old ball and chain” that only ties us down, limits our freedom, and cramps our sexual fun. Many people now think of marriage less as “settling down” and more as “settling.” Young people are told, “You’ve got plenty of time, live a little, first,” as if life ends after the wedding.The truth about marriage, however, is that it is, statistically, the single best predictor of long-term happiness. Making this even more important to understand is that for at least the last 20 years now, Americans have been steadily getting lesshappy.

A law in St. Louis banning so-called transgender care for minors can now take effect after a judge struck down a lawsuit challenging it. Activists claim that the science in favor of transgender “care” is settled. It’s not true. Thankfully this judge was willing to say it out loud.

For over 30 years, my friend Greg Koukl has taught Christians how to engage with people across worldview lines by asking questions. His first book Tactics has equipped thousands of Christians to communicate with wisdom and passion. This month, Koukl is releasing a follow-up to that book, entitled Street Smarts: Using Questions to Answer Christianity’s Toughest Challenges.

In a recent piece in The Atlantic, Tyler Austin Harper, a black professor from Bates College, argued that so-called “anti-racism” has gone too far.

According to the Associated Press, nearly 50,000 people committed suicide last year, an absolute record in terms of raw numbers and the highest rate in nearly a century. Though, as one scholar noted, there’s always the chance that the numbers are up on account of better reporting, that doesn’t explain the consistent increase in these numbers over the last two decades. Something is broken in the United States, and it’s us.

The relationship between Church and state and culture is and has always been contentious. The recent cultural debate about the term “Christian nationalism” is confusing because participants in the debate tend to use mutually exclusive definitions of the term. For some, it’s idolatry and a confusion of Gospel mission. For others, it’s faithfulness– and the only thing remaining to prevent our children’s co-option into an increasingly immoral culture. There are many questions that must be answered, for example:

A year ago, The Economist urged readers notto bring their “whole selves” to work. While some corporate gurus suggest that we make work feel more like home, the authors beg to differ. Your professional self displays commitment to the job and eats lunch at a desk. Your whole self is planning the next holiday and binges ice cream on the sofa. Your professional self makes presentations to the board and says things like: “Let’s get the analytics team to kick the t[i]res on this.” Your whole self cannot operate a toaster and says things like: “Has anyone seen my socks?” Pretending to be someone you are not is not a problem; it’s essential.That description speaks to what lies at the heart of the modern re-definition of “authenticity.”

The most recent installment in the What Would You Say? video series looks at an idea that is increasingly popular, often repeated, and surprisingly believable: that sex is “assigned” at birth. Most of us have or will encounter this phrase, which no one would have uttered throughout most of human history. But not all of us know how to respond. After all, the idea that sex is something merely “assigned” at birth is taken as truth by college professors, media pundits, and medical professionals. We even hear that on this issue “the science is settled.”

Back in 2021, news outlets around the world announced a scandal involving Canadian government schools and missing indigenous children. Starting in the 1800s, Canada built and opened a series of boarding schools where children from local native people could be educated or, more accurately, assimilated into modern Western culture. A majority of these institutions were operated by the Roman Catholic church and, before they were shut down toward the end of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of children were taken from their families, compelled to speak English or French, taught Christianity, and required to dress according to European styles.Today, however, at several of the sites where the burials were confidently asserted to have taken place, no physical evidence of human remains has been found.

In “Rich Men North of Richmond,” previously obscure Virginia songwriter Oliver Anthony rails against Washington elites for creating a world in which hardworking Americans can barely make ends meet and are dying of despair.The songreallystruck a chord online, particularly with listeners on the political right, and shot to number one on the Billboard Singles chart. Days later, it was used as an opener at the first Republican presidential debate—a move Anthony himself slammed, saying, “I wrote this song about those people.” For many listeners, the song’s message reinforced the belief held by many: that elites of both parties have ruined America and are keeping ordinary working people down, and outrage is an appropriate response.