← Breakpoint
Loading summary
Transcript87 lines
- [00:02]
A
You're listening to breakpoint this week where we're talking about the top stories of the week from a Christian Worldview. Today we're going to talk about Pope Leo's new encyclical on artificial intelligence and the magnificence of the human person. Then we're going to talk about Pride Month and Fidelity Month. We have a lot to get to this week. We are so glad you're with us. Stick around. Welcome to breakpoint this week from the Coulson center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer alongside John Stonestreet, president of the Colson center, fresh back in our respective Studios from the 2026 Colson Center National Conference, which, as always, was so much fun. John, how many commissioned Colson Fellows did we have this year?
- [00:44]
B
Well, they're live. I think it was around 600, which is a lot of names to read out. But that's only about.
- [00:51]
A
Do you read the names?
- [00:52]
B
Oh, no, no, no. But it's only about a third, a little bit less than a third of the total overall number of commission.
- [00:59]
A
Is this the biggest group we've ever
- [01:01]
B
had, was the biggest conference, biggest class of Colson Fellows, I think either this one or last year. So right around in that ballpark. So. But yeah, very exciting to see all
- [01:11]
A
that and so fun to meet so many people who listen to the podcast and who've been going through the program. And man, it's just a really fun weekend. So that was really fun. Glad to have met some of you who were there and those of you who didn't make it. There's always Next year in Charlotte, which we announced this year. Well, John, let's get into the show for the week. So I wanna start with you with Pope Leo's new encyclical. This has been. People have been waiting for this. He called it Magnifica Humanitas. I'm sorry about my Latin pronunciation, but this is sort of the Vatican's guidance on how to approach artificial intelligence and that kind of technology more generally. I thought it was incredibly beautiful. He's really wrote this with an aim towards obviously the title, what it means to be human, and remembering that as we move forward. I know that these encyclicals are a big deal, obviously, within the Catholic Church and they send a lot of signals, you know, to media or people outside of the church, even the Christian church broadly view these as kind of signposts of where religion, where the Christian religion is on certain issues. And so it. And they stand the test of time. I mean, he mentioned in this one. He referenced several previous ones from several of his predecessors. We talk all the time about theology of the body and that coming from Pope John Paul ii. So these definitely carry significance. What stood out to you about this one?
- [02:39]
B
This was a while coming. People were anticipating it. It came out the weekend before or the Friday, I think, the conference. So we didn't have a chance to comment on it last week since we had our wonderful interview with John Lennox on the topic, same topic of artificial intelligence. And I think that was a very, you know, interesting timing, I guess, is what I'll, what I'll say. There's a number of things that are really interesting about this, you know, the, the selection of this focus, this topic. I mean, at one level it's obvious, but it kind of underscores the commitment of the church to speak to cultural issues that are deemed to be big. We know that this Pope, for example, has spoken about war in a way that's unpopular with many Americans, but has spoken about that, particularly the war in Iran. I certainly wasn't expecting to find a whole lot that we would disagree with because of the, the topic being artificial intelligence and the angle from a Christian perspective obviously being the what it means to be human, the question of our image bearingness and what that means. That of course is loaded into the title. You and I have used a phrasing here to talk about artificial intelligence and our interaction with it, about human exceptionalism, that, you know, there are ways that technology can help us, but technology should never replace us. And that was a central theme of this. Interesting that he wrote this alongside. Side I don't want to say if it's advice, but advisement from the folks at Anthropic, which of course is one of the interesting players in the AI space. Probably the most moral of them, the ones that are pretty clear and saying out loud we've got an awesome product, but it's not the same as being human. They seem pretty committed to that. There was an opening statement to the release from one of the co founders of Anthropic, which I thought was a profoundly good statement and really good. And yet. And yet one of the things that continues to be missing not from the encyclical, but from the purveyors of AI, the pioneers in AI. And one of our board members and former president of Colorado Christian University, Don Sweeting, had an opinion piece reflecting on this encyclical. And the topic of AI and Anthropic in the Denver Newspapers last weekend is just the issue of work he Brought that up. And you still don't hear the inherent conflict that AI is bringing when it comes to the question of work, when it's talked about. And it is talked about, but it's just talked about in terms of lost jobs. But if you start with the premise of human exceptionalism, which takes you back, it's kind of like, you know, the declaration. The 250th anniversary of the Declaration is this year. We talk about it. You have that famous phrase, we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator. So if you start with this idea of human exceptionalism and rights and indignity that the Declaration does, it takes you back to the Creator, right? It takes you back to the fact that there is a purpose that was given to us in our creation. So human exceptionalism demands a creator. A creator implies a purpose. And so now we're dealing with work, not just on the fact of whether we can eat. You know, so Elon Musk's strategy of just being able to, you know, have a universal basic income is not going to solve the bigger problem, which is the crisis of meaning, the need for humans to fulfill their design in the created order. And I appreciated that the Pope addressed that in the encyclical. I tell you, here was the interesting thing too. Almost everyone. He referred to two passages of scripture, he kind of played this out. And almost everyone, when it comes to AI, will jump to the Tower of Babel story, right? Because it just seems to be the most obvious people doing something to want to be like God and they're not able to and so on. And as I've said here a number of times, I think there's a lot more going on in the passage than that. And actually embedded in that is an incredible capacity that humans have. And God says it like anything that comes into their minds, they'll be able to do. But he also threw in, and this was interesting, the idea of purpose behind work and the Nehemiah story, the return and building the wall, that was an interesting pair, I thought. Of course, you know, the joke is that it's good to see Catholics refer to the Bible. That's a funny joke that Catholics make about themselves. But I thought it was an interesting choice specifically of the Nehemiah story and why we work. Are we working for our own glory, our own name, our own ends? Or are we doing work that's been given to us by God? In ironically, here I'll quote John Calvin that we do quorum deo Right. In other words, recognizing that the work we do is before God, who made us for that work. And I thought that was an interesting take as well.
- [08:04]
A
I appreciated that too. I thought that was fascinating. He did talk somewhat about efficiency as well. I see this language in a lot of writing about AI, where. So one of the main central offerings, at least philosophically, of artificial intelligence is efficiency, that it does what mimics some human work much, much faster and usually more effectively. I am hungry for some kind of practical guidelines of what kinds of things lend themselves to efficiency while we maintain our human dignity and what kinds of efficiency we should run from or we should be skeptical of. Does that make sense? What I loved about the encyclical is that it reads like a logical proof. Right. It starts like you said, it starts from creation. Who are we? He does go into the Tower of Babel and the story of Nehemiah to kind of shape what we view about humans and their role in God's story and how we can use that to guide. But it's still very abstract somewhat. And I don't know that it's possible to come up with the kind of list I'm talking about, but that's what I find myself. I'm reading all of these things and kind of gobbling them up as I, alongside that, read all the news stories about the scary new stuff that AI can do and the ways people are using them, and I'm just hungry for that kind of practical list.
- [09:31]
B
Yeah, well, I don't know that there's a list. I think there's a spectrum. And of course that's a loaded statement since there's a spectrum for everything these days. But thinking about this and thinking about John Lennox and thinking about some of the content at the Colson Center Conference, I kind of outlined what I think the spectrum is. And the. The encyclical kind of gets at that. So, you know, one of the key deep dangers that the Pope identified was that human beings will begin to see ourselves and others. And he called it projects to be optimized. Right. So it's interesting that in his framing of the Tower of Babel story, it's humans, we're the Tower. You know, we're trying to optimize ourselves. And he talks there about limits. And one of the things we're going to address in our conversations about AI through the work we're doing on the issue of anthropology, is this issue of limits, that we think human limitations are bad. And so optimization always is exceeding the limits. And that's where that drive comes. If you can do it, you should do it. And that's a really dangerous ethical place. I think that what you have. He also, by the way, and he addresses kind of the spectrum, but by really identifying kind of the two dangerous ideas that would drive AI into a place where we don't recognize our created limits. You know, our limits are not just the reaction to the fall. Our limits are also kind of how we were made. And this is good. We need sleep. That's a limit. That's not a bad thing. We can't, you know, transport ourselves, you know, just in our minds. We have to be proximate. We have to be in a place. And there's something special about that. And if you start digging around the Psalms and you start digging around the history of Christian theology, the place of the place of place is pretty significant. So these are limits, and they're okay. He talked about the twin dangers of transhumanism and post humanism. And sometimes we talk about those two things as if they're the same thing, but they're not. Transhumanism is this idea of really supplementing humanity to transcend our limits. And post humanism is really the logical conclusion of an evolutionary mindset, which is, yeah, we've evolved to the top of the food chain, but the process continues. Like, why would we think that we're the ultimate living, evolved creature? And so the theory of posthumanism is now we can control evolution, so we should integrate with machines to become post human. So this is where I think these ideas that. That flow out of transhumanism and post humanism help us see this spectrum, right? And I think in my mind, the spectrum on AI goes from helping to replacing. And in between, helping and replacing are fixing and improving, right? So if we think about technology to help us, that's legit, right? We're trying to overcome the negative aspects of the Fall, for example. So the limits of the Fall are one thing. The limits of creation are something else. And then we can kind of figure out what we mean by help. And then there is the fixing, right? Something's gone wrong. We know in the Fall, like a limb has been lost or, you know, something has broken, and we use our technology to fix it. That's different than improving humanity, right? So we get to the idea of bioethics, and we have talked about this a lot, where there's a difference between healing and enhancement. And that line has been blurred, you know, by medication. That line has been blurred by a medical establishment that's kind of also driven by this if I can do it, I should do it impulse. And then also wanting to look good, you know, for cosmetic surgery, even if I don't need it to repair, you know, something that there's just this difference. And then so we go from helping to fixing, to improving, and then to replacing. And I think replacing is not just replacing ourselves, it's replacing others. And that's where we kind of have questions about companion bots and the roles, you know, that those things can play in our lives. So I think that's the framing that can be helpful. There's probably other, you know, there's not hard, fast lines between helping and fixing and fixing and improving. You know, these things blur. We should color code the. And move them forward.
- [14:00]
A
I'm gonna say this kind of tongue in cheek, but I've been just fixated on this question of laundry, okay, since the national conference. I think it was in Gene Twenge's talk, talking about how technology changes culture. It may have been somebody else's, but just reminding us of the dramatic difference in all of our lives that the washing machine has brought. Okay? And I'm serious. Like, you know, it took days, and we had. Because it took days and of the process that it required to clean clothes. People didn't have that many clothes. And, you know, for all sorts, like, we just can't even fathom. She. I think it was her. She made a joke about how, like, when we talk about laundry now, we're like, oh, it's such a. I can't believe I have to do this. I have to do laundry. This is such a chore. And she's like, I know. Can you believe you have to walk to this machine and push a button and then walk away and wait for it?
- [14:47]
B
Pull it out of one machine and put it to the one that's right beside it.
- [14:51]
A
It's right, literally right directly next to it. This is all a somewhat silly example, but I'm trying to find where this goes on your spot, on your spectrum here, because.
- [14:59]
B
Yeah, well, I think it's helping.
- [15:02]
A
Does that replace humans a little bit. It's doing a task that humans could do, but it's obviously not doing a task that only.
- [15:09]
B
Well, I don't think replacing a task is the same thing as replacing humans, first of all. And then secondly, you're talking about the drudgery aspect of work. So one of the framings of a Christian worldview is that there is a difference between work and toil. Work is dignified. Toil is the kind of thing that could be replaced because it's overturning kind of implications of the fall. So look again. These are categories that bleed into one another, but it's almost like, you know, when you've crossed into the next one, right. You kind of like, oh, okay, here. Here we are somewhere further down the line. And to think then that the goal is to optimize everything around efficiency, to your point, then it becomes a project to optimize humans around efficiency. And then we have the limits of thought and thinking that are actually good parts of who we are, but also we should maximize our own. So these things are. Are interesting categories. Obviously, a lot more needs to be done on it.
- [16:20]
A
Well, speaking of tech, let's just briefly hit this. You and I have been talking for a couple weeks about some of these. We've got some stories coming out now about schools that have banned phones and what results we're seeing from that.
- [16:31]
B
Spoiler alert. It works.
- [16:34]
A
Spoiler alert. Two thumbs way up. And it's. I'm glad that we can start to have some of this data because that means a lot of schools are doing this. And the more I hear, I mean, this is just kind of becoming normative for schools, which I'm so grateful for. But. So let's see. A school. One of the stories that we loved was that a school in Dallas that banned phones saw an explosion in the number of books checked out from the library. Okay. It was like a 25% increase in the number of books checked out.
- [17:03]
B
But of course, now we have to worry about what books they're checking out in the library. Given the.
- [17:07]
A
That's a whole other thing. But if that was the only data point we had, I would be like, bam. I mean, I don't know why I wouldn't do this as a school. It's worth doing. Absolutely.
- [17:16]
B
That's what's called roi. Return on investment. You invested in this project. You have a return. Yeah, that's right.
- [17:21]
A
Yeah. And I want to just say too, just as a point of privilege, just let me briefly. I have started. So my girls are in elementary school, and I've started really getting involved, meeting with school officials and other parents. I created a club, actually, at my girls campus for parents who want to have, you know, commit to waiting until at least high school to give their kid a phone and that kind of stuff. I just want to encourage other parents to be vocal about this with your school because they need the schools need your backing and your confidence and frankly, your pressure to be able to make this decision. I Think more and more schools are going to continue doing it. The more we get this data coming out about the kids are reading more, their mental health is improving, their communal health is improving, they're hanging out with each other more. As we get all this data, more and more schools are going to do it. But you can really help your own school by getting in there and encouraging them to do it.
- [18:17]
B
Well, you, you just got bolstered by Jonathan Haidt. Jonathan Haidt's work has proven to be very prophetic and very accurate. And his warnings, for example, about the child development and the influences and the interruptions there. And just this past week he released a TED talk that he had given in which he says, I haven't been alarmed enough. Now when Jonathan Haidt says I have not been alarmed enough, we should all go, oh, no. Because he's been the most alarmed among us. And you know, it's got to be satisfying. I had this conversation on stage with Gene Twenge at our conference, who also has done incredible work on cell phones and technology and how that impacts the generations. And you gotta have a little bit of satisfaction to see that these school systems and districts and parents and and so on are willing to now try this. Right when it was the whole like, let's give everyone a laptop and now they're backing off. And there's more and more and more of that. And especially the cell phone thing and height has been. His proposals have been tried and tested and now he's saying we need to do more. And he's pointing to AI as well as other things. But you know, look, what you're doing matches the three things that he proposes now that, look, if, if we're going to really turn this around, if we're going to be able to get on the other side of this tech experiment gone wrong with our kids, especially in education. Number one, protect brain development through puberty. The, the standard idea is at least until 16, because these technologies disrupt brain development and you need to get to a point of brain development. I, I would say more, but 16 is when people start driving.
- [20:01]
A
I think for boys it's probably later.
- [20:05]
B
No, no, that's a joke and true at the same time. Second, prioritize people and books in education, not screens. I mean, that's what we are talking about here, checking more books out of the library and so on. But I like to prioritize people as well. So how is it that, how can educational innovation, and there's a lot of it that uses or utilizes technology, and particularly digital technology. I mean, there's the upside of having master teachers and being able to learn things because you can access teachers outside of your proximity. But how do you do that and still prioritize people? I think that's really, really good. And then I think this is what's kind of alarming to him and why he that the third point is kind of now saying, okay, what's AI going to do? And, and Doc, Dr. Twenge talked about this as well, that there's more and more and more and more anecdotal evidence of minors participating with AI not just in research or chat or trying to get to some information, but as a replacement relationship. On my spectrum, that's a replacement. So he says beware of artificial relationships for minors. I'm a little surprised he used the word beware. You know, height's been pretty bold. I, I, I'd say ban them. You know, why on earth, why on earth would we do anything less than say, to all children? Children aren't allowed to access this technology. We don't want to drink. You know, we don't let them smoke pot. We don't let them gamble on the Super Bowl. Why would we let them develop a relationship with a chat bot that may or may not? I mean, you can't say have its best interest, but could be accessing material. That's terrible. We have these stories now, right? So I like the three. I'd probably strengthen the third one, but it's an interesting proposal.
- [22:01]
A
Yeah, yeah, I'm grateful for that too. I think that's wise. Let's take a quick break, John. We'll be right back with more Breakpoint this week in just a moment.
- [22:11]
C
The cultural challenges facing Christians today are not slowing down. That's why the Colson center is committed to forming believers to live with clarity, confidence and courage in every sphere of influence. Through initiatives like the Colson Fellows, Truth the Study, Colson Educators, and Breakpoint, we're equipping Christians for this moment and the generation to come as we approach our fiscal year end on June 30th. Your support helps keep this work going and expanding to reach more Christians across generations. Help us reach our 1 million goal@colsoncenter.org June. That's colsoncenter.org June.
- [22:52]
A
We're back on Breakpoint this week, John. It is June, which means it is Fidelity Month and it is Pride Month. You know, anecdotally, I've noticed a lot less gusto in recent years surrounding Pride Month. I know we've talked about it before on the program. I went out to eat last night, and the restaurant I was in was downtown in my city, and there was not a single flag or anything in there. And my husband and I, it took us a few minutes to recognize it. And then we were like, this is wild. Like, how do you account for this? His kind of cynical take was, you know, it would be premature to say we're on some kind of revival moment of people recovering a biblical view of marriage being between a man and a woman. But it is reasonable to believe that this push to, like, adapt or die, like, you better celebrate this or you're uncool that people are pushing back against that a little bit. You don't have to celebrate it. You don't have to have the flags out and do everything to be cool anymore. At least anecdotally that seems true. You know, I'm not ready to throw a party for that reason, but it's better than the alternative. But we are seeing, you know, some of the retailers, cvs, Target, Walmart are apparently selling less apparel and gear gamed at Pride Month, particularly apparel and stuff for children. They're doing less of that. That seems good. I've, you know, baseball is big in my house. Not all of the MLB teams are as loud about Pride Month this year. I think the Texas Rangers are doing nothing for Pride Month. Is this part of the vibe shift?
- [24:30]
B
Well, you know, one of the things we talked about at the conference with Ryan Burge is that what comes across as a vibe shift might just be a plateau. Right. Things were headed in a direction and then leveled off. And maybe that's where we're at, but it doesn't seem to be as loud now. I haven't made it down to downtown Colorado Springs, which, you know, three years ago was insufferable and now seems to have been a little bit muted, except at least on kind of parade day, which happens to be on a Sunday. And so I don't know. I do know that it feels certainly different. And it feels different because of one thing and one thing only, and that is the absolute demand by the transgender part of the acronym to take over everything. And it's something that is annoying to many, and it's something that comes across as a flat out injustice to many others, including the other members of the acronym. Look, I think the gay rights part of the movement always overestimated kind of how much it suffered and putting itself kind of in the line of blacks in America and slavery. I mean, it was just a bizarre comparison, always. But the trans part of that movement has none of that. Literally has none of that. It came in at the tail end and then just started making demands. And already the institutions of Western culture, particularly American culture, particularly in some places, just started figuring out everything that they could do to bow down to it. I mean, let's take for example, the protecting women in sports reaction to demanding men's spaces. Big story this week out of California of a track star that, you know, basically dominated the state track meet. California's decision, I mean, this is really, really, really mind blowing. The guy can still compete against the girls, right? But now California says the biological woman who wins, other than the guy, can stand on the podium with the guy. So they have two first place winners.
- [26:47]
A
This is one of the dumbest things we've ever reported on.
- [26:51]
B
Well, they, they did. Success
- [26:54]
A
is.
- [26:54]
B
It is wild. I mean, at one level it is an example of the vibe shift like that California felt obligated to do that. But then you just ticked everybody off, right? I mean, there's no one happy here.
- [27:05]
A
Feels like a comic strip. Like you are trying, you are attempting to choose a middle road. Like you're, you're attempting to combine people who say men and women are different and people who don't. That is truly a feat of dumbness that we have not seen before.
- [27:23]
B
And what does it admit that there, that there are differences between men and women, boys and girls. It is a, it is a wild, wild situation out there.
- [27:32]
A
Yeah.
- [27:33]
B
And people are mad. Everybody's mad. I mean, the trans community is mad because they don't want him to have to share his title. And the, the, the girls are still mad because they never, they never wanted to compete in the first place because it was inherently unfair. And, and then it's just interesting to listen to the reactions. You know, the LA Times talks about AB Hernandez overcoming hate with love. I mean, what, what do you talk. I mean, this stuff just sounds bizarre and then you know it. There's still, you know, plenty of press coverage that is scared, clearly will not say. They'll just toe up to the line and not actually say, this is, this is, this is crazy. So we're not there yet. There's no question about it. It is a lot nicer not to have it all forced down your throat, especially by the corporate part of it. I mean, look, we've talked about this. One lesson here is how culture works, and culture works in spheres. So different aspects of culture impact different parts of our lives. And that aspect that's really, really loud is, is corporate, corporate America, right? When corporate America swings. When corporate America swung on gay marriage, when corporate America swung on the trans issue, now that they've swung back to neutral, I mean, they're not advocating against boys and girls sports or boys and girls locker rooms or against, you know, trans procedures for minors. I mean, you know, those are that, you know, that's the work that's being done by the true believers. The corporate folks are just back to neutral, by and large. Right. And it feels so different, doesn't it? I mean, it just feels like, you know, there's the meme where somebody's got a megaphone right in your ear and that's, that's kind of how it felt for years and now it doesn't. And we're two years into this and we can be.
- [29:27]
A
Yeah, it certainly makes the silence louder afterwards. I agree.
- [29:30]
B
Well, but the question is for you, is the next point we wanted to talk about, which is, does this mean, because we have another survey, this is like the second year in a row that support for same sex marriage, so called same sex marriage, has declined. And that was called a settled issue. So was, by the way, abortion and you had the popularity and then it kind of came back as apologetics was applied to it and women's situations were cared for with pregnancy resource centers and, and you know, we saw prayers and protests and things like that. You're starting to see some of that pushback on same sex marriage is. Are we seeing a pushback just because the weariness and wariness of the trans annoyance is weighing the whole movement down or are there people rethinking this? I don't know that I know the answer to that.
- [30:25]
A
Yeah, I mean, so you're referring to the Gallup poll which came out recently and found. So in 2023, around 71% of all US adults said they believe same sex so called marriage should be legal. And it's down. That's down to 65%. Republicans, self identified Republicans who say they believe it should be legal. It was now 37%. That's down pretty significantly as well. Now this could be, as Ryan Burge said, like you mentioned, you know, somewhat of a plateau. You know, it's way too premature and inaccurate probably at this point to say like the pendulum is swinging. This is great and all that, but it's certainly noteworthy the amount of points that it's gone down. I feel like this is my most cynical take. Americans still, one of the things we tolerate the least is being told what to do. And I think when you have a movement that's been as you mentioned, so utterly successful in demanding that people get on board and celebrate and buy the merchant that that was going inevitably to run its course like that we were gonna give. Because, you know, again, I was at this restaurant last night, right, and this is, it's kind of like a place you go to watch sports. It's like a sports bar kind of place. I can just imagine the type of person who runs a restaurant like that who does not like being told what to do. And after a movement has run its course and we've successfully pushed back at least on the idea that to be a good person you must be a part of this, the people who are sick of being told what to do will pull out of it. And I mean, that's a good development because that's a bad reason for making moral judgments. Like we shouldn't do things because we feel like we're being told to, but we also shouldn't do things just for the sake of rebellion either. I wish I could look at this plateauing or reversal or whatever and say this is the result of like tireless work on behalf of advocates for the biblical view of marriage and the rights of children. And I'm sure that that has played a part in many individuals decision making and we should absolutely continue that work. But I also just think this is how cultural movements go. Whoever's on the ascendancy, their time is limited because that's how mobs work.
- [32:43]
B
Well, the question is, is when it becomes a norm and then how do you unseat a norm? And we're 10 years in, so it's kind of hard to think that it's not in many ways become normal, especially when you talk about for younger generations. So what disrupts norms? I mean, annoyance is a big one. There's no question that the annoyance factor here being told over and over and over that we're a bad, we're bad people for not fully getting on board or whatever and having opinions, having the
- [33:11]
A
media like the movies or like graphic scenes of same sex couples and people just.
- [33:16]
B
It was force fed.
- [33:16]
A
Don't like that.
- [33:17]
B
Yeah, yeah, it's force fed. And especially, you know, when it started to get more and more explicit. But I also think that we're just at the beginning now of some anecdotes that the question is, is it going to become normal? Right? So in the history of the sexual revolution, at every stage there has been a myth. And the myth is some version of the kids will be fine, right? So with no fault divorce, the kids will be fine, Right? And the version of that one was kids need happy parents, not married parents. And we just said it as if we knew. We didn't know because no one had ever tried it before. You know, California instituted this. And then research was done. Now we had lots of horror stories, lots of anecdotes. But then Judith Wallerstein documented the impact of no fault divorce on children and said, it's devastating. Devastating. Like basically that the children of no fault divorce are in the category of woundedness, like children of the Holocaust. That was her conclusion. This is a secular Jewish researcher. It was unbelievable. 25 years of data. So now we have the data, but it still hasn't changed. No fault divorce, right. We. It's kind of made it icky. We don't oftentimes hear that kids need happy parents instead of married parents anymore. That's a really sticky idea because to roll back no fault divorce would be to roll back quote, unquote rights. I think we're in the same category here. Now, what are the anecdotes? Just in the last year, we have gotten more and more anecdotes of same sex couples through IVF adopting children. And then abuse takes place. Now, in some you have horrific situations, in some you have less horrific situations. But what we were told in this version of the kids will be fine was that kids don't need a mom and dad. Kids just need loving parents. So we have the anecdotes of the horrific abuse, but then we have the assumption that's taken place all the way throughout the last decade. And before that, as long as kids are in a loving home, then that can replace a mom and a dad. Now, again, just like no fault divorce, we said it. We had no data, we had no facts. We'd have no idea now, except for Mark Regnerus, who courageously stepped out and said, here's what I can tell you. And more research needs to be done. But listen, we got it. Now, like, we have the opportunity to gather the data. We can talk to it. Katie Foust and them before us. And the Greater Than campaign is putting out stories of people going, you know, and it's very much like hers. I love my mom and her lesbian partner, but her lesbian partner wasn't my dad. And another story this past week. I don't know if you saw this video. Maybe we talked about it just a couple weeks ago. I had two dads, but none of them, neither one of them could be a mom. You start hearing these anecdotes. We need data and research to come alongside it the problem is we're still in that cultural norm phase where to say this stuff out loud. What you're studying is career suicide. I mean, it's still going to be canceled. So unrooting a norm, culturally speaking, is a, is a, is a challenging thing. Rarely happens fast. Sometimes it happens because of something so cataclysmically awful. Just changes the categories. But most of the time it takes a long time and I don't know how we're going to get there. But you know, abortion was the same way.
- [36:52]
A
Yeah, maybe the, maybe children of same sex couples are to that Cause what sports has been to the trans issue. I think sports is the issue that really turned around the cultural. Is truly reshaping the norm around that because it was just so glaring. I do think though, don't you think it's an advantage just comparing it to no fault divorce? It has to be an advantage statistically that the number of homosexual people in our country, especially the number that are seeking some kind of unit that they would call marriage, is really low. It's not that many. Not that many.
- [37:33]
B
I think it was 800,000 is the number that I saw, which is really
- [37:37]
A
10 years to our advantage. It's gotta be easier to reshape a norm that's there as opposed to a norm that 50% of adults are using.
- [37:46]
B
Maybe. I mean, yeah, I mean if you're talking about is it going to be easier to unseat this than you know, take the iPhones out of everyone's hands, you know, probably, which is our next move. But yeah, that's, that's what happens next. I think it's a, it's a, it's, it's a tough one. Particularly when it's perceived as removing rights. That's where it becomes a little bit more, when you're protecting someone, then it's, then it's. I think it makes a lot more sense and I think that's the case, for example, that the Greater Than campaign is trying to make that these marriage equality is a myth because it's not greater, it's not equal for the kids. Marriage is greater than so called same sex marriage for the kids. And we gotta, and that's the point is we gotta frame it around the kids. There's probably more to it than that, but that's, we're not gonna do it without that. And the challenge we have, you know, just like we've talked about this before, that being able to look more closely into gestation in the womb and the development of life makes it more Obvious for those of us that are pro life, that abortion takes a preborn life. Right. But then you look at the numbers, and the numbers made people more and more personally pro life. But you had this kind of cultural environment of relativism. So it actually didn't unseat abortion because people were thinking in with a relativistic worldview. Right. And I think the same thing is happening here, and here's what I mean by that, is that even as we are getting these stories and maybe even this data, we're also a culture that doesn't like kids. Right? We like baby pictures, but we don't like babies on planes beside us. We like baby pictures and we like one kid, but we'd rather have a dog if it's just as convenient. You know, I mean, we are as many people and we're not having babies. We're an antinatalist culture. And so I think that's some of the difficult context in which it is difficult to make movements on behalf of children. I don't think that means we shouldn't try because people still don't like child abuse. That's good. It's bad. It's bad when your culture likes child abuse. Yeah, but we have a culture that is turning a blind eye to child abuse and calling it not when it is. So, you know, we're just in a. That's the cultural pickle and that's the undergirding of ideas to how we think as a. As a society.
- [40:27]
A
Maybe culture is more ready to move towards a. Let's rethink, you know, assisted reproduction, certainly subsidized assisted reproduction and then adoption for gay couples. Before we get to the marriage question, I tend to think that you're right about that. Like, you know, in Ohio, when we passed our abortion amendment, which basically legalized abortion up to birth a couple years ago, there was a lot of polling done and it was like over 80% of Ohioans believe that life starts at some point in the womb. And 65% of Ohioans still voted to pass this thing. That's on the one hand, right. The pro life movement has succeeded in what we thought our goal was, which was convincing people of the humanity of the unborn. We have. Yeah, go ahead.
- [41:14]
B
Well, no, it's a triangle, this, the worldview triangle. Right. Your actions are built on your values and your values come from your worldview. If your worldview is first and foremost relativism, some form of relativism, then your values are going to be revolution ordered. And that's what had happened. And by the way, I'd love to share your optimism, even though I know it wasn't super optimistic even as you said it, that we may be able to push back on artificial reproductive technologies for same sex couples before same sex marriage. But the other cultural water we're swimming in is that people have already separated in our minds and in our culture and in our laws and in how we think and talk about this, including how we entertain ourselves and what we buy, that sex, marriage and babies are no longer a package deal. So we don't even, we don't even see it as a package deal anymore. Right. It's like children out of wedlock is not a taboo in our culture. Right. The idea of getting married, wanting to stay childless so you can travel the rest of your life, that's, that's a completely normal idea in the church as much as out of the church. So we've divorced sex, marriage and babies to a pretty. But I feel like I'm just Debbie Downer here, man. I'm just saying all the things that are terrible and we're not going to be able to change anything. And I have a little more hope than all that.
- [42:34]
A
There is reason to believe that like the trans movement, the same sex marriage culture will overplay its hand. I think that's happened a little bit with Pride Month as one very small data point. And, you know, the more we can combine that with our own advocacy of just beating the drum that children deserve better than this, then all we do is help the movement along, I guess. Well, let's take another break, John. We'll be right back with more Breakpoint this week.
- [43:05]
C
What if you and your spouse could pursue robust spiritual and intellectual formation together? Couples who enroll in the Colson Fellows program each save 25% on tuition over 10 months. You'll read the same books, wrestle with the same ideas, and build a shared vision for your faith. Hundreds of couples have done it and seen their faith and lives transformed. This year it could be you. Apply, apply and save today at colsonfellows.org apply. That's colsonfellows.org apply
- [43:38]
A
we're back on Breakpoint this week. John, in our first segment, we were talking about tech in education as well as smartphones for kids. Along that vein, I read a piece this week from a professor who was writing, you know, talking about incoming freshmen in higher ed, really not even being able to read. I think he said that his opening anecdote was that every year he assigns a 20 page article and kids won't read it anymore. And they report that they can't. There was some survey done among this cohort that found that they now consider a 750 word essay as long. You know, we know the SAT has dramatically changed even since I took it. I mean, I can't believe. Imagine how much has changed since you took it, which was so. I was probably in diapers when you took it. John. John is not picking up my. Okay. But it has shortened and shortened and shortened its reading sections and it's changed philosophically too. I did some reporting on this a couple of months ago. But like the sat, the idea of the reading comprehension, whatever section of the SAT used to be. Can you read this large portion of text and then make inferential conclusions based on what you read? And it's now to the point where the questions the SAT is asking are just directly fact based questions that were just told to you in the text. That is a hu. That's a very meaningful change that has happened. But anyway, this professor seems to be reporting on the similar movement where the kids coming in. And of course he referenced the National Assessment of Education Progress which is finding that 24% of 12th graders, high school seniors, are currently reaching the proficient level in reading. These kids are going to college. Right. This feels like an existential problem. I'm sure it's related to technology, if not like almost fully attributed to smartphones and social media and all of that. But do you think there's some worldview behind this as well?
- [45:42]
B
Yes, I think that there was a movement towards, you know, self esteem, a movement towards everybody's a winner. You could see that reflected in putting two people on the podium in California and attempt to dodge the issue. That's the elephant in the room, so to speak. It is part of the failure of higher ed. It's part of the collapse of higher ed. I don't know if it's premature to call it a collapse, but you know, the ROI is certainly being questioned. Why spend all this money? And you're going to go there and the students are going to tell everyone what it is that they're going to learn, how much they're going to learn and what issues they're going to care about or they're going to walk out and there's nothing you're going to do except give them cookies and hot chocolate after, you know, to, to comfort themselves. It's, I mean that's, that's, that's a little bit cynical. But these are all real kind of anecdotes that you string together.
- [46:39]
A
Sorry, if you're. And if you're. If you want to know more about that kind of culture. John Haidt himself just went and spoke at the commencement, I think, at Columbia.
- [46:48]
B
Oh, he got protested, didn't he?
- [46:50]
A
Yes. And the things. The kids wrote an editorial in the school paper about why he shouldn't be there. Just read that, if you need to understand. I mean, these are literally the kids who would hear what you just said, John, about hot chocolate and be like, yes, that was very personally meaningful to me. I do require hot chocolate when I'm feeling anxious, because they were literally like, we feel disturbed in our souls that he's gonna be here.
- [47:11]
B
Wow.
- [47:12]
A
And it. Man, it was interesting. But go on.
- [47:14]
B
Yeah. I mean, this has been, you know, brewing for. For. For a long time, and I think shows that the cracks that are there. I think it also shows the incredible opportunity that Christians have to do things differently. And the worst thing we can do is to pedal our wear, which is historically one of the most profound contributions that anyone's ever made to the world is universal education, a vision for learning, a vision of human dignity that is connected to learning and therefore also to work. That undergird so much of this. This is what, you know, the. The Pope is talking about in his encyclical about the kind of creatures we are. Well, that same thing actually leads to a particular vision of the human person. And this is, you know, the tyranny of soft expectations. That. That. That. That's right here. That's on full display. It seems to me that it's being exposed. We had a crazy story this week, and, you know, look, Harvey Mansfield is a Harvard professor that's been complaining about Harvard for a long time. I mean, really, a long time. You know, talking about how it's not what it should be. I mean, his new book this year, which was just released last month, is Where Harvard went wrong. 50 years of commentary that fell on deaf ears. That's a Harvard.
- [48:37]
A
Did you know that on campus they call him Harve C minus Mansfield because.
- [48:42]
B
Oh, it's because he gives C minuses. But so the Free Press reports on this. So finally, after 50 years of saying Harvard gives too many A's, Harvard's actually doing something about this. Okay? But I want you to hear this stat here, and this is a stat that is coming from Harvard themselves in the report that is saying, re Centering academics at Harvard. Update on grading and workload. So it's a report on kind of what this grading situation is. Listen to this. At Harvard, three out of Every five grades are A's. That is a wild number. Three out of every five grades are A's.
- [49:25]
A
Every year, Harvard gives what's called a Sophia Freund prize, which is supposed to go to the student with the highest GPA. Last year, that prize ended in a 55 way tie because 55 students had earned only A's for all four years. I mean, like, why? I just want to dig into the psychology of a student there. Like, it's so utterly meaningless at that point. Why do you even. Why are you going to school? Like, what do you feel like getting an A signifies? I can't enter into that frame of mind.
- [50:06]
B
I'm torn here because I want to talk about this, but I also just want to say Harvey Mansfield, I remember learning about him years ago. He is 94 years old. He is 94. He has been at this for so long. You know what he said about his nickname, Harvey C Minus Mansfield? He said, I wore it with pride.
- [50:31]
A
Yeah, you did.
- [50:32]
B
I mean, it's. You gotta love the fact that he just kind of went after it. He's been talking about this literally since 1975. That was the year I was born.
- [50:40]
A
He's been talking about great inflation for a stint. He even said he literally gave kids two different grades. And he told them, he said, I'm gonna give you the grade that will show up on your transcript because this is how we do things at Harvard, apparently. And then I'm gonna give you the grade. I think you should have gone. And he said there were tons of students who were really grateful for that because, yeah, everyone knows that your grade is meaningless when they're giving literally everyone A's.
- [51:06]
B
Yeah, well, look, it's, it's sometimes misleading to just base learning on test scores, right? In other words, the process of learning should be transformational. The, the discipline of going through the process of rigorous education, being challenged mentally, being challenged at the appropriate level, with facts at one level, and with critical thinking at an older age, being able to apply the pieces that you've put together, culminating in something like a college education and the acquisition of a degree. If the overall process. Steve Garber quoted a Duke University student in his book saying, you know, that, that, that no one knows what we're after, that all we were doing is jumping through hoops somebody said we ought to jump through. And a lot of us felt that way. And you might have jumped through those hoops with an A, or you might have jumped through those hoops with a C. And it doesn't change if you don't know what the hoops are for and what's happening to you. So it really is a violation of what it means to be human when we downgrade education, when we. When we lose sight of what we are for. The only way to pull it all together is in the context of purpose, in the context that there's something to us that's given that we're not just kind of constantly constructing ourselves, but that we actually have something intrinsic that is dignified and that has an aim and a direction, a telos, an end, a purpose. And once you lose all of that because in the name of neutrality or in the name of secularism or whatever, then this is the sort of deconstruction that ends up happening. So, you know, the question is, is, you know, return the significant of grades. That's great. I think that's obviously better than not having significance in grades and you're not having real measurements and you're lowering expectations, but you're still not going to get all the way there without that purpose. And of course, Harvard had that purpose and its founding. All the, you know, institutions in the United States that upon their founding. Well, it's not accurate to say all of them, but all the old ones. I mean, you go back to Harvard and it's about veritas. It's about truth. It's about pursuing truth as if the pursuit of truth helps us be more fully human with ourselves and with each other. I mean, that's a. That's a telos, like that's something that everybody needs kind of thing in order to be what they were supposed to be. That is a such a far cry from, you know, be whoever you want to be.
- [53:44]
A
You know, it was also to preserve the republic. I mean, channeling my inner Oz Guinness right now. But a lot of the founders of those first universities, including Ohio University Go Bobcats, was, you know, like, we need an educated public who is driven towards virtue if we're going to preserve this thing. And that that was the purpose of it. So I just have to share. Last year, the Harvard Crimson reported, not on this, the new grade cap, because Harvard hadn't decided that yet, but just did a story on the fact that like 60% of Harvard students get A's. And in that story, they spoke to several students at Harvard about the fact that several faculty in the story had said, we've gotta do something about this. This is rendering our grading process basically meaningless, and whatever. And there's a quote from a student in that story at the Crimson where she said, she was very alarmed that this was gonna cause the college to change the way it does grades. And she said, quote, I was looking forward to being fulfilled by my studies rather than being killed by them. I mean, there's nothing more poignant to what you were just saying. If the idea to me what that the saddest thing about that quote is the dramatic lack of self confidence that you could possibly attempt something difficult to you that felt outside of your comfort zone or felt strange and new, and that you could possibly imagine yourself rising to that task. That's the biggest. That's the heart of that story for me. That's the saddest part of this, is that somehow this woman who's gotten into the most prestigious university in the country, or used to be, does not believe that she could overcome a difficult challenge in her education. And then, of course, she's suggesting that the reason she's studying at all is just for enjoyment, I guess, which is why they do want all A's, I suppose, and they don't mind that everybody else is getting them too, but that we need to recover. Like, not just an ideal in regards to education, like, what is it for? But the idea that, like, it's good to be challenged and that actually challenge offers meaning and virtue and, you know, it's sad, it's scary that we don't think in those terms anymore. I don't know if a grade cap will do that officially, but it's certainly gonna lead to some more competition. Although, you know, I don't know, maybe they'll let all the B students stand on the same podium as the A student.
- [56:11]
B
Yeah, right. Yeah.
- [56:12]
A
And then it'll just.
- [56:13]
B
You're a valedictorian and you're a valedictorian,
- [56:15]
A
and you're a valedictorian, and you're a valedictorian. Participation trophy era is hopefully coming to a close at Harvard. Well, John, before we conclude, let's get to a quick question. If you'd like to send in question or feedback to us, you can do that by going to colsoncenter.org and click on Contact Us. We'd love to hear from you. Okay, this first question is referring to a breakpoint this week from March 27th. We were talking about the death of Kermit Gosnell, the abortionist who ran that clinic in Pennsylvania where so many women were killed. Of course, so many babies were killed, and he went to prison for that. This questioner says, I acknowledge God takes no pleasure in people's death and wants all of us to come to repentance. However, in Proverbs 11, it says that going well with the righteous and when the wicked perish should both prompt people to rejoice and shout. While the Hebrew for perish doesn't exactly mean someone's death, the word chosen in the translation definitely carries that connotation. So I guess he's asking, do we think it's possible that we are to rejoice when someone wicked or when the wicked die?
- [57:24]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's such a great question. And it's, it's a great example of like, let's go where the Bible with what the Bible says. And the Bible clearly says that God doesn't rejoice in the, the death of the wicked. In other words, he brings judgment and he does it justly. Will not the God of all the earth do what is right? Lot challenges God with his own kind of words, his own, you know, self revelation. But then you have this verse in Proverbs. What the verse in Proverbs is saying is that, is that people rejoice when the wicked perish. You remember when Osama bin Laden was, was killed. Remember when some, you have people obviously on all kinds of sides who think the other side is wicked and they rejoice. And sometimes that's horrific and sometimes that's understandable. I don't think that the Proverbs verse here is prescriptive. I think it's descriptive. I think it's a statement about like, look, you know, this is when you
- [58:25]
A
make yourself a blight.
- [58:27]
B
Yeah, yeah, don't be, don't be surprised. Now the other question, and the other part of the question was like the meaning of the word parish. And I am not a Hebrew scholar, so I cannot tell you that. I do think that there's a part of the meaning of the word parish which is just that it's used. And the way that various translations have translated it, especially older ones like the KJB or the nascar, would include perishing physically, the eternal death, or, you know, hell. And then also some modern translations think that a handful of those references are not actually referring to that, but they're referring to something like the plans die. You know, you had, you had plans and God thwarted it. And thank God for that. So I think that that is a, you know, a reality. The thing about the first reference though, that God does not rejoice in the death of the wicked doesn't mean that he regrets it. Right. We're not saying that somehow God is rethinking like, ah, man, I wish I wouldn't have done that. That sort of stuff doesn't happen. God doesn't change. He's not, you know, he doesn't change like the seasons, the scripture says. But he loves his creation. That's the message over and over. He loves what he has made, and he also governs what he has made with righteous judgment. And so that's my take on it. I'm happy if some Hebrew scholars want to jump in and say that Proverbs reference is prescriptive, that the righteous should rejoice when the wicked die. I just think it's a statement of fact.
- [60:01]
A
I feel like there's a moral difference too. And we should be extremely skeptical of our impulse to rejoice when someone dies. Because you've really got to parse what you're celebrating. If you're. I'm celebrating Kermit Gosnell went to prison and couldn't kill any more women and babies. And, you know, it's like I picture in David's time, celebrating when a wicked ruler who wanted to, you know, destroy the Jewish people perished. Because now that threat is eliminated, as opposed to like, reveling in the pain of someone else because you disliked that person or even that you disliked what they did. And I think it's can sometimes be extremely difficult to figure out when we're doing the former or the latter. And for that reason, it's probably wise to just be very skeptical of any impulse to celebrate any kind of death. I guess that'd be where I go with it. Okay, last question I want to get to briefly, what book would you suggest as a gift to a 2026 high school grad to help them consider God's calling on their life as well as to equip them with a Christian worldview?
- [61:06]
B
I'm going to roll out some recommendations here. The book that you should buy them, and I would actually suggest read with them. I mean, I think this is a wonderful kind of way to do it with your child before graduation or after graduation. Is the book the Call by Os Guinness? It really is just a classic. I think he challenges us on a number of different levels of calling that goes beyond some of the more popular ones. If you want a book that. That both does calling and Christian worldview, you're asking too much of any book. I mean, Oz's book is a Christian worldview of calling. And there are books that put calling in the line of worldview. In other words, here's what you should believe and here's how you should live. And I'll Point to those. Neil Planiga's book Engage in God's World does that. Kevin DeYoung's book Just Do Something is a helpful is more on calling, but also framed out and kind of seeing a Christian worldview. But if you've already equipped them with the Christian worldview and you want to put a nice little bow on the end of it, then that os Guinness book is a great one too. I'll tell you to walk through with them the new Truth Rising study because we're walking through the basics of a Christian worldview, by the way. I see that as different than preparing them to deal with non Christian worldviews. I don't think they're opposed to each other. I just think they're not the same thing. If you want to help them prepare for non Christian worldviews, send them to Summit Ministries, send them to a Worldview Academy. Those are two wonderful programs there. May be full for the summer, but you could check it out and see if you can still, you know, sneak your son or daughter in. But Truth Rising, the study walks through a Christian worldview of our moment and says, look, Christians are people of hope even in this moment, walks through truth. Not just truths of Christianity, but the true story and seeing all of reality in light of that story, what it means to be made in the image of God, the question of identity and then the question of calling how should I live? And that would be a challenging framing thing to send kids into college or whatever they're doing next year so that they have that why in place. I mean, if you sum up everything we said about the Harvard story, it's that you should change the what. But most important is we get the why down. And that's what Truth Rising the study can do. So I would recommend that. So there you got three books Os Guinness is the call, Neil Planaga's Engaging God's world, Kevin DeYoung's Just Do Something and then programs like Summit and Worldview Academy and Truth Rising the study. So between all of that, the only one of those that's free is Truth Rising the study. So just saying.
- [63:45]
A
Also, you know, throw some Dostoyevsky in there. Let's get some good Christian literary fiction.
- [63:51]
B
Throw in a Russian novelist between now and time you go to Harvard, throw
- [63:54]
A
in a really, you won't read him
- [63:56]
B
at Harvard, so you might as well read it.
- [63:58]
A
Exactly. And read it on paper.
- [64:00]
B
You probably do read Dust Rhea at Harvard. Who knows?
- [64:02]
A
Yeah, right. I'd be shocked. Okay, well, that's gonna do it for the show this week. Thank you so much for listening to Breakpoint this week. From the Coulson center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer alongside John Stonestreet. It's back to be with you on the show this week. We'll see you all back here next time. God bless.