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Seeing God from Space, Finland Study on Gender Dysphoria and the Dropping Teen Pregnancy Rate
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- [00:02]
Maria Baer
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 the Artemis's mission around the moon and their pilot's Christian witness. We're also going to talk about the way the President has been talking about Iran. We are so glad you're with us for this conversation. Please stick around. Welcome to breakpoint this week from the Coulson center for Christian Worldview. I'm Maria Baer alongside John Stonestreet, president of the Coulson Center. John, sometimes we get accused of never talking about positive news, but I want to start on a super cool, amazing, incredible note this week. So most people will hopefully have been following along with the Artemis mission, which is a group of astronauts who've made a 10 day journey orbiting the moon, going all the way around the dark side, farther than any human being has ever traveled from Earth before, even going beyond where their communications capabilities were cut off with Houston for about 40 minutes in a very dramatic, you know, half hour the other night and then came back into contact. It's been an incredible week. They are, as we're recording this, they're on their way back. I think they're supposed to get back tomorrow. We're recording this Thursday. But one of the incredible parts of this story, there are detail upon detail that are incredible. And my girls are absolutely spellbound by this mission, which has been really fun to watch. I now officially have a NASA bumper sticker on my car that was beyond my control. It just happened. But one of the really cool details is that one of the pilots of this mission, Victor Glover, is a believer and he's been interviewed, of course, all over the world. And he spoke with, you know, his mission commanders back in Houston about his incredible perspective of both the Earth and the moon that most people will never get to see. And I want to read a quote from one of the things he said while he was up there. He said, obviously he still is. When I read the Bible and I look at all the amazing things that were done for us who were created, you have this amazing place, this spaceship. You guys are talking to us because we're in a spaceship really far from Earth, but you're in a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos and, you know, elsewhere. He said something like, the universe is a vast void. There's nothing out here. It is unbelievable that we live on this planet that was created, it seems, especially for our Survival. And he's just had so much beautiful insight, and what an incredible pedestal from which to share that with everybody. He has so much credibility, obviously, and an incredible vantage point. This is such a great witness, and I've loved watching every second of this.
- [03:04]
John Stonestreet
Well, it was one of several kind of Easter shout outs. As much as it causes me pain, I need to mention UConn's Darius Reed, who had a wonderful run in the tournament. And also, even though he lost, made a great shout out to his faith. Now, that was kind of saddling Easter, both after a win on Saturday and a loss on Monday. This is also in the vein of, of course, past missions. Basically, you know, the first cosmonaut and Tim Padgett on our team reminded us of this. Remember, the first cosmonaut to go into outer space. He was the first man to go on the outer space. Made the snarky comment that I didn't see God. But almost everyone after that has some sort of experience where they're pointing to something remarkable. It was the sense of awe that made them think about something higher and bigger than themselves, which is, you know, incredible, because the entire conversation leading up to the mission, especially since we haven't done anything like this for so many decades, the entire conversation leading up to the mission is about human ability. It's about engineering. Like, it's about math. It's about the stuff that we can do. And suddenly you get up there and it's like, oh, there's something way bigger than us. You know, there's a reference to God. There's a reference to faith. Glover's interesting because his references to what we might call human exceptionalism. And as soon as I read that statement that you referred to, and he also said, you know, kind of this, you are special. But it wasn't like in a Barney. Like, you know, you are special. It was in a. By the way, I mean, Barney the dinosaur, not Barney Rubble from the Flintstones. But it was like this, you know, remark that we are special because God is mindful of us. And you referenced that part of the quote, right? Which is. It's remarkable that in this big, vast nothingness that is beyond anything we could possibly imagine, we have this planet that actually looks like it was built for us. Now, of course, you have to interpret that. I thought of two things when I read that quote. One is I thought of John Piper, and the other is I thought of the movie Contact with Jodie Foster. John Piper famously said something along the lines of, no one stands on the edge of the grand Canyon and is like, I'm awesome. And he didn't quite say it like that. He said it way more articulate than that, as John Piper tends to do. But that's kind of what this guy did. He didn't stand on the edge of the universe and say. Or, you know, it was right before he went into the silent zone. He didn't stand on the edge of there and go, I'm awesome. He stand on the edge of there and said, we're special. But which is a different thing, because I'm awesome means I'm great. I'm special means somebody thinks I'm special. And in the context of what he was talking about, it's God. It's what the psalmist said, what is man? That you're mindful of him. It was a really. I thought, a remarkable witness. And then the other thing I thought of was the movie Contact, which I don't know if you remember. Did you ever see that movie with Jodie Foster way back in the day?
- [06:15]
Maria Baer
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [06:17]
John Stonestreet
So it's based on, apparently on a book which Tim, who reminds us of these kinds of things, reminded us of during. And apparently maybe the book goes a different direction than the movie, but I just remember it's got Matthew McConaughey in it, too. And in the middle of it, they basically talk like, look, if we're the only ones here, then there's a big waste of space out there. That seems like an awful waste of space. Well, that's what you're left with if you are a naturalist. We are alone in the cosmos, and all you basically have are grasping of straws, hoping that in some kind of multiverse or, you know, kind of the luck of the bet of the development of evolutionary process, that somehow we're not alone. Right? But if we are alone and we're not alone, it's not because anyone planned it, it just is. And that's what has driven for so long this kind of futile search for extra intelligence. Then compare that. All this is a waste of space to all this is really kind of made for us. And the fact of the matter is that's the biblical position. And I thought it was a super cool witness. It was very Pascalian. Humans are the glory and the garbage of the universe. It was very in line with what we have heard from those who have been up there. Suddenly the conversation goes to awe. And when you start getting into the realm or the land of awe, then all of a sudden you're having a different conversation. You're having a conversation like, who am I and why am I here? It brings wonder, and it takes you out of kind of this immediate. Even if it's super cool to think about how crazy the engineering is to make this even possible, especially before AI in the age of super computers, suddenly you're in a bigger room, you're asking ultimate questions, which is the way we were made.
- [08:17]
Maria Baer
I mean, I think the Witness even points to that amazing human ingenuity. Like, the reason it's worthwhile to study and to ask questions and to look out there. First of all, we do it from the safety of knowing that God is mindful of us. But second of all, like, not without that desperation. Like, none of this will be meaningful unless we find that there's God out there that we can see and touch, or we find other existences or whatever else the cosmonauts were looking for. But also just the freedom to have questions and to look for it and to explore and to have, like, the philosophical grounding to explore and that, you know, like Kepler saying that science and these pursuits are thinking God's thoughts after him. Like, that is our heritage, too. I'm really proud to have somebody like Victor Glover on our team.
- [09:07]
John Stonestreet
But this whole thing also made me think about something else, which is. I've said before that I think an underappreciated book that was kind of came out around Covid from Ross Douthen on the decadent society. And basically he's kind of exploring this idea of decadence as a way of understanding where Western culture has landed. And one of the things of decadence isn't necessarily even moral evil or something like that. It is just that we've run out of ideas. We don't do anything new. We don't try anything excited. Like, it's like we've become the group of people that are portrayed in the movie Wall E. You know, we're just sitting around fat and fed and just trying to watch movies, and we're not really caring about anything. Even our greatest inventions are really just enhancements of things that somebody else invented a long time ago. Right. And one of the things he brought up in that book, and you made me think of it when you were talking about your daughters kind of getting into this, which is super cool. One of the things that he mentions in that is that we haven't had a national event that brought us together that wasn't bad. Since when?
- [10:14]
Maria Baer
The moon landing.
- [10:15]
John Stonestreet
The moon landing. I mean, you might have, like, you know, something like the Red Sox finally winning it after a long time or you might have, you know, something.
- [10:23]
Maria Baer
No, I wouldn't care about that.
- [10:25]
John Stonestreet
Small. At this point, we're talking about something that only a small part of, you know, the human, the American nation cares about. But when you think about something where the whole nation. And even, you know, to your point, in some ways, the. Even beyond, there was just something that gave us a sense of national pride, something that we all shared. You could probably even, you know, draw it beyond America to Western culture in general. But then, since then, all the events like that, that were kind of unifying events were like, 9, 11. And I think there's a lot there. And so I don't think this kind of raises to the level of the moon landing. Certainly, I think at some level it is repeating something we've already done. But there was great doubt that we could. There was great doubt that this could be done, even in the age of supercomputing. So, anyway, I don't know that there's anything to analyze there, but it is interesting that this has the smack and the smell of that, which is a good thing. We need to accomplish some stuff, because humans were made to accomplish some stuff.
- [11:32]
Maria Baer
Well, I think one point in favor of that thesis is that I've yet. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough, but I've yet to see media coverage that's cynical about this. I mean, I'm sure some people didn't like what Victor Glover said, but, I mean, we're gonna talk about Iran in a minute. And even sometimes I turn on the news the other day to listen to updates about the ceasefire, and. And I'm hearing it spun like, well, here's why this is actually bad news. And I've yet to find or hear news about this, cynically, which is a point in the favor of maybe this is pointing us, at least in the direction of another shared positive national experience. I certainly hope so.
- [12:12]
John Stonestreet
Yeah, it's an interesting idea, and I think you're right, because I was thinking of that same thought, because I heard them talk about some network, talk about it in positive ways. And then I was like, hey, you know, it was Trump in his first speech that said we were gonna do this. You know, in other words, there's a
- [12:27]
Maria Baer
very direct source guiding this mission. And he's talking about his Christian faith.
- [12:32]
John Stonestreet
He's talking about faith. Yeah, so. And that is very different than how the, you know, the Iranian war is being talked about, including by Trump himself. You know, the other message we got on Easter was from Truth Social and his prediction that we were going to End a civilization.
- [12:50]
Maria Baer
Tonight, we've talked about here in other contexts, but including in Iran. Now, just war theory. And I wanted to bring up this. This quote from Trump, which I took at first blush to be, you know, another attempt at negotiation. Obviously clumsy and really difficult to read and horrifying in a lot of ways, but he's trying to convince the Iranian regime to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and now he's threatening the end of civilization for them. How does this fit into a Christian view of just war theory? Is this allowed?
- [13:27]
John Stonestreet
No, it's not. It doesn't. It's an unjust thing to say. But there is also an enormous difference between what one says in the act of war and what one does in the act of war. When it comes to just war theory, words still matter. If any of the actions of the president and of the United States and Israel mirror those words. A call to end to civilization, which, you know, it was sloppy. It was sloppily worded top to bottom. Even at the bottom of the post, he said something about, you know, the great Iranian people, which, if you're going to end a civilization, you're going to end the great Iranian. So it was contradictory in a lot of ways that he did. So you have groups of people who have already decided that what he did was call for genocide, and you got groups of people who decided that already what he did was basically a negotiation tactic. We'll see. Praise God. We're at a ceasefire. That's better than not being at a ceasefire. We've reached a point in which a lot of the initial goals, and we had a long conversation with Eric Patterson about that in a special bonus episode of the podcast, to talk about what those goals were and whether the initial act of going to war could be justified. I believe that it was now going at the time that he chose to do. That's another fact factor that needs to be measured. I think that passes muster, too, based on the limited information that we all have. And then beyond that, you have to say, how is it being waged and how it's being waged now, that has to have its own scrutiny. I don't think we've batted a thousand in this by any means. And then words actually do matter. It's an abhorrent thing to call for the end of a civilization. It shouldn't be done. I don't think he said it. But then you look at the sloppy tweet, and I think it was more of a matter of incompetence than it was A matter of evil when it comes to that. And that said that top to bottom, so far, there's goals yet to be achieved in this conflict. If these goals are just, and if the pursuit of those goals remains just, then the world's going to be a better place. It already is a better place because of a decapitated Iran, because of destroying capabilities of their missile program and how far they could reach into Europe. I mean, these are kind of real world things that have to be kind of measured in light of what's happening. And let's not forget too, what happened on Easter Sunday, which is the rescue of a downed pilot. That's crazy, that story. When you think about the amount of money, the amount of time, the amount of resources and the amount of energy spent to bring that one guy back, listen, that's not something that many, many regimes would do in the history of the world. That stands in stark contrast of something we heard about from multiple sources this week about the Iranian regime surrounding potential targets with civilians or with people that were basically teenagers forced or conscripted to join the military. That's a really big stark contrast. When you talk about comparing values and comparing morals and which one lines up. There was an awful lot of the 99. Leave the 99 and go get the one that's lost. That's reflected and what the military was willing and by the way, able to do. You think about the plane. I mean, I saw, we had this conversation actually, too. It's like in some countries, they lose the planes that were lost just trying to get this guy back. Their military's over, you know, good. If you're, if you're a down pilot, you want to be a down pilot for the United States because A, they're not going to leave you behind. B, they're going to come after, come out and get you. See, they have the ability to get you. It's pretty remarkable rescue mission. Indeed. They're willing to spend what it takes. So I think that all that needs to be considered too, in the waging of the war. But none of that justifies the language. It was a foolish thing to say. It shouldn't have been said. It was a wrong thing to say. And you know what? I heard dozens and dozens of voices that otherwise support the president condemn that language. And I also think, Sorry, I know I'm rambling here. I'll say one more thing. We can all say that that was an abhorrent thing to say. And you know what? We're going to be back on the radio next week. There's a lot of countries where you say that kind of criticism of the leader. You're not even going to be home that night. You're going to disappear. So it's just a foolish thing when we act like civilizations are all equal, as if there's not a moral component to the cultures. Of course there is. Some. Some cultures love their neighbors, other cultures eat their neighbors. And these aren't morally equivalent things.
- [18:29]
Maria Baer
That's worth saying, John. I think that there are plenty of other nations where you are not allowed to criticize people in power and you'll be held physically responsible. But that's also a very low bar. I don't want to lose sight of my gratitude for that. But I also feel it's a low
- [18:46]
John Stonestreet
bar compared to what though? Human history? No, it's actually a pretty uncommon thing.
- [18:51]
Maria Baer
No, too. We're used to our moral aspect, to our moral aspirations as a nation. That's what. It's a low bar.
- [18:58]
John Stonestreet
Which, which are unusual is what I'm saying. Like, in other words, let's not forget, like, I mean, you're right. I don't want to ever get below that bar. I'm with you 100%. I just want to point out it's an unusual bar in the history of the world. Fair enough.
- [19:12]
Maria Baer
Yes. Yes. And also, I mean, we agree with you this. This week was a tough week and a proud week. The rescue of those pilots, the mission around the moon and, and then this language around the war and I don't know the kind of scary prospects of its future. It's been a big week. But we'll follow the news and we'll continue to pray for everybody. I don't know what else to say other than that. I mean, sometimes that's all we can do. Let's take a quick break, John. We'll be right back with more Breakpoint this week.
- [19:49]
Breakpoint Announcer
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- [20:29]
Maria Baer
we're back on Breakpoint this week. John, I want to transition now. I'm using that language tongue in cheek. You're welcome to a new study out of Finland that looked at. This is an important study because it's the first of its kind that looked. That had a control group in this manner. So I'm gonna try to set it up as succinctly as I understand it. But they took a cohort of people who are suffering from gender dysphoria as a control group. And this control group did not undergo any kind of gender challenging treatment, so chemical treatment or surgery. And then there was a group of patients that were suffering from gender dysphoria as well, who did undergo that interventionist treatment. And they looked at the results. And this was, you know, involved a couple thousand people who were similarly situated, similar gender, that kind of thing. And what they found, this was published in a journal, was that the interventions did not help. And in fact, what the cohort that went through the interventions had significantly more interactions with psychiatric specialists throughout the course of their treatment, which I think we could draw a couple different conclusions from. Probably people who are willing to undergo such interventions have more, you know, deep and profound mental health problems to begin with. But the fact of the matter is the interventions did not prevent or go any measurable distance toward preventing suicide or improving, you know, the immediate mental prospects of this cohort of people. This has been covered in a lot of places where you and I get our media, but it has been incredibly, you know, crickets in most of the rest of the mainstream media on this. I don't know if that will change. I hope so, especially as more studies like this come out. But you weren't surprised by these results, were you?
- [22:29]
John Stonestreet
Oh, I. I think this is a biggie, so I'm not surprised by the results. But this is a biggie not only because it's at the tail end of a lot of other things, like the cast review, like the whistleblowers, like the lawsuit and the decision to hold doctors accountable in New York, there's something about this control group. This was having to do with the National Health Service. So this was comprehensive. So many of the studies on which the conclusion was just announced by people who I think knew what they were doing, but still announced it anyway, that the science is settled in favor of so called gender affirming care. And anything that we want to do to experiment on these kids will necessarily be a good thing because, you know, the science is settled. Any study had incredible flaws. This was pointed out to the U.S. supreme Court just this past term in the child's case, there was a line of questioning about whether or not a counselor should be able to help a child who wants to align with their body to do so. And Justice Jackson pointed to studies and just said it like it was true, which is what happened. Right. The science is settled. It's a way of saying this and just saying, oh, yeah, yeah, there's studies that prove that this stuff harms. Well, now we have a control group, first of all, that is large because this is a National Health Service. People didn't opt out or opt in. They were just in. Secondly, it wasn't small. We're talking about a large group. Third, we're not talking about those who self select into the studies, which so many of the other studies were corrupted by. We're also talking about a study that went over time, that tracked this for over 20 years. So now we're talking about young people who were in their teens when it started. And now by the time it was over, we're talking they're in their 30s and even, and even 40s. And I want to say the conclusion is even a little bit stronger than you said. Not only did it demonstrate that these treatments did not help. Right? That's what some of the things, some of the previous reports that we mentioned were willing to say, like the cast review, like, oh, well, we just didn't see the improvement and that sort of stuff. No, no, no. This showed actual harm done, that in these there was a direct correlation with comorbidities. They don't talk about causation, but man, they flirt with it in this study and in this report pretty strongly. Now, I bring this up because the old myths will die hard. I bring this up because based on the old myths, a whole bunch of parents were threatened, were threatened with the suicide of their kid. This is a study that shows actually if what we mean by that. Let's just go back and remind everyone, the suicide myth was being told, as Chloe Cole said very, very clearly in the Truth Rising documentary, that parents were threatened with a do you want a live son or a dead daughter or vice versa. In other words, if you don't go along with your child's understanding of who they are, even if it violates everything you know about them and their body shows about them, then you will be responsible for the suicide. What this study now demonstrates, the largest, the longest, the most comprehensive, not random, is this, that actually when parents were deceived to go along with it, they were putting their kids in harm's way. That's the evil that was done to parents. I mean, I just want to say that they were threatened with suicide. So they went along with the recommendations. By going along with the recommendations, they made their children more vulnerable, especially if they went down the medication and surgical routes, they made them more vulnerable to mental health, comorbidities, self harm. And we're going to, we're going to get these numbers soon. This study didn't exactly point to it, but we're going to get in terms of who was really at more risk for suicide. It's horrible. It's a tragic thing. We're going to be on the other end of this, you know, hopefully within a decade or less. And we're just gonna be like, how did we do this? How did we do this? We're gonna have, I think you've pointed out, we're gonna have a lot of gaslighting of people going. I didn't say that. And they did say that. And I think you're exactly right about that. But this is a biggie. It is a big study. But these old zombie ideas die hard. And we even heard the Supreme Court, a Supreme Court justice, a sitting Supreme Court justice, point to this kind of, oh, well, the science shows that so called conversion therapy is harmful. That's not what the study has ever shown, certainly not the kind that Kaylee Chows is accused of doing. But these zombie ideas are going to die hard. We have a responsibility as the Christians, I think, to kill zombies. I mean that kill zombie ideas.
- [27:38]
Maria Baer
I just want to point out that the current president of wpath, which is really the foremost national organization here in America that's been propagating this so called care for transgender people. In response to this study, she said, quote, suicide is and has always been a poor way of measuring the efficacy of gender affirming care. So listen to what she's saying. If the interventions that we are propagating did not help or prevent suicide, then suicide was a bad measure of whether it was effective. But then she goes on to say that sometimes suicide is used to promote these treatments because people who don't receive these treatments are at higher risk for suicide. And that's true. That's what she said. So basically, if a patient, if a young person goes on to commit suicide after receiving this treatment, that has nothing to do with the treatment. If a person does not get the treatment and goes on to commit suicide, it's because they didn't get the treatment. None of this at any level has ever been scientific. And she gave this quote in public. They don't care. Like, they're either buying their own nonsense or they genuinely don't care. And either way, the evil is still functionally propagating.
- [28:58]
John Stonestreet
It's a heads, I win, tails you lose kind of scenario, which, if it helps me, I'm gonna use it. Which tells you right off the bat. But, you know, from the leaked emails, we already learned that from these Wpath officials, that they knew that the science didn't back them up. They knew that they were socially experimenting, but they thought, I think a lot about something that I learned. Two doctors or a doctor in Denver said, and this was. I'm kind of like two or three degrees of separation from this story of a young man who was struggling with who he was. Parents were strong believers. It was early on in this conversation, they were swept into the system. They found the wrong side of their public school counselor. And the counselor was basically keeping the parents at arm's length while basically saying, we need to hospitalize this kid who's at suicide risk and that sort of stuff. And the doctor said the quiet part out loud to these parents. He said, hopefully one day children will be able to change their gender like they change their outfits. You talk about not being scientific. That is a goal of social experimentation. That is trying to get to an end socially and then using the medicine as means to get there. There are people who need to go to prison. I know everyone gets mad when I say that. But when you know something is medical malpractice and you practice it, even if you don't know something, that's medical malpractice, even if it's an accident, you can still go to prison. This was no accident. There are people who need to go to prison because you gotta kill the zombies, culturally speaking.
- [30:37]
Maria Baer
And I think another part of this that's going to be horrific to watch, but we're gonna have to reckon with, is that this pseudoscience has enjoyed its rise at the same cultural moment in which we are losing our grip on. On our ability to dissuade kids, but all people from suicide, like we're. We are calling suicide. The reason why this is necessary because we want to prevent suicide. So we've got to give these, you know, these chemicals and these horrific surgeries to kids and that kind of thing at the very same moment. That is particularly in places like Finland, where they're also saying suicide is a completely legitimate and sometimes might be, like, the best option for you. And that's gonna muddy these waters. To a degree that I don't even think I've reckoned with yet. But it's gonna be really, really. This position that this current president of WPATH holds is gonna just become. I mean, it was never philosophically tenable, but it's gonna become even more impossible because at some point, to talk ill of suicide is going to be politically, you know, not tenable. That's the direction we're heading anyway. And it's. I can't understand how they will thread that needle.
- [32:00]
John Stonestreet
Well, let's talk about the other zombie idea, because this is the other one that we were going to talk about last week, and we didn't get to that in City Journal. There was a really helpful article that was written about a week and a half ago, I guess, or two weeks ago, really kind of tracking the claim. Is white supremacy causing an epidemic of transgender murders? Now, this is a claim that takes a lot of forms. There's the Transgender Day of visibility. By the way, I had a lot of sympathy with Erik Erickson's post on X after President Trump's statement about ending Iranian civilization, saying, look, if the choice really is between what he said and celebrating Easter with the Trans Day of Visibility, as the last White House did, you can see why some of us are in a bind, basically, in terms of what to say. I don't think we have to choose. But listen, you can see why some of us were in a bind. People got mad because at the Easter egg roll, Trump talked too much about Iran standing beside the Easter bunny. I was grateful. That's way better than the trans activists with naked breasts flopping around in front of children, like what happened under the Biden White House. But there is something that the Human Rights Campaign and others say almost annually on the International Transgender Day of Visibility, which is a claim that there's an epidemic of deadly violence. And of course, the claim then is that it's done by white straight supremacy, that sort of thing. But, but, but, but this. This article, which was co authored by Vincent Lundgren and Colin Wright, just looks at the numbers. Is there an epidemic of trans violence? And the conclusion is really fascinating. First, the homicide rate of those who identify as transgender is actually below the general population rate. So basically, if you do kind of per deaths per 100,000, it's. It's. It's way below the average, just the average rate. You have a better chance, essentially, of being the victim of a homicide if you are not transgender than if you are. There is one group in which all of that is upside down and that is that almost all the homicide risk for that population, and I'm quoting the article here, is concentrated in one subgroup, which is young black men who identify as women. So then this makes the whole rate look unusually high. And when you talk about that now, you're talking about violence that's done within the community. In other words, it's definitely not being done because of white supremacy. In almost every case that we have and you can measure because there's just not many cases it's done by another non white person. So it's certainly not something that you can chalk up to white supremacy, but it actually is something you can chalk up to the world of sexual perversion. In other words, you're talking about an inter community sort of act of violence. Now why does that matter? Well, I don't know. Did you see this? That there was a Canadian lawmaker this week who was talking about budget cuts and she really went on and on and on about how bad it was that the Prime Minister doesn't care about. And I'm going to quote here, this is who she identified. MMIWG2SLG B T Q QIA people. Did you see that?
- [35:35]
Maria Baer
I make it a personal point to avoid Canadian politics, but I actually did see this because my husband showed me a meme about it that I cannot describe here.
- [35:44]
John Stonestreet
No, you can't. I don't want to make fun of it, but here's the point. I mean other than you got to make fun of that. Mmiw, do you know what it means?
- [35:52]
Maria Baer
It's murdered. Do you want to explain something?
- [35:55]
John Stonestreet
Well, it's basically making this claim that those who identify as sexual minority suffer an epidemic of violence. They use words like genocide, they use words like that there is increasing murders. It's just not true. And the fact of the matter is I think the City Journal article is worth reading because so many. We're going to look back and we're going to say where did all this come from? It's carried often when lies are allowed to stand. And you're talking about two main ones, right. Number one, the whole like the science is settled. Right. And the science was never settled. It's absolutely pointing the opposite direction as. And it's all piling up. I was actually surprised by the way of how many mainstream outlets covered the Finland thing, but the Finland study there was more than that. I think they're getting more comfortable doing it, but it's taking a long time. So I'm with you on that. But this is the other one that this is an oppression. It's the narrative of oppression. Right? It's that critical theory mood that just hangs like a cloud over this. And Christians should love their neighbors. Christians should care about anyone who is being mistreated and being oppressed. But that doesn't mean that we go along with narratives that aren't true, particularly if those narratives are being used to change cultures and change hearts and minds. And there are victims of bad ideas. These are bad, bad, bad ideas. Bad ideas.
- [37:36]
Maria Baer
Well, John, let's take another quick break. We'll be right back with more breakpoint this week in just a moment.
- [37:43]
John Stonestreet
Scripture offers us the capital T, true truth account of the world as it actually is. If this is the story of the world, there is a storyteller in a world that says, live your truth. Christians have the responsibility to live out the truth. Truth Rising. The study explores the true story of the world through creation, fall, redemption and restoration. You'll see this cultural moment through the bigger story of reality written by God. Start this free Study today@colsoncenter.org study that's colsoncenter.org study
- [38:22]
Maria Baer
we're back on Breakpoint this week. John, I want to pivot a little bit to another report that we've got this week. There was a story in npr, and this has been covered elsewhere as well. But in the past year, the well, in 2025, I should say, because they collect data in different seasons, it's not always right on year to year. But in 2025, the CDC now says that the American teenage birth rate fell by 7%. Gosh, let's see. In 1991, the teen birth rate was 62ish births per 1000. Now it's just around 12 births per 1000. So that is a significant drop from the early 90s. It's always fascinating when something like this is covered by an outlet by NPR which, you know, is not conservative by any stretch and certainly not religious because it's strange. You know, you look for whether they're going to tell you this is good news or bad news. And the person they interviewed towards the end of the story was so this was such a fascinating pivot. She said something like, we hope the declining teen birth rate doesn't make people think that the issue is gone. Quote, we can't get our foot off the gas pedal of continuing to invest in support for teen parents to help them reach their goals. So I was like, okay, is teen parenthood good? Is it bad? Is it just that we're not willing to say it's bad? This is Just fascinating in a sort of cultural observer kind of way. And maybe we can get to that in a moment. I think you and I can both agree. I think most people who aren't worried about, you know, whatever the next weird political cause du jour is, are willing to say that fewer teen births is a positive development because it's fewer crises. Now, at the same time, it is very likely that some of the things influencing this stat are not as good, those things being access to, you know, widespread abortion, including, like a burgeoning black market for the abortion pill, which we know kids are getting. But secondly, you know, a little bit less directly related. But certainly a tangential issue is that teens are just less sexually active, which I think you and I again would say is a positive development. But part of that is because they're less social with each other, which is the not a positive development. So should we celebrate this? I mean, I feel like we should, but do you want to caveat it at all?
- [40:57]
John Stonestreet
No, I don't think it's celebratory. I think it's noticeable. I think it's something we should think about and talk about, and we shouldn't just jump to conclusions like the NPR article did right after saying all we have really to come up with this data are birth certificates, and they don't actually tell us anything about why. Good news, there's a pediatrician and associate professional at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine that tells us why, which is, well, this has to do with continued access to abortion care and hiring. I mean, you just kind of go, these are just so stories. In other words, the only thing that could possibly serve this is this. And so therefore it must be this. It's a vicious circle of explanatory method. Here's what we need to know in my mind, number one, the lower birth rate is not the lower pregnancy rate. Those are two different things. And we do not have the data on the lower pregnancy rate because now we have actually cleared out all the different ways that a young person who may even be under duress, maybe being abused, maybe being kind of pressured, they never have to see a medical professional. This is what has been done with mail order contraception and mail order abortion pills. This is what's done because of the FDA's changing regulation, something that the court was asked to take up this year and they did not. This is going to be an answer, by the way, partly my answer to the question later that we got from someone who said, prove to me that the GOP now is really Pro choice and I will, we'll get to that a little bit later if we still have time. We do not know the numbers of teenage pregnancies. So we. Now if you look at how big this drop is, I think it's probably likely that the overall number of pregnancies has dropped as well. But there's no question that the number of abortions I think having gone through, you know, this legalization and access to abortion care, or at least plan B, what's called emergency contraception, which is in itself an abortifacient because it's does not prevent conception all the time, but the goal is to prevent implantation. So it makes the uterus hostile as I go to a new life that is just formed. So we just don't have any of those numbers. The second thing that I think is really important to point out in this study is something that G.K. chesterton said, and I think it has been mostly, to me, it's mostly applicable to the area of sex where he said there's a lot of ways to fall down. There's only one way to stand up straight. Yes, young people are having less sex. Americans are having less sex. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, if you're unmarried, it is good, unless the reason you're not is because you're isolated, you're alone, you hate the opposite sex, or you're addicted to porn and you have the access to now AI porn and who needs it? In other words, we have a generation that has been cultivated and catechized to always have relationships on their own terms. That means emotional relationships, physical relationships and sexual relationships. And if our digital realities provide everything that we want, the reason we're not having enough sex or as much sex as we used to have as a nation isn't a good reason. It's still sexually broken. And if we look at kind of the way things are, I think we're way further down the line on that. I mean, in some sense it's comparable and I want to be really careful that one of the long term outcomes of some of the young people that we talked about in the last segment who were deceived and went through so called gender affirming care is that they can never actually experience sexual pleasure. So are we going to say that, hey, you know, because they can never do that, that this is somehow a good thing that they're not having? In other words, we did that to them. But what I'm saying is porn's done something similar to a generation, right? It's twisted the whole thing. And we're a generation that doesn't date. I think that's the other thing. It's not just we're not having babies, we're not getting married. It's not just we're not getting married. People aren't dating. I honestly think it's time for a new movement. I mean, I don't know how old you were when the I Kiss Dating Goodbye movement kind of swept through American youth groups. How old were you then? Were you, like, in the middle of that or.
- [45:39]
Maria Baer
I was right in the middle of that, John. I was like, 15. Yeah.
- [45:42]
John Stonestreet
And you know what? Like, I know he's disavowed all of it, but he actually had a point at that point. Dating was terrible because it was basically letting people just kind of randomly develop really serious romantic relationships with no point and no goal. On the flip side, I think we need a new movement. Let's kiss dating hello again. We need to recover dating. We need to recover the idea that men and women should have some sort of relational dynamic happening, and we should learn how to treat the other one by being in relationship with the other one. But let's keep the adults in the room. That was the big thing that he was writing, Josh Harris was writing about back then, is that dating should happen with adults. And then they just called it courting. Maybe some more to it than that. But the whole point is that right now we don't know how to be relational with one another. And the reason is, especially young people, is they don't have to be. They can get everything they want on their own terms without having another person in the room. And it's easier that way. It's a lot less messy that way. But think about if you're catechized to do relationships that way, and then you become a husband, you're going to be a terrible husband. So there are reasons to advocate for the return of dating to the American culture. Maybe different than what it was in the 90s. I think there were some legitimate complaints, but maybe it's time to at least call it back.
- [47:09]
Maria Baer
I saw our friend Katie Faust had a piece in World Opinions talking a little bit about this, and she said something that I wish I had read when I was at that age. But she said something too, like, you know, in some ways, there was some overcorrection in the evangelical world, you know, with a concern about promiscuity and meaningless dating and all that. There was this push towards, unless you're dating with an eye towards marriage, it's like a worthless and probably a sinful pursuit. You should avoid that. And she, she pointed out like that maybe unwittingly, but we then infused every single interaction between a young man and a young woman over the age of like 13 with such high stakes that it became completely unbearable for a generation of kids who are already in the most awkward phase of life. It was like if you pick up a phone call to call that girl in your seventh grade English class, you better, you know, have marriage on the table or you better not be wasting her time. And you know, also probably being promiscuous like. And anyway, I think Katie is pushing towards something that I think I will hope for for my daughters, which is like part of being young is socializing and kind of practicing how to be together. This has, has nothing to do with being sexually active at all. That of course, is just off the table. But there is something to be said for like leaning into the, you know, the kind of beginnings of your romantic desires and those age groups without infusing it with these incredibly high stakes that kids are not ready to live up to. And that's a picture, that's a picture of it that, that the, the secular world is now completely devoid of. They don't even know whether to talk about a decline in teen births as a positive or negative. This woman in the story says, this doctor says, I think we should celebrate this as long as it is aligned with what people are actually wanting for themselves. Any good journalist would follow up that question with, so you're suggesting if a 13 year old was like, I'd really love to be a mom this year, that you as a doctor would be like, great, let's go for it.
- [49:21]
John Stonestreet
I mean, yes, and they have to be in that camp though, because they've already, they've already sold, sold their soul to that position. And listen, if you sold your soul to that position on identity, to sell your soul on that position when it becomes to behavior, that's a much smaller step if you ask me now I will say, and I have the struggle going back to the dating conversation. The struggle with this for me is I have committed to stop using as much as I can. There's a couple times I use my kids as kind of jokes or sermon illustrations because I have some great stories, I really do, of kids and it fits. But when you get to the serious stuff, I've kind of decided, no, I'm not allowed to tell their stories on my behalf. And I would worry a little bit given the way that some of this was advocated for that. We don't want to swing the pendulum back too far the other way. And I think that there was a lot in the original conceptualization of dating in terms of age, in terms of, again, just because a kid thinks, oh, I'm in love, therefore they should act on their feelings as if feeling, no, we have to get rid of all that sort of stuff and we've got to figure out how to deal with the pressure. I mean, listen, you learned a lot of lessons back before when you actually had to pick up a phone and call a girl. Dude, you learned a lot. You learned a lot of lessons. The pressure, you know, manning up. Like, there's just not a lot of that these days. And so let's. Maybe we should call, make a call out for somebody to write that book, kiss dating hello again and see how it gets. I wonder how many comments we're gonna get on this now. But anyway, we'll throw it out there, just see how it goes.
- [51:08]
Maria Baer
If you have kids in this age, like, I'm thinking like high school age, if you have high school age kids, will you please reach out? Just tell me what it's like as a parent of kids of those age today. What is, what is the dating situation like in secular school and a Christian school? What are they doing? What are they not doing? What? How can you talk to them?
- [51:27]
John Stonestreet
And I could answer your question, but I'm not going to tell me.
- [51:31]
Maria Baer
Oh, John. Offline, offline, offline. Fair enough.
- [51:34]
John Stonestreet
Call my wife. She'll tell you.
- [51:35]
Maria Baer
All right. Well, John, speaking of feedback from our listeners, I do want to get to a question here that was sent from a 2024 Colson fellow, Meredith, who is asking a really, really prescient question. This has been on my mind this week. I'm starting to see some clips. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but of Ben Sasse's interview on Ross Douthat's podcast. And he, of course, I mean, he's dying. He has pancreatic cancer. He knows he's dying and his witness is incredible. But it's truly gut wrenching to hear his perspective as a dad. And so I've been thinking through this. But let me read some of this question from Meredith. Can you recommend any books or Bible studies on how to live well at the end of our lives and prepare for heaven? I've been regularly leading Bible studies and book discussions over the past couple of years, and my church has recently experienced a difficult and painful loss of a couple of church members who are at the end of their lives. I'm looking for ways to talk about how to understand God's will for us as we age, as our health and our quality of life decline. I know our central identity as a unique person created to worship and enjoy God remains unchanged throughout our lives, despite the decline in mental or physical state. But I'm looking for ways to talk about this and maybe about the role of our elders. And she's talking about elderly people, not church elders, in our families and communities to talk about suffering, patiently trusting God to the end. Do you know any good literature? You can point her to John and then maybe riff on that a little bit.
- [53:16]
John Stonestreet
Well, what an incredible question. And you actually just pointed to a resource that is a great place to start. It just came out this week, which is the conversation that Ross Douthat had with Ben Sasse, which goes for a long time. It's fascinating that this is on a New York Times podcast because you have two people who are believers, certainly douthed Roman Catholic and Ben Sasse, a Lutheran, but both serious about their faith, serious about what the Bible says about things like suffering and dying. It's a remarkable conversation. I just finished it just a few minutes before we started to record. And there is a moment at the end where Ben Sasse kind of articulates dying as a calling. And it's important to think about calling in the right way. We try to do this, I think, in the Truth Rising Study, that calling is not just you're called to a life, you're called to a station, a time and place. For example, I was just having this conversation with a friend who I'm working on a book with and talking about whether singleness is a gift or a calling. And I thought, I think it's a calling because he and I were both called to be single at one point, until we weren't. And death is a calling. You and I aren't called to that right now. Ben Sasse is. He's called through dying. It's why the term medical assistance in dying, which the Canadians have picked up on, is such a crock. Because it's not medical, it's not assistance, and it's not in dying. It's to die. And what we're asking here is, how do we die? Well, now, the church, this was a front and center question of theological reflection. And there is a volume called the Art of Dying, by the way. There's a lot of books that are called that, but there's a book that dates back in church history in which this was Wrestled with. It's fascinating how what it means to die well has changed. I think the conversation that is referenced in the question that took place at our conference last year is someone you should look to for a lot of these resources, at least the medical side of this question, like, how do I walk with somebody through this? How do I live with someone through this? And that is, of course, Farr Curlin, who challenged our ideas of hospice and with that, challenged our ideas that dying well is no pain to think about. And Ben Sasse talks about this in his conversation, like wrestling through how do I steward these moments well? How do I take responsibility for the relationships that I have? And listen, at some point, for many, many people, there's going to be a conflict. There's going to be a conflict between alleviating pain and stewarding relationships. And that's why we have to go back to say, what kind of creatures are we? We're dependent, not independent. We're not isolated. We're not lonely. We're not individuals. We're individuals in community. And all of that has to inform the answer to this question. So I would check out that podcast, I would check out the Art of Dying. I would check out the work of Bar Curlin. And honestly, I wish I could send everyone to the feet, or at least every pastor I know to the feet of my pastor, the rector of St George's Anglican Church for years, who just stepped aside. I had no idea when we went there the kind of church body we would be a part of and how it would impact my own children to be so multi generational. My kids now have walked through the death of half a dozen congregants that they knew spoke to on a consistent and frequent basis and had a wonderful relationship with. They were older, their deaths were not a surprise, but they have walked through what that means. And part of that is the kind of the church body that's been, I think, cultivated at St. George's but I do not know another minister or person in Christian leadership who has walked more people to death than Don Armstrong, who just retired after decades and decades and decades. We need to get him to talk about this. He and I have talked about this. It is a remarkable thing. I'll just give you an example. I was probably just at the church just a few years when my grandfather had suffered for a long time. He seemed to live longer than he needed to in pain and in confusion and in suffering. My grandmother took care of him. They were married for 70 some years. And I just caught him one day coming Out. And he said, hey, how you doing? I said, my grandfather, would you pray for him? I just don't know why God doesn't take him without missing a beat. This man looks at me and he goes, oh, it's because he needs to understand his mortality more before he meets his maker. And your grandmother needs to fulfill the vows that she made to him. And he said it so directly, like in any other context, you'd say, man, that guy was being a jerk. He wasn't. I didn't take it that way. I didn't hear it that way. It was an explanation from someone who knew. And there's dozens of other stories about this. I guess the reason I talk about him is because he needs to write this book, he needs to update this book. He needs to talk about this because he's done it and he's watched it and he's led people to it. And I think it's a wonderful, wonderful ministry. And we need more of that. But the best I got right now is contemporary sources. Check out the conversations that Ben Sasse is having right now on this topic. Check out the Art of Dying, the old annotated translation. There's a new annotated translation of this that would be helpful. You can hear how the early church talked about this and thought about this. And then check out the work of Farr Kurland as he's talking about as we make medical decisions. But also he's doing it in a theologically, I think, appropriate way so that there's a lot of personal application too.
- [59:56]
Maria Baer
I'd recommend to you a couple books by Marilyn Robinson, who is a. A believer and a novelist. She wrote a book called Gilead a couple years ago and then a sort of follow up book called Lila, which actually somebody gifted me at the Coulson Center Conference last year. If you have more books to gift me this year, I welcome those with open arms. But they're about an old pastor at a country church who's facing the end of his life. And Gilead is. You're inside of his mind as he's wrestling with that. And then, Lila, you're inside the mind of his wife. And it is again, one of the most helpful parts of fiction for me, which is it allowed me the space to kind of practice that moment in life before I've reached it. And it was really just even helpful for my imagination. So I highly recommend those books as well. But I'm interested too, John, in not just thinking about dying well, but aging well too. And I, I think that that's becoming more salient for us culturally, both because of this embrace of assisted suicide, but also because people are just genuinely living longer because of the technology that we have and the medicine we have, which is good. But that is a question. Including for churches like mine and yours, which are multi generational, which is so beautiful. But I do see the challenge. As people age, we tend to maybe be a little paternalistic toward them. We don't expect as much from them and it's hard to know how to walk the line between respect for them as elders and condescension and man, I don't know how to do that either. But these are all this is a beautiful question because these are the areas specifically that Christians can be a witness to the wider world. Who doesn't know?
- [61:49]
John Stonestreet
You should submit a question, just don't submit it to us because I don't want to tackle that question. I'm in the middle of that question.
- [61:54]
Maria Baer
I have to say we have an elderly woman at our church who is a part of our small group that meets on Wednesdays and we all take turns picking her up to bring her to this because she's not comfortable driving anymore and she lives in an apartment complex. And it got to the point where one of her neighbors was so suspicious, like, who are these people picking you up on what? Like this cannot be. And she would tell them, well, they're picking me up for dinner. And then we have conversations about the Bible. And her neighbor was like, there's just, just no way. Like that's not a thing people do. Was so suspicious and so protective of her, which was lovely that he came. He came one week and just sat there kind of like with his arms crossed, like waiting for us to, I don't know, steal money out of her purse or something, and apparently was pretty delighted by it. So, like this is an area for a really special kind of unexpected witness. But I want to do it well, too, and I'm not sure exactly how to do that. So yeah, maybe I'll submit my question next week. Well, Meredith, thank you for that question. Thank you for thinking about this and stay in touch with us as you continue in this ministry at your church. And John, please keep us posted on this book from your pastor too, because I want to know more. Well, before we officially sign off for this week, John, I will ask this last question. You alluded to it earlier, but just given that we talked about falling teen birth rates, I think this is apropos. In what way does the GOP openly support chemical abortions? Please provide Your evidence of this?
- [63:21]
John Stonestreet
Oh, well, listen, the GOP is obviously any political party in the platform is dominated by the lead candidate. So when the political platform, the GOP came out, when Trump was running for reelection, his party actually downplayed and this was a very headline story. You don't have to look very deeply to find it. They removed many of the pro life aspects to that, including promoting ivf, which is something that leads to more abortions than Planned Parenthood does in America right now, the way that it's done. But then also they have been very defensive over chemical abortion. So for example, there have been states that have sued the fda, Florida and Texas being two of them, because the FDA fast tracked new ways of regulating chemical abortion, mifepristone, that required no in person visits, that required no follow ups, anything like that. Florida and Texas have sued that. This is just an article as recently as just three or four weeks ago. And the Trump administration filed a legal motion against the district court in Texas to stay or dismiss that lawsuit. They've done that every time a state has come out and challenged how the FDA handles a chemical abortion. The Trump administration's DOJ does that. So the GOP as a party right now being kind of dominated by Trumpism has a lot to do with it. I mean, a lot of good things to say about it. I think we look at the history of what Trump did in terms of the Supreme Court and in terms of Roe v. Wade. But he made it really clear. He didn't hide this. He made it very clear that he did done all that he'd wanted to do, that he returned it to the state and he didn't want to do anything else about it. And on mifepristone and chemical abortion, he has not supported any move to bring back even Biden era regulations over the administration of mifepristone and at the same time has driven forward some other policies that are not fully pro life. But none of this should be a surprise. We knew this going in. He promised what he promised. He delivered that when it came to the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade. It's returned to the states. His hands are now off of it. We don't hear a whole lot more about it.
- [65:38]
Maria Baer
Well, let's hope that changes. Well, that's gonna do it for the show today. Thank you so much for listening to Breakpoint this week. From the Colson center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer alongside John Stonestreet. We'll see you all back here next week. God bless.