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- [00:02]
A
You're listening to breakpoint this week where we're talking about the top stories of the week from a Christian perspective. Today we're going to talk about the tentative deal between the US And Iran. We're also going to talk about an explosive report detailing systemic abuse of women and children by primarily Muslim men in the UK and what this means about the clash of civilizations. We're so glad you're with us this week. Please stick around. Welcome to breakpoint this week from the Colson center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer alongside John Stonestreet, president of the Coulson Center. John, certainly the biggest news story of this week is the tentative, somewhat seemingly shaky deal that's been reached between the US And Iran. You know, I don't know that anybody has seen in the news media, certainly the text of the deal. It's still a little unclear exactly what it entails.
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B
I think they have, I think the text has gone out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
Okay. Well, I know that gas is going down. So that's something at least for this week. That's how this has so far resonated in Maria's world. I'm sure there are much more far reaching and important complications. You're not alone.
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B
That's a big one.
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A
It's a big one. So talk to me about this deal. Should we be confident in this?
- [01:14]
B
Well, you know, I don't know. I don't know because, you know, there's so much that almost everybody doesn't know and that includes even the people that are the major players in it, you know, who's actually leading Iran. Is this something where you can trust their word? There's been a lot of difference between the language that came out of the administration in terms of what the goals were going to be, and at least from what we can see what the details of this agreement are, they're not matching up. And a lot of people on both sides of the aisle are showing great frustration and understandably so. So I don't want to, you know, get out over my skis and pretend anything. So let me hit two or three worldview things so that I think are somewhere between interesting and really important. The, the first is, is we had a conversation at the very beginning of this conflict with Eric Patterson and we also had conversations throughout about the idea of just war. And I am struck when you look at this, that there are worldview implications for how war is done and there's worldview implications that can be seen throughout human history. Right. So if you come from a nationalist or ethnocentrist sort of point of view, then it's very easy to dehumanize the other. If you are a Nazi, you can dehumanize Jews and gypsies and the unfit and put that all into the category of why you have to have kind of total dominance. If you're a communist, and we've seen this even in the Russia, Ukraine conflict, then the individual's life value is minimalized as opposed to the community. And so you can sacrifice an awful lot of lives for a quote, unquote, higher end. And there's not the same sort of degree of value placed on the individual. And we see that, I think, in so many different contexts. In the 20th century especially, we can talk about what happened in much of the developing world while the Cold War was going on. For example, Islam. What defines Islam? One thing that defines Islam that we need to be really clear about, and you see a contrast between Iran and the US Is there's a patience in Islam that does not exist in the West. Now you could argue that there's a patience that should exist within a Christian framework, but it does not exist in the West. We have a very low tolerance for this stuff going on for a long time. And Islamic nations can take this baby on forever. Clearly, Iran's strategy was to wait this out. But if you, and there's some, I think, some context specific stuff about that with Iran. But at the same time, Islam, you know, they think about this in terms of thousands and thousands of years. They think about the conflict as going way back. You had people struggling in the dominant media in the west to see this going back before Trump. And certainly you had a very low appetite among the American people and among much of the rest of the world to see this go out for a few weeks. And part of it was, of course, energy prices. But I think there's just a difference in worldview here. When you're aiming at something like a global caliphate, when you're, when you're talking about kind of the global march towards Islamic domination, you kind of mark these things like 911 and other things, not just 9 11, 2001, but prior to that, when you kind of see Iran's just willingness to stick it out and call the bluff at some level, that reflects a confidence that God's going to bring the victory that they think that they deserve. So that's one thing that I think is, is evident again in this conflict. The second thing is when we talked about just war, we talked not only about whether to go to War. And I think the just causes to go to war against Iran were obvious. They go way back and so on. And we talked about all those things, but it's also in how the war was waged. And part of that is having a clear path to victory. Part of that is being willing to. To stick it out and to do the hard stuff. And there was, one could say that the administration was highly restrained in terms of going after civilians and going after infrastructure. But there was that constant threat that he didn't follow through on. If Iran doesn't do this by this date, then I'm going to, this is the deadline and I'm going to obliterate and that sort of stuff. And that brought up, I think, a lot of the confusion that that rests with this deal, that there was often talk that there was going to be a kind of a wide, sweeping, dominant victory. And it became obvious that that wasn't going to happen. Now, in terms of what this means and where we're at, I think there is, as you put it, a lot to wait on. Roger Aer's calling it a loss. There's a lot of people on the right calling this a loss. I don't think that's exactly right, but again, I have the limited information, more limited than even those guys. I don't know that that's the right language, but I do know that there was this distinction between what there was kind of an expectation. Part of that is interesting to me as you talk about this shift of civilizations, because clearly the US is the dominant nation on the globe, but you have an ability by rogue actors, by smaller regimes in many situations to kind of push back and hold their ground against bigger nations. We're seeing it in the Ukraine and Russia as well. And that's reflects changes in technology that reflects a difference in perspective. I think it also reflects a restraint because it's kind of like we've got this capacity to go just flat out obliteration. Not willing to do it. That's a good thing. There could be a million reasons why we're not willing to do it, but we're not willing to do it. So there's a lot left to be learned. There's a lot left to be seen. But obviously it's the biggest story in the world and there are worldview implications to war just like there are to almost everything else.
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A
I will highly recommend if people want to learn more about some of those worldview implications to things quickly. The first is a book called the Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright, who was a New York Times journalist who just systematically followed and categorized the lead up from about the 1940s beginning in Egypt to 9 11. And this was written shortly after 9 11, but it is primarily following the ideological journey of the Muslim world from the 40s to 9 11. And then the second thing I'll recommend is there's a journalist at the Atlantic named Graham Wood who I think is one of our generation's best journalists, frankly. And he wrote a piece probably 10 years ago now called what ISIS Really Wants. And this was in the Atlantic. And it was categorizing the very scary but very true things that you just said, which is that the clash between our nation and the Muslim world is. Is not a clash of competing material interests, which is in too many instances how we seem to have approached this, and naturally so. But that's not what's happening. And if we continue to approach the clash in that way, we will lose. I don't know what lose looks like necessarily, and I trust the Lord. You know, I haven't given myself fully over to surrender or anxiety about any of this. It is anxiety producing. But it is important to know that this is not the same as two people who want economic success and stability and independence on a global scale. And so how best do we get there and how do we negotiate each other's interests? That's just not what's happening here. I was struck when you started talking about, we talk all the time about our inability in our cultural moment here in the west to delay gratification. And there is almost no better modern actor that can delay gratification than the Muslim world. And I wish the Christian world could get on board with that. And we need to foster that in our own lives. But that's certainly the case there, for sure.
- [09:41]
B
Well, it's interesting how many of these old analysis are holding up pretty well. I'm thinking of Peter Sorokin, who talks about the difference between ideational cultures and sensei cultures, ideational cultures being those willing to delay gratification for a higher aspiration that certainly defines the Muslim world. Even though, you know, obviously when you get into the details, there's a big difference between ISIS and Iran. There's a big difference between those schools of thought within Islam. But there are some of these kind of big picture views, which is, you know, they're living for something that is aspirational as opposed to something that is immediate. And, you know, the Declaration put that into the water, into the United States. You know, this view, this vision of life, liberty and the Pursuit of happiness and who gets it and. And so on was not something that was true on the ground. It was an aspiration. So there are good aspirations and bad aspirations, but there are big difference between being aspirational and not being aspirational. So I appreciate both of those sources. One of the place, there's two places to get that contrast that you're talking about as well. One is an interesting book called the Death of the Grown Up. And the Death of the Grown up was written in the wake of 9 11. It was being written ahead of time before that by a New York Times journalist named Diane West. I think she's in New York Times, but she was arguing that America had become a nation of adolescents and that the west had become basically, you know, kind of had Peter Pan syndrome and never would grow up. And then 911 happened, and she kind of rewrote it, and she talked about what that looked like in terms of the clash with Islam, something that did have high expectations, for example, for young men, even if they were just horrifically inhumane and terrible and misleading and so on. And so that contrast between not just the Islamic mind, but the Western mind, I think is an interesting source there, too. And I'm always struck by how Samuel Huntington's the Clash of Civilizations has aged pretty well. I mean, look, everyone found flaws here and there, and it wasn't perfect. It didn't bat a thousand, but if you bat 300 for your career, you're gonna make the hall of Fame in baseball. He's definitely ahead of that. So I think those are some other sources as well.
- [12:00]
A
The other interesting part of this story is we say something like delayed gratification and aspiration as virtuous things. And they can be. But to be clear, what the Muslim world, broadly and obviously there are different schools of thought, and there's a wide variety of people and belief systems in that. But broadly, the Muslim world, what they are delaying gratification for and aspirational for is a ghastly, breathtakingly destructive lie and view of the human story and of the world and the universe. And so we know that, and we, because of that, their dedication to it naturally leads to just the torrent of violence and human degradation and depravity that we witness in the way they treat themselves and each other and their vulnerable and then their neighbors. And I'm bringing that up because another piece of news that we saw this week was another report coming out from a team of investigators, including a member of Parliament in the UK who is looking into something that we talked about a while ago, and I wanna be careful about how we categorize this and just speak about it carefully. But there has been. Now, I think everyone has to reckon with the fact that this is happening, just a rash of violence against women and children of a sexual nature in the UK done predominantly perpetrated by Pakistani Muslim men who have immigrated into the country. And this is directly related to the Muslim world's view of women, of. Of sexuality, of children, and of the rights of men over women and children and frankly, the transient nature of, like, this human life. This is one of the major distinctions, I think, between Christianity and Islam is that Jesus affirmed the value and dignity and worth of this current life, even though he has promised to come back and make all things new and. And that he's building a kingdom where we get to commune with God in the way that he always intended before the fall. Even though all of that's true, this life still has great significance and meaning and weight, and we ought to respect it and seek joy and wisdom in it. And I know there's piety within Islam, but there is less of a importance put on obviously treating other people well and know, living, building a sort of beautiful kingdom in that way here as in so much as they're just waiting for the better one later.
- [14:40]
B
Yeah, the eschatology of Islam factors in here more fundamentally. It's the how non believers are understood, what is a nonbeliever. And you have moderate Muslims that then would see some sort of inherent essential duty you have committed Muslims and those who have bought into a particular understanding of Islam and where human dignity comes from kind of submitting to Allah as opposed to not. And that basically shapes whether one has any dignity and value whatsoever. And that's especially important in a time when there's kind of an oppression, an oppression narrative that's applied. So it is important to say that there is this understanding of right and wrong that emerges out of Islam called Sharia law and sharia. By those strict definitions, the horrific, systemic, widespread treatment of women and especially teenagers and children by these Muslim men is actually okay, according to this, this framing of morality from Islam. They didn't do anything wrong. In fact, they did what they were supposed to do. You have to actually chalk it up. This isn't, you know, you know, people often talk about, well, Christians do such bad things. When Christians do such bad things, it's against the clear teachings of Jesus, the clear teachings of holy Scripture, the history of the church as it understood what was right and wrong. Not that there's no skeletons in the closet. They're not in the closet anymore. Everybody knows them. This aligns with the moral vision of Islam, you know, according to the actual teachings, according to the actual life of Muhammad, according to the history of Islam. This aligns with it. And that tells you a lot about what's actually going on here. But I also want to say something else, which is that for something this widespread and this systemic to go on for this long of this horrific nature, you have to have the intent, you have to have the motive, but you also have to have the opportunity. And for this much opportunity to present itself in the UK for so long at this point, then we're talking about an evil that not only exists by those who perpetrate it, but the evil that exists within the British society and in the wider West.
- [17:18]
A
This report does confirm or at least allege complicity from everybody from the police to the National Health Service, to Children's services, to the education system. On this scale, we're talking about an estimated 250,000 victims in a small country. That requires complicity across a lot of strata for decades.
- [17:40]
B
For decades. So what has gone wrong? I'm struck right now by the fact that the Prime Minister of the UK has been proposing, and this has been a story for a couple weeks, a ban on harmful social media for those under 18. Look, we don't have that in the United States. The harms to children from social media are now observably clear, and they should have been 10 years ago as well. We're not even talking about that. So we are being complicit in an evil that we're allowing to take place in the lives of our young people as well. Now you could say, well, it's not that bad. I mean, how do you measure the harm? Obviously, the direct physical assault and the awfulness done to. That's being. That's been revealed in this report is. Is hard to stomach. And the social media harms where a young person gets up every day and thinks that they were born into the wrong body, hates their body, hates themselves, the suicidal ideation, the panic, the willingness to harm themselves in order to kind of seek some sort of peace and resolution. The bullying, I mean, the hypersexualization at a young. I mean, we could just go down the line and say one's a lot more whitewashed than the other is. I don't know how you measure harms. The harms done by social media are well over 250,000. You know, if we're talking about sheer numbers, I'm just. Look, I'm not comparing the evils. I'm just saying that it's inconsistent and both of these things reveal a complicity in evil. And where is that complicity coming from? It's coming from our ideology. In the prior case of this inquiry, of this systemic, long standing, widespread allowance of abuse against women and children in the uk, you can chalk a lot of it up to critical theory. In other words, refusing to realize that an Islamic worldview is not the same thing as a racial identity, and to basically not be willing to say anything against immigration because of fear at some level or another that one would be accused of being racist. What you have to address is the actual belief system, the belief system that comes both from the Islamic worldview and from the culture that the Islamic worldview built, that these individuals came from. You have to get up close and personal with what this actually is and whether it is compatible with, whether it is aligned with Western culture or whether it is harmful. The scope of this, the degree of this is just absolutely scandalous. But we are now also 10 years into the social media stuff and we have this other idea within Western culture of radical autonomy, radical autonomy connected to our identities, connected to sexuality, that goes really deep and that we think is unassailable. So we can't. Oh, how could we? I mean, you're hearing the pushback on this potential social media ban as being something that would just rob people of freedom. Well, how's it robbing people of freedom? We rob young people of freedom all the time. You know why?
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A
I was gonna say that ban. That ban might not exist in the us, but it exists in my house.
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B
It exists. Yeah, exactly. Exists in my house, too. And it has to exist in our house. It has to be dealt with. And when evil is allowed to be buried, when evil is allowed to be hidden, it flourishes. Social media has been a form of hidden evil for a long time for young girls. So has this. I'm just saying it's inconsistent. I'm just saying that it's hypocritical. I'm just saying that we have this deep problem with the ideas that we believe and that it underscores this essential truth that ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims. What we're seeing with this report of the widespread systemic abuse of children and women for decades now across the UK at the hands of these immigrants, particularly those that have been coming out of certain communities, that that is an evil that has had incredible victims. So is social media. I mean, and we're not protecting our kids. I just go back to this over and over. We're not protecting our kids. We're not protecting our kids. We're not protecting our kids. And as the US Looks across and points fingers at the uk, we have to ask ourselves, are we protecting our kids? Are we protecting our kids? And I think the answer's no.
- [22:21]
A
Let's take a quick break, John. We'll be right back with more breakpoint this week in just a moment.
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B
Colorado is at it again, trying to silence free speech. A law in Colorado forces businesses to use customers preferred pronouns even if they're biologically inaccurate and even if using those incorrect pronouns would violate a person's religious beliefs or conscience. That's a violation of free speech. But as Colorado has proved time and again, it has little concern for the First Amendment. At Alliance Defending Freedom, we're challenging the law on behalf of a Christian bookstore and a Colorado based sports apparel company. But a court recently ruled against them with ADF's help. They appealed the ruling and they'll continue fighting to ensure Colorado doesn't get away with this next attempt to skirt the First Amendment. Your gift helps protect free speech in cases like this all over the country. And for a limited time, your first gift to ADF is doubled by a special matching grant while funds last text Breakpoint to 83848 or go to joinadf.com breakpoint to have your gift doubled.
- [23:33]
A
We're back on Breakpoint this week. So, John, in that first segment, we're talking about this clash of civilizations. And I think one of the the helpful things that can come out of such clashes is that it forces us to reckon with what we actually value. So you talked about, for example, this ban on social media in the UK for young people. And I think a lot of people balk at something like that in the US for the reasons you mentioned that we think that our highest value is autonomy. And there are a lot of people who believe that that's actually the bedrock of the US that that's the Declaration of Independence was that we are autonomous and we are all completely independently free to do whatever we want. I don't think that's actually true. I think that we do value and we should value things like peace and human dignity above absolute and total autonomy and freedom. But these are the kinds of clashes that force us to reckon with whether we do believe that and to ask those questions. So one of the there is an example of these coming to a head that sorry, if you can hear me smiling, I can't stop Laughing at this because it just seems like an episode of curb your enthusiasm, I guess. So there is a. There are World cup matches happening all over the country, and there is one slated to happen in Seattle in, I think, next week. And Seattle has been promoting this for months now as its Pride match. We know June is Pride month and this is the match between, wait for it, Egypt and Iran. They are going to be playing in the Pride match of the World cup happening in Seattle, going back as far as the winter. Egypt, at least the Egypt Soccer Federation, whatever, put forward a statement asking to please stop this. We do not want to take part in anything that would support or celebrate homosexuality. Please remove all this branding. We want to play the game, but we don't want to be a part of any of these celebrations. And they rather ingeniously wrote their statement using all of the critical theory. They were like, we want this to be a celebration of multiculturalism, which means you need to respect the cultural differences of the teams that are coming into your city. And we would rather not celebrate homosexuality. This is a clash of ideas. And it's remarkable to watch people such as the, you know, whatever, the Pride coalition in Seattle that's putting this forward try to reckon with and talk their way out of this, because they want to be multicultural and they love words like diversity, but they've never quite understood what those mean and they've never quite been asked to reconcile those with, for example, cultures where people who are gay or engage in homosexual activity are imprisoned or worse. This is a clash if we've ever seen one.
- [26:21]
B
We have talked about systemic race. I'm going to make a jump. All right, you got to hang with me. We talked about systemic racism and the accusations of systemic racism. And on one hand, some conservatives reacted against that and said, if anybody ever talks about systemic racism, it doesn't exist. There's no such thing. And I disagree with that pretty fundamentally because I think there is a clear, obvious example of systemic racism right now, which is Planned Parenthood, this organization that has targeted black communities, black children, in an unnatural sort of way. It's built into the actual fabric of how Planned Parenthood does business and, and has done business. It's interesting how we can see this connection because part of the demands of the so called Pride movement or LGBTQ initiatives are for this multiculturalism and diversity and to respect and to accept people and to be tolerant of people. And it often comes along with. And there's always been this conflation within critical theory of like, white supremacy of, you know, heteronormativity and you put all this stuff together as if it's a mix, and these people are guilty of that. And what you. The story is just rich. It's Egypt and Iran and you're gonna force a pride celebration on their soccer match. It's just wild. I mean, it's just. You can't make this stuff up. Like, is there a better example of colonial, of colonialism and oppression than the pride movement of basically expecting the rest of the world to take up these values that only exist in the post modern Western context?
- [28:10]
A
It's just one of those beautiful times when, you know, a brief blip in time where Christians get to just sit on the sidelines and be like, sure, figure it out, guys. Figure it out.
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B
I'm gonna give you another example, because in a second, we're gonna talk about wpath, which we haven't talked about in a while, since the WPATH emails, right? So we got a story about wpath. But it just struck me as I was looking at this and pulling up and, and, and, and just considering. Think about all the medical associations, right? The American Medical association, the American association of American Academy of Pediatrics. There you go. Yeah. And there's just a lot of those, right? What's the Transgender1 called? WPATH. What's WPATH stand for? The World Professional association for Transgender Health. Where's it located? Dundee, Illinois.
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A
What?
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B
Yeah, yeah, Dundee. I don't even know where Dundee is. I imagine it's a Chicago thing. But why is it that all the medical associations that I can think of, somebody's going to write and tell me I'm wrong. Do you see what I'm saying? It's all the American, this, the American Psychological association, and by the way, we have to put medical in quotes, but the only medical association that claims to be the world is what you have, the World Health Organization. Who.
- [29:27]
A
Well, maybe we should applaud their restraint that they didn't go for, like the Galaxy Organization, the Universe Association.
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B
There is not a better example in the world for the last decade of colonialism, of Western oppression, of expecting the rest of the world to bow their knee to our ideas as rich Westerners, then the LGBT movement, especially once the T jumped onto the acronym. I mean, first of all, the T just bullied its way and overwhelmed the rest of the letters. So the T is pretty, you know, oppressive and colonial. As. As. As is. But I just think this is funny. You have the World Health Organization, which is essentially an organization that just. That. That's another conversation. So other than that, that's just kind of in general. I can't think of another one that is, you know, kind of aimed at a specific area of medicine that basically claims to speak on behalf of the whole world.
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A
Do you know anything about, like, does the leadership of WPATH include people from other nations? How could it? I mean, if it does, it's like Canada, but.
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B
Well, I mean, if it. Yeah, I'm sure it does. From other Western nations, but. Do you think you have a transgender medical expert from Iran or Egypt?
- [30:44]
A
No. I mean, obviously not, right?
- [30:46]
B
Yeah, I mean, I don't think so. So anyway, I just thought that that was kind of funny. I mean, how, how colonial, how, how much, how much can you violate your own standards? And, and.
- [30:57]
A
Well, let me say this is another example of the clash of civilizations, because it gets serious. And I know you're not suggesting this isn't serious because that has so many implications for people and families and children's lives and all of that, but I've been looking, I'm doing this kind of side project and I've been looking into. We have a sizable and growing Muslim population here in Columbus. And I've been hearing from and talking to several people who work in the medical field. So doctors, or people who work in doctor's offices or in one case, a children's hospital, who talk about the well known and always wrestling with the clash with treating Muslim patients. Because a lot of times when Muslim families come in, especially if the patient is female, the family will not allow the patient to communicate directly with the doctor. They force the doctors to either speak to the woman's father or husband. And that presents so many problems. Right? And in every case, every person I've talked to, the way that our medical establishments are wrestling with this is purely from the standpoint of how do we accommodate this. Like, they have seminars, they have articles written, they have brochures about how to best communicate with the male involved in your female patient. And so I started researching this within some of our medical institutions. How were they talking about it? The. The most I could find were articles that were documenting the challenges of Muslim medical students. So male Muslim medical students in the US who, they're trying to find a way, how to educate them, because Muslim men who adhere to this kind of orthodox Sharia law are technically not allowed to touch a woman who's not their wife unless it is an absolute medical emergency. Like, they would die if this. But that criteria cannot be met in a med school environment or when they're having their training or whatever. So there's these articles written about how do we help these male medical students get the training they need without having to touch or to see a female patient? And these are the kinds of clashes that don't make headlines. It's not as funny as the soccer match, but these are very, very real. And this is what changes a culture on the ground. And this is why it's not only okay morally, but it's actually an imperative that we think about these things when we're talking about immigration and cultural norms and the laws that we pass and what kind of accommodations we make.
- [33:36]
B
Well, I think it's interesting that the clash of civilizations in terms of LGBTQ and the rest of the world or the Pride movement in June has basically taken the form of sports. So I just, you know, that's. Yeah, I mean, I agree with what you're talking about. There's all kinds of ways that these things aren't aligned. But I. I also, you know, how many baseball stories have we heard? You know, for example, in the month of June where you had a group of LA Dodgers that wrote, oh, San Francisco Giants. Oh, Giants. I thought that some Dodgers did, too, but maybe not. Well, I think Clayton Kershaw did again. But anyway, basically, in the. The Pride Month cap, right? Here's what the rainbow means and point to Genesis. And I just was struck by how many reports on this describe this as defacing the pride hat with a Bible verse. That's fascinating to me, given the history of defacing religious symbols.
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A
Including the rainbow.
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B
Well, including the rainbow itself, yeah, absolutely. And it does get to the heart of, I think, conscience rights. So there's a big story coming out of Atlanta where a monolith team actually had to cancel or forfeit a game because the players just said, we're not going to wear these uniforms. Good for the players. By the way, Russian hockey players led the way on this a couple of years ago. We talked about that. And now you have more and more athletes that are willing to go. Yeah, I'm just not going to participate. And it's obvious that the movement is about forcing to conform. So I'd say, man, we've got some momentum here. Let's dig our heels in. Stop calling this Pride Month to begin with and call it Fidelity Month. Let's just go all in on something like that and say what we're about. I want a major league or a professional sports franchise to name June. We have some communities that do it. We have churches that have done it. I would. Wouldn't it be awesome if there was a Major league team or some professional sports franchise that basically celebrated as a franchise fidelity month in June, instead of pride, you talk about that would go nuclear.
- [35:49]
A
That would be incredible. I mean, I know the Texas Rangers do not celebrate pride and they actually do, like a family night celebration.
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B
Give me the whole month, Rangers. You're almost there. Keep going. Give me the whole month.
- [36:01]
A
Well done. You teased the WPATH story, so I'm going to tee that up for you. But basically what happened this week is that the Federal Trade Commission is suing WPATH for allegedly misleading parents and patients by claiming that there was medical consensus about so called transgender interventions, you know, hormones and surgeries for kids with gender dysphoria. And this is an interesting tactic to go this route that the you know, sort of medical or deception of patients in. And they're claiming that WPATH did that because it's made up of physicians who stand to get reimbursed from insurance companies who will approve procedures once there's medical consensus. So that you can see how they're creating their own kind of revenue stream, I think is the accusation here.
- [36:46]
B
Yeah, I mean, it's fascinating to see what happens. I mean, this whole thing has been a farce from the beginning. WPATH basically was a group of people who were a lot of times ideologically driven that were at some level, either doctors are associated with the medical community that crown themselves experts started making stuff up and prescribing this and, you know, whether their motivation was money or not, I don't know. I think their motivation in a lot of ways was more than just money. It was basically driving this forward. And I go to, you know, what two doctors told someone that I know a parent whose child was struggling with these issues back, you know, 10 years ago when basically a child could be taken away under these so called care guidelines and was told, you know, well, hopefully one day children will be able to change their gender like they change their outfits. Look, there was no medical consensus to say something like that. This is two doctors that said it. There was no medical consensus about that. There was no medical consensus that this was going to help this, this kid. We now know that it actually would make things worse. And in terms of depression, comorbidities of mental health and suicide, suicidal ideation on average. And so what do you have? You have an ideologically driven movement. The W path emails that have been leaked had proved that they didn't know that they were making this stuff up, that they were trying to get, get around parents, that they were trying to get around people that protested and at one point all they had to do was cry discrimination. And then, you know, basically a whole lot of people backed down. People aren't backing down anymore. So you're going to see in the media reports that all this has to do is because it's the Trump administration who's anti trans. It is the Trump administration willing to do something about this. So good for them. I don't know who's in the Federal Trade Commission leading all of this, but this is an angle to get at this. This is a made up organization with made up expertise. And, and, and we let them, this goes back to the conversation we were having a few minutes ago. We let them get at our kids. We let them get at our kids. Thank God, by the way, for I always, I tell you, whenever we have these conversations, I think about that courageous mom from Wisconsin who, when everyone bowed the knee to this so called expertise. Now, the WPATH wasn't directly involved in this, but their guidelines was shaping the medical practice at these institutions and, and also in schools and what was being recommended. Every single person said, well, maybe, you know, maybe you're wrong. She just stood up and said, I know who my daughter is, and saved her life. And I think about the courage of these people who were willing to call this out for what it is. And there, there, there wasn't enough people. And, but there was, I tell you what, there was an awful lot of moms. There were dads too, but there was an awful lot of moms and there were others. There were an awful lot of moms and God bless them.
- [39:53]
A
You know, I'm just constantly struck by how much of what we're dealing with culturally now, these threats to our kids and our way of life and frankly our joy and our flourishing are just these very basic echoes of Satan in the garden saying, did God really say. Because I feel like when I was younger, you know, when I was coming up in youth group, kind of the cultural things we were warned against were like materialism, you know, scientism. Like those kinds of, what seemingly quaint, not to say they weren't dangerous. But like the cultural movements away from theology and from Christianity were like those, you know, that and what we're facing now feels so much more rudimentary. Like, I picture the enemy just like getting down to basics, like, how hard can I go? Because the questions that he's putting before kids and people now are like, did God really say your body is a real thing? Like, is a woman really a woman? Like, what does that even mean? And you know, did God really say that killing your elderly or that, you know, I thought of this even a few months ago. We talked about, like, these GLP1s, and this woman had written this story about how she doesn't actually medically need to lose weight, but she'd like to take it anyway, and it kind of curbs her appetite. And I remember thinking, she's literally asking, like, is it still good to eat? Is it good to eat? Is it good to sleep? What if we could invent a machine that would make it so you're not reliant on, you know, the way God made you? I'm just. I'm struck by that over and over again, that it's just these questions of, did God really say that you're a person and that being a person is good? I thought of it again this week when there was another story coming out of the Presbyterian Church usa, who is now debating whether they can require monogamous relationships of their clergy. Because there's been a movement to say that polyamory is. Can be ethically non monogamous. You know, like, that we should be open to different family arrangements. What is this if not the question? Did God really say, like, is family really a thing? Is commitment to a spouse really good? And is there any reason to actually do it?
- [42:20]
B
Yeah, I mean, that's part of it. This is one of those stories where, you know, those people who back in the middle part of the 20th century started making the slippery slope arguments and were critiqued for it and were condemned for it, saying, oh, that's just silly. So let me just be really clear. This is a proposal put out within the PC usa, the Presbyterian Church of the United States, PC usa, which is already a mainline kind of. But we're not talking about the pca. We're not talking about Echo. We're not talking about some of the other Presbyterian denominations. This is a PC usa. So they've accepted women's ordination, they've accepted gay relationships and so on. This is just a proposal that says we need monogamy among our clergy. Monogamy. It's not saying that that has to be heterosexual monogamy. It's not saying that it has to be married monogamy, even among heterosexual or homosexual. I mean, the only standard is you cannot be intimate with multiple people.
- [43:25]
A
Not. Not even. Not. Not for life. Right. They're just saying at the same time, yeah, yeah.
- [43:29]
B
I mean, there's nothing. This isn't something about divorce. This isn't something about breaking up. It's just Hard to put this together. This is the main lines in America that have abandoned these larger questions. And you know, the thing is, is that when you lose track of biblical authority, then anything that violates autonomy is considered to be the worst thing you can do to someone. And I want to come back at some point, by the way, maybe, and I know we're going to pick up conversation on fathers, and hopefully maybe this is one. What did the founders mean when they were talking about freedom? And is freedom the same thing as autonomy? And I think it's not, and I think it's an important thing. Look, I don't know how this is going to play out, but this is bizarre. Listen to this comment. This is the narrative from those who are opposing this proposal on monogamy. First of all, that it targets queer communities. So what does that tell us? This. This tells us it wasn't really about a respect for individuality. This was. The entire movement was, at its core, had a lot to do with I want to be able to sleep with whoever I want to sleep with. And then this is the statement. It centers a single model of relationship as the only faithful expression of Christian life.
- [44:55]
A
Did God really say, well, now it's
- [44:58]
B
even better than that because they're saying God said it the other way. It ignores the breadth of biblical witness. Really, Please. I mean, now we're just making stuff up. Scripture speaks richly about covenant, mutuality, justice and love, but it does not prescribe one uniform relational structure across all contexts.
- [45:17]
A
I mean, did God really say, it's just crazy.
- [45:21]
B
It's just a crazy thing Anyway, those people who made the slippery slope argument, you know, this stuff is aging well.
- [45:28]
A
This is Nietzsche's madman. Because they're like, they use the word, they use words ethical. And they're still appealing to scripture. Like, if you want to go down this road, I guess go down the road. I mean, it's to your detriment, but go down. At least go down the road. Don't try to stay here and pretend like you can couch this in some. You can't hold on to words like ethical and love and scripture and go down this road. So pick a lane. It just doesn't work.
- [45:59]
B
Across the country, Christians are asking how to respond to growing confusion about identity, truth, and what it means to be human. That's why the culture Wilson center created Truth the study. Recently, John Stonestreet sat down with detransitioner Chloe Cole to discuss why this message matters so deeply today. What would you hope for the Truth Rising Project to accomplish? What happened to me is something that
- [46:20]
A
is in some way affecting almost everybody in this country. The message of not just my story, but of this project needs to go far and wide. People need to know how to engage on these issues. And that is why projects like this are so important. They make these stories so much more digestible and they enable people to be able to speak about these things that we should be convicted in more easily.
- [46:40]
B
Just $200 trains and supports one Truth Rising facilitator to help reach even more people with truth and hope. Give today to help meet our June 30th fiscal year end goal of raising $1 million and be part of shaping the next decade of impact. Just go to colsoncenter.org June that's colsoncenter.org
- [46:57]
A
June we're back on Breakpoint this week. And John, we are heading into Father's Day weekend. Happy Father's Day. Happy early Father's Day. And happy Father's Day to my husband Aaron. And happy Father's Day to my pops, Joe. Two of the best dads I know. But you teased a little bit a new study from the Institute for Family Studies about the fact that we have in the US Fewer and fewer fathers, fewer young men are becoming fathers at all. The number of men between the ages of 25 and 45 who are childless has risen from 10 million in 1980 to 23 million in 2024 in the US and they're calling this the phenomenon of the vanishing father. Now, we obviously have known about falling birth rates, falling marriage rates, but we rarely talk about how this impacts men. Of course, we talk about it in the same breath as the fact that there seems to be a crisis of mental health and meaning and purpose and growing into adulthood among young men. Those two things seem now to be correlated, wouldn't you say?
- [48:08]
B
No, of course they're all correlated. And then the question is, what's the ripple effects? Where does that go from here? Right. In terms of when do men really behave badly? Uh, on average, Historically, men behave badly when they're not married. I mean, that's a really simplistic way to put it. But especially young men behave badly when they do not have some sort of commitment, responsibility that turns them outside of themselves. Now, of course, men behave badly within marriage. I'm not talking about individual conditions. I'm talking about on average. And when you see these averages decline at the degree that the IFS report is describing, this has consequences that are pretty, pretty dramatic. When scripture says it's not good for man to be alone we have so emotionalized that statement, as if what it's saying is, it's not good for men to be lonely because they'll get sad. And so God gave them a companion. None of that's in the text. God gave them a job. And it's not good for men to be alone because they can't do the job of stewarding the entire creation by themselves. They need not a companion, they need a helper. Now, the helper that God gave me is a wonderful companion. And that's the good goodness of God and how he structured marriage. It's not that it can't go wrong. It does go wrong because there's a fall. Right. But my point is, is that that marriage itself has something to do with keeping men driven towards their purpose. It doesn't mean that every man should be married. I'm not saying that. And every married man is a good man. Again, these are individuals. You compare them against the dominant. What we see in the dominant trends is that when the marriage rates decline among young men, men do stupid things. I often joke with young people when I talk about it because I used to live in the south, and I'm like, you know, whenever you hear a man say, in the south, which is not an uncommon occurrence, hey, y' all watch this. Right? You know, they're about to do something stupid, so you should pull out your phone and you should videotape it.
- [50:19]
A
Sorry. I saw a woman wearing a shirt this week that said, I am a nurse. And then under it, it said, I'm the first person you meet after you say the words, watch this.
- [50:30]
B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's the difference between men and women. The men wear the shirt that says, hey, y', all watch this. But inevitably, guess what? Inevitably, when you hear someone say, hey, y', all watch this. It's a man, and it's an unmarried man. I mean, you know, by and large, overwhelming odds. So marriage has something to do with domesticating us. And there was this whole push back in the 90s. I remember this. This book made its way through the, you know, the Christian college where I was wild at heart, which talked about how men need to be undomesticated. And I just know men need to be domesticated. Marriage is not bad for men. Marriage is good for men. Bad. Marriage is bad for men. Marriage itself is a good gift of God that takes men in the direction that they need to be. And, of course, marriage not only makes men husbands, but inevitably makes men fathers. And that is the idea that men then are being productive now we're not reduced down to what we do, but we're not less. We're more than what we do, but we're not less than what we do. And to lose this whole perspective becomes obvious when you see statistics like this. Now, I think there seems to be. And you know, of course, Ryan Burch talked a little bit about this at ccnc, and he continues to talk about this, as does Brad Wilcox and some others, that there seems to be at least a growing interest among young men to return to this sort of life. And what's happening is they're being accused when they express that sort of desire, the desire to be married, the desire to be a dad. They're being told that that desire is wrong. They're often being told by that, by a culture that's captive to feminism that basically says that kind of masculinity is bad masculinity because that kind of masculinity seeks to rule over women. See, that's the same narrative, only the opposite direction, that many women have been fed over the years, that marriage is bad for them. And of course, bad marriage is bad for them. But we're not talking about marriage itself. Overwhelmingly, marriage leads to happiness and productivity for both men and women. And I think these numbers are going to get worse because young men who want to get married often talk about not being able to. Young women who want to get married often talk about not being able to. And I think this should tee up for us. The church's mission in the next decade should include a lot of things. One of the things that it should include is being a matchmaker. Like, let's find ways to. There's a group of young men that I spent some time with, and I challenged them all, ask a girl out this week. Just go ask a girl out. And they did. It was impressive. I said, don't be creeps, don't be weirdos. You know, if you need help with that. And literally, by the way, one of the young men said, now how do you talk to a girl? What would I say? And I said, you could ask her how her week has gone. He's like, oh, that's good. I mean, it was amazing. I don't think we understand just how far behind the eight ball we are on this, but I want to recommend this study. I know we haven't done recommendations yet. Well, you did. You did three recommendations at the beginning. So I'm going to give two. One is this study, this report at ifs called the Vanishing American Father. More men are opting out of fatherhood. So even as we see a little bit of a vibe shift, we're seeing young men return to the church. We need to help them understand how to do this. Well, if we don't, by the way, they're going to be attracted by the crazy anti woman narrative that's even emerging in various schools of thought across American culture, including evangelicalism, parts of evangelicalism. So what it means to be a young man, by the way, when you have a vanishing father, then fathers don't teach young men what it means to be a father. And this again, I guess what I'm saying is there's a lot of pre existing conditions, there's a lot of comorbidities in this study and that's what I think is going to get worse. Also want to say that in the Greater Than Campaign, which we've talked about, this is a coalition of multiple organizations founded by Katie Faust to talk about overturning Obergefell and some other things. They're publishing stories. We talked about a story they published during Mother's Day about a young woman who longed for a mother. This is a new video that they published this week called I Was Longing for a Father. This is the story of a young man named Ross and his experience growing up without a dad. And I think that this idea that we can just to quote the, this one group from the PC USA accept a multiplicity of family, it's not true. It's never been true. Moms don't dad. Dads don't mom. Both are irreplaceable. Cohabitation can't be marriage. That's marriage is, is irreplaceable. Women can't be men. Men can't be women. Both are irreplaceable. And all of this stuff is kind of built into the fabric of the universe. It's gravity stuff here we're talking about. So there you go.
- [55:48]
A
I think with fatherhood, the same thing I think about motherhood, which is that it's just cruel that when we culturally what we think we're seeking, what we think we want is happiness. But what we need and what we truly deeply were made to need and want is meaning and purpose. And the irony of it is that in this pursuit of what we think will make us happy, we end up missing the very things that give us the meaning and purpose that lead to our ultimate satisfaction. So the quickest shortcut to your happiness and meaning, and it seems that this is true for men as much as it is for women, is building a family. There's no better call to purpose and to self sacrifice than being a parent and being a spouse. And those are the things that end up giving your life the kind of purpose and meaning that you need. I heard Katie McCoy on the World and everything in it just earlier today on Friday say something like, you know, when we talk about women and, you know, the falling birth rates and the problems plaguing women right now, we talk about things like mental health and a crisis of meaning and, you know, kind of political radicalism and that kind of stuff. When we talk about men not becoming fathers and the crisis that's facing young men, we talk about like economic and global collapse, which is just, just true. I mean, the stakes are so high. And if we have fewer and fewer young men entering family life, which I also think it's interesting to point out, if people take your recommendation and look at this study, there is a growing and very obvious ideological divide here. Conservative men are far more likely to become fathers than liberal men. And you can, there's a lot of reasons for that. I'm sure we could go into. But, but when men generally, you know, aren't becoming fathers and aren't getting married, then that's going to lead to a fallout that is going to ricochet far beyond the lives of individuals.
- [57:45]
B
Hey, can I, can I point out one thing that's always fun to me and I put this in a commentary that aired Friday this week. One of the fun, funnest. Is that a word? Funnest? One of the most fun, most fun data points that emerges when you talk about dads is that it's not only moms and dads are different, but that the differences matter. How they're different actually leads to the well being of children. It's a really fun thing, especially like how they play. So, you know, when, when, when dads throw little kids up in the air and make moms nervous, there is a relational development. There's a long term security. When they wrestle with boys. Yes. Just last night my son just punched me. It was funny because we told him something that was going to happen today and he got really excited. So what did he do? He punched me and I'm like, stop it. So I punched him back. Right. No, I did it, you know, appropriately. But this is like, I never did that with my girls, obviously. Right. I would throw them around. They love being thrown on the bed, you know, that sort of stuff. They loved all that sort of stuff. But there's something about the rough and tumble play and researchers at Cornell have talked about this. Brad's reported on this. Anthony Bradley talks about this, that when you. When you have rough play combined with hugs, like, there's something that dads bring that teaches that gives kids a sense of relational security, increases their understanding of their own ability to take risks within a safe environment. It's. It's a. It's an amazing, amazing thing.
- [59:34]
A
I see that principle extend even to other parts of their relationship. I mean, when my girls are upset about something, I have a way of dealing with it, which is usually like, gosh, let's sit and talk about it. And, you know, and they need that, and that's good. My husband has a way of being like, get over. I'm sick of talking about it. Just buck up and get out there. And if I had said that very same thing, it would have been a collapse into tears. And then dad says it, and it's like, all right, I guess you're right. You know, there is something unignorable that's happening there. Whenever I leave, there's a saying in my house that when I leave the house, they all yell, mom's not home. No rules. And this is. Apparently, I come home from a lot of things and the things that have been eaten and the games that have been played and the things that have been destroyed is really. Would turn your stomach, John?
- [60:26]
B
Wouldn't turn my stomach. I think maybe the moral of the story is you have too many rules. But that's just. That's the difference between men and women
- [60:31]
A
trying to run a house here. Okay, John, we've already, point of privilege, shared several recommendations this week. So let me just say, once again, happy Father's Day to my dad, to my husband, to you, to all the wonderful dads out there. And if you are thinking of becoming a dad or of becoming a husband, absolutely go for it. That's my recommendation this week.
- [60:52]
B
But don't be a creep.
- [60:54]
A
Don't be. Don't be a creep. Thanks so much for listening to breakpoint this week. From the Coulson center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer alongside John Stonestreet. Happy Father's Day. We'll see you all back here next week. God bless.