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Breakpoint
The Supreme Court Strikes Down Colorado's Counseling Law, A Tragic Assisted Suicide in Spain, Easter and Christian Morality, and the NBA's Speech Police
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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 perspective. Today we're going to talk about a Supreme Court case that affirms the right of even Christian counselors to help their patients. We're also going to talk about a tragic case of assisted dying in Spain. We have a lot to get to this week. We're glad you're with us on this Easter week. 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, I want to jump right into some big news out of the Supreme Court this week. There was a decision handed down in the Chiles case. This came from nowhere but Colorado, where there had been a proposed law that would ban what Colorado legislators called conversion therapy, which has all kinds of ironies in the fact that that's what they called this. But essentially, Colorado tried to pass a law saying that if licensed counselors in Colorado wanted to help patients who came in saying something related to their, you know, maybe I feel uncomfortable in my body or I have same sex desires that I'd like to, you know, work around or figure out how to deal with that, anything other than outright, you know, affirmation or celebration, basically to administer therapy to such a person would be illegal. And the Supreme Court this week said, nope, you can't do that, Colorado, because that violates the First Amendment. You know, we talked about this case when it came up, and you are always, I think, rightly reticent to give predictions about where this would go. But were you surprised or relieved to hear this decision this week?
- [01:44]
John Stonestreet
Well, there's a handful of people that I take cues from and they were all pretty confident in this case because it really is a kind of a straightforward example of compelled speech and prevented speech. So it violated the First Amendment. I think in the decision they talked more about prevented speech in the sense that you can't say to someone, even if they say I want to reconcile with my body or I want to change my or work to change my inherent desires, that you can't encourage that at all. But that also means then at some level, and I think that Kristen Wagner from ADF did a terrific job emphasizing this over and over and over in the press conferences and the interviews that she did following the decision and really, really throughout is that, you know, Casey Childs absolutely could encourage her clients towards homosexuality or towards a transgender idea identity. So if you're prevented from doing one. And you want to keep your client. I think in a sense that that is the state compelling speech as well. And that's the other aspect of this. It's certainly good news. I mean, I think some of the highlights for me, I think about three or four, number one, is that this is, this is ADF going three and oh, against the state of Colorado. There was some really great memes about that where I just think that Colorado should stop. But even legislation being introduced this term, they're not going to. But, you know, if you think about Jack Phillips and you think about Lori Smith and in my haste to get out a commentary this week on a breakpoint, I called her Laurie Phillips. Apologies, lori. Laurie Smith of 303 Creative and then this child's case, we're three. And oh, on the biggies at the Supreme Court, not to mention the others that are, you know, have happened outside of the Supreme Court, I think that's one. I think the other thing is that this was eight to one. So I think there was a bit of confidence from ADF and others that this would be a win. Eight to one is a biggie. You know, usually when you have a majority decision like that, it's on a narrow ruling. I don't think this was all that narrow. I think this was pretty clear. Professional speech is speech. They didn't get into, certainly the issues of what counts as medicine and what doesn't count as medicine. They talked about, you know, specifically speech. But that's what this case was. And it was a pretty, you know, kind of broad application. Even though in a concurring opinion, Sotomayor and Kagan signed on and basically said, look, if the state of Colorado had done it this way instead of that way, then, you know, this will make this interesting again. It wasn't to me, it was like a liberal version of what happened at the Dobbs decision, when in the Dobbs decision, I think it was Clarence Thomas in a concurring opinion, invited challenges to other decisions that were like that, like, like Roe v. Wade, like the Obergefell decision specifically he mentioned. So that seemed to be what, what was happening there. The sole dissent being Justice Jackson. And this is just another, I think, line of evidence that her jurisprudence is completely informed by critical theory. You saw it in what she said. She actually described policing medicine as being the norm.
- [05:10]
Maria Baer
She said that this decision will make possible, quote, grave harm to people in Colorado. That's a quote from her decision.
- [05:21]
John Stonestreet
Yeah. And that medicine has to be policed. In other words, it's Almost like you have to use power structures in order to prevent harm. I mean, you hear where this is coming from. And we talked about this this week in the editorial decision is how liberalism became progressivism. I mean, in their dissent, sorry, in their concurring opinion, I'm so used to saying dissent with Sotomayor and Kagan, but in their concurring opinion, I mean, they kind of went after the jurisprudence or the reasoning of Justice Jackson. So it is interesting because it's another example too of liberalism, which is supposed to be about liberalizing or, you know, know, liberating, becoming progressivism, which is about coercion, coercing speech and coercing, I guess, in this sense, medicine to meet particular goals.
- [06:14]
Maria Baer
As a parent, I look at this decision and see a lot of things going on. But one of the deeper questions is how should we approach therapy? And because I feel like we're telling ourselves a cultural narrative about what therapy is and does. And usually that narrative is like, this is a evidence based medical practice, the same as like having a surgery on your knee. And then there's another version of it, which even cases like this make it feel a little bit like this isn't maybe as scientific, where this is much more ideological just because of the nature of what we're talking about, talk therapy, than other things, which I think it just invites a level of caution and discernment when you're approaching it institutionally. But, John, what would you say if Colorado, let's say it wouldn't be Colorado. Let's, I don't know, Texas, try to.
- [07:05]
John Stonestreet
Let's not get too crazy here.
- [07:07]
Maria Baer
Let's not get too crazy. Passed a law that said licensed professional counselors cannot encourage patients towards a transgender ideology. Would that, what would you say to that kind of law?
- [07:19]
John Stonestreet
Well, you know, look, I, I think it's, it's an interesting question because of a couple things. One is that these bans, and let's be really clear. One of the things we have to kind of figure out what's going to happen after the child's decision is what it means for the other so called conversion therapy bands, because there's a lot of them. And I think 20 states or so kind of went down this path. So I don't know what all this means. This was certainly argued on the case of in the way of speech. And of course, as these things go at the state level, at Colorado, they flat out lost. And then at the Supreme Court level, you'd say this is what speech is. I think that this particular situation, this particular set of topics went ahead of the medical research, went ahead of what it is that we know claimed scientific consensus. And then the transgender side of it, which you remember, the early bans were more about sexual orientation than they were about gender identity, because gender identity wasn't really a thing and it was still listed as a disorder in the handbook. All kinds of other things. And you have some. I think that the gay therapy was a reaction against some extreme forms of so called conversion therapy, shock therapy, exposure to pornography. I mean, there was some weird and cranky stuff that didn't make any sense. And as people were trying to address this and that therapy didn't have the medical research, so the, I guess the reaction was none of it is conversion is impossible. And then you have this other issue, gender identification, which the entire history of transgender ideology has been riding on the coattails of other movements. Right. It's never been argued. It doesn't have a way to be argued in a way that makes sense. And so basically, without any sort of scientific or medical consensus, it rides the coattails and then says the science is settled. And I think that's what made this so bizarre. And I think it's become a real issue. I mean, you've even seen some results or some. Some pieces about like, hey, you know, the gay movement is being not was hijacked by the transgender movement and now has been stunted and is harmed by that, which, you know, I'm obviously not a part of that movement, but I would have that same read because there was nothing stopping it. The gay movement, prior to the transgender movement jumping on board here. Your question about can you do it the other way is I think medical therapies should include psychology or forms of psychological counseling and that sort of stuff, and they should be have medical consensus. But listen, I think on all kinds of issues, medically, ideology has outpaced the evidence. I don't think it's just this. I agree that it should welcome a high level of scrutiny and a high level of care, and we just don't have that when it comes to lgbtq, that agenda and what it's done to hijack so much of science and medicine. It's just the case. I mean, look, we proceeded as if there's not a difference between men and women in roles. And so the transgender movement said, oh, good, that means there's not a difference between men and women in reality. You know, I mean, that's the shift between the gay movement and the transgender movement. You know, we said, you know, moms can dad and Dads can mom. As if they're completely interchangeable. And transgender movement was like, great, let's make pre adolescent boys and girls completely interchangeable. When you give it the scrutiny that it's due, the jump was tremendous. I don't think the answer is that there should be no regulation of the medical community. Right. Or the counseling community. What we want to do is get at what is actually true, because there is truth to get at, and that's the fundamental underlying assumption. By the way, I do think. I didn't want to spend a ton of time on Justice Jackson's response, but. Or her dissent, but I mean, it's just such an example of this reality that the only way forward. It's crazy that she says, look, we have to police medicine, including this area of medicine. Literally. She writes this at the time when medical institution after medical institution, from professional medical associations to a whole bunch of individual doctors, are backpedaling as quickly as they can from the transgender medicine. So what are you gonna do? Force them to reengage with this? Because they're all going, we ain't doing this. Vanderbilt said, not only are we not doing it for minors, we're not doing it at all. So to me, the answer is more science, more scrutiny, not less.
- [12:37]
Maria Baer
I agree with you. I think that's where I'd make my stance, is that there has to be an appeal to actual truth that exists beyond the Supreme Court and beyond the practitioners of therapy or medicine even. And if the state needs to get involved because people are ignoring truth to the harm and detriment of people, then they have to get involved. Of course, that presents all kinds of social difficulties. I think if you tried to pass a law saying you can't encourage people towards a transgender identity, but I think to me, the larger and more salient encouragement for just laypeople is just to know what you're approaching when you're looking at the institution of psychotherapy, which I agree can be very helpful and useful and evidence based. But there's an under undercurrent here in this question before the court that presumes that we are to approach therapy in the sense of these are people who can tell us how to live and how to feel better in a sort of very nebulous, as opposed to when you go to a physician, like primary care doctor, typically you have a symptom and they have an evidence based, hopefully diagnosis and a therapy to help that. We're increasingly approach therapy not that way, and we're sending our kids to it. We go to it Ourselves, which I'm not against at all in theory, but I think too much. We are approaching it as a. I need some sort of ideological guru in my life to just help me plumb the depths of my childhood and to feel better generally. And when you go down that route, then you open yourself up to all of these kinds of questions that are before the court, like, can my. If we really stood back and looked. Looked at it objectively, I think even the question, like, is my therapist allowed to tell me what gender? Like, how to dress? You would be like, why are you asking your therapist that kind of question to begin with? Right. That's something different than, like, I have this kind of, you know, very clear anxiety disorder, and I would like to engage in the proven therapy to help me cope with it. Do you see what I mean?
- [14:48]
John Stonestreet
I mean, I do. I don't think it's a problem that's limited to mental health professions, although I think it's acute there. I think it's a big deal. I don't think that this is the first ideology to have infected this particular aspect of medicine. I think that there are others. For example, reducing humans down to just behavior, as if there's nothing internal or nothing below behavior. I think people would say, well, and I think it's probably true that that kind of counseling replace the role that the church once played in people's lives. And what we would say is, the family should be the fundamental shaper of some of these things. But what do you do in a society where you have such a breakdown of the family in many, many different ways? So now you've got people who struggle with this, and you have plenty of biblical precedent for counseling and seeking wise counsel. And that's been professionalized like a lot of other aspects of modern life. So, I mean, I think there's a layer of complications, but at the same time, I think that there's no question that this is a discipline that in many aspects has lost its way. It's also important to say these aren't the questions that the court was dealing with. The court was just dealing with the idea of professional speech. Charles has professional speech. The state was saying, you have to say this. You can't say this, or you're allowed to say this, and you can't say this. I guess more accurately and thankfully, that's been rolled back. Last interesting piece of this, but maybe before we move on, Neil Gorsuch wrote this opinion. Why that's interesting is he also wrote the Bostock opinion, which was about gender identity in Terms of applied to employment law. So now we're dealing still in the professional realm, although we're dealing with a specific one. I, I don't know what that means. Has Gorsuch changed his mind or does he just see these lines where others do not? You know, as you said, as we said earlier, it was an 8 to 1 decision. Even Kagan and Sotomayor signed on. That's just more of a I wonder what's happening with Gorsuch question. I haven't seen anyone deal with that. I don't have any inside information, despite the fact that he's also from Colorado and he smacked his state, so good for him.
- [17:08]
Maria Baer
Well, there's another case, this one is from Europe that I think has a lot of through lines to what we've been talking about already. Now, this is such a tragic case of a young woman in Spain who was killed through assisted dying last week, I believe. And this was a young woman who, again, the details are really horrible. She had been sexually assaulted. And after this took place, she was at a hotel. She attempted to commit suicide by jumping out of a window and was left paralyzed from that suicide attempt and then applied for assisted dying, which is where a medical institution kills you. And her father took her essentially to court. Basically was trying to fight this. And after a year, lost, and last week she was killed. Just about one of the worst stories you can imagine from start to finish. But, you know, I brought this up to a friend this week who works in therapy in the US and she was unaware of the case and appalled, which I was grateful for. But I also felt like I was surprised that she wasn't aware of it because it feels clear to me that this kind of reasoning is coming for us. Even as you see what just happened in Colorado in the child's case, that we are trying to police what therapists can say, and we're all charging really headfirst into the direction of a person's personal autonomy. What they say they want to have happen is what ought to happen. This seems inevitable, that this is coming our way. Is there anything we can do to get ready for it?
- [18:43]
John Stonestreet
You know, I think at the end of the day, you know, just as we have said in other in the situation when it comes to abortion and underneath abortion is this deep commitment, for example, to moral relativism, so that even if people settle on when life begins and what counts as a person, they don't want to impose that on everyone else. The other bedrock worldview premise of Western culture is, is autonomy, as you mentioned, this is a case about autonomy. This is a case where people doing what they want had led to a deep harm of someone else. And then the state not being willing to violate anyone's autonomy, even in making a choice, which basically gave her the death penalty for the evil things that other people did to her. That's what's so tragic about this. Autonomy doesn't work. It's like. It's like reducing all sexual morality down to consent. Consent's not big enough of a concept to deal with the multifaceted aspects of a sexually broken culture. The sacredness of sexuality, the goodness of sexuality. Consent is a part of it, but it can't be all of it. Autonomy is not. The ability to make decisions for oneself is part of it, but you can't put all the weight on that when humans are fundamentally relational creatures made in the image of a relational God. I appreciated an article in Premier magazine by Lois McClatchy Miller, who I thought dealt with it really well, because on its face, when doctor Assisted suicide is promised to us, it's always promised to us on this right to die. You're going to have a terminal diagnosis. We've talked about the slippery slope of that. You know, she didn't have a terminal diagnosis. She wasn't going to die from the condition that she had. She was just never going to get better from the condition that she had. That's part of the slippery slope.
- [20:42]
Maria Baer
The physical condition.
- [20:43]
John Stonestreet
The physical condition. No, that's the physical pain. Yeah, but it's always promised on physical pain. It's never chosen on physical pain. It's chosen on emotional and mental pain. That. That's what the statistics tell us. We have that data going back to Oregon, which is one of the earliest states in the US to choose this. So that's another slippery slope. But this is another one, which is where did the physical pain come from for her? And what about the relational responsibilities we have to one another? I feel terrible for her family. It is one of those situations where you live in a morally complicated and complicit world that leads to this kind of end result. And then you say, oh, well, the easiest solution is just let her get what she wants. This is where autonomy falls short. It's not big enough to handle the brokenness of the world, certainly as we've allowed the world to get, and so on. So I just say this. The answer to suffering. This is quoting Miller's piece. The answer to suffering is not to eliminate the sufferer.
- [21:47]
Maria Baer
I think we have to reckon with that. The evil that was done to her in her death will never be constrained just to her. This is now something that's been. This is a mark on the world that this happened. Because one of the results of this is that now other people who are either in, God forbid, her exact condition or situation, or just people who are dealing with psychological pain have now seen that the quote, unquote, experts in the room believe that this is a viable and worthwhile option to consider. And once you like the destabilization of that for a person in psychological pain to say there are lots of, like the premier experts in the world who are supposed to be able to help you with this kind of thing, believe that there are some people and situations that are just beyond help, it's not worth doing. And you've put that suggestion into the minds of people. You've just fundamentally changed the shape of the world towards evil and towards the idea that for some humans, remaining human and remaining alive is really not the best thing for you to choose.
- [22:56]
John Stonestreet
Yeah, well, think about the abortion issue. The church Christians came to understand. The pro life movement has come to understand that we need to, or we should come to understand that we need to oppose abortion laws and we also need to offer hope to people where in that situation, I think when it comes to doctor assisted suicide, that's got to be the message for us. We need to oppose that. That message being communicated to people like, sometimes the best thing for you is to die. But it can't just be by restricting laws, although it has to be. We have to oppose euthanasia laws in all forms, but we don't have anything in the same level. Hospice care is supposed to be this kind of thing. There needs to be an awful lot of correction to hospice. We had Farr Kurland at our conference a couple years ago. He articulated this, I thought, very, very well. And he's written on this extensively. He's a Duke University theologian and ethicist, that we need something along those same lines at that same extent. Now, of course, family should be the first line of defense, just like family should be the first line of defense for a woman in an unexpected pregnancy, even if that's a result of a. Of abuse or an assault or something like that. You know, hopefully the family can be that first line. But there's also an awful lot of support that we have. We don't have for people who are suffering and in these vulnerable situations. So I think we have to oppose the evil and then offer, you know, what's good and figure out how to do that. Yeah, Agreed.
- [24:33]
Maria Baer
Well, let's take a quick break, John. We'll be right back with more Breakpoint this week.
- [24:40]
Jack (Colson Fellow)
Hey, Breakpoint listeners, my name's Jack and I'm a Colson Fellow from the class of 2024. Are you interested in the Colson Fellows program but feeling nervous about the time commitment it would require? Well, thousands of men and women like you have completed the program amidst busy lives, even while working full time. Like me, Colson Fellows find a lot of ways to fit the program into their schedules. It could mean trading one of your books for a Colson curriculum book, listening to a podcast or audiobook chapter on a daily walk, or swapping a streaming show for program webinars. Listen, good things take time and you won't regret the investment of becoming more equipped in your faith. You can request more information on the Colson Fellows Program and apply today@colsonfellows.org that's Colson Fellows.
- [25:26]
Maria Baer
We're back on Breakpoint this week. Well, John, you and I are recording this on Good Friday, so we are heading right into Easter weekend, one of my favorite weekends of the year. And so you thought that this would be a good time to kind of revisit some of the more apologetic based claims of Christianity and the way these have changed the world. And there was a particularly fascinating episode this week of Sean McDowell's podcast where he spoke with Bart Ehrman, who is kind of a foremost atheist, who writes a lot of Christian books, if that makes sense. He makes a lot of claims about Christianity and has been very influential in the church. And, you know, they had a really fascinating conversation about particularly morality. Is there such a thing as objective morality? And even deeper, is there such a thing as objective morality without Jesus? Is that possible? To me, this was clearly not a meeting of the minds. I think Sean McDowell came across in this conversation, which I highly recommend people listen to, but came across as being very patient. Bart Ehrman came across as not liking being challenged, which I guess who does. But you know, when you make claims like you're making, I was a little disappointed. I was hoping he would be a little bit more open to the debate. But where do you want to start here? What part of this caught your ear?
- [26:51]
John Stonestreet
The timing of this is really interesting. We've kind of gone through it 10, 15 years ago where maybe it was because of tabloid journalism being so popular, but around this time we'd always have either newspaper articles or cover stories on Time and Life, maybe a television program or two on cnn, you know, basically coming out and saying, hey, we're not sure if any of these events ever happened. Oftentimes the most skeptical scholars would be interviewed and so on. And. And then that kind of has stopped for a while. I just thought it was interesting, the timing of Ehrman's new book, Love Thy Stranger, which is kind of in the, in the. The flow of Tom Holland's book Dominion and some others which are arguing for the impact that Christianity has made in the world. And for Ehrman to make that argument is really interesting. Basically an appeal to the morality and the teaching of Jesus especially. I think he's also kind of backloaded in some, some politics into this, but it's. It's still interesting to note, hey, this is what Jesus taught. I don't know that he's completely right about that. What's interesting about Ehrman is that he was an evangelical. He a graduate of Moody Bible Institute. He has debated a lot of New Testament scholars about the reliability of the Gospels, about the claims to miracles, things like that. He also, though, has challenged the myth argument, the mythicist argument that Jesus never existed. That's a very small minority position in the academic community by radical scholars. They say we're not even sure Jesus ever existed. He said, you know, look, there's no question that Jesus existed, but what Ehrman certainly does is deny any of the miraculous side of things. I just thought the timing was interesting because we're talking about Easter, because the question that he's trying to bring up, he's appealing specifically to the moral teachings of Jesus while denying the supernatural aspects of what is claimed about the life of Jesus in the Gospels and according to the Christian religion. And can you have the morality of Jesus without the miraculousness? That's the question. I think that's interesting, and I think it's always interesting to hit a different aspect of the teachings of Holy Week, you know, whether it is the Last Supper, which is what was celebrated on Thursday night and Maundy Thursday, the implications of Good Friday, the last words of Jesus on the cross that are attested to in the Gospels. Certainly the culmination is the resurrection. And in years past, we spent a little time talking about, hey, listen, you know, the resurrection is the center of not only the Christian story. The resurrection is the center of human history. That's the ramifications if, if Christ rose from the dead. That's what Peter says, that's what Paul says, and so on. Or like Good Friday, like, what is the significance of something like penal substitutionary atonement? The idea that what happened on Friday was not just an Example, what happened on the cross was a payment for our sins. I think all this stuff is really interesting and important to talk about on a worldview level when you talk about the events of Holy Week. But can you have the. Would the moral teachings of Jesus had transformed the world, which is this new claim? Not a new claim, but a renewed claim that's being recognized even by secular historians or kind of historians that aren't on the inside of the movement. These are transformative claims for entire disciplines that Christianity changed the world, the Christian view of what it means to be human, that we're made in the image of God, that that's the source of our dignity. Clearly, Ehrman is putting weight here on the teachings of Jesus, especially things like the Good Samaritan, that we should love not just our neighbor, but love our enemies, love the people we don't know. There's certainly been people that have said Jesus teachings on such things were revolutionary because you weren't just protecting your clan. You weren't just protecting the people that you have a personal relationship or a responsibility to. You're protecting and you have a responsibility for others. And Jesus exemplified that, and Jesus taught about that. But would that teaching had ever gotten out of, you know, the little corner of the world which was occupied Israel at the time and to the wider Roman Empire, if something else didn't happen, if his. If would his teaching. Maybe he was a super awesome speaker, you know, but would everybody have gathered around if he hadn't fed the 5,000? You know, this is. The challenge is, does the morality of Jesus make the difference that it clearly has made in history without the miracles of Jesus, especially the resurrection? I think the answer is no. I think Paul says that the answer is no, that the resurrection did not happen. He writes in First Corinthians that this whole thing is bogus. You're hopeless because you're living according to this mentality, by the way, what Nietzsche called later a slave mentality of Christianity. You're living according to this. And why, if something miraculous did not happen, I think Ehrman's way out on a limb here, and while he's sawing off the limb that he's sitting on in this claim, because I think it's clear that Christian morality changed Western culture and therefore changed the history of the world. And there's an aspect of the timing of this that's absolutely miraculous in God's timing, but also I think in big ways, you don't get the morality, changing the world without the miracles. So we're basically claiming the Result without really looking at why did it happen really.
- [33:07]
Maria Baer
I think there is a distinction between the central miracle of the death and resurrection of Jesus and the other miracles maybe that he performed during his ministry. And there are some hints that Jesus might have even preferred sometimes to not do so many of those. Because you know, think of the scene where the paralytic man comes in and he says, son, your sins are forgiven. And they're like, what? And he says, wait, wait, wait. Which, what do you think is more surprising? What's stranger to you? Being able to forgive someone's sins or being able to heal him physically? And clearly he wants the stranger, more incredible, more earth shattering thing to be the forgiveness of sins. What they're looking for is for them, you know, for him to do something really amazing and surprising physically, which he then of course does, but he doesn't always do that. And I feel like Bart Ehrman is this funny kind of inverse of the people in Jesus time who were constantly like, sure, sure, sure, we hear all your like little moral teachings. We don't love all of them, but could you really please. What we really want from you is that you would heal my mother in law and that you would heal me from this ailment and that you would heal. And Jesus of course had so much compassion on people physically and you know, he knew the suffering of what it meant to be human and in physical and physiological ways. And that was an incredible part of his ministry. But I feel like the inverse is today. Like, okay, well your moral teachings, we like those. Could you just give us those and not make us claim all these other weird, you know, do you walk down water? I'd rather not talk about that. I'd rather not think about that. I don't want to be a weird person who claims that I believe that's true. Could I just, could you just give me the moral stuff and particularly could you give me the moral stuff that makes other people be nice to me? Like I'm thinking about too, like, you know, love thy stranger. Makes me think of the man yelling out to Jesus like, hey, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me. And it's like, what, what I would prefer is that could you, you know, do, do all your miracles and do all your nice moral teachings over there. Would you just please make sure everybody else is really kind to me as opposed to Jesus, what he's actually doing, which is challenging our own hearts towards each other and towards God. And even after that man says tell, tell my brother to share the inheritance, Jesus tells a parable, and the conclusion of which is like, be rich towards God. Like, you're here to serve God and to join him and to seek eternal life with him, which you can only get through me, and that kind of thing. It's just interesting that we're, we're the inverse of most of the people that Jesus encountered during his earthly ministry who weren't terribly interested in his moral teaching but wanted the miracles. And now we're like, we'd rather we don't want to talk about the miracles, but can you just give us these moral teachings?
- [35:48]
John Stonestreet
Yeah, I think it's a really interesting observation. And, you know, part of it might have to do with the fact that the moral teachings were so bizarre and so hard. You remember when he was asked about marriage and divorce and, and, and, and his response, and they're like, man, that's, that's a hard thing. You know, can I really live with, you know, not having divorce whenever I want it, for whatever reason, I want it. And now it's like the miracles are really hard to swallow kind of in our post kind of scientification. I think there's a lot of reason for that. I, I, I think too, that there's two things to think about. One is just the Gospel of John. And the Gospel of John is written after the Synoptic Gospels, which the Synoptic Gospels are very similar. In a conversation that Ehrman also had with Ross Douthen on his podcast, he talks about the Synoptic Gospels clearly being, you know, kind of an example of plagiarism and so on, and, and listen, the historical rules were different back then, but John writes a lot later. And some people call this a synoptic problem or part of the synoptic problem. Why is John's stuff so different? Well, part of it is John absolutely combines the miracles and the conclusion, that miracle that you mentioned of friends lowering their friend through the roof, this is part of John's account. He chooses seven miracles. Also in John, you get long, long teachings of Jesus. He absolutely lays together the miracles and the moral teaching as if the miracles and the moral teachings are inseparable. So it's not just Jesus doing this because somebody's wearing him down. Jesus absolutely says what he says, always planning to heal this guy so that he can silence the critics, so that he can point to something further. And this is what's introduced in the prologue of John, that John says Jesus is light and life. And the miracles and the teachings are basically Jesus's light and life. And that's why it culminates in the raising of Lazarus, but then in the ultimate miracle, which is what half the book of John is, about, half the book of John is about three years, and half the book of John is about one week, that last week of Jesus. And you get the longest teaching anywhere in scripture of Jesus in with the upper room discourse. Also, let's not forget what the moral teaching is, especially in John, which is it's not just, hey, do not do nice things. It's even not just care for the stranger, which is kind of what Ehrman's trying to reduce this down to. And I think the problem that he has is the problem that Sean exposed in their conversation. It's like, well, why is being kind to a stranger better than being, you know, cruel to a stranger for my own pleasure? Unless there's something objective that we can point to. And Ehrman realizes, I think rightly, that he has no objective place to go. He can only say what it is that he likes and that we like better now at this point in history, all the teachings of Jesus than what they had. But that's not the moral teaching of Jesus, in summary, is do nice things and do kind things. It's that you should do nice things. You should love your neighbor, you should care for people. You shouldn't violate and get things for yourself at the cost of other people. You shouldn't be selfish. You should love and you can't. That's the other aspect of this, why you don't get the moral teaching and the moral impact of Jesus life without the resurrection. Because it is the resurrection in which Jesus defeats evil and defeats sin for us so that we can obey. It is the sending of the Spirit which is promised in the upper room discourse so that we can do it. And this is something that I think gets missed in some of the conversations about how impactful Christianity has been in the moral framing of Western culture is we think that somehow this moral teaching, just because it was thrown out there, made the difference. But, you know, we've talked about this before. Ideas aren't always sticky. This is not going to be a sticky idea in a culture where all the rewards are oriented the other way and where people don't want to do it. To your point, right, It's. It's too hard to love my neighbor. It's really too hard to love that Samaritan, you know, it's too hard, you know, to not be hypocritical sexually with my own thoughts and then also want to stone this woman who's a prostitute. It's not just unthinkable in that cultural moment. Suddenly Christianity's offering this way, and it's like, wow, it's that Christians were empowered to live this out because of the resurrection, because of embracing what Christ did, because of the power of the Holy Spirit. And then, you know, we can go right to the miraculous works of Peter and John. Right after the Resurrection, they were empowered to do the miraculous. I don't want to underestimate that. And I think that's often what, you know, Tom Holland's telling a historical account about Christianity introducing these moral principles and look at what happened. But when you ask why it happened, that's another question. And I think there's an assumption from Dr. Ehrman that it would have just happened anyway. And I don't think that that is a compelling case.
- [41:22]
Maria Baer
That was one of the weird. I feel like that betrayed a little bit of his worldview that he might not be fully aware that he holds, because he. That seemed to be his central question was, okay, Sean, if you're claiming that this is objectively true, that, you know, there is such a thing as good and evil, then why didn't people find it on their own? Wouldn't they have been able to find it on their own? But that doesn't follow at all logically. That doesn't have to follow at all. He just seems to think that it would, which betrays a view of humans as on par with God, essentially.
- [41:56]
John Stonestreet
Maybe the difference is that they didn't find it earlier. There were other people who suggested things like nobility and, you know, leading by example and sacrifice. I mean, you know, but what do you sacrifice for? And why do you sacrifice? And then why did what. Why did the terrible things get embedded into cultural experience? I think the fact is, is that it's not just that Christians found it. It's that Christians were empowered to do it. And when you're not empowered to do it across the human experience, I mean, you have. This is the whole history of Israel. The Jews have this in their law, and they're not able to do it. They're supposed to obey Christ, and they don't. But it's also because they can't.
- [42:50]
Maria Baer
But, I mean, Ehrman seemed to be offended by the idea that, like, you're. So you're saying that because you're Christian, you've heard the gospel, that you are different than all the people in the world that haven't heard it, and you have different knowledge from them. And I'm sitting here kind of like, yes. And that makes me really, really grateful. And that makes me want the message to spread. And I don't think there's anything inherently, you know, like I'm not tooting my own horn by saying, well, just because I happen to hear this, because I happen to be, you know, if I were a Jewish person in the, whatever, first century or whatever, that I just, I'm not suggesting at all that something of my own volition gave me the gift of being present in that time or of hearing this news. But it's. Yes, I just believe that it is the truth of the world. And I'm really grateful that I've heard it.
- [43:41]
John Stonestreet
Look, I'm grateful that we live in a time where the world changing, that Christianity brought to Western culture is being recognized. It's better than not. It's better that Ehrman is recognizing this than that he's projecting it. And I think his story is super interesting. And I don't go into it, and I didn't even want to pile onto him in this segment. The conversation with Douth, it's fascinating, it's long. And the conversation with Sean gets way more apologetic, and it's fascinating. And there is an aspect where there's some tension in that interview, shall we say, in that conflict. I think it is a valid thing to not just say, look, it's clear Christianity and Christian moral teaching changed the world, but to ask that fundamental question, why? What made it possible? Why did it happen after the Resurrection? Why do we see this groundswell and this snowball going down a hill and then the world becoming a different sort of place? And why do we have the results that Holland is recognizing? And are we able to just be moral people on our own? And I think that's obviously the Christian answer to that is no. And yet we do have the results. So something happened. Something happened to a group of people. That group of people grew. It went across times and places and cultures. That was unique. You didn't have that happening religiously, even philosophically in a lot of places to this degree where this thing was taking over the world. And it has. And praise God that it did. And yet what's true about the Resurrection and the Crucifixion is true for me because it is true for the world. And that's the impact.
- [45:34]
Colson Center Announcer
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- [46:12]
Maria Baer
John, let's talk now. I want to talk just briefly about a story from the NBA, because this is your territory here. There was a story this week about a, I guess, former Chicago Bull Jaden Ivey, who posted on social media his disappointment that the Bulls, you know, go all in and the NBA goes all in on Pride Month. And he called it celebrating unrighteousness. And as a result of this post on social media, the Bulls have waived him, which seems to me like a pretty blatant case that would be ripe for, like, a discrimination suit. I don't know how all of this works, but, you know, there have been a ton of sort of clickbait headlines on this since then. Some other professional athletes have come out supporting Jaden Ivey. Others have piled on. The story in the Chicago Tribune about this was. Was a story in itself because it was talking about how. Well, this isn't the first time that this young player has gone on a religious rant. And this was not an opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune. It was just a piece which is, yeah, its own commentary. But what do you make of all this? Do you think this is gonna turn into something legal?
- [47:20]
John Stonestreet
Well, I know a lot about basketball. I don't know a lot about Jaden Ivey. I don't know a lot about his talent. And there's clearly a. When you talk about professional athletes, there's this math problem of, okay, how much trouble are they and how good are they? Because if they're really good, then you'd take a whole lot more trouble. And I think, for example, of Anthony Edwards, who is one of the most prolific scorers and offensive forces in the game, and he did say directly homophobic things last year and, or things that would have in any other context been considered homophobic. I'm not even sure what always what homophobic means, but, but, but, but, you know, basically it's, hey, don't do that. And then you move on because, you know, he's Anthony Edwards. He's the ant man. He's. He's the guy that's going to drop, you know, you know, 35 consistently on the other team night after night after night after night and take his team to the Western Conference finals. And maybe beyond that this year, you just, you can't come up with any other narrative here than it's a balance between how good are you? And how much trouble are. Are you worth? Ivey's a somewhat young player. He's coming off an injury. He has become a very outspoken Christian voice. But, you know, when you drop a person for conduct detrimental to the team, and I think a lot of people have pointed this out, it's really something what's not considered conduct detrimental to the team. You know, physical assault, abuse, drunken behavior, having, you know, as Anthony Edwards does, not just a bad night, posting things on his Instagram, but having, you know, so many children by so many different women. You know, you just kind of what. What counts as conduct detrimental to the team. So I, I don't know enough about Jaden Ivey's talent and how all this is kind of playing out in. In reality. I'm not saying that's a good. The good math problem to apply to the situation. I'm just saying that that is the math problem that is a. Applied to this situation tragically, and that it's a lot harder for teams to stomach Christian content than it is for them to stomach immoral behavior. I want to know if other players are going to step up. There are a lot of NBA players that appeal to their faith. There are a lot of NBA players that appeal to Christian teaching. They don't always live it out, but they appeal to it. They appeal to it as an identity. They recognize that God has given them talent and so on, and they're thankful for their faith and for specifically mentioning Jesus Christ. Will they stand up on this? You know, what you had is you had a kind of a slew of NFL players that came out and said this. You might remember that there were a bunch of Russian hockey players that were really clear about what they thought about Pride Month and that kind of put a stop to it in the NHL. But, you know, I don't know. There are Christian coaches, there are Christian owners of NBA teams. What are they going to do? Are they going to support the comments here? That's what's going to be interesting. I think we should support it. What Ivy said was actually true and he quoted scripture. What he said about this was actually right. So are you going to support them or not? I think that's where the question is, and we'll see where that goes.
- [50:46]
Maria Baer
Well done. Before we call it today, let's get to a couple questions. We didn't have a chance to get to questions last week. There was one last week that we were hoping to tackle. Somebody wrote in and just asked, you know, they feel like, on whether it's Breakpoint this week or the daily breakpoint commentaries, that they tend to be negative. Why is Breakpoint negative all the time or most of the time? I want to give you a chance to respond. Is it because you're cranky?
- [51:14]
John Stonestreet
Yes. I mean, there's no question. It's because it's cranky. There's no question because when you do podcasts or stories like this, the negative stories are more titillating and they're more exciting and that sort of stuff. I'm sure that's part of it. I also don't think it's fair. I mean, I think we talk a lot about wonderful Christian courage, stories of courage. The Truth Rising project was full of stories of good news, like the conversion of Chloe Cole and like the faithfulness of Jack Phillips. Now you might say, well, it's negative because Jack Phillips took so much. Well, he did, but it's his courage that is not negative at all. He was dealing in a negative cultural situation and the state of Colorado going after it. We started the show this morning. We started the program today with the Kaylee Childs case. That's good news. When we. There are anniversaries, historical of, you know, incredible Christians who made a difference. We have multiple stories on that. So I don't. I don't think it's necessarily accurate to say that. That we're so negative all the time. Maybe the stories we choose here often are negative. But, you know, like I said, we. We began with the positive. I don't think, though, this question about let's be positive, because I don't think let's be positive is realistic. Redemption is realistic. Courage in the face of hardship. That's good. And I think that what the Bible calls us to is hope, truth and hope. So we want to tell the truth, and we want to be people of hope and man. I tell you there are hopeful stories that we should talk about. Please send them in, because we look for them. We intentionally think about, man, this is a heavy week. Or this is one story after another after another. I think even talking about, obviously, the resurrection, that's negative because it's based on the crucifixion, which was awful, but it's hope. And hope is better than being positive. I don't think it's a question of positive or negative.
- [53:13]
Maria Baer
Okay, I want to read another question. This one says, I love to hear you comment on a biblical framework for friendship. What is a good Definition for true friendship. Why should Christians value it from a cultural perspective? Why do we need friendship right now? How does the Christian faith and the story of the Bible connect to this concept? Also, I believe that our culture devalues friendship to a harmful extent. But I want to balance that with the fact that our culture devalues relationships in general. I want to tell my audience that we should value friendship without undervaluing marriage, family and charity. Great question.
- [53:54]
John Stonestreet
That's a really thoughtful question from a young man named Jensen who wrote in it was a longer letter. So thanks, Jensen, for this. I think first of all, you didn't ask one question, you asked six, and that's really important. So let's start with a good definition for true friendship is Jesus Christ. That's clearly where the Bible lands us. One John in particular talks about this love that we have. There's not a greater love than laying down your life for your friend. So this is a way that the Bible sums up the redemptive way of thinking about the created relationships that God gave us with other people. And we know from Jesus own teaching that it's not just lay down your life for your friend, but it's also who is your neighbor. Right? Because Jesus adds that dynamic. So it's self sacrifice. It's doing it for the good of the other. And yes, it's built into the fabric of the universe in creation and is one of those things through which we are supposed to exemplify what Christ did on the cross and in the resurrection. That's our example of how we should care for one another. Christians should value it because Jesus valued it. Christians should value it because Jesus is the ultimate example of it. Christians should value it also because it was a created aspect of who we are. More than that. More on that in just a second. From a cultural perspective, why do we need it? Well, for two reasons. Number one is the sexual revolution sexualized so many other relationships. We've seen this cultural impact, particularly among young people, which are told, you know, and this kind of takes us back to the first story of the program in which we were talking about the Supreme Court decision. You know, I mean, young people are told that, oh, if you're acting this way, you must be fill in the blank. And honestly, over the last decade that's been, you must be gay or you must be trans. So the sexualization of affection has made a lot of young people think, hey, this must be who I am. Maybe I don't know, you know, maybe I don't. Maybe I'm different. Maybe I'm this. This person. And so we've highly sexualized most relationships on one hand. And then of course, this appeal to autonomy. Autonomy is take care of yourself, take care of yourself, take care of yourself. That all other relationship should revolve around you prioritizing your. So that's why culturally, friendship is so rare. This, we talked about this on a number of levels. Not just friendship, but also family. Then if something is hard, we call it toxic and we say you need to free yourself from it. It's just lost. The Christian faith and the story of the Bible connect to the concept of friendship in two ways. First of all, there's the overarching creation, fall, redemption narrative in which the created relationship with other people is built into the fabric of the universe. It's something that we see broken almost immediately after the fall. And it's part of the restoration according to John, in two ways. As I said, he's our example. This is how you know what love is that you lay. There's no greater friend than someone who lays down his life for another. But also remember that wonderful passage. I think it's. I think it's in John as well, where Jesus says, now you can call me friend. We are his. That friendship is enabled in every single way. That the right understanding of friendship is enabled in every single way by Jesus Christ. That we are his friends and his brother, and we can now call God Father. The last question is, how do you put this in an aspect and restore friendship without undervaluing these other relationships? I think that's a really good question. I think when things are broken, it's sometimes hard to put it back together. I don't think the word is balance, because I feel like when you talk about balance, you're always kind of, well, let's lessen this in order to make this greater than. I just always think balance is the wrong word for these kinds of things. I think it's all in, you know, hey, Father, if you don't take care of your family, you're worse than an infidel. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. And now friendship is fully what God has enabled. Because Jesus has shown us that there's no greater love than a man laid down his life for his friends. In other words, I don't think there's a balance here. I think all of these things are best understood in terms of their created design and intent by God and the role that they play in the creation narrative, how they've been broken, and then that restoration is as big as Creation. So the restoration of all things involves both the upward relationship that we have with God, the inward relationship that we have with ourselves, the outward relationship we have in all of these different contexts, personal relationships, social relationships, and then our role in the planet. So there's a whole talk here, Jensen, and you asked a very big question, and I would love to see some really good thinking on friendship. There are some people that are doing this right now. I think they're on to something really, really important. I think that in some cases, the struggle is understanding friendship in light of these other created institutions, like marriage and like family. I don't want to point to anybody in particular, but there is a. I think a friendship movement that has some theological flaws, but the idea that we need to kind of go back and think about friendship is absolutely right. And you have a lot to offer. If this is the theological area you want to go down and the teaching you want to do.
- [59:47]
Maria Baer
My mom advice is going to be be the kind of friend that you would hope for. That's. That's what Oliver Jensen is.
- [59:53]
John Stonestreet
There you go. That's what sums up all the teaching in the law. The law and the prophets have been summed up for us by that.
- [60:00]
Maria Baer
Okay, John, before we call it officially, are there any Easter recommendations you have for us? Music, something to watch?
- [60:07]
John Stonestreet
Yeah, I gave one earlier. I. I think in terms of the. The. The podcast with Sean and the podcast with. On. With. With Rostout on Bartima, and that if you just want to get into that conversation between Christian morality in Christ, the miraculous side of things. But I'm going to give another one other than go to church, which should be the universal one, not just on Easter, but every day of the year. The resurrection story has been embodied culturally in the country of Nigeria. We have for years now told our audience to start watching for headlines because now, for over a decade, Islamic militants have stormed Christian churches in that country. Not just in that country. We can look at other countries as well. But the Nigerian church in particular continues to show up on these holy days and continues to know that by showing up, they may very well be a target. Tragically, the headlines have already hit this year. There was already an attack on Palm Sunday by Islamic militants. I suspect we'll have others, tragically, during Good Friday and Easter services as well. The rest of us will go to church, not having to worry about that. Our brothers and sisters in Nigeria do. So my recommendation is to pray for them because that's what we're told to do through our persecution, brothers and sisters. So pray for them.
- [61:27]
Maria Baer
Well, that is gonna do it for us this week. Thank you so much for listening to Breakpoint this week. From the Coulson center for Christian Worldview, I'm Maria Baer alongside John Stonestreet wishing you a beautiful and restful Easter. We'll see you all back here next week. God bless.