You're listening to Breakpoint this week. We're talking about the top stories of the week from a Christian worldview. We have a lot to get to this week. We're going to talk about President Trump and forgiveness. We're going to talk about the conviction of Russell Brand.
Does it have anything in common with Chuck Colson? We're going to talk about depictions of certain characters in pop culture, and we're going to talk about the possible connections between critical theory, Marxism, and anti-Semitism.
So, like I said, we really do have a lot to get to this week. We're glad you are with us. Please stick around. Welcome to Breakpoint this week from the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. I am Maria Bear, alongside John Stone Street, president of the Colson Center.
John, our listeners will be so excited to know that we have solved the mystery. We have found, in previous shows, when you denigrated the trombone, it really was me, intrepid producer Bob Ditmer, nailed this down. And I need to. Do you remember what it was? What you said?
Well, I didn't, and then Bob, you know, reminded us.
Okay, so John, it was an analogy. It was an analogy for the uninitiated. John formally apologized to the trombone community. We were talking about Michel Foucault and John Jacques Rousseau, and you said something like, "People should read it in their original languages," or maybe I said that very snobbishly, which I could not even possibly do because it would be French. And you said inviting someone to read Foucault and Rousseau in their original would be like saying, "Hey, come to my third graders' trombone concert." See, I feel like I feel like the emphasis here should be on third grade trombone player.
I didn't say professional trombone player. I think that's fair. I didn't say like the orchestra that did one shining moment for Luther Vandross, right? I said third grade. Listen.
You don't want to be at a third grade violin contest concert. You don't want to be at a third grade piano recital. You don't want to be at a third grade performance of Shakespeare. You know, we all have sat through third grade performances because it's our job, and we all pretended to enjoy it, and none of us did.
So I will go on record. And offend as many third graders as I need to, and apologize to the trombone community. First of all, if there was a genuine third grade play production in original Shakespearean English, I would absolutely go to that. That would be the best play I've ever seen. I have no doubt already.
I want to see that immediately. But in everything else, I rarely, John, come to your defense. But I do have to defend you in this one. My older daughter played something on her violin recently, and I was praising her because it was beautiful. And I was like, "That was so good." And my younger daughter, who's also learning the violin and is doing an incredible job, was like, "Man, if I had tried to play that, it would have sounded bad." So we're all self aware about how this goes.
It takes a long time to master an instrument.
So yeah, third grade is a definitely important qualifier for your denigration of the trombone. But still, trombone players rise up. We respect you. All right, let's get into the show.
So John, this week there's been a lot of noise, deserved, about the interview that Ross Douthat conducted with President Trump on 60 Minutes, and. This was incredible to watch for many reasons. I loved watching it first and foremost as an interviewer. Ross Douthat was absolutely incredible—just curious and inquisitive, and calm and respectful, but also asking really interesting and hard-hitting questions. But one of the questions he asked that's gotten a lot of attention is whether President Trump.
Has forgiven his enemies, or would consider forgiving them? And the way Dothit phrased it was, you know, picture: you have died, and you are standing before the judgment seat of God. Can you forgive your enemies? Because we all know Trump has been quite outspoken about his enemies and who he considers an enemy, and how passionately he feels anger towards them. And he he basically said no.
And you wrote about this this week in a break point commentary. And we actually got a question from someone after you shared your commentary, because I think you really helpfully laid out the theological case for why we must forgive our enemies. But somebody asked, "What does it actually look like practically?" And I wondered if you wanted to expand on that for us. Yeah, and I think at some level. It's a case by case thing, but I was just struck by of all the fascinating parts of this interview.
I agree, by the way, that Dalph is the best interviewer in America. He's just stellar, and I will say that his New York Times podcast, which he left to go to sixty minutes. Is nowhere near what it used to be. I went back and looked at it after you told me that, and I lasted twenty seconds. Yeah, it's painful.
It's just not even close. And maybe maybe it would be more interesting if you didn't know what you lost. But anyway, I'll leave it at that. I think it says so much about our culture right now. I'll get to I'll get to the question, but I think it says so much about our culture right now.
That of all the things they talked about, you know, incredible scope and swath of topics that they covered. That this is the thing that most people are talking about, right? I think that says so much about our culture. I think it says so much about the human condition, and that's what struck me. And one of the things that I talked about in my commentary about it is how many people expect other people to forgive without ever forgiving.
I actually appreciated the president's candor. He came down on the wrong side of forgiveness. There's no question about that. The Bible's not ambiguous about that. We need to forgive.
That the forgiveness that we have from God is inseparable from the forgiveness that we show others. That we have to forgive because we have been forgiven. Jesus told a parable about that. That was pretty pretty darn clear, you know. That we have the power to forgive others because God forgave us.
One of the places that spent the whole time talking about this interview on this particular part of the interview, forgiveness, was a CNN program called, typically hosted by Abby Phillip, but she's having a baby, so they have another host and Cornell West, the Protestant liberal, progressive political activist, kind of in the. You know, tradition of black liberalism just articulated it. I thought, well, I don't usually go to Cornel West for theological clarity, but he nailed this one. I was listening, going. That's exactly right, and he just said, "Look, I don't have the power to forgive anybody.
You don't have the power to forgive anybody. No one forgives their enemies." When Jesus said, "Forgive your enemies," it was bizarre. It was wild. It was over the top. You you you forgive your family, you forgive your friends, but not your enemies.
And the only source for that is the grace of God shown in the forgiveness that you have experienced.
So, I just the fact that all of this stuff is being talked about on a national stage, I think is Absolutely terrific! We are hosting our Colson Center National Conference next June, early June, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we're framing the whole thing around wisdom. Which the kind of way that the Bible talks about wisdom is this kind of applied worldview, right? And the Bible uses that language, and we're going to have a whole session on forgiveness. As as a way of wisdom, because it is distinctly and uniquely Christian.
Other worldviews don't have forgiveness baked in. Christianity does from the very beginning, and it's super hard, as I said in the commentary, somewhere between difficult to impossible, depending on who we're talking about, and we all struggle with it. There's no there's no question. I thought about it when I saw the clip on on a couple of of points. From the interview, because during the Trump years, I don't want to say this carefully, but I think it's actually something worth bringing out.
I'm not going to say name names or anything like that.
Someone who's been particularly hard on the president, his moral failings, immediately jumped on you know this clip where the president said he couldn't forgive, and rightly so. Twice. This person has yelled at me because of one of my friend's support for the president in public, twice, and I think about that. and And you just, I thought it at some level was refreshing that there was just like this stubbornness. I think it's wrong that the president refuses to forgive.
I think it's directly connected with something he said in 2015, where he said he didn't need to ask for forgiveness. Think about this inherent connection between. God's forgiveness and our ability to forgive, and I I thought it was interesting this week. The other most talked about story, of course, was the the the the incredible fall of the CEO of Nvidia for infidelity, and the president defended his character because he said he's a really good stand-up guy and. He didn't know she was a spy.
In other words, it didn't have anything to do with the infidelity, which was kind of almost expected. It was just because this person was a spy, and that.
So, listen, the the moral framing is just bizarre sometimes coming from the president. But the the out front and kind of clear like rejection of the idea of forgiveness tells you a lot. But most of us are hypocritical about it. Most of us expect it in others, and we don't expect it in ourselves. Does does that make sense?
I I I just there's something about that that I think is worth mentioning, because the Bible does hold us to an incredibly high standard, and it has to do. Because of the actions of God, the Christian worldview does not begin with the actions of people towards God. It begins with the actions of God towards people. First of all, revealing Himself to us, and secondly, you know, well, first of all, creating us. Secondly, revealing Himself to us, and then communicating His moral expectations, and then helping us meet those moral expectations.
In Christ Jesus, and you put all that together, and that's why Christianity is such a bizarre worldview. It's so different than all the others. Yeah, I think also practically speaking, you have to look at forgiveness in terms of what you can control, and you know what we are entrusted with controlling is our own pride and our own minds, in as much as we can.
So. I think of forgiveness as something that it's you laying down your right to vindicate yourself. I guess in thought or imagination or in reality. And so, I think you're exactly right that there are times when it's actually impossible. And I, I always come back to the man saying to Jesus, "I believe.
Help my unbelief." I think if you can come to the Lord and say, "I know consciously and believe that I am should forgive and I'm supposed to forgive, and that you've forgiven me," please help me do it because. You know, there is a case by case. Like, do you does this mean just pretending it never happened and inviting a person, you know, to maintain a relationship with you? If it depends what it was. If it's a slip up and you know that they didn't mean it, or you know, it it completely can run the whole gambit on whether or not you actually invite a person back into your life or whatever.
But I do know that in every case, we're not allowed to rehearse. You know, getting justice in our minds, like fantasize about saying the exact right thing, or punishing this person the way you think they deserve, or hoping that it comes back to bite them, or those that kind of resentment is letting go of that resentment is part of forgiveness. It really is a you thing. It depends on what's in your ability to control. And even now, I hear a lot of arguments culturally of like you you can forgive people if they're really sorry, but I don't think that's right either.
That's certainly not in the Christian Bible. Doesn't seem to go there at all, does it? No. Yeah. And that's that's hard too.
There's a difference between forgiveness and justice and appropriate punishment and who's who's right. It is to meter out the punishment, and all of that is is a complicating are complicating factors in relationships. But forgiveness is its own thing, and I think it's mostly focused on the person doing the forgiving. You know, I I love the question. Like, what does this practically look like?
Like, how do I know? Because All of us have been in that situation where someone's offended us to the degree that we have to forgive them over and over and over. You know, I think some of us have had an experience where we asked for that help. That help came, and the forgiveness was just kind of immediate, and we moved on. But then other relationships are are a lot more complicated, or maybe not more complicated, but it it takes this kind of repeated choice to forgive over and over and over.
The first thing that struck me when I read the question again, which I thought was fantastic. Was Jesus answer that question with stories? You know, he didn't really just. I mean, there was kind of some definitive statements like, "How many times do I have to forgive?" Seventy times seven, which of course isn't an exact number. It's a yeah, you got to forgive a lot, dude.
You know, over and over and over, because how many times has God forgiven you? And again, we have that connection.
So the answer to that question is always. How has God forgiven you? You got to get as close to that as possible, which you can't do because you are a sinner and you have to have God's help. And it's repeated, and then you have these stories. You know, like, well, who's my enemy?
Who's my neighbor? What if I've been forgiven and I don't forgive? And that's the story that I alluded to or pointed to in in in the commentary. Look, I'll say two things. Since Jesus told stories, I'll just tell stories.
Two quick ones. I struggle with forgiveness. I do. I I'm a hypocrite. I hold people to standards that I don't hold myself to.
I that's that's this this struggle that I think that Cornell West was talking about. Maybe that's why it hit me so directly when he talked about it the way that he did.
Someone who certainly has incredible critiques of the president for. I just thought that was a stunning moment when he said that. He talked about he's a gangster and Donald Trump's a gangster, but Jesus helps him not be a gangster. You know, only his Cornell West. He said it was so charming.
He was like, "I'm a sinner with gangster proclivities." Yeah, that's. There's there's a lot of description in there. I think a lot about forgiveness in terms of someone who hurt me deeply, coming right out of college. And for four years, I was bitter. I was really bitter at this person.
I won't give to all the details. And you know, you kind of dream of what you'd say to this person. There were a few interactions where I bit my tongue rather than say what I wanted to say to this person. And four years later, this person came to me and apologized just directly. I'm sorry.
And it was almost like I was in a tunnel. You know, you watch those movie scenes where someone's in a tunnel and this other person's talking, and the other person's lost in their thoughts.
So it just kind of becomes like Charlie Brown's teacher. You know, that's literally how that conversation went. And I go back. Home that night, and I'm I'm I'm just lying in bed thinking about this, just reeling really, because I literally got what I wanted for four years, and I didn't feel better. I was gonna, I'm, I was like, I'm gonna guess that it was not what you were hoping.
No, and then I realized, oh, it's up to me. Like I've got to forgive, and so I called this person back and. Clearly expressed forgiveness, and then I was like, "Shoot, I could have felt better four years ago," you know. And so, what this four year punishment wasn't this other person; it was me. You know, I will say this, and my my guess is, I'm interested here what you you have to say about this.
The other story that I'll tell is the the biggest struggle that I have for forgiveness now is for my kids. If I think my kids have been mistreated, and I do, and one there, there's one thing that rises above all the others, and and and when I read the question, what does it actually look like? I know what it looks like for me. I don't know what it looks like for one of my kids because. I've got a responsibility to help her walk through, and and honestly, I've I've helped her walk through, and I think she probably has reached a place where I has it, I haven't in terms of forgiveness.
But that just that to me is a whole other level of hard.
So there's a couple things that rings to mind. I think my kids are extremely instructive in all things spiritual for me, as I'm sure they have been for you and every parent, because. Just in an abstract way, thinking about forgiveness, my my children could do almost anything to me. I think they could do anything to me, and I would always forgive them. I I can't imagine a time when I wouldn't.
And I think that that's what we should aspire to in others, like like how we feel towards others. Children are easier. If if another kid is being mean to my kid, I have an easier time of feeling at least compassion for that kid because I can think of them as a vulnerable kid too. I don't know that I've had an interaction where an adult has wronged my kids, and I could see how that would be that would feel impossible. I mean, even imagining it feels impossible to me.
But I think that part of wisdom is. Knowing at least in the abstract what you should do or what you're called to do, and then forcing yourself to do it, even if and when you don't feel it, and then asking the Lord to help you feel it, because you—that's the part that you can't control—is what you feel, but you can control your behavior, right?
So I guess faking it, pretend you forgive them, do what you think you would do if you had forgiven them, and then see if it comes. I guess last spring. I was assaulted, and I know I've I've shared this with you. I don't want to go into details about it, but I was assaulted by a man, and the the police were involved. A stranger, and you know the police were involved.
And I've thought about like what forgiveness would be like for this.
Now there was no, there's been no justice, I guess, in the sense that this person was not caught. Like it was caught on camera, but they haven't caught him, and. I think I've gotten to the point where it's been like six months now, where I just don't think about him, and I did for a long time because it was really scary, and I do I do still feel scared when I'm alone. Or when I go running on the trail or whatever, I um, there's definitely lasting impacts in that way. But for a while after it happened, I was like rehearsing what I would love to have happen.
I'm imagining like the police just swarming this guy's house, and they found him finally, and he's going to face a judge, and he's going to feel really embarrassed. and And that was cathartic for me, but I don't think that was healthy. And I I could see a a version of My life, where I just do that all the time and I never stop, but that wasn't making me feel any better or any safer or anything like that. And I do think with with Jesus' help, I've reached a point now where I just don't think about it. And I don't know if that's forgiveness.
Like I, I feel that if I ever saw this person, I would feel really angry and I would want him to know how he made me feel, and I would want, frankly, to make him feel the same way, even though I don't think I could, but. As as far as close as I can get now is just not thinking about it, and that feels like at least part of the process. Do you agree? Yeah, I do think forgiveness and restitution, or forgiveness and even restoration, which I fully think is the end goal of the gospel, forgiveness though, which is what we're asked. I'm not sure that always means like we have to have a relationship as if the deep harm never happened.
I think. That's where it gets difficult to impossible. I do think, when you get past wishing harm on somebody, when you get past wanting to have your say, there's a way of, and and some of these I think the the break is so deep, that, and and the expectation is that you don't. Dwell on it. You you don't you know wish harm to the other person.
That that to me looks an awful lot like forgiveness. But then I I turn around and I think about some remarkable stories. Tom Torrance, the former white nationalist racist, and who firebombed a Jewish meeting, and his story of becoming fully reconciled with the people that that he hurt. Chuck Colson, after his conversion, I think about you know the church members of Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina and what they did to reach out and forgive Dylan Roof for the Amish mothers who went and loved on the wife of the man who killed their daughters at the Amish school twenty or so years ago. Corey Ten Boom has an incredible story of meeting one of the guards that abused her and her sister during the Holocaust, and how he responded to her and how she responded to him.
But we control what we control, and we can't do any of that control without the power of the Holy Spirit, without accepting that forgiveness. And it's still hard as all get out, you know.
So, I know, you know, I know we're at the end of this segment, but my guess is the guy's going. You never answered my question, and I, I want to say, I, I, I think t here is a little bit of situational dependency here. Who, who we're talking about? What's the nature of the relationship? And I think Jesus answered it with a whole lot of anecdotes and a whole lot of stories.
And when you start going deep on that. You realize how desperately you can't do it on your own, anyway, and that's what the answer looks like. All right.
Well, let's take a break, John. We'll be right back with more BreakPoint this week in just a moment. The deadline to save up to fifty percent on your CCNC 2027 ticket is almost here. Register by November 30th to lock in our lowest price. God has called you to this confusing cultural moment, but He's also promised to give wisdom generously to all who seek it.
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I have a good segue here. We were just talking about forgiveness, asking for it, offering it, when and how. There was a high-profile case of actor comedian Russell Brand, who's who was sentenced this week to ten years in prison for sexual assault. And I think we've talked about him in the past a few times because he's had such a strange journey in the public eye, including in the last few years, claiming to have become a Christian, which I hope he has. I don't know, and sort of becoming a little bit of like a political theoretician.
I don't know how to understand exactly his career, but somebody did write in and ask us, which feels poignant for you and I to discuss: Could Russell Brand be the next Chuck Colson? By which they ostensibly meant, you know, somebody who gets into trouble, you know, runs into the law, and then turns his life into service to the Lord. What do you think? You know. I wanted to talk about this because of the Chuck Holmeson reference and because of the theme of forgiveness over the course of the week.
As it's been, the the details here are so salacious and horrible that it's not something. This isn't really even as much about Russell Brand. I guess I think that. It's been really strange to watch people respond to his conversion, then respond to these allegations, then respond to these this conviction, and basically jump on either side, you know, as people tend to do for completely political reasons, which isn't where any of this needs to go, you know, as it is. It's not about offering a legitimate critique of whether or not.
The guy is now converted. There were plenty of questions about Chuck Colson's conversion back in the day as well. Is he just doing it for political gain? Still and remain, yeah. People still, yeah.
Well, yeah. I mean, which is crazy. After 35 years of service, and then he dies. The New York Times. That is a long con.
We're not sure whether his really long con is conversion was legit. I think a lot about C.S. Lewis's observation about you know, well, this guy claims to be a Christian, and yet I know Hindus and Muslims that are better people than him. What do you say to that? As if it undermines the credibility of Christianity.
And Lewis said, "Well, the problem is, is that we're talking about individuals.
So who's to say that this?" Christian would not be even worse if he were not in Christ, and who's to say that the Hindu would not be way better if he were in Christ, right?
So it's hard to actually make an apples to apples comparison. But I I I thought about a couple things. Number one is is how different the sin that Russell Brand and and and Chuck Colson or the life that they were converted from. Chuck Holston used to talk about this a lot. How committed he was as a person who kind of grew up blue collar, who always kind of had a chip on his shoulder, who was a Marine, once a Marine, always a Marine.
And he talked about going into the White House.
So committed that politics corrupted so many people, but it would not corrupt him. And so, when he received gifts, he would take them down to the receptionist. When he he can't he he stopped all of his dealings with his former business partners, so there would be no you know undue political influence. And I remember one time he put it this way: He goes, "I was committed, so committed to never be corrupted by politics. I went to prison.
That's how that's how committed he was." And that tells you a lot about sin, too, doesn't it? And he would often talk about how he rationalized his own behavior out of the greater good, and then realized later just how wrong he was. And that's where his wonderful line came. You know, there's no limit to the human capacity for self-rationalization. We just will go all out to do it, and that's the nature of sin.
That's a very different life than. Russell Brand, whose career kind of launched out of the '90s nihilism, and there was really a moment in cultural history in the '90s. And if you remember, everything was going great, but Alanis Morissette was singing about how hard it was, and the grunge movement, kind of "Rage Against the Machine," you know, kind of mentality. You had the, you know, arrival of a television show called Beavis and Butt Head, where you had That was just a cultural phenomenon for a while, where two guys just sat around and hit smash frogs with baseball bats. This was all animated for people who don't know, just and having no aspirations.
Literally, there was an article. It was a stunning article. I think it was published in Time. Actually, I think it initially started at the Harvard Crimson by the president of the Harvard student body, who talked about the new rebel. And he compared the rebel of the '90s with the rebel of the '60s.
The '60s was kind of James Dean, cigarettes rolled up in your white T-shirt, tough guy, bucking against authority. I'm better than you. You're nothing. I'm something. You know this whole I've got something to prove kind of mentality.
And the '90s rebel, he said. Was nihilism? It was. It was a nihilistic form. It wasn't.
I am something, and you are nothing. It's you are nothing, and neither am I. And he pointed to the music of Eminem, which was all this kind of like everyone's an idiot kind of approach, and certainly this Beavis and Butt Head show, and that was Russell Brand comedy. That was the show by Johnny Knoxville, you know, which is four friends beating themselves up and doing stupid things just to get laughs, right? There was no meaning.
There was no purpose. Everything was absurd. Treat it all as absurd, and it's easy to see that you know in kind of ancient, not ancient, but you know, classic works of literature or Albert Camus or you know something like that. But it had become pop culture, and Russell Brand emerged out of that, and he behaved that way. If there really is no right and wrong, up and down, you know, and.
It's interesting how our culture had changed so dramatically from this hard work '70s that Chuck Colson really was emblematic of, you know, basically the struggle between good and evil, to the to the '90s where there is no right and wrong, no up and down, and I'm not, certainly not letting Russell Brand or Chuck Colson off the hook. Because they were products of their culture, which all of us are in some way. But you know what it was that brought Chuck Colson to Christ? The consequences? It wasn't.
He came to Christ before going to prison. Tell me. It was a colleague reading out of mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis's piece on pride. The opening chapter of Born Again is Chuck Colson going through the re-election party for Nixon, which he had engineered.
As a kind of a popular, it was a landslide, right? And he's like, "What am I going to do now? I mean, what do you do when you reach the pinnacle of everything that you've worked for in your thirties? What do you do next? You feel empty.
You feel lost." I think there's no question that Russell Brand was empty and lost, and I. But it was a it it was kind of a completely different kind of thing. I I don't know. There's a lot of ways to fall down. G.K.
Chesterton said, "There's only one way to stand up straight." So I see those two things being pretty different. The other thing, and and I think the jury's maybe still out on this one because God can get our attention through a prison sentence. He can get our attention through a C.S. Lewis. Uh, you know his his statement on pride, but.
Chuck ended up going to prison because they asked him to do a plea deal and admit to something he did not do. He did not do that, but he actually pled guilty to something they weren't accusing him of, and that is what he ended up going to prison for. It's an interesting thing because there was a level of repentance and humility that was there. I'm not sure you see the same thing in Russell Brand. I'm not up close and personal.
I got no thing, but I've got no insider information there. But I do think that there's something about Chuck Colson's example that's worth holding up as the norm, even though if the sin's different, the fallenness is different. The example of what it means to be forgiven, which takes us again right back full circle to our first segment. These are really interesting and important conversations, and and I think that today, with you and you've talked a lot about this. Abigail Schreier kind of started this conversation about the hyper therapy of our culture.
A lot of times, conversion is proven by peace or by feeling better about oneself. Do you know what I mean? Like it's even sold conversion to Christ. It's like find everything you're looking for, fill the God shaped vacuum, and all that is legitimate. There's no question.
You find what you're looking for. You know, to paraphrase you too. For Chuck Holson, though the the the proof and the pudding was was repentance, and I'm not sure we highlight that nearly enough. And I hope that I I think that's biblical. I think that's a non negotiable.
And I hope that's the case here as well. And I have, I think we should hold great hope that that that's the kind of life now that can be led going forward. I've got one more thing to say, but you you look like you you want to jump back in because I I wanted to throw something else in on this, but I've been talking for a long time.
Well, I I wanted to say I I go back to the story of the woman at the well. And I think it's so poignant every time I read it. This sticks out to me that when the woman ran back to her community in Samaria, she didn't say, "Come see the Christ. Come see a guy who talked about living water. Come see the guy who's been healing everybody and doing these." She said, "Come see a man who told me everything I've ever done." And there was there's something meaningful about that.
Like there is a man who knows me and understands me. And the older I get, the more I read Scripture. The more I think that, at least in my life, is one of the most convincing parts of Christianity: is that there is no truer description of my experience of myself and of other humans in the world. Than the Bible, and and I think that's what it sounds like. That's one of the experiences Chuck had reading C.S.
Lewis's piece on pride, which is that he just saw himself in it, and it was so true that it had to be true. It has to be true about everything. I don't. I mean, I don't know a lot about Russell Brand either, but I don't sense that same kind of self awareness in him. At least I haven't in the past.
And I will say a couple things I wanted to say here too. There's something unique about be. Is there something uniquely evil about being a sexual predator? More so, like it's a it's a different kind of evil than other sins. All sins are offenses before the Lord, but there is nihilism, and then there's predation, and they might go hand in hand.
If you don't think that there's such thing as right and wrong, but maybe it's like what we say all the time, which is that when you give into lies, eventually you start. Exerting power, and the people most vulnerable are more vulnerable people: children and women, and weaker people.
So, perhaps there is an outgrowth of nihilism that gets you to the evil of predation, or it's just its own separate kind of thing. That I I don't fully understand, but that's just a part of sin nature as well. I think like I always bristle at the I I see it and I feel it too. Like, but the comparison that like let's look at Alanis Morissette in the '90s and people whining about their troubles when the world was relatively evil or relatively easy at that point compared with prior generations. Because I I feel that too.
I'm like you know, like 50 years ago, 18 year olds were going to war, and now you're you know you're talking about the struggles of your crush not reciprocating feelings or whatever. It seems silly and embarrassing, but. the The feeling of meaninglessness is really profound and can and is truly and deeply felt by people. And I think we can see that even now, like the crisis of meaninglessness in our age, which is also relatively comfortable, you know, compared with the forties or compared with the Civil War or the days of the pioneers in our country. It is relatively easy, but people are killing themselves.
Like we have a we have a real crisis on our hands of people being able to deal with modern culture, and that's that's real.
So there is a depth of feeling, and I I think nihilism is is dangerous for that reason because people were made for a purpose and for truth, and to think that nothing matters. Can lead you down a path that is extraordinarily dark and evil, which is again why one of the reasons that my husband always tells our girls that it is a superpower to really care about things, and he means to care about things like the trombone. Like I'm, I'm half kidding, but to find something that you love and that's beautiful and that you can get passionate about and that you can excel at and spend time. On loving, even if for not for an economic purpose or anything else, but just for the sake of loving and caring about something, that is a central part of being human. That I think the '90s, to paint a broad brush, made seem uncool, but it actually is really important.
Yeah, that's. There's an aspect of, at least in philosophical history, of meaninglessness that leads to despair, and meaningless that leads to predation or power. That's the the way that nihilism went. That's the way that nihilistic philosophy went.
So I guess it would make sense that it would go both of those directions in popular culture and in even in individual expression. And I think that that superpower that your husband talks about is exactly right. And I think that the the hollowness is that our culture has told us to find meaning in all these individual things, while also saying that ultimately there is no meaning. In other words, yeah, it's one thing to find meaning because it actually exists. It's another thing to say go find meaning because it doesn't exist and you have to invent it.
To paraphrase that wonderful book, "The Way of the Modern World," when you put the weight of the world on people's shoulder, it's just too heavy for them. God gave us the kind of world, you know that that that it is. Oh, I also wanted to share that. Did you know that John? I'm sure you don't know this because we swim in different circles.
But Johnny Knoxville's wife is now like a sort of self help. Philosopher lady in the female podcast space. I bet you didn't see that coming. There's a joke here about what she needs help with. Careful.
No, no, no. I, I, I don't. I don't even want to condemn whatever's happening happening there. I think Christians are supposed to be helpful for people. Sure.
And that's the the idea. I. Oh, here's what I was. I was the rabbit trail. I was going to go down just a little bit.
Is again forgiveness what it looks like to forgive oneself to be forgiven by God? What that looks like in in terms of driving us to forgive others. I mean, this is just kind of you know like learning Latin right now. It is so far outside the norms of our culture. I guess I'm being struck more and more that it's why I wanted so badly to talk about this as part of our Colson Center National Conference, which, by the way.
The early bird pricing is almost over, so make sure you sign up if you want to come.
Now's the time to do it. It's filling up pretty fast. We we have some spots remaining, but not very many. It's amazing how how much fun we have with all these folks. But this is going to be a tough session, I think, because it is so foreign.
I think even within the Christian world, the Christian podcasting world, the Christian Commentary world, the Christian, you know, formerly known as Twitter, ex-posting world, the the Christian discernment ministry world, you have this strange mix of people who have public balls, and don't think they need. To be forgiven, that there needs to be a season of restoration and so on, that they have every right to jump right back into whatever pulpit or whatever position of influence that they have, and then you have this other group. Maybe some of them have been harmed.
Some of them certainly have, and I think that changes things. But nothing is ever enough, and and that's whether you're talking about a party. That is themselves guilty of something, or that they hang out, or there's you know, with people that are associated with people that actually did the harm. I'm thinking of some specific stories here, and the idea is, is well, no, they can never be forgiven, never be forgiven, never be forgiven, and you know, one side. Thinks that nothing can disqualify them.
The other side thinks that they are have the kind of ability to disqualify somebody else all over the place. And I, I just think we we need to be extremely extremely careful from that. But I think it's a reflection more deeply of the worldviews that dominate our culture, which are you know secularism and this critical theory mood that we talk about. A lot that we're influenced by these things and these worldviews do not have forgiveness in them anywhere. Right?
There's not a category for forgiveness. At very best, you get some popular expressions of forgiveness, which is so you feel better. Right? It's all about you. It's not about anything ultimate or critical theory.
What you're guilty of is things that you can't change anyway. You're guilty of things. What gives you moral status, or what makes you morally responsible, are things that you're born into.
So, what does it look like to repent of that? And what does it look like to have forgiveness of that? I mean, it's just these are categories that that don't exist. And I think that popular kind of Christianity, evangelical Christianity in particular, is it is showing an awful lot of signs of being far more influenced by these other worldviews. Because forgiveness is so odd, even in our space, and man, ours is the space where it should be front and center.
Breakpoint listeners, my name is Billy Hutchinson, director of Colson Educators. Living with wisdom means looking at the unique challenges of our cultural moment and being ready to apply God's word to specific situations. In our moment, that means being clear on sexuality and gender. If you are ready to go deeper, so that you can equip the next generation with truth, I am excited to let you know that two new courses have been added to the Colson Educators platform: Grounded, a course for educators on identity and sexuality, and Understanding Gender Ideology, a formation course for educators. Sign up today at colsoneducators dot org.
That's colsoneducators dot org. There was a report that just got released from the House Committee on Education and Workforce that was looking into anti-Semitism in K through 12 schools. These were in public schools, and it found a rather alarming rise in not only anti-Semitic things being taught in schools, such as you know excusing violence or blaming Jewish people. As a people, for certain things, but also a rise in critical theory and Marxism. And I think you, when you and I were chatting yesterday, you brought up just the the sheer force of the fact that these three strange things are coupled together.
Should be maybe instructive for us. I think the word you are looking for there is "thruppled" together. Do not. I will never say that word. That's a that's it's a real word.
Unfortunately, it's it's a word that now exists and tells us a lot about the the age. I mean, look, Marxism and critical theory are absolutely intertwined, right? That's not a surprise that there is a A social Marxism, right, and ideological Marxism, whereas historic Marxism was primarily about economics. But applying those that same structure, that same way of thinking about oppression and oppressed, I mean, that actually makes sense. The odd third wheel to this, which doesn't necessarily immediately make sense, is the anti-Semitism.
Why is it that Marxism? And critical theory are joined almost in so many different places by anti-Semitism, which I have to say really quickly. I was asked last week to give a defense, basically, of my faith, and the first thing I said was what I said in the last segment, which is, you know, the Bible is the description of you, and that that is you can't ignore it. It's the most accurate description of human nature that you will find anywhere. But the second thing I said was.
I can no longer be convinced against the spiritual force behind antisemitism. It is the most pervasive, long-standing, like enduring.
Social movement of humankind, and it makes no sense outside the Bible story. But go ahead.
Well, in the horseshoe theory, right? Why does the far left and the far right agree on this one point that the people to blame for what's wrong with the world is this group of people? And I think you're right. There's an ideological plus spiritual, and I think the Christian story of the world doesn't separate those two. Right?
You don't have to say that there are spiritual powers that are working against, and oh, they're also bad. Ideas.
Sometimes the bad ideas are the spiritual powers, and the spiritual powers work through the bad ideas. I think particularly in a secular age. But every worldview answers a number of fundamental questions. One of those questions is, "What's wrong with the world? What's wrong with the world?" And most worldviews answer that question with some version of "the Jewish people." Not well, them.
Yeah. All right.
I'll I'll get to that. I think if you look through the history of the world, the answer to that question is them. Them. They're what's wrong. It's never me.
That's what makes Christianity so weird. Is as G.K. Chesterton once responded to a newspaper request to answer that question, "What's wrong with the world?" He said, "I am." Christianity says the problem is inside the human condition, not inside society, and always them.
Now, when you add then to that question and the tendency that people have to answer that question by pointing fingers outside of themselves to the spiritual dynamics of what God is doing and how Satan is resisting God's plan, then of course the the one of the most destructive things that can be introduced is not just by saying they're the problem with the world, but specifically. This people that God has chosen through which to bring the Messiah is what's wrong with the world. And when Christians start pointing fingers outside of themselves, and we've got a group right now that is very loud, that's very vocal, that's misunderstanding the fall, even while kind of claiming a mantle of theological superiority. And theological knowledge by saying the same thing, they're acting more like secularists. They're acting more like Marxists.
They're acting an awful lot like critical theorists by pointing to this one group of people as if this is the people that are responsible. The oppression oppressor narrative is too simple. The certainly looking at one group of people, particularly the most Systemically, historically oppressed people throughout the history of the world, and saying they're the ones that are the real oppressors—it's a bizarre narrative. It doesn't; the math doesn't add up. Certainly, the theology doesn't add up.
But I—I think it's worth pointing out. Not even so much for this that we're seeing in schools. Of course, we're seeing it in schools. I feel like you and I could talk about schools every single. You know, program, and we probably do because we both have high levels of concern for education and schools, but also that this is the three-legged stool that we're seeing in so many cases—kind of a cultural Marxism expressed through a form of critical theory, whether formal or popular—and.
Then that that is leading to and enabling the rise of anti semitism. I think we need to be looking for that. We need to call it out when we see it. You know, this is just an observation, but I just finished watching a miniseries that was not good. The acting was incredible.
The direction I thought was really good, which I don't usually notice, but the writing was terrible. And the the reason I'm saying that is because it's now considered. Like astute and very highbrow to depict characters who are more than one thing. Like the the main character in this mini series was a guy who's basically a gangster. He's he's robbing.
Other drug dealers, but he's doing it because he's trying to provide for his family, basically. And you're supposed to like feel the tension. You kind of are rooting for him. Like it's at this point, it's so trite, but it feels like it's because we're living in this moment when critical theory and the oppressor oppressed narrative is so powerful that it's now considered like high art, like. Pure poetry to suggest that people are more than one thing.
That people might sometimes be good and sometimes be bad. You could just feel watching this entire miniseries that the writers were very, very proud of themselves for being so nuanced. And so philosophical and so outside of the zeitgeist by suggesting people can be more than one thing, and I found it extremely boring because that's not shocking at all. And I've never found that narrative to be compelling. But it's weird that that's now considered like the the really.
Deep, profound writing now is that kind of thing, but I think that's just a symptom of the age. I want to talk to you about TV, though. I brought that up for a reason, because. There is a new report out from GLAD, and I forget the acronym Gay and Lesbian Alliance. What does that stand for again?
Yeah, I don't remember either. But it's the kind of the dominant LGBT organization behind LGBTQ advocacy. Yeah, exactly. It has been for decades. Yeah, they came out with they have a report every year that's called "Where We Are on TV," and it tracks the number of so-called LGBTQ plus characters across primetime scripted.
Broadcast, cable, and streaming, and it's in a state of freefall. They are quite concerned about this. There's been a huge drop, a 25 percent decline, in depictions of LGBTQ characters. There's been an absolute collapse—that's their word—in the number of transgender characters. I did think it was fascinating that they spelled out here that they were there were seven characters that were so called trans.
Six of them were women, meaning six were men dressing up like women, and one was a woman dressing up like a man. And that this is all in free fall, just like in sports. My argument here is that is the same as when we talked years ago after that really grotesque display at the French opening ceremonies of the Olympics, which is. You can say that you like something and that you approve of something and that something's beautiful, but you can't fake it and you can't force yourself to love or want to look at something that is patently ugly. And people fighting their own bodies, people caricaturing or culturally appropriating the opposite gender, and also people engaging in Homosexuality in front of you is just never going to be pleasing to the eye.
I don't care how progressive you imagine yourself to be; we just don't want to see it. Yeah, I think there's a number of things to get out of this. Number one is clearly the, at least when it comes to pop culture, the the moment has changed, right? Because there was an aspect of this yearly, annual tracking of these things where it went up year after year after year. And it went up not just in number of representations, but it went up in how explicit it was.
Right there was you remember the the so called gay moment in Beauty and the Beast, the live action thing, and it was so subtle, no one noticed kind of thing. And and part of this measure is not just what appears, but how it appears. And then also, are they the good guys or the bad guys? You know, Silence of the Lambs that movie. Which is this is you know obviously not a recommendation, but the movie from the what early '90s, I think, you know, had a representation, but it was very very negative.
And so you know, I think even the actor now has felt required to come out and apologize for being willing to portray the community so negatively. No, so all of these. Oh no, he did not not too long ago. But you put all this together and. It's not just that there's representation; it's it's it's it's how it's represented, and and clearly things have changed.
This is another indication that of the vibe shift on this particular issue, and I also think it's interesting that Open Doors puts out the World Watch List of the Christian community and persecution, and they what they measure. Is how many Christians have been tortured, kidnapped, abused, and killed, and what Glad is measuring, and again using the kind of the terminology or at least the framework of oppression, is whether or not there's representations on television.
So to me, that's a pretty stark contrast. I'll let that sit. And go and move on. That is very profound for several reasons. You're not the way to sit.
I'll let us sit. You won't let us. Don't. I'm not letting it.
Well, but don't underestimate. Like they, it is very smart to be extremely concerned with how they are perceived in pop culture. They know how important that is. But I also want to throw something out, Elsin, before you know some of us who are trying to parent our children and and trying to prevent these norms from being kind of firmly embedded in society and so on as much as we can. But before we pop the champagne bottle just yet, proverbially, of course, because we're Christians.
But before we do that, I want to say. That there's another there's a parallel example, and it's another thing we were going to talk about. I know we're almost at the end of time here, but there's a was a fascinating piece in World Opinions this week wrestling with this kind of explosion. It seems, and that's probably an overstatement of candidates now that have entered the political scene from liberal Protestantism. And the question was, why are the pews so empty from liberal Protestant churches?
But but now they're populating these positions of power, and maybe it's an overstatement because we had two super high profile ones like James Taylor Rico and the the Kansas pastor. But I will say that TV representation is a mark of cultural influence, but it's not the only one. And there's long been a debate in place: Why are liberal Protestant churches so empty? And there's two theories. Number one is because they lost.
Number two is because they won. The first theory is well, they lost, so no one believes them anymore. They've lost their cultural influence. They're going to lose their churches. The second is is you don't they they've won in the sense that they won the culture.
You know, people want a kind of a vague, unshaped view of spirituality that they themselves can be in control of without any sort of moral authority. And you know certainly the need for repentance and and and and redemption, and also let's be nice to everybody, and that's what prozent mainline liberalism offers, and that's also by the way what NPR offers.
So you don't have to go to church when you hear it every other day of the week on NPR. And I think there may be something like that here, where when you look at culture in terms of Various spheres or various power centers. Pop culture certainly one of them. Like it's a big deal that we went from a family centric 1980s to a community friend centric 1990s. That marks something in culture.
It makes a big difference that we went from you know rare, obscure, and grandiose portrayals of. Gay or lesbian actors to mainline, you know, when Will and Grace, for example, in the late '90s, that was one of the most striking parts about it is that Will was the normal one and Grace was the one that always needed help, and that was a different portrayal between, you know, how these characters were portrayed in the past. But it's not the only one, and and and we have plenty of I don't want to say representation or. Whatever the word is, power that's being, I think, wielded in other centers of power in the culture.
So I, I would, I guess, I would just be a little bit cautious of celebrating too much. I do think this is a sign that on a popular level, people are tired of. It being force-fed to us over and over and over. I think people vote with their actual viewing records. It's one thing to post online how happy you are about representation, but people just genuinely don't want to watch it.
And at the end of the day, these networks are truly motivated by what people are watching, and that that's a positive. Like I'd rather not have to explain every other character to my kids when we're watching something. I think you're exactly right. And again, it started showing up everywhere, like Bluey and everywhere else. Yeah, it's like come on.
Fantastic, I I agree. And at the end of the day, Hollywood's about money, like every other industry, and they're gonna make what they're only gonna make so much ideological or you know brave and courageous art, and eventually they're gonna go back to what sells. I mean, and I'll just say to All my point is, is that there are other cultural power centers than pop culture, and I've been on record for years. I started my career in worldview talking about worldview expressed through pop culture and how powerful it is. Right there's the old line that has been attributed to about seventy five different people.
Let me write the songs of a nation, and I don't care who writes its laws. Right, Plato apparently said it.
So did Joseph Fletcher, and I'm sure you know C.S. Lewis did somewhere. I'm just kidding. But everyone gets attributed to C. S.
Lewis. The point is, is that there is something about shaping the cultural imagination that is even more powerful, or can be more powerful than law. But we're in a politically charged moment, and that certainly has become a power center in many ways. I also just think it's indicative that a lot of times, not all the time, but like genuinely gay people. A lot of them, like I'm just you brought up Silence of the Lambs.
Jodie Foster is a lesbian, and I can't think of anyone who seems to publicly care less about that kind. Like I can, I can only imagine how hard she rolled her eyes just from what I know about her as a person. If she heard about the other actor in that movie having to apologize, like there's something to be said for people who are genuinely living that kind of life, but who don't. Care so much like they're not wearing it like a character, I guess. Who don't seem to care quite as much as everybody else.
Jodie Foster and I aren't friends, so I can't speak to that. I love Jodie Foster so much.
Okay, we can't talk about this this week because we're out of time. But I just want to I want to preview it because it fits so great with this discussion.
Somebody wrote in and asked us about Lord of the Rings, and we're talking about pop culture and what messages we're sending. And they're asking about whether Lord of the Rings is okay. Given the spells and the wizards and the everything else that's happening in it, the orcs.
So put a pin in that question because I want to talk about it with you next week. I have to end the show by shouting out Grayson Horner. Grayson is a 17 year old high school junior, John, and he plays the trombone in his high school band, and he would like us to know that. And Grayson, I want you to know. That I have no doubt you are an absolute virtuoso.
That is awesome. The trombone rocks. Becoming excellent at an instrument is an amazing thing to do. Don't listen to John Stone Street. And one reason he's so good at it is he's not in third.
He's not in third grade. I knew you're going to say that. Grayson, thanks for writing in. That made me smile. For everybody else, thanks for listening to Breakpoint this week from the Coulson Center for Christian Worldview.
I'm Maria Bear, alongside John Stone Street. Wishing you all a great week, and we'll see you back here next time. God bless.
