Free Republic

How wide is the line between the right to die and the duty to die? I’m afraid we may find out soon enough. Regular BreakPoint listeners have heard me speak about the impact of declining birth rates around the world. One consequence is that older people comprise an increasing percentage of the population in places like Japan and Western Europe. This increases economic pressures on these countries since an aging population requires more services while having fewer young workers to pay for them. One doctor has come up with a way to address the imbalance between pensioners and workers—that is,...

Chuck Colson has spent a lifetime atoning for his involvement in the Watergate cover-up. The founder of Prison Fellowship has spent more than three decades working with prisoners in more than 100 countries, and he has mentored generations of conservative Evangelical leaders. This month he launched the Chuck Colson Center, an online research and education center that he calls "the Lexis-Nexis of resources on the Christian worldview." The last of the original religious-right leaders still actively engaged with the movement, Colson spoke with TIME about his latest endeavor, why he thinks churches have failed society and the biggest mistake the...

Utilitarianism has a hideous strength when it comes to medical ethics. If even a ghastly procedure can “save lives,” well, who’s to say it’s immoral?   For years, scientists and celebrities supporting embryo-destructive stem cell research have used two arguments. First—blind to the destruction of the embryo itself—they argue embryonic stem cell research will save lives. Second, they maintain that embryos leftover from fertility treatments will otherwise be wasted. Now, one stem-cell expert is using these same arguments to promote harvesting organs from aborted fetuses.Speaking at a conference in March, Oxford University stem-cell expert Sir Richard Gardner commented that he...

According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control, 40 percent of American babies born in 2007 were born to unmarried mothers. That’s up from 34 percent only five years ago. When most Americans hear the expression “unmarried mother,” what nearly always comes to mind is a teenage girl. But that’s not what’s driving the recent increase. In 2007, only 23 percent of the out-of-wedlock births were to unmarried teenagers. The rest were to women in their 20s, and now increasingly, in their 30s. The increase among older women accounts for the six percentage point increase of the...

It seems one man’s religious freedom is another man’s “ridiculous prejudice.” One government official fumed that Catholic doctors were refusing to perform abortions-abortions that were perfectly legal. He wrote in a memo: “After all, these scruples are in most cases nothing but ridiculous prejudices . . . One is tempted to ask: where does state authority come in these cases, or else, is the state, perhaps, not anxious to assert its authority in this particular instance?” Well, Nazi Germany was seldom hesitant to assert its authority, even over religion and individual conscience. As described in the June/July issue of First...

In China, Christians have a choice: Join a government-approved church—which is constantly monitored by the authorities—or join an underground church.Thank heavens things like that don’t happen in the West, you may be thinking. Think again. In Britain, the government has begun sticking its nose in church business, telling churches what to do.According to the Daily Telegraph, starting next year, the British government is going to begin forcing churches and other religious institutions to hire open, practicing homosexuals. It will happen under the provisions of the so-called Equity Bill, which forbids discrimination against homosexuals or transsexuals. The law would “cover...

We’re hearing a lot these days about human rights and social justice—particularly among younger evangelicals, but also among secularists. It’s a good thing that there is a growing concern for the poor and the oppressed around the world. But when the younger generation approaches people like me and tells us that we need to be working for “social justice,” what I tell them is that we’re already doing it. In fact, I believe it’s the single greatest apologetic of the Christian Church. But what makes us different from the secularists, however, is our worldview—especially in our belief in a...

Note: Since recording this script, the fertility clinic in Los Angeles, which announced in February that it would be allowing couples to pre-select embryos based on gender, hair, and eye color, has retracted the hair and eye color pre-selection option due to public outcry. While BreakPoint is encouraged to hear that the company has changed these practices, the issue addressed in this commentary still remains a very real threat—one that Christians should speak out on.For more information you can read the FoxNews article on the retraction and view the clinic's website. Mr. and Mrs. Jones want a baby. They...

Skilled statisticians like George Barna and carefully researched studies from the Pew Reports all show a declining moral climate and a gradual but alarming number of youthful exits from the church in America. Is it chronic, should we be worried? Any writer, preacher, prophet or ordinary live a day Christian worth their salt is calling for America to come to her senses and return to the faith of our fathers. They are not moved by the rhetoric of socialisms priest and preachers whether found in academia, media, Hollywood or political office. They are driven by the proof shown to them...

According to a new study, terminally ill cancer patients who “drew comfort from religion” don’t want to die if they don’t have to. Well, no surprise. But, says the Times, they’re less eager to die than people who don’t draw “comfort from religion.” Well that’s interesting, perhaps, but there is a more important as well as more troubling aspect to the story that’s going unnoticed.The study appears in the most recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston used questionnaires and interviews “to assess the level of reliance on...

In his new book, The Last Goodnights: Assisting My Parents with Their Suicides, lawyer and author John West publicly tells a story that most people would have kept silent. He does it so that one day others may be able to kill openly and without fear. That’s not how West puts it, of course, but I’m afraid that’s what it boils down to. West’s parents were prestigious psychiatrists. As West wrote, “Neither was at all religious, but both had deep insight into the human condition. . . . And they knew what they wanted.” What they wanted was to die...

Last week, what the Washington Post characterized as a “terse posting on a federal Web site” set the stage for a debate on just how seriously our society takes freedom of conscience. The posting announced that the Obama administration was planning to rescind “job protections for health workers who refuse to provide care they find objectionable.” These explicit protections were issued in the last few months of the Bush administration. Under the current provisions, health care providers can lose federal funds if they don’t accommodate health-care workers “who refuse to participate in care they feel violates their . . ....

Those who have embraced the culture of death had much to celebrate during 2008. By “culture of death,” I’m referring to those movements which would advance euthanasia, assisted suicide, abortion, fetal experimentation, and even population control. Let’s take a quick look at the year gone by. I think you’ll see what I mean. In the U.S., voters in Washington state approved the grotesquely named “Death with Dignity Act,” which will allow physicians to prescribe lethal doses of drugs to their terminally ill patients. Washington joins Oregon as the only states (for now) that have legalized assisted suicide. Two down, 48...

The smartest thing “abortion rights” advocates ever did was to coin the phrase “pro-choice.” That shifted our attention towards the act of choosing and away from what was being chosen—the dismemberment of a human being in utero. Eventually, however, at some point, “choice” has to go from mere rhetoric to an actual deed. Somebody has to actually perform an abortion if “freedom of choice” is to become a reality, as one medical student learned recently. The November 23rd issue of the Washington Post Magazine told the story of a medical student named Lesley Wojick. She plans to specialize in obstetrics...

In Michigan, a homosexual man is suing two Christian publishers—Zondervan and Tyndale House—for $70 million dollars. Bradley Fowler claims they violated his constitutional rights and caused him "emotional distress" by publishing versions of the Bible that call homosexuality a sin. In my view, Fowler is suing the wrong party, but perhaps he realizes he is likely to have difficulty hauling the real author into court. While the lawsuit may strike us as funny, we ought to take such attacks on Christian teaching seriously: We are going to see many more of them if same-sex "marriage" is foisted upon us by...

Alice Walker, best known as the author of the novel The Color Purple, is one of the most renowned feminist authors and activists of her generation. She is also a mother, and that fact brought her public and private lives into direct conflict. --snip-- That is because Alice Walker’s brand of feminism was the kind that taught that “motherhood was about the worst thing that could happen to a woman.” So says her daughter, Rebecca, who suffered the consequences of that thinking. In a recent London Daily Mail article, Rebecca Walker reflected on the neglect she experienced with her divorced...

Bathroom Wars By Chuck Colson6/6/2008 Related Audio/Video Downloads Potty Politics Three months ago, I told you about a new law in Montgomery County, Maryland, that demands co-ed locker rooms and restrooms in all public accommodations. The law was intended to accommodate “transgendered people”—that is, men who say they perceive themselves to be women, and women who claim they consider themselves men. I said, at the time, that we would see extremists in other jurisdictions attempting to pass similar laws. And that is exactly what is happening.Last week, Colorado’s legislature passed—and Gov. Bill Ritter signed—a law that will open all...

NEWTON(AP) — State officials say they will end a Bible-based treatment program at Newton prison that has been the subject of a five-year court battle. The Iowa Department of Corrections has notified Prison Fellowship Ministries in Virginia that the program, called the InnerChange Freedom Initiative, will end by mid-March, prison spokesman Fred Scaletta said in a copyright story in The Des Moines Register. Prison Fellowship sponsored a Christianity-based values program for inmates. It had a three-year state contract that ended in June. Prison officials had granted the organization a one-year extension with donations covering the expenses. A provision in the...

In his World Peace Day message, Pope Benedict XVI included caring for the environment as an important part of promoting peace. Nothing controversial about that—environmental degradation has often led to conflict over resources. What was controversial was the Pope’s speaking about environmental issues as if the Christian worldview were true. Benedict told his audience that “respecting the environment does not mean considering material or animal nature more important than man.” This statement should not have been controversial or even noteworthy. As Frank Furedi of the British magazine spiked pointed out, the fact that the Pope “felt it was necessary to...

Have you received one of those letters in the mail—asking you to send money to help wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan? If so, I hope you ignored it—not because I do not care about our troops, but because I do. It turns out that at least two of these charities are run by people who would rather line their own pockets than help veterans. One charity is called Help Hospitalized Veterans. The Washington Post reports that this outfit spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on personal expenses for Roger Chapin, who manages the charity. Richard Viguerie, “to whom the...

What image does the mention of Christmas typically conjure up? For most of us, it is a babe lying in a manger while Mary and Joseph, angels, and assorted animals look on. Heartwarming picture, but Christmas is about far more than a Child’s birth—even the Savior’s birth. It is about the Incarnation: God Himself, Creator of heaven and earth, invading planet earth, becoming flesh and dwelling among us. It is a staggering thought. Think of it: The Word—that is, Logos in the Greek, which meant all the knowledge that could be known—the plan of creation—that is, ultimate reality—becomes mere man?...

One of the really formative experiences in my life was serving as an officer in the Marine Corps. I thought military service was an honorable profession, so much so that I urged my sons to consider military service—even though that was during the Vietnam War. But after what I have been watching the past few months, I wonder if I would urge my grandsons to serve today. One of the most disillusioning moments for me was when the New York Times ran that ad—at a discount, by the way—for MoveOn.org calling General Petraeus “General Betray Us.� This honorable West Point...

In his book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins argues that religious belief is—what else?—delusional. He mocks the irrationality of believing in something that you cannot subject to scientific scrutiny; he rails against the so-called “immorality” of the Bible, like the sanctioning of slavery—untrue—and the alleged way that religion, especially Christianity, stands in the way of scientific progress—also untrue. Just in case his readers are not convinced, however, he then pulls out the really big gun: Religious belief is a kind of child abuse. By “child abuse” Dawkins is not, at least not principally, referring to the scandals involving sexual misconduct...

Since 1782, the Latin phrase E pluribus unum—“out of many, one”—has appeared on the Great Seal of the United States. But what happens when we neglect and even deny the importance of the “one”—that is, cultural unity—and emphasize the importance of the “many”—that is, individuals—which, today, we call “diversity”? As a renowned social scientist learned, nothing good. In his famous essay “Bowling Alone,” published some years ago, Robert Putnam documented our increased tendency to “go it alone,” instead of the civic participation that marked earlier eras. This decrease in “social capital,” Putnam argued, adversely affected American democracy. Putnam’s latest project...

The most memorable moments during the 2002 and 2003 Billboard Music Awards on the Fox television network weren’t performances: They were the remarks made by recipients and presenters. Actually, in both instances it was a single word. In 2002, the singer Cher responded to her critics by using the “f word.” A year later, Nicole Ritchie, who has no apparent abilities of any kind, used a similar word when talking about her show, The Simple Life. The Federal Communications Commission ruled that both utterances were “indecent,” but it did not fine Fox. Nevertheless, Fox appealed the FCC’s ruling. A few...

Quick, what famous event do we commemorate on the Fourth of July? Not sure? A little rusty on your sixth-grade civics? Well, you're in good company. One Gallup poll revealed that one out of every four Americans doesn't know that July Fourth commemorates the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It's a poor patriotism that doesn't even know our national history and traditions. This Fourth of July, let’s ask what it means, in the light of Scripture, to be an American citizen. Patriotism used to be a simple matter. Most of America's traditions were rooted in a Christian heritage. To...

BreakPoint Commentaries Books Summer Treat By Chuck Colson 7/3/2007 BreakPoint Book Recommendations Here at BreakPoint, summer usually means one thing. No, I don’t mean it’s time to go to the beach. I mean it’s time for us to start talking about books for summer reading and sharing our recommendations. After all, what better companion could you have at the beach than a good book? Joking aside, we know that this is the time of year when kids, and we adults as well, often have a little extra free time and are in the market for something good to read. That’s...

Framing Your Worldview New Video Series by Chuck Colson and Rick Warren Christian leaders Chuck Colson and Rick Warren have joined together to produce a stimulating new study called Wide Angle: Framing Your Worldview Our worldview —the way we look at life—impacts everything we do. The moral choices we make; the way we spend our money; the kind of relationships we have; the priorities we set.

Imagine an American president addressing the United Nations and concluding his remarks by praying that God would hasten Christ’s return and unleash the apocalypse. What do you suppose public opinion would be? Well, something even scarier actually happened at the UN last week, and the world said... nothing. That’s because the president in question was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. At the end of his September 21 address to the General Assembly, he prayed that Allah would send “the perfect human being promised to all by you.” That “perfect human being” Ahmadinejad prayed for was the Mahdi, a Shiite messianic figure....

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. In McLean, Virginia, a young mother named Silvia began channel-surfing, looking for something that would amuse her 4-year-old daughter. Up on the screen popped something called “Girl Next Door.” It was a photo shoot for a Playboy centerfold, and it showed women in sexual poses, completely nude, except for portions that were blurred. “It was very clear what was going on,” Silvia relates. She grabbed the remote—but it was too late. Her little girl was already asking questions. The program was not a cable or satellite offering. In fact,...

f all goes as expected at this Sunday’s Academy Awards, Brokeback Mountain will win in the “Best Picture,” “Best Director,” and perhaps even “Best Actor” categories. Even if it doesn’t do as well as expected, the film is already being hailed as a “breakout” event, a kind of cultural watershed of sorts—which it almost certainly is not. By “breakout,” I mean the idea, most famously advanced by New York Times columnist Frank Rich, that the movie would do well in the “heartland,” and that this, in turn, would signal an increased acceptance of same-sex relationships. As USA Today summarized it,...

Ever wonder what Jesus meant when He said, “Let him who has ears, hear?” Well, an experience relayed to me by my good friend R. C. Sproul helps us understand the words of Jesus in today’s culture. Some years ago, Sproul offered a rigorous course in Romans. Two hundred serious disciples signed up. Half-way through the course, Sproul took a week off to enroll in Evangelism Explosion (EE) courses. When he came back, he told his students about EE, including conversation openers like, “Why should God let you into heaven?” On a whim, he asked class members how they would...

By at least a two-to-one margin, Americans think that the country is headed in the wrong direction. To put these numbers into perspective, in the aftermath of September 11, Americans, by a six-to-one margin, thought that we were headed in the right direction. What’s behind this extreme shift? Nobody likes the war much—I understand that. But in many respects, it has gone very well, and we have had no major terrorist attack in America since September 11. It’s fair to say that something’s going right in the war on terrorism. The same can be said about the economy: Unemployment is...

My wife, Patty, and I had a disturbing reminder of why the truth matters when we visited our autistic grandson's special-needs school one afternoon... ... As I was standing in the classroom, alone for a moment, an unwelcome thought came to mind. A question really. Why do we as a society take such trouble with these kids? Why does the school system spend as much as $65,000 per year to tend kids like Max? Max is never going to graduate and go to college and get a productive job. Likely, he will always be dependent on his family and the...

The wrong kind of Prison Fellowship Wahhabism on the Inside Oct 18, 2005by Chuck Colson In August, law enforcement officials foiled a Jihadist plot to attack a synagogue and military recruitment center in Los Angeles.What made the plot especially disturbing wasn’t only the nationality of the organizers—they were native-born Americans of non Middle-Eastern descent—but where the plot was hatched: inside Folsom prison. As the Weekly Standard rightly points out, it’s a perverse take on the idea of “Prison Fellowship.”The organizers were two inmates who converted to Islam while in prison. They recruited thirteen other prison converts into their “holy...

"Lt. Gov. Steele was extremely disturbed to learn about the alleged criminal identity theft of his personal finance records by (a staff member of U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.,) at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

AS SPECIAL COUNSEL to President Richard Nixon Charles Colson was known as Nixon's hatchet man and one of the most hated men in America. After he left the Nixon administration he was caught in the snare of Watergate. Although he was only peripherally involved in the scandal, he pled guilty and served seven months in prison on an attenuated criminal charge related to the Ellsberg break-in.In 1976 Colson published Born Again, a best-selling account of the conversion experience that followed his government service but preceded his incarceration. When Nicholas von Hoffman reviewed the book for the Washington Post that year,...

Why would anyone deliberately turn his or her back on the truth? I found myself asking this question many years ago, after an encounter with America’s most famous atheist, Madalyn Murray O’Hair—a story that I tell in my new book, The Good Life. You probably will recall that it was O’Hair who brought the court case that eliminated official public school prayers in 1963. Mrs. O’Hair and I had been invited to debate the topic of Christianity on David Frost’s NBC variety program. I was aware that she knew the subject well, because she graduated from an evangelical college, and...

Over the past couple of years, evangelicals have taken an increased interest in the environment. You may have read about some of the meetings that have been held recently in Washington. This is a good thing, because evangelicals have often forgotten that we have a stewardship responsibility for all of God’s creation. That means the air we breathe, the water we drink, the wilderness areas we all enjoy. I applaud some of the evangelical leaders who have been pricking our consciences—and some who have been setting good examples by driving fuel-efficient vehicles. But evangelicals need to remember that we are...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. It was a strange coincidence that Terri Schiavo’s ordeal took place during Holy Week. What she went through, and the nation’s reaction to it, taught us a sobering lesson about suffering and redemption. The things that ordinary, sensible Americans were saying about Terri’s case were shocking and upsetting. “Let the poor woman die” was one of them. But Terri was not dying before her food and water were taken away. She simply needed to eat and drink, just like the rest of us. Then there were the various media...

It’s not every day that you hear me praise the United Nations (UN). In my opinion, the organization has an unfortunate tendency to get it wrong on a lot of issues. But with a recent resolution, it has finally gotten something right—and on one of the most important issues of our time. On March 8, the UN approved a resolution that calls for an international ban on human cloning. The resolution seeks to “prohibit all forms of human cloning inasmuch as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life.” The resolution passed only after a long,...

As Yogi Berra once famously said after his teammates, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, hit back-to-back homeruns in consecutive games: “It’s déjà vu all over again.” I’m getting the same feeling about something less awe-inspiring: that is, the way political pros and media types consistently get culturally motivated voters wrong. Since the elections, there have been many attempts to understand the so-called “values voter.” Some people, like the editors of Time magazine, created a “Who’s Who” of influential evangelicals. The unspoken assumption is that millions of Christian voters take their marching orders from these leaders. Others, especially abortion and gay...

Colson's List of 50 Insightful Films This list was compiled in 1997. Not all films are suitable for all audiences; see the notes with each for disclaimers. Films with a Christian Theme 1. Chariots of Fire (1981, PG). Inspiring story of a young Scottish runner who is willing to put obedience to God before an Olympic gold medal. 2. A Man for All Seasons (1966, G). The inspiring story of Sir Thomas More, the 16th century Chancellor of England who was beheaded by Henry VIII because he would not compromise his beliefs. More is played by Paul Scofield, whose last...

Nicholas Kristof’s recent New York Times columns on sex trafficking in Cambodia drew a lot of reader mail. Many asked, “What about the johns?”—the men who buy the services. “Why aren’t the men written about?” one reader asked Kristof, “Embarrass them, expose them, not the women.” Kristof responded, “[F]oreign countries just are not going to arrest a lot of the johns, while they could be persuaded to arrest traffickers of young girls.” Okay, of course, we want traffickers arrested. That was the goal of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act that Bill Bennett, Michael Horowitz, and I along with many others...

Nicholas Kristof’s recent New York Times columns on sex trafficking in Cambodia drew a lot of reader mail. Many asked, “What about the johns?”—the men who buy the services. “Why aren’t the men written about?” one reader asked Kristof, “Embarrass them, expose them, not the women.” Kristof responded, “[F]oreign countries just are not going to arrest a lot of the johns, while they could be persuaded to arrest traffickers of young girls.” Okay, of course, we want traffickers arrested. That was the goal of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act that Bill Bennett, Michael Horowitz, and I along with many others...

In the wake of the tsunami that claimed more than 220,000 lives, some people were asking hard questions. Faced with such devastation, they wanted to know, how was it possible to believe in a good, all-powerful God? Now stories are leaking out about what’s going on in the aftermath of the tsunami. The reports are sketchy and anecdotal so far, but they already have people asking another, equally important, question: Is it possible to believe in the goodness of man? Women and children in refugee camps have been sexually abused. One teenage girl told a story of being raped by...

Among sophisticates on Manhattan's Upper East Side and in Georgetown salons, President Bush's victory last November brought much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and rending of (fashionable) garments. Disgruntled "blue" voters threatened to move overseas to escape the "jihadists" and "mullahs" now running—and ruining—America. In a column entitled "Two Nations Under God," The New York Times's Thomas Friedman said he woke up the morning after the election "deeply troubled" because "they [Bush and company] favor a whole different kind of America from me." Amen, echoed Tina Brown in The Washington Post: "New Yorkers don't want to live in a republic of...

As Americans have learned more about the devastating impact of abortion, we’ve seen our country become more pro-life. But we’re still a long way from building a culture of life that welcomes every child. To do that, we need to demolish the most pervasive myths about abortion. A new book titled The Cost of ‘Choice’: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion is a valuable tool in that effort. In a series of thought-provoking essays, women from all walks of life tackle those myths head-on. Myth number one: Abortion is first and foremost a woman’s issue. Again and again, the writers...

Tom Wolfe’s best-selling novel "I Am Charlotte Simmons" has focused unwanted attention—unwanted at least by college officials—on the sexual antics of American college students. The behavior is scandalous, but an even greater scandal is what students are being taught. This mis-education is the subject of a new book by former BreakPoint editor James Nelson Black. In Freefall of the American University, Black describes how “colleges and universities are corrupting the minds and morals of the next generation.” That’s quite an indictment, but Freefall will leave any open-minded reader realizing that the evidence supports it. As Black puts it, “the university...

A friend of mine recently installed voice-recognition software on his computer. Instead of “keyboarding” thoughts, he now speaks them in. He tested the software by saying a wide range of words and sentences and found the software did reasonably well, even on technical vocabulary. But then he spoke the word exegesis, meaning the explanation or elaboration of a biblical passage or other text. He nearly fell off his chair laughing when exegesis came up on the monitor screen as exit Jesus—a computer Freudian slip, but prophetic nonetheless. Later that day several news dispatches reminded him that there is a concerted...