Taming Secular Lions

  Let me tell you about a BreakPoint listener who sneaked Christian thinking past the secular lions and lived to tell about it. It's one of the stories that, frankly, keeps me committed to doing these BreakPoint broadcasts. A Michigan teacher named Carl wrote to tell me that he especially enjoyed BreakPoint commentaries on evolution. Carl wrote: "I teach high school history, and [BreakPoint] . . . has helped me become bolder and stand up for what I believe." For example, many of his kids accept Darwin's teachings about natural selection and the survival of the fittest. So recently Carl had his students read excerpts from Thomas Malthus, an eighteenth-century English cleric who believed that population growth would outstrip food production and bring about mass starvation. Carl says his class was outraged that a Christian minister could be so heartless as to want to allow the world's poor to die. Then Carl had them read Charles Darwin's autobiography. Lo and behold, the major premise for Darwin's survival of the fittest philosophy came from his reading of Malthus. "The kids were amazed," Carl writes. "The philosophy they had adopted -- evolution -- is based on concepts the kids are outraged about." It made them think about Darwin in a very different light. Christians are using BreakPoint to tame secular lions the college campus, as well. One of them is a young woman named Renee. When Renee arrived at college, she was bombarded with anti-Christian sentiment. Friends attacked her faith claiming that belief in the Bible was illogical and irrational. Renee, a fairly new Christian, did not know how to respond. So she tried to avoid these kinds of conversations. Then a Christian friend told her about BreakPoint. Renee began listening to the program. She quickly learned about some of the scientific support for God's truth and the logical reasons for her faith. Best of all she learned how to convey those truths to her friends in ways they could understand and respect. Today, Renee no longer shies away from spiritual conversations: She loves to challenge her friends on their secular views. It thrills me to hear stories like these because this is the vision of BreakPoint -- to be able to reach and equip Christians to stand up for truth in today's culture, a culture in which Judeo-Christian values are so often mocked. When Christians try to speak up for these values, we're maligned as ignorant, intolerant, or bigoted. So many Christians have concluded that the "culture war" is over -- and that the Christians have lost. But giving up on the culture is a betrayal of our biblical mandate because it denies God's sovereignty over all of life. Christians must never stop trying to help their neighbors understand why God's revelation is the source of all truth, a comprehensive framework to understand all reality. That's the goal of BreakPoint: To help Christians effectively evangelize a post-Christian culture. And that's why I'm so delighted when I hear stories like these about how listeners use BreakPoint. People like Carl and Renee, who take the Christian worldview right into the lion's den -- and fearlessly defend it. If you do this or you know people who do, let me hear from you. It's a real encouragement. More reading: A summary of Malthus and Darwin is available here,including the relevant quote from the Autobiography. Click here for a collection of Malthus's writings and further information.

12/26/01