Breakpoint (2026)

31/07/2026

A recently released report shows a clear correlation between legalized gambling and gambling addiction. While this should surprise absolutely no one, there is further evidence that the explosion of legalized sports gambling was a bad idea.

In 2018, a Supreme Court decision cleared the way for states to legalize sports betting. Since then, according to the study shared by Epic Research, gambling disorders have risen by 61% in states that allow it but is down 29% in states that have not.

That’s a big spread, pun intended. The time frame is also significant. Only Nevada allowed sports gambling prior to 2018. Today, it is legal in 39 states and DC, though app-based gambling has made it ubiquitous. The results of this experience speak for themselves:

“Of the overall population, adults aged 30 to 49 had the highest overall quarterly rate of diagnosed gambling disorder throughout the study period. . .. The largest proportional increase was among adults aged 18 to 29, whose rate more than doubled. Rates rose in both sexes and in every age group, but the male-to-female gap was substantially larger in adults under 50.”

The math speaks for itself. For example, sports betting companies make enough to pay out a fortune in constant commercials while still raking in incredible profits. As of last year, gambling businesses have taken in around $300 billion, which is as much as China spends on its military each year.

The cost to consumers, however, is not only in the bet. According to a 2025 article by Charles Fain Lehman in The Atlantic, for every dollar spent on betting, household investing fell by an average of two dollars. The years since 2018 have been marked by large increases in over-drafted bank accounts and maxed-out credit cards. Legalized sports gambling has increased “the risk that a household goes bankrupt by 25 to 30 percent” and has caused debt delinquency to surge.

The financial strain, in turn, worsens social pathologies. According to research cited by Lehman, an upset loss for an NFL home team correlates to a 10% spike in male domestic abuse. Overall, states with legalized sports gambling have seen an estimated 9% increase in “intimate-partner violence.”

As it turns out, it is possible to legislate morality, or, in this case, to legislate an increase in immorality. The legalization of sports gambling, and the general betting industrial complex, is a scourge on society, as if a highly contagious illness had a multi-billion-dollar PR campaign behind it. This is a cause for both the Left and the Right to get behind. Progressives would be hard pressed to find a better example of the rich getting richer on the backs of the poor. Conservatives have a horribly perfect example of the effects of moral decay and the corruption of domestic life.

Moral decline isn’t inevitable. Too many are convinced that things always go from bad to worse, so why try to turn the tide? Fighting the new normal, especially one with so much money and political power behind it, is an uphill battle. But Christians are commanded to love our neighbors. Sometimes that means giving to a local charity. Sometimes that means pressing leaders to ban what is destroying lives.

30/07/2026

‘Tis typically the season of “summer blockbusters,” but this year has featured a number of independent and faith-based films offering redemptive stories. And, they have been performing well, both at the box office and via streaming platforms. Are we witnessing a disruption in the film industry?

For example, both A Great Awakening and Young Washington were released in theaters nationwide, and both garnered positive reviews. A Great Awakening was produced by Sight and Sound Films, a company known for their live theater locations. Young Washington opened #2 at the Box Office on Independence Day and was produced by Wonder Project and distributed by Angel Studios.

Neal Harmon, co-founder and CEO of Angel, said,

“Young Washington takes us back when the leaders we now admire were still discovering who they would become. It’s a deeply human story about growth, sacrifice, humility, and leadership earned through adversity and preserved by divine providence.”

Unlike the new Supergirl movie, which is tanking at the box office, or AI-generated videos, this movie is about a real hero from history, something all Americans—especially young ones—can benefit from seeing.

Added to the list should be Joe Loconte’s documentary Benjamin Rush: The American Revolution’s Indispensable Doctor. Along with A Great Awakening, it is among the top 10 most-viewed Wonder films on Amazon Prime. Joining the American fervor is Hillsdale College, who produced Revolutionary America, distributed by Fathom Entertainment. Narrated by Tom Selleck, it tells the story of the American Revolution through the experience of Americans during that period.

Speaking of Fathom Entertainment, they recently announced, along with Lionsgate, that the 2004 film The Passion of the Christ—which depicts the 12 hours leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion—will be re-released in theaters this September. This is in preparation for the sequel, The Resurrection of the Christ, scheduled to premier with part one in May of 2027 and part two in May of 2028.

If there is a real disruption taking place in Hollywood, it is because people seem to want to see movies that are not only innovative and made with excellence but also rooted in reality. Film critic Matt Zoller Seitz called Young Washington a “slam-dunk,” and

“a modern example of the sort of movie that used to be a permanent asset in Hollywood’s studio portfolio: a well-crafted but accessible biopic . . . that respects its audience. We can always use more of those.”

But instead, Hollywood has resorted to re-releasing hits from years’ past, recycling old stories with an increasingly woke accent, or sheer repetition, a seemingly unending flow of sequels and prequels. A recent article in the Atlantic asked, “Is this the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?” For example, one of this year’s top summer films was Toy Story 5. Let that sink in: Toy Story 5!

Christians who are living in a time of cultural decadence, a decadence that has also infected Hollywood, have a responsibility to consume entertainment differently. As Pastor Carlos Erazo put it,

“As Christians, we do not consume entertainment passively; we consume it with discernment because every story is shaping a worldview and we want it to be the Word of God, not the world, that shapes ours.”

There’s also an opportunity to produce, and it cannot begin with an addiction to whatever is trendy or new. As Russell Kirk observed, the best created works will appeal to enduring truths and therefore to posterity. That can be done by both telling true historical events and creating new stories within a meaningful moral framework.

There is an opening for Christians to speak with excellence into the arts, including film, and to do so with wisdom drawn from the rich moral universe of the Christian worldview. Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis, we don’t need more Christian books, but more books written by Christians. We need Christian creativity over every square inch of God’s creation, and that includes, film.

29/07/2026

Back in April, a Psychology Today article noted how some people today, especially younger people, are finding identity in their psychological struggles. For those who do, the point is not overcoming their struggles or achieving personal growth. Rather, it’s about belonging. As the writer put it:

We are living in an age where psychological explanations are prioritized above all others. Indeed, therapy speak has permeated everyday life. It has taken over conversations and relationships, leading people to claim boundary violations, accuse others of gaslighting, or see narcissists everywhere they go.

Between the rise of a hyper-therapeutic culture and the critical theory mood, a quick way to achieve social status is to have a condition, preferably one that can’t be challenged. There are, of course real, pressing psychological issues facing many, especially in the rising generation. While such people deserve to be taken seriously, as Abigail Shrier observed in her book Bad Therapy, the mental health industry incentivizes mental health struggle. It has normalized the need to therapize even basic tasks of childhood—like making friends. The result has not been better health, only greater dependency.

The cultural drift to valorize victimhood and medicate most behavior is not providing a generation with hope. In fact, it’s the opposite. Despite greater mental health awareness and increased access to care than at any other time in human history, rates of su***de and psychological distress are up while rates of healing are down.

We ought not be surprised when young people believe what they are told: that they are victims and that the world has no ultimate meaning, so they must make up their own reality to be their “true, authentic” selves. Essentially, we’ve placed the weight of making the world on their shoulders and are surprised when they stumble under the weight of the task. Kids are told to “live their truth,” “be themselves,” and “follow their heart.” In school they learn that the entire cosmos is one big accident. From social media they learn that they can’t stack up to the experiences of others. From their favorite Disney movie they learn that the hero is a villain and the villain is misunderstood. Without any fixed reference points for knowing who they are, why they exist, and how they should live, the therapist assuring them that to be a victim is compelling indeed.

Nearly a century ago, the Austrian psychiatrist Victor Frankl wrote that the key factor in human survival—even basic physical and mental health—was hope. After spending years in a N**i concentration camp, seeing the worst a fallen world could be, he argued in Man’s Search for Meaning that people need to believe in something bigger than themselves to endure even the greatest of horrors. From those insights, Frankl developed a style of therapy built on the idea that people could get better. He didn’t deny suffering, but he did insist that suffering wasn’t meaningless. His goal was not to keep people dependent on therapy or medication. He wanted to help people find restoration and healing.

Hope is at the core of the Christian message. Though the Biblical view of sin rejects entertaining optimism about the human condition or unrealistic wishful thinking about the future, it presents the Creator putting Himself at the center of this fallen world in order to renew it and reconcile us. Christ is making all things new, and that includes those who are lost and hurting.

If Frankl was correct, if there can be no healing without hope, God’s people are uniquely positioned to offer a way forward in this cultural moment. For those who don’t know who they are, or why they are, or how to live, there is hope. In fact, we know Him by name . . . Jesus, the Christ.

28/07/2026

In this polarized age, one thing all sides agree on is that the state of the union is not strong. At the recent Colson Center National Conference, noted speaker, author, and Wilberforce Award winner Os Guinness argued that the best way forward is to look backwards, at what made the Republic what it became in the first place.

Here’s Os:

We have those who understand America from the perspective of the American Revolution in 1776. But large swaths of this country don’t understand America from the perspective of ideas coming down from the French Revolution in 1789, higher education, and many other spheres. There are ideas abroad entirely opposed to the Republic.

Then again, in more ordinary circles, you can see the ignorance of what the Republic is. “Make America Great Again,” some people say. “Restore the Soul of America,” President Biden said. Now Biden never said what the soul was. But have you heard many people who praise MAGA in saying what made America great in the first place? Very few of them know what that was.

How can you restore the Republic and make America great again unless you know what it was built to be and established to be? It was truly, with flaws, a freedom like no other.

Yet today, there are few champions of it at a time when the global menace is unbridled power. You take the shifting of the platelets, as people talk about it, the shift from the weak gods of tolerance and so on, to the strong gods of blood and nationalism. You take the shift from the West to an increasing concentration on the world's greatest landmass, Eurasia, with the authoritarian Putin in the West and the totalitarian Xi Jinping in the East.

Nietzsche, in the very last words that he ever wrote, says this: "Do you want a name for my world? This world is the will to power and nothing besides." He was attempting what he called the revaluation of all values, overturning the Jewish and Christian critique of power, and going back to the unbridled pagan view of power. That's our world.

The only counter to it is the biblical understanding—the best attempt the American Republic was set up to be.

Who champions that today? I only know one of all the congressmen I know, which is a good many, who actually speaks on it. So not many champion this, to put it mildly.

The tragedy is that the forgotten key should be one we all know well, because it's biblical. In the 17th century, there's a rediscovery through the Reformation of what they called the Hebrew Republic. And what's the Hebrew Republic? Hierarchical? Based on power? No. It’s based on covenant—the notion of covenantalism is what shaped so much of the rise of modern freedom. Now we need to see that Sinai, the covenant at Sinai, is truly a singularity. There are other covenants outside the Bible, like the Hittite treaties, and covenants elsewhere in the Bible, like the covenants with Noah and Abraham. They're different.

The Sinai covenant has a distinctive uniqueness. God is a partner to the covenant. It is with the whole of the people, not just between leaders. And it covers the whole of life. And that notion, as the reformers wrestled with the notion of covenantalism, came down in very practical ways to shape their understanding of politics. They wanted the consent of the governed.

Where did that come from? Exodus. When the Lord proposes His covenant, He doesn't impose it, He proposes it. And three times it says in Exodus, "All that the Lord says, we will do . . .” This is what Michael Walzer of Princeton calls an “almost democracy.”

The consent of the governed is mentioned in your own Declaration of Independence, but it goes back to Exodus. The covenant, of course, is a morally binding pledge; not a legal contract. No, no. It's a morally binding pledge; what many centuries later Martin Luther King would have called a promissory note in terms of the Constitution and the Declaration. It needed to be cashed in, but it was a promise made and a promise to be kept.

That was Os Guinness. For access to the recordings of the entire conference, including a complimentary video of the incredible keynote presentation from Chloe Cole, check the link in the comments below ⬇

27/07/2026

Recently, a handful of popular podcasters have claimed that Islamic regimes are historically “very kind” toward Christians. Those who make this claim are either willfully ignorant or are advancing an agenda. The historical record is not ambiguous.

For example, the claims that relations between Islam and the Christian world were peaceful for 500 years until the First Crusade are false. Mohammad died in 632. By 732, Islam had taken the Holy Land and North Africa from the Christian Byzantine Empire. It had also conquered Spain and advanced into France a few hundred miles from Paris.

After taking additional land in southern France and establishing bases in the Alps, Muslims launched raids into Germany. They also sacked the outskirts of Rome and took control of Sicily. In 1071, they defeated the Byzantines and took control of most of modern Turkey. Twenty-four years later, the Byzantine Emperor asked the Pope for help, leading to the First Crusade.

Christians in these conquered territories were treated as dhimmis, second-class citizens who were required to pay the jizya, a special tax and sign of submission that was often accompanied by ritual humiliations. Failure to pay the tax could result in death, enslavement, and the destruction of the local church building.

No public displays of Christianity were allowed, including the ringing of church bells or even praying aloud in one’s own home within earshot of a Muslim. No new churches could be built, and no old churches could be repaired without permission, which was rarely given. Criticism of Islam and evangelizing Muslims was strictly forbidden. In court, a Christian’s testimony was worth less than a Muslim’s. Christians could not have authority over a Muslim or have a house taller than a Muslim’s. They could not bear arms or ride a horse. At times, they were forced to wear distinctive clothing.

Another claim is that Muslim rulers protected Christian holy sites and repaired them when damaged. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. Typically, important Christian holy sites were converted to mosques to show the victory of Islam. The most prominent example is Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the largest church in Christendom for 1000 years. When the city fell to the Turks, it and other churches were desecrated and converted to mosques.

An exception was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, perhaps because it was a major pilgrimage site that generated revenue for the Caliph. However, in 1009, Caliph Al Hakim destroyed it. It lay in ruins for decades until his successor allowed the Byzantines to rebuild it, likely to again collect pilgrimage revenues. 800 years later, the church was severely damaged in a fire. Local Christians blamed Muslims, but the official story is that it was caused by a candle or oil lamp. The Ottomans allowed it to be repaired using Christian funds donated from overseas. They did not pay for the repair.

In the Ottoman Empire, that some claim was kind to Christians, boys were taken from Christian homes to be raised as Janissaries, or Muslim slave-soldiers who were taught to despise their Christian families. Girls were often taken as slaves into harems, and violence often broke out against Christian communities in Ottoman territories. The worst violence was the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides of the early twentieth century, in which between 1.5 million and 2.5 million people were killed by the Ottoman government.

The same violence against Christians continues today, with abductions, forced marriages, murders, arson of churches, and oppression of Christians in places like Pakistan and Egypt, and increasingly in Europe. There is a prohibition of churches in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries and, of course, the ongoing slaughter of Christians by Islamists in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa.

So no, Islam has not been kind to Christians. The only reason to make this claim is to make the occasional anti-Christian acts of Israelis look worse. But there is no comparison. Christians in Israel have more rights and freedoms than in any Muslim country, especially in history. To claim otherwise is to ignore reality.

24/07/2026

President Calvin Coolidge once said that “the business of America is business.” Too many Christians think of business as either inherently bad, immoral, or perhaps amoral, something set apart from their faith. At best, it pays the bills and support the missionaries, but many fail to see it as also under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Recently, Colson Center COO Pete Marra challenged a group of business leaders to rethink business according to a Christian worldview, especially in light of emerging cultural challenges:

I believe there's one thing that changes the world, and that's the Church. There is no plan B. There's no alternative to that. It's the Church. But I also believe that there's something that is equally under it, so not exactly equal, but equal and under, and I would say that is enterprise. Enterprise being business.

What we have at our disposal through business, the ability to organize, to solve problems, to create value, to deploy capital, to steward the things that God has given us, is something that's very unique to enterprise itself. … So, with that kind of framework, I want to talk a little bit about calling and think about place.

There's a reason that we use the idea, “You are here.” This can't be missed on us in this cultural moment, particularly as business leaders—leaders of enterprises—that you were brought to a time and place that God has called you to and God has brought you to. And it's now.

[I]t's not an accident. I believe not only has God brought you to this place and called you to this space, but he's equipped you for it. [T]here's something that's happening inside the world that we're speaking to in theological spaces, and philosophers and some politicians and business leaders are talking about it, and that's the age of AI.

But AI is just a new tool for a bigger problem. The bigger problem that we're facing—and one that I think is going to impact business and enterprise in a way that we have never seen, at least in my short lifetime—is the fundamental question of, “What does it mean to be human?”

I know that sounds a little bit heavy or like I'm trying to make a bold statement, but I just want you to think about something like your corporate culture. I want you to think about how you use enterprise when you have an opportunity to become more efficient, make more money, which generates more profit, which gives you more to steward, which is the reason we get into business.

Let's not be confused. I'll stand here and tell you, I love profit. I am never confused about for-profit. In fact, I've often joked, I sometimes prefer for-profit businesses over nonprofit, because no one's confused about what we're doing.

But here's the challenge we're facing: What happens when that idea of profit and the deployment of capital face a maybe once-in-a-generational upheaval to where we no longer need a workforce? What if the ways we used to think about automating production factory lines, we can now automate everybody?

Now, is that going to happen next year? No. But these are questions I think business leaders have to start wrestling with now so that they can do that. We need a framework to be able to think through that. That framework is something you've seen inside the Truth Rising: The Study, which is that idea of hope, truth, identity, and calling.

[W]e must remember through these things that that idea of hope is what drives us. Our hope is in Christ, and Christ alone. Never be confused. If that is where we find our hope, then the truth of the world, the truth of God's story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration is the thing that gives us not only meaning, but it helps us anchor the why we do business.

The Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper famously said that “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” This is as true about business as about anything else.

23/07/2026

Benjamin Rush: A Hero for the Ages

Along with well-deserved patriotic pride this month, the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary requires introspection, especially about America’s beginnings and slavery. Many of the same Founding Fathers who inspired the cause of liberty in so many kept others in chains.

However, a Founding Father who boldly opposed slavery was Dr. Benjamin Rush. In a new documentary, Rush: The American Revolution's Indispensable Doctor, author and historian Dr. Joseph Loconte describes the life and work of this remarkable man. In the process, he brings clarity to the complications and contradictions of the American story.

Dr. Benjamin Rush was one of the 55 signers of the Declaration of Independence. He graduated from college at 15 and had his own practice as a physician by age 24. He served as an army doctor in the new American military, was a chemistry professor who wrote the first chemistry textbook published in America, and he authored many treatises on medical education.

He was also a social reformer. He was a key influence on Thomas Paine, author of the vital booklet, Common Sense. Unlike many of the other Founders, he believed that the claim to God-given rights must apply to everyone, slaves included.

Rush encouraged revolutionary thinking against British rule while also challenging slavery. As Dr. Loconte described it,

“Rush rejects the assumptions that Africans are an inferior race. He cites evidence of their ingenuity and humanity as proof that they’re equal to the Europeans. Addressing the city’s clergy, Rush denounces them for using the Bible to sanctify their crimes against humanity.”

Rush was a champion of human dignity, a founding member of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons (the Pennsylvania Prison Society today), and an ardent abolitionist, joining abolitionist societies and writing pamphlets against the institution of slavery.

Each of the activities on Rush’s very impressive resume were informed by his faith, specifically the conviction that each person is made in the image of God and, therefore, worthy of dignity and respect. His observations on the importance of work for human wellbeing also reflected a Christian worldview.

One significant area of study for Rush was mental illness. He argued that people with mental illness should not be treated as criminals but rather brought into normal hospital settings. He also believed that productive work could aid in their recovery. These ideas proved successful strategies in treating his patients.

Rush’s stand on abolition had been the historical position of the Church. In his day, it was being advanced by evangelicals and others in Britain and America. Rush served as an advisor and public supporter for Richard Allen in the founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Benjamin Rush demonstrated that a Christian worldview must be lived and not just believed. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer would later write, Christianity is not an “otherworldly religion.” It both describes the world as it actually is and invites us to join God’s work, not just by preparing for Heaven, but in repairing what is wrong in this, His World.

Dr. Loconte’s excellent documentary about this lesser-known Founding Father is available on Amazon through the Wonder Project. It not only provides insights into the origins of liberty and the American experiment but reminds us of what can happen when Christian conviction and moral clarity meet, as it did for Dr. Benjamin Rush.

22/07/2026

On SocialAI, an app that looks like X, you post, and perhaps millions of “followers” reply instantly. Those followers, though, are built by you, from a menu that can include supporters, critics, trolls, conservatives, or liberals.

SocialAI’s founder promotes it as “liberating” because users can’t be canceled. That’s because no actual person is reacting to the posts. In a sea of millions of engaged followers, there’s only one human—you. And you know it.

Saying something in public, especially something true but unpopular, takes courage. There’s risk of being misread, canceled, or socially ruined. SocialAI removes those risks and, thus, the courage. There could be a legitimate use for the app, like floating a controversial stance to test your reaction from “critics” before posting on a real site. But SocialAI isn’t marketed as a risk rehearsal tool. It’s a risk-removed world.

This is part of a growing escapist trend. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said in an interview that some of us have “Reality Privilege,” living in a world “rich, even overflowing with glorious substance.” Most others, he said, live in bleak or challenging circumstances. The solution, according to Andreessen and other AI pioneers, is to build virtual worlds that close the gap for the “reality deprived.”

Of course, no one is reality deprived. We all live in realities with varying ups and downs. Giving people a virtual world to escape to is the true reality deprivation. That irony is lost on many techno-utopianists, perhaps because the seduction of becoming godlike world-builders blinds them to it.

Such escapism doesn’t produce sturdier souls. It atrophies them. In trying to become those world-building gods, we reduce ourselves from deiform souls to digitized simulations. We become the dangerously “dissatisfied and irresponsible gods” that atheist Yuval Harari warned we’d become.

Lest Christians think digital escapism is confined to the un-churched, a Barna study found the opposite. Their survey of 1,500 American teenagers revealed that the teens most engaged in their faith, the “Faith-Activated,” were nearly twice as likely as their peers to trust AI’s answers to important questions over a person’s.

These aren’t isolated kids substituting a chatbot for friends they don’t have. Nor are they afraid to talk to their youth leaders. Many said they feel free to bring doubts to their youth groups and that they’re encouraged to think critically about faith. Yet they trust machines more.

Though explanations are still being explored, there are clues to why this retreat to silicon entices even the faithful. We all struggle with automation bias—the belief that since machines lack emotion, they’re objective. Young people could also think AI systems provide a curation of collected human wisdom on a topic; an advantage over relying on the wisdom of just one pastor.

Protecting feelings may also be at play, even in the safest of environments. A pastor might subtly sigh. A friend might speak truth you don’t want to hear in a confession. But a chatbot will never think less of you because it never had an opinion of you in the first place. Confessing to a chatbot—like posting to a community of bots—removes risk entirely.

We’ve wrung our hands over whether AI will get so good we can’t distinguish it from a human. What we’re learning now is that fewer young people care about the distinction so long as something answers when they call.

Interestingly, even though we respond to the hardest-to-believe videos or images with, “That’s probably AI,” we don’t distrust AI. We distrust the people using AI. Whether we think they are manipulative or ignorant, we decreasingly rely on people in favor of machines to avoid risks.

But real community entails risks. Christian community isn’t meant to be curated for optimal emotional ease or predictability. Jesus’ interactions with his disciples and the people he encountered were marked by affirmation and correction, even rebuke. That’s what prepared his disciples to speak truth to power and endure hardships when preaching the gospel. Real community, marked by reliable answers and compassionate (though unpredictable) connection, fosters resilience.

The relationships—and the faith—worth having are those that can surprise us, correct us, and uplift us amid life’s triumphs and tragedies. God has privileged us with living in a harsh reality that we can impact, not avoid. That requires courage. Anything that removes that courage is just a mirror with a chat function.

That was Abdu Murray, author of the book Fake ID: How AI and Identity Ideology Are Collapsing Reality and a speaker at the upcoming Great Lakes Symposium, “What Does It Mean to be Human in an AI Age?” on August 6 in Bay Harbor, Michigan. The event is free online or in person, but you must register. Find out more at greatlakessymposium.org.

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