[00:00:08] Speaker A: You're listening to faith in healthcare, the cmda matters podcast. Here's your host, Dr. Mike chubb.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Welcome, friends, to Faith in Healthcare. You know, we're living in a cultural moment that is putting real pressure on Christian healthcare professionals and to stay silent, to conform, and to separate our faith from our practices.
In this episode, I'm joined by Mr. John Stonestreet, who is the president of the Colson center for Christian Worldview, along with co host Dr. Brick Lance.
John Stonestreet received CMDA's President's Heritage Award at our recent national convention. And this conversation is an honest and as well as an encouraging look at what it means to be called to this moment in history as a Christian in healthcare.
It also includes a closer look at their video series called Truth Rising. It's a documentary and study from the Colson center combined with Focus on the Family, which equips Christians to stand firm and respond in this moment with courage.
So let's dive in.
Well, today on Faith and Healthcare, I have a VIP guest who was not that long ago in front of about a thousand of us in Colorado, and that is Mr. John Stonestreet. He's the president of the Colson center for Christian Worldview, a leading voice helping believers navigate today's incredibly complex cultural moment with clarity and conviction. Many of our listeners, you're familiar with breakpoint radio and podcast commentary. He really helps us and has helped us for a long time think biblically about the issues shaping our lives, our families, as well as our institutions. John has been passionate about forming resilient disciples and restoring moral clarity in our confused age. And especially for us healthcare professionals, Christ followers serving at that intersection of faith, ethics and medicine.
John's insights are timely, challenging, and deeply encouraging. And at our recent national convention, our CMDA Board of Trustees recognized John Stonestreet and the Colson center, his team, which is so vital to him, with our President's Heritage Award for service to our members and of course, many other professionals across other disciplines in the arena of worldview training and cultural impact through the Colson Fellowship. So welcome, John, to Faith and Healthcare.
[00:02:55] Speaker C: Oh, hey, thank you. I was wondering what that I and VIP must mean with that introduction. Is it intriguing or immense? I don't know. Important is not the right word. It was an honor to be with you all at the conference and certainly humbled and thankful to God for the recognition.
I'm so passionate about people within their callings, recognizing the kingdom, work that God has them to do. And in our cultural moment, there's not a sphere and arena. That's been more important to the proclamation of truth and the countering of lies than the healthcare profession. So the relationship between Colson center and CMDA goes back prior to both of us and.
But also is something that's so important to us. So thanks so much for having me on.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Well, joining us today is the doctor who introduced me to my first Colson center national meeting, the conference, Dr. Brick Lance, who's been a Colson fellow for five years and said CMDA needs to exhibit at that annual meeting. And so we've been doing it, Brick, for the last five years, haven't we?
[00:04:02] Speaker D: We have. Thank you for the introduction, Mike. And I will blame John a little bit. After finishing that Colson Fellowship, it inspired me to get my master's in bioethics at Trinity. So I think John's to blame for my.
There we go.
[00:04:16] Speaker C: Mission accomplished. That worked.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: We're so glad that you did join us and challenged us. And one of the programs that you at the Colson center and Focus on the Family have put together is a video project that goes beyond being a project. I think it's also a study that people can join called Truth Rising. And so I want to have our faith and healthcare listeners who aren't familiar with this video or project, I've heard it twice, including once again last night, tell our listeners all about truth. Truth Rising.
[00:04:44] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, it's a collaboration with Focus on the Family and the Colson center, really in the tradition, if you think about Francis Schaeffer and Chuck Colson asking that essential question, how are we supposed to live in this time and place where God has called us? And really the culture has changed and is changing dramatically, and it has changed awful fast. And so understanding what our calling is to it is really the challenge. And that's what Truth Rising really is all about. It's really a journey, first of all, through this idea that we're living at a critical moment in history.
But that's not by accident. And if Christians are deeply grounded in hope, truth, identity, and their understanding of calling and a clear understanding of calling, then we can live up to that calling that God has put us in. The project consists of a documentary which walks through the seriousness of the cultural moment and culminates in a study to do with groups. As we wrestle with that kind of question, how shall we live in this time and place?
[00:05:50] Speaker D: Hey, John. So, you know, the Lord has really blessed the Colson Fellowship, which I find exciting, having finished it five years ago. It grows in numbers every year. And so my Wife is doing the fellowship this year. Loving it. So she graduates this month. Yoo hoo. So proud of her.
So I do want to ask you about this project, Truth Rising, and you have wonderful testimonies with within the documentary, including Jack Phillips, Katie Fous, Chloe Cole, Seth Dillon and others.
And I don't want to discuss all of them, but in the documentary you have a very new convert to Christianity and that's Ayaan Hersi Ali. So I'm really curious why you chose her as one of the, you know, witnesses about Truth Rising and the whole project. Then you could dovetail in what are the long term goals of this project? I know you have the Colson fellows do the four modules and they try to have others do that with them. But what are some long term goals and why did you pick Ayan?
[00:06:46] Speaker C: Well, I mean, let's start with that question, which is the individuals that are there. I think each of them tell us something different about what it means to stand for truth. I mean, think for example of Jack Phillips. You do it not knowing the results.
In other words, you stand courageously and let the rest belong to God.
Ayan's an interesting one because her story is at the same time both so cultural and so personal.
She's the only person that appears kind of in both halves of the documentary. And then her full story is told in this study as well. In the first half, she's one of the experts. We're looking to her saying, you know, what are the, what's the state of Western culture? What made Western culture what it was and why is it so vulnerable right now? How does it stand in contrast versus the other great competitors, for example, Islam and kind of a radical progressive vision. She's about as smart as a person as I've ever met. Just absolutely incredible in her ability.
But it's her story that's so fascinating. She was born in a radical Islamic context and had to flee. That ended up in the Netherlands where she became really the, one of the, one of the most kind of powerful philosophical movements of the 90s, the new atheist.
She was in Parliament there, but also was a very outspoken atheist against faith. Of course her context of it was Islam, but because of that her life was threatened.
But it's interesting how that journey then led her to question also her secular worldview. So there's not another person in the film that kind of has that journey through worldviews that Diane has and also how her own personal life has changed and how that has changed how she thinks about everything. It's it's really a remarkable, remarkable story that I think needed to be told.
[00:08:44] Speaker D: No, that's excellent. She does have a unique story, so I appreciate that. Now, personally, here in my state of Oregon, I've reached out to a number of churches, trying to get them to show the Truth Rising Project, and with some reluctance. I'm curious about the Colson Center's relationship with churches throughout the United States in particular. And I don't mean to denigrate the bride of Christ, but there's a missing out of an opportunity for churches to use this project. I mean, this is a quality project. It gives practical challenges to us.
So my question is, how do churches respond to the Colson center on this project? And I'm interested in the positive and the negative feedback that you may get.
[00:09:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, what's a mixed bag, obviously? I mean, I think that one of the challenges that we're facing is that we live in a context in which so much is political that when you hear anything about faith that extends beyond personal morality, the gut response is, well, that's political, and politics doesn't belong here. But we're not talking about politics. We're talking about civilizational history. We're talking about culture. We're talking about fundamental identity. I mean, it's interesting when you hear, for example, people chalk up something like abortion or whether or not we should transition children medically and chemically in a way that causes permanent damage, and then say, well, that's political. That doesn't belong in the church. And there's two things I have to say about that. Number one is this isn't political. It's moral. In other words, the political expression is the fruit of something much, much, much deeper. And the second thing that I'll say is, Jesus is lord of politics, too. Even if it were just political, we need to show how it connects. So that's the unfortunate response I think sometimes we get. And by the way, I get why that it sometimes happens, is because sometimes the church is asked to buy into a purely political agenda. And we don't think politics has the answer for everything that ails us. That's what a quirky French theologian named Jacques Lul called the political illusion that all problems are political and all solutions are political.
Now, we live in a highly charged political moment where a lot of the deeper issues, moral issues, cultural issues, social issues, family issues, have essentially political expressions. So I think we need to think about those. And by the way, those are the issues that are the sources of the most confusion among Christians and the wider Culture, it's also the place where our wider culture is looking for the most answers.
And that, to me is a critical observation for why Truth Rising is such a powerful and important thing. Because, listen, we're missing an opportunity. You know, there comes a time when we seek our answers everywhere else and we run out and then we look to the left and right and see who's there. Truth Rising is an invitation for churches and for Christians to be the ones there.
Right? I mean, what is it that people need most in an age so defined?
And your members know this, particularly those that are dealing with mental health. But of course, I think you would say all physicians at some level deal both with physical and mental health. And we live in a crisis of meaning. We live in a time of despair. We live in a time where people are seeking distraction and addictions as an answer for the deeper questions of life. Well, what do we need more than anything else right now, than hope? Right. When we live in a culture in which we call up, down and right, wrong and left, right. And we can't even tell the truth about observable biological realities, what does our culture need more now than truth? Right? I mean, it's like we have our feet firmly planted in midair. We need solid ground, and that's truth. How many of the medical issues that have become cultural issues and political issues have fundamentally to do with the question of who are we as human beings? Who am I in relationship to my. I mean, the question of identity, this is core. And then of course, calling that really God hasn't just called pastors and missionaries to be the ministers of the gospel. According to Ephesians 4, the pastors equipped the saints for the work of the ministry. That's what I love about CMDA is you guys believe that if you've been called to the healthcare profession, it is a calling from God. And you need to be the best doctor, the best healthcare professional you can possibly be, and you need to be the best Christian you can be, and you need to be the best Christian healthcare professional you could be. Right? I mean, you put it all together. That's the idea of calling. So that's what I think the opportunity is for churches.
And that's the positive response that we get from both Truth Rising and the fellows program is I do think that there has been a realization, I think a lot of it came out of the 2020, you know, chaos of COVID and activism and everything else where, listen, the discipleship resources we have and we're using aren't adequately preparing for the challenges that our culture is bringing us. I live in Colorado Springs, right? So in Colorado Springs, there's the Olympic center and a lot of Olympic athletes.
You wouldn't train somebody for the Olympics by sending them to play pickup in the park. You know what I'm saying? That athletic training facility is phenomenal. And you train here in Colorado where there's not enough oxygen. So you put all that together. You're trying to elevate the level of formation as an athlete and equipping as an athlete to the level of competition that you're going to face. That's exactly what we're talking about here. If the formation and discipleship that churches are offering people right now is kind of happy, clappy, knee centered, individualistic, radically privatized, that's not going to be a big enough worldview to handle the challenges that our culture is bringing our way. Now, we may not like the. I don't like the challenges. I got four kids, man. I would have chosen the good old days over this time and place for them every day of the week.
But God chose that. And that's the observation that is at the core of Truth Rising, Both the documentary and the study that we're called here to this time and place. So let's get on it. And you know what? God's trustworthy. We can leave the results to him.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:14:56] Speaker D: Yeah, I appreciate those words. And I think sometimes. And again, I'm not. I. I love my church, but sometimes we underestimate the power of those influences you just talked about.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. I mean, listen, it'd be hard enough to disciple the next generation if all we had to worry about was, like, people, sin, nature. But we get this culture, good old
[00:15:15] Speaker B: days, the good old days, the good
[00:15:16] Speaker C: old days of just sin. And now we've got this kind of cultural, you know, confusion where we have law. I mean, Carl Truman has just written a tremendous book on this. Going back to one of the prophets of this era, Frederick Nietzsche, in his Parable of the Madman, when he talks about how without God. And of course, he didn't believe in God, but what he was saying is that, look, without God, we've unchained the earth from its sun.
What an image, what an analogy. I mean, think about all that would happen if we unchained the earth from the sun right now. Right? I mean, we'd lose light, we'd lose heat, we'd lose oxygen, we'd lose the ability to exist. We wouldn't know what up and down and left and right. Our sense of Direction would be lost. And that's what he's saying that has happened, is we live in a cultural moment where we're feeling now downstream all the effects of trying to do life without God and it just doesn't work.
The cultural pressure is incredible. I mean, look, we were all, you know, I live in Colorado, you guys were just with us here in Colorado for the conference. And you think about just the way the state is trying to mandate confusion on so many levels and just flat out myth, just flat out lies, just saying, you know, look, I know what you see with your eyes is male and female, but you're not allowed to say what is observed. I mean, that is an amazing amount of cultural pressure that's happened here in this state. And that's just taking, you know, into consideration here. I mean, you think about the other cultural spheres. You know, we continue to have cultural pressure take the form of business and certainly entertainment and media.
And the healthcare profession has been one of those, you know, I mean, I tell you what, if you were willing to, to say what's true in the healthcare profession over the last decade, thank you, thank you for that faithfulness. Because you look at what was enabled in the name of so called, I mean, let's just say gender affirming care.
I know we talk about that issue a lot, but it is such an incredible example.
Definitely quotes. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing affirming about it. And here in Colorado, we're dealing with kind of the rejection of so called conversion therapy and the, the outworking of the Casey Charles case. There's just a lot here.
But think about how the healthcare profession was kind of at the crosshairs of what it means to be a person of faith and a culture that wants to deny these things.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: Many of our board members have passed the, your Colson Fellowship as well, John. And that conference, our exhibit. I don't know how many times you've passed by Brick and I and others sitting at our exhibit, but we are abuzz. I mean, some of the other exhibits are like, who are you guys?
But so many Christians in healthcare are frustrated. Recognize that as much as I rejoice with you on breakpoint day after day and the great things that have happened, it seems in the last two or three years, the tide is turning, John. I have to say, the house of medicine is broken. I mean, you know it, you talk about it. And until those Christ followers who are in influential places, in the ivory towers of academics continue to stand up and speak truth and truth rises, we are still behind the eight ball, especially on the gender issues, but the others as well. And I want to switch gears just a little bit to focus on Breakpoint, because you do a five day, week, quick program four days a week, and then you have a long program with Marie Baer on Fridays. So many of those issues are medical, but you've got a great team. Walk us through how you decide. There's so many things you could be talking about. How do you decide day by day what you're going to focus on that day?
[00:19:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, listen, that's a. Yeah, that's the secret behind the curtain. I will just say we never have trouble filling the docket, okay? We. We never have trouble finding something to talk about day in and day out. And of course, that's way more a statement about kind of the state of the culture than the program. Although the program has such a long and rich history with the heart and mind of Chuck Colson. I mean, I remember the first time my wife and I went and met with Chuck and Patty and. And we were in their car and my wife said something along those lines, like, how do you think of something to talk about?
And he just looked back like, that's really a silly question. And I struggled to do that now, too, because it's just like, I know once you start paying attention that it becomes a real challenge. But I tell you a couple parts of it. I mean, one is kind of an essential aspect of the Truth Rising project as well, and that is Jesus Christ is Lord of all. So you're not limited in what you talk about.
Now. The limit needs to be between what's loud and what really matters. And those aren't always the same things.
This is where I think Christians are often susceptible to what we might call the political illusion. It'd be tempting to just talk about politics all the time. And I still feel at times like we talk about politics too much. But what we do is try to talk about politics when it points to something essential and important.
And really the framework is that framework that we elevate in truth. Rising hope as opposed to despair, truth as opposed to lie.
And I don't just mean the truths of Christianity. I mean the true story of Christianity. Right? Because really, so many of the issues that we deal with are expressions of a worldview. A story of the world that is counter to what we read in Scripture, is even antithetical to it. And then, of course, the identity issue. Listen, the image of God is perhaps the most consequential idea in human history. It certainly is the most consequential idea to Western civilization, because at that foundation you get things like dignity and value that are distinct and unique, you know, to Western culture.
And so many of the issues that we face. If you think about kind of our confusion around dei, diversity, equity, inclusion, something that impacts the healthcare profession when it comes to what is that relationship between our mental health and our physical health, something that's at the heart of what you all do. Why is there a mental health epidemic right now, particularly among young people?
Why did we have this social contagion explosion of a confusion about who we are? Even things like fashion, you know, what's an appropriate thing to wear for a boy or a girl? All of these are fundamentally questions about identity. And Christianity has this wonderful answer to the question, what does it mean to be human? And that's that we're made in the image of God. This is the. And then of course, calling what's our responsibility? That's very Chuck Colson esque. We used to joke all the time, you know, Chuck, God loves us and Chuck has a wonderful plan for our lives. You know, Chuck's belief was that you got to do right, like Christians are supposed to be engaged, we're supposed to be landed. Now, how does that affect the process?
That's the framework that our team has. That's the framework that we built into the team. That's the framework that we inherited from Chuck Colson. And what we do is we have a group of people whose job it is to look around and to find those issues.
And then, you know, we either through email, editorial meetings or whatever, we go through that process. And so I have a wonderful team that helps put kind of thoughts on paper. I'm known as the red pen police. I edit the heck out of everything because I, you know, we want this to be helpful. One of the things too that guides the process is how we define success.
Success for the Colson center is not when we say something cool, although sometimes I think we say cool things.
Success for the Colson center is that something we say gives someone clarity, confidence or courage. Right? We're not the heroes of this. That God has called everyone to live out a Christian worldview in the time and place where he has called us.
So that's why it's so important.
If healthcare is at the bull's eye of the conflict of worldviews, which it is in many ways right now, then if something that we are able to contribute just brings clarity, confidence or courage, that's it, Clarity as opposed to confusion, confidence in what's true and good. And then, of course, the courage to act. Man, that's a good day. That's a good day for us. That's what it's all about. That's what the Fellows program's all about. Truth Rising is trying to do that with churches and to do that with small groups, institutions, you know, believing that God has that calling on their life, too. So that's what drives us. That's what motivates us. That's how we measure success.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Well, one of the cool things that I've quoted you countless times, John, no one likes to get fired, but I think physicians are at the top of the list of those who absolutely loathe the thought. So those four words, the theology of getting fired. Yeah, I once shared that with an academic doc and talked about a couple of my heroes in medicine who actually did get fired. He said, if you're trying to build a movement on that concept, I think you're going to fall short. Mike,
[00:24:34] Speaker C: you know. Yeah, that is a tough one. I was speaking years ago at the College of the Ozarks. It's a wonderful Christian college, to a gathering of students. And, you know, sometimes you think things through, and then sometimes you just say things off out of a stream of consciousness, and you're like, I'm going to have to think that through later. And the question, of course, is it a stream of consciousness or did the Holy Spirit kind of nudge that?
And the theology of getting fired kind of came out. And I thought, you know, this is not unlike a theology of sacrifice, a theology of obedience, a theology of martyrdom. It just has to do, I think, much more with the cultural moment. A couple years before that, I was at Cedarville University, which has one of the great nursing programs among Christian colleges in America. They just really do a great job there. And, you know, I was speaking in chapel and I just. Some nurses came up afterwards, some nursing students, and I said, you know, you just got to be prepared that you may spend. You know what? I think at that time, the tuition was hitting around 50,000 a year. I don't know what it is now at Cedarville. And I could be. I just try to be in the ballpark. Let's just say you're going to, at the end of the day, drop $200,000 to get a degree. And the most important thing you might do in your career to obey the Lord is to get fired.
At that point, the conversation was really around in some states whether nurses should be forced to participate in abortions. Should they be Pressured. Should the willingness to participate be a factor of their accreditation and finishing up and getting their licensure?
Now, that seems pretty far off in America today because, thank God, in the last 15, 20 years we've had, I think, some pretty robust freedoms of conscience and religious freedoms secured. Doesn't mean you're not going to go through a process like in America, maybe like Jack Phillips, where your obedience leads to a 13 year battle and 13 years later you're going to get vindicated. But 13 years is a lot of cost to pay, you know, and it was for him. Look, in Canada, man, that is a live question, a live question. Whether you are allowed to be a doctor, whether you will still get licensure in the next three to five years if you don't participate in maid. You talk about another brick, another name that needs to be in quotes. Medical assistance and dying. That's not medical. It's not assistance and it's to die, not in dying. I mean like the whole thing is back to front.
But you know, I think the theology of getting fired for medical professionals is essentially this. It's articulated in a line from the theologian Stanley Hauerwas, who I would disagree with on all kinds of things. But he said this multiple times and I think he is getting at something. He said, if in a hundred years Christians are known as those who did not kill their young and did not kill their elderly, we will have done well.
And I think about that a lot because I think, I hope we are known for way more than that, but we must not be known for less.
[00:27:51] Speaker D: Yeah. And we're on the brink of that.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: Well, you look, I, I think everyone's surprised, looking north to Canada, like how quickly all that escalated.
You know, everyone says euthanasia and doctor assisted suicide is a. Not everyone, but the ethics to say rightly so. And Brick, you've studied this, that, that it's a slippery slope. It's not just slippery, it is almost straight up and down, you know, greased up pretty good.
And Canada has shocked even, I think Canada shocked even Belgium, you know, with how quickly all that moved.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: So all kinds of things are happening on the fly, John. And so I know that your Friday program is a wrap up, but I'm sure you throw in a number of things that you wish you could have talked about earlier in the week. So how often do you call audibles and say, we got to talk about this today?
[00:28:43] Speaker C: Oh, weekly.
We call audibles on our breakpoint short commentaries weekly. And then every week Maria and I are dropping things out and Throwing things in at the last moment. There's a lot of times where we have a plan and then you wake up Friday morning and you just got to hit an issue. I do a daily. Sorry. I do a weekly segment for World magazine. The world and everything in it called Culture Friday. Same thing. I mean, you know, we don't want to be a group that plays Cultural Whack a Mole because that's a losing game.
You know, that Whack a Mole game that you played in the arcade, you know, county fair. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Cultural Whack a Mole today is. Is impossible. I mean, you feel like you don't have enough arms and not enough paddles and there's way too many gophers, and you just. It's just absolutely a mess. It's about having the right framework, the right framework of hope. Christ is risen. Christ is Lord. Christ is making all things new. These are the theological commitments that Paul brings out of the resurrection and says are essential requirements for us to live in a challenging moment.
A framework of truth. What is the Christian story of the world? A creation, fall, redemption, restoration?
A framework of identity, you know, how God made us to be and so on. And I think the challenge is. And the ability to bob and weave and call audibles, like you said, has to do with being able to not just think about Christianity, but think with Christianity.
Not just think about what is true, but think with truth so that we can think truthfully.
I know that's kind of rhetoric, but it actually means something to us. Like, we believe the humans are made in the image of God. Now, what does it mean to think about anything human related with that framework in mind?
That's what we're trying to accomplish in the Colson Fellows program. That's certainly what we're trying to introduce and go deep on, really, in the Truth Rising study. I mean, the deepest you can go with us is Colson Fellows.
That's the deep dive, so to speak. But everything kind of serves that purpose. How do we think with a Christian worldview? And what does a Christian worldview mean?
That's what it's about. And then listen, we think if that's the case, if that's the story of the world, then anything that pops up in the moment should be. We should be able to better understand it. And that gives us, think, the flexibility to call audibles as much as we do. My team might argue with how flexible we actually are, but I think we're infinitely flexible.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Before we continue with this week's episode, here's A special announcement for you.
The CMDA Learning center is continuing to grow and it's an incredible resource for Christian healthcare professionals.
You'll find content from recent national conventions, the Faith Prescription series, continuing education opportunities, and a wide range of courses designed to support both your professional work and your spiritual growth.
And here's the best part. As a CMDA member, you can earn continuing education credits at no cost.
To start exploring the full library, visit CMDA.org learn.
If CMDA has encouraged you or helped shape who you are as a Christian healthcare professional, we want to invite you to consider becoming a lifetime member.
Lifetime membership is a way to make a lasting investment in this ministry.
You will be part of bringing along the next generation of believers in healthcare while helping bring the hope and healing of Christ to the world.
It's about staying connected to something that truly endures and gives back.
To learn more, visit CMDA.org Lifetime.
Let's jump right back into this week's episode.
[00:32:53] Speaker D: So John, let's talk about that framework. And I agree with what you said about the imago Dei, because Genesis 1 and 2 permeates the rest of Scripture about the Imago Day, and it is so vital, so important, particularly for us in the medical profession. But I want you to put on your philosopher's hat because I know you like talking philosophy a little bit and I think this Christian worldview and biblical worldview is so important. And blessings to Carl Truman. I know he's a good friend, but you know, he filled us with great theology and our national convention, which I love. But why is this worldview, which maybe Carl would call a social imaginary, why is it so needed compared to what I would call a naturalistic, materialistic or secular worldview that we see in our culture?
[00:33:35] Speaker C: Right. I mean, listen, I think that is a great way to compare it because we do deal with two things. We do deal with kind of a hyper physicalist human beings. Our bodies and bodies are parts. And then humans can be reduced down to their parts. And if you fix their parts, then you fix the human. And that obviously has proven to be wrong. And then you also deal with the Gnosticism that is now quickly permeating American culture, embodied in the transgender confusion, that somehow my body is just my shell, my body isn't really me. Who I really am is something deeper.
And I mean, I if I were a medical professor, I'm not. And I'm still alarmed by this. For the medical profession, when you think about, for example, every other body dysphoria that that exists from eating Disorders or whatever. It has always 100% been the case that the goal is to align the thinking which is wrong with the body which is dealing in reality. And now transgender ideology comes along and suddenly, even in the medical community, it's, oh, let's align the body which is wrong to the thinking which is true.
And that's back to front. I mean, that's literally upside down and inside out. And so that's the expression of Gnosticism.
I'll point you back to Blaise Pascal.
And Pascal was a brilliant mathematician in the 17th century who wrote a lot about the human person when he became a Christian. And that was really at the core of an apologetic that he was trying to put together. And one of the things he talks about is that Christianity gets the human condition right. I would encourage everyone to buy Penses, which is a collection of thoughts by Blaise Pascal. I always say it's not complete, like it was scraps of paper that were compiled after his death. And so, ma', am, you know, buy it, put it in, in the bathroom and. And you can just get it thought by thought, you know, as you go through it really is one of those kinds of books. But it's so rich because he talks about Christianity getting the human condition right. And think about it. Naturalism says that humans are animals, that there's nothing more to us than animals. There's instinct and, you know, that, that, that's it. And we're bodies and so on, the kind of Eastern religions. But also this new Gnosticism basically treats humans like gods, like our knowledge is ultimate, this inner kind of self that, that we have.
So you have one says one worldview that says humans are animals. The other one says humans are gods.
What's true?
Well, what's true is that we're in the image of God and we act like animals, and we do that in the context of other image bearers. That's Genesis 1, 3 and then really the rest of the story.
So I think that's why the Christian worldview actually has such explanatory power.
This is why I just don't think Christians need to check their faith at the door of their professional lives and their fields of study. But they ought not, because Christianity has the best explanation on the market.
Christianity can explain, for example, the integration of the physical and the mental, the integration of the body and the soul, the immaterial and the material. Christianity can explain why some relationships that we're in. Think about, for example, the relationship, relationship between child and parent, why that's the essential relationship as opposed to the state. And boy, does that have healthcare implications right now that kids belong to parents, not the state. I mean, that's huge.
There's a number of other ways we could point it out, another other ways we could apply it. But that's really. I think what we're getting at is that the idea that there's something exceptional about humans, the idea that who we are is both body and soul, we're integrated wholes as Genesis 2, I think, really describes. You know, God forms Adam out of the dust of the ground, physical breathes the breath of life, spiritual, and man becomes a living soul. So souls aren't really something we have. It's something we are. And it has a material and an immaterial. And that's the philosopher stuff. But it has incredible implications.
Let's think, for example, of two fundamental definitions of medicine. One is health.
What is health?
If health is just all of our systems working well together?
Well, gosh, that doesn't do anything for mental health.
[00:38:13] Speaker D: Right.
[00:38:13] Speaker C: Because we could have all of our systems working physically, but then something else is wrong.
Kristen Collier, who spoke for us a couple years ago at our conference, defined
[00:38:24] Speaker B: health right after speaking at our conference.
[00:38:26] Speaker C: Right after your.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: I got to hear a testimony twice in 30 days. I got to hear Kristen. Yeah.
[00:38:32] Speaker C: Well, did she give the definition of health there? It's basically right. Relationships. And you think about.
The Bible describes us in relationship with him, in relationship with ourselves and relationship with others and relationships with the rest of the environment around us, upward, inward, outward, down. When there's a health care crisis, whether it's a spiritual health care crisis or a mental health care crisis, or when any of those relationships are out of whack.
And if you reduce humans down to just one of those relationships and not all of them, then you're also going to have anemia. I think, in how we understand and then practice medicine. I think it's also interesting with dying. I know somebody else that you guys have worked with as far, Curlin Farbs just has helped me think about death and dying, which of course, the definition of death continues to change as we study and know more.
It certainly did throughout the 20th century.
But you know how that applies to something like hospice. I think he's just been brilliant on hospice, that it's a good idea, but it can be done poorly, because if it's only about removing physical pain, then we can do that, but then that actually curbs someone's ability to be fully present, or it might with other loved ones. And what is our responsibility outwardly.
Right. If comfort is the goal of everything, well then that's going to screw up our understanding of caring for someone who's in that particularly vulnerable and hard situation.
So I think thinking right about the human person is fundamental to everything else. There's so many applications in healthcare, it's just hard to. I mean we could just keep going on and on and on.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: Well, at the core of who CMDA is, we've got nearly 400 school groups at CMDA. It started in 1931 at Northwestern University in Chicago and has grown and grown and grown. And I know that you read First Things, you were talking to Carl Truman last month and you know you've read Carl and First Things. But just in the last few weeks there was a piece on Gen Zeal written. I think Alan Schmidt wrote the piece. And you've spent a lot of time around young people, the Colson fellows. I've not met too many young Colson fellows but I know you spend time around Gen Z's and that piece by Allen was basically that parish priest.
We're so used to decline and so used to dealing with liberals and progressives. Not sure what to do with these new young men who are coming to the faith and want something that's hard, not easy. And so what do you think about Generation Zeal?
[00:41:14] Speaker C: I think it's the right question to ask. And we were in that boat like so many others. I mean the other area that we think is particularly strategic in addition to the healthcare area and of course anyway we work in these areas is through partners like you, like cmda.
The other area is education. So we've got a strong partnership with ACSI and with some IACE Christian College association. And so that gets us kind of by proxy to Gen Zers. And I still work with some apologetics organizations that, that speak there. We have got something going on. I think it's fascinating now kind of the early reports of a culture wide revival and that sort of stuff. I think that was a little bit overblown but certainly we have a couple things happening. Number one is that there is a growing group that is at least intrigued by things that Gen Xers and others kind of dismissed as being old and traditional and fuddy duddy. They're more interested in authority, they're more interested in hard, they're more interested in that and they tend to be men.
So for the first time, if these numbers hold for the first time in church history, more young men than young women are being attracted to the church.
I mean that's a, that's a profound difference, right? I mean, one of the early, the earliest critique and this, this happens in multiple context sense, but the earliest critique of Christianity was that it was a religion of women because it was largely a religion of women.
And of course you had the apostles and the building of the church and how all that worked out. But now we've got something else going on and it's not just here in the US we also are seeing it in the uk I think at some level it's because young men were told that they were what's wrong with the world, that all masculinity is toxic and they really had nowhere else to go. The choice was either be a woman, which you're not, or figure out what it is to be a man. And I think there is just the annoyances of the kind of the woke elite was too much. And so some of them are turning, some of them, by the way, are turning to the opposite extreme. In other words, they want everything that woke is not. And that's leading them in a sense to Nietzsche and pull for power. And I know Carl and others have worked on that as well. But I do think it's an incredible opportunity and I think we need to seize that opportunity.
By the way, one aspect of that I think is going to be dealing with, it's a related topic, which is just the plummeting, plummeting birth rate and the plummeting marriage rate. Forget climate change. This is the greatest existential crisis that humans face, which is the declining the demographic winter that many countries are already in and almost the whole world is facing.
But it's a worldview issue, right? I mean, to think if young men don't know what they're for, if they don't know that they were created, many of them to be husbands and, and fathers and how their work is an investment into the future of the human project. And by the way, this is, you know, I think, you know, one of you brought it up earlier. This is established in the first chapters of Genesis. You have purpose.
Nietzsche said this a long time ago. If you have a why, you can live with any what.
And I think that we are, have just. We have a generation of young men that are once again looking for the why. They've been told there is no why. They've been told that there's no why for them, there's no why. For masculinity, there's no why. Many of them too are victims of that in them themselves, absentee fathers and so on.
And at the Risk of rambling here. I think that this battle for the soul of young men is an incredible opportunity. I don't know about you. I mean, I go to a small church, but we've got a whole row, two rows actually, of young men that come, and this wasn't the case five years ago.
A lot of them are Air Force Academy cadets. A lot of them are looking for something deep and old and eternal, and this is where they're finding it. So I tell you, it should also inform the fact that older men have an incredible, incredible potential for younger men who for the first time are willing to lean in and ask questions. You know, if you think you're an older doctor and the younger generation doesn't want to hear from me, you're wrong.
This is a generation, by and large that has a mentoring posture to them.
And they can, you know, I, I get there's annoyances.
I get that there can be challenges between the generations. I'm a Gen Xer. We complain about everybody, right. We complain about the boomers and I mean, everybody else screwed up the world, not us. No. But in, in reality, I think there's an incredible opportunity here for the church.
[00:46:07] Speaker B: I'm so glad you gave us that challenge, John.
[00:46:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:46:10] Speaker D: So, John, I'm going to quote you again. Ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims. And so my question is about the house of medicine. We have a broken house of medicine right now and victims by the thousands, literally by the thousands because of our broken house. So my question relates. How do we rebuild trust in medicine? And by the way, I'm so looking forward right around the corner, your annual conference, and Mike and I will host a luncheon. We're going to speak on this. Rebuilding the trust in medicine.
[00:46:39] Speaker C: Good.
[00:46:40] Speaker D: How do we go about rebuilding that trust? And I have two questions within that question.
One is going back to the imago day.
We in medicine try to be independent in our thinking, and God created us to be dependent. That's part of being the imago de dependent on him, depend on others, depending on creation. And the second issue along that is dialogue. We've lost dialogue in our culture. And how do we rebuild this trust? What are your suggestions for us in the house of medicine?
[00:47:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's a great question. I mean, you don't rebuild trust without truth. So getting the foundational ideas right, I mean, those consequences of those ideas were real. And the only way to get different consequences is to get different ideas right. I mean, we say ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims. And so, you know, Lewis said, you know, we need good philosophy for no other reason than bad philosophy exists. And so if that's our metric, something bad in a particular area exists, well, then we need good here. And that justifies what CMDA does. That certainly justifies what you guys are trying to do with students and student groups, which is absolutely critical. And the second thing that I'll say is that to regain the trust, there has to be that integration of faith in medicine. In other words, CMDA and the student groups aren't just a social club, and I know they're not.
But they have to be willing to confront these hard issues. They have to be willing to say, listen, we believe Christianity is true. Not true for me, but true with a capital table.
And so we have to have the implications of this. This is not just about, hey, you can get through medical school and have a strong devotional life, or you can get through medical school and share your faith with your professors. All those things are important things.
But the integration of the thought to the area is important. The third is the ouch one. And that is scripturally speaking, trust is never rebuilt outside of repentance.
Now how exactly that applies here and applies to individuals within the larger medical profession?
Listen, you're right, and this is brand new.
You had incredible levels of distrust of media, of celebrities, of politicians for the last 70, 80 years.
We are about six years into the dramatic loss of trust to the medical profession and it is very much connected with the cultural event of the pandemic and with the sciences settled narratives of the LGBTQ and how that applied in the medical space, particularly to the trans issue.
And it also has to do with living in a culture of distrust.
And I think we live in a culture where no other worldview is going to give us the category A of confession. I was wrong, B, forgiveness, you were wrong, and I forgive you, and C, restoration through repentance.
We know this on an individual level as Christians, but I want you to think, for example, of the woke ideology that dominates so many other professions. And the woke ideology, you're guilty because you belong to a particular race or particular social class. You can't confess that.
Right.
If another side asserts power by asserting a narrative that ends up not to be true, they have to hold on to that narrative. They can't confess it. I remember seeing, you know, four or five years ago, a British doctor talk about this on the gender issue of parents said, listen, if you're a parent who enabled and encouraged your child to go through these life altering and permanent damage sorts of transitional, quote, unquote medicines. How do you ever admit you were wrong?
You've just done the worst thing you could possibly do to your kid.
And I think there's some doctors who probably are in that boat as well, like you.
I mean, I'm not talking about just the people that are, you know, the wpath folks that we now know about just misled everyone in order to conduct their own social experiment on children.
Those people need to be in jail.
I think, though, that the confession of I didn't stand up.
I protected myself and my pension and my retirement and my licensure. I wasn't willing to be fired and there were real victims that took place. I don't know that that applies to everyone. I don't know that that applies to anyone in this who's watching this, but I do, or any money that's part of cmda. But it's something that I think we need to, we need to consider. And I think confession for the medical profession is accountability.
And I tell you, I have said on record that I think in light of all that happened to minors with these treatments that we knew that these folks knew were experimental, that some people need to go to jail.
And I always get pushback because that is a crack in the system, you know, that is saying, I think there's teachers, by the way, that should go to jail. I mean, listen, if you have an adult who grooms a minor for sexual abuse, it may not be sexual abuse of the body, but it's. Sometimes it was. But it was sexual abuse of the mind, at least in every other context. That person would have to be held legally accountable. Right, right, right. And I think that's kind of the culpability, the confession that needs to happen within industries, within whole realms of our culture.
Medicine's one of those. I don't know what that looks like, by the way. This is why it's so great to be a guy like me, because I can just pontificate and then say goodbye. And you guys have to take all
[00:52:35] Speaker B: the comments and pick up the pieces.
[00:52:37] Speaker D: John, I will say that is so true, and thank you for stating that. Because the healthcare professionals that Mike and I personally know that have been practicing medicine without these thoughts and that have truly repented and confessed that the wrong and the victims that they've had in their practice, they then subsequently become the best health care professionals that I know, because that's restoration.
[00:53:01] Speaker C: That's restoration.
[00:53:02] Speaker D: So restoration. It makes them so effective as a loving, compassionate, thorough health.
[00:53:08] Speaker C: I mean, you're talking about what's really at the heart of Truth Rising, which is we believe that calling.
Christians talk about calling a lot. It's usually I'm called to a particular ministry or I'm called to a particular set of relationships or maybe. And I think, you know, CMDA's done a great job at this talking about called to a particular profession.
And I think all of that's true and all of that needs to be emphasized. What we want to add to that is you have been called to a particular moment in history.
That's not just an accidental context for you to live out your calling. Your calling is understood in that intersection between the calling to your work and your giftedness and the calling to a particular time and place and the problems that exist there.
And you know what you're asking?
The crisis of trust in the medical profession, that is the context.
So if we're called to that, what's that look like? So there's a lot to be done and I'm grateful that CMDA and your voice is leading the way on this gathering people together, having these conversations, being willing to speak out, being willing to acknowledge.
So I think, you know the old saying, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
In the land of the lack of trust, this is an opportunity for Christians to be trustworthy.
[00:54:30] Speaker B: Well, the Colson center for Christian Worldview has equipped so many of our members and that's why we were delighted to recognize you and the Colson Center. John, we've been talking about Truth Rising for our listeners with John Stonestreet and Dr. Brick Lance. And thanks for the shout out. We will be having Brick and I will be having lunch at the annual meeting. So if you're a Colson Fellow in training or a vet, please come join us in Knoxville. I think you're sold out. It's just incredible. Great response and thanks for making it just 90 minutes down the road from us in Bristol, Tennessee. Appreciate it.
[00:55:05] Speaker C: I used to live in that neck of the woods and so I know that's just in your backyard and I have spent a lot of time in that, in that area, but it's been years. I'm looking forward to being back there.
[00:55:15] Speaker B: And Chuck, I think your Colson Fellow applications are still open. I think I read something about through July, is that correct?
[00:55:21] Speaker C: Through July, yeah. So right now we are taking applications for the next class. We have about 1700 or so that will be commissioned this year, having finished their study around May. And then the next class will start out in August and we have a lot of people that say, I'm just not know if I'm smart enough or, you know, whatever.
The only question is, are you called? And the answer is, if you're a Christian, you are. And so this is a way to wrestle with your calling. And anyway, I love the fact that it's done in cohorts. I love the fact that people learn together in community.
We have cross vocational sharpening that happens. So, you know, whether it's pastors and educators or medical professionals or lawyers or, you know, folks that have sold a business and are looking for how God's going to use them and then kind of second half of their life, these are all folks that end up in the program. And the fact that they're in there together makes it better.
[00:56:17] Speaker B: Thank you, Brick. Any final comments?
[00:56:19] Speaker D: So, John, we do at CMDA want to express our appreciation that you've been faithful in your calling. And not only just you, it's the whole staff and the leadership of the Colson Center. And what I find fascinating is when you are obedient in your calling, it brings deep joy. Yeah, it just brings that deep joy of being able to please God. So we appreciate that. And I will tell you, when I, you know, tune on Breakpoint each day, or it could be the world, anything in any other podcast, including Mike's podcast, it tickles my brain. I need to pray for them. So I want to encourage RCM Day listeners to pray for you and the whole Colson leadership that you continue to be effective in bringing truth. So we again want to express our appreciation for that. So thank you, John.
[00:57:03] Speaker C: Now. Thank you. I'm grateful for that and certainly grateful for all the prayer. I have three teenage daughters. I need all the prayers I can get.
[00:57:09] Speaker B: Yeah. I've saved the most important question for last. Whose old beat up pickup truck is in truth rising? I want to know who.
[00:57:17] Speaker C: I would say that it's not mine. I wish it were. I thought it should be kind of payment, but I wasn't able to finagle that with anyone. And the real part of that was Os Guinness. Absolutely did not want to get in it. That was the real part. That was not scripted.
[00:57:32] Speaker D: All right, John, then in honor of your bride, your beautiful, lovely bride, Sarah, I have to ask this question. If you could have coffee with anybody in history, who would you have coffee with?
I want Sarah to listen to this answer.
[00:57:45] Speaker C: Oh, well, the answer is her. I would have coffee with her every day of the week.
[00:57:49] Speaker B: Hashtag husbandgoals. Yep.
[00:57:52] Speaker C: Yeah, I did plan that. But no, I think it's it's actually true.
Chuck Colson would be high on the list to do it again. I mean, we did have it in various contexts.
Other than that, a guy whose life has always fascinated me is Dietrich Manhofer. Just because of the cultural setting and the theological wrangling. And at times when things are hot, people are often like, just get practical. Just get practical. For him, he got more and more ideological. I even went places I wouldn't go in terms of theology, but I always thought that was as someone who sometimes gets told, give us the practical. And sometimes I'm like, if you're thinking poorly, the most practical thing you could do is think better.
It's not just to jump to a three step manual. So Bonhoeffer to me exemplifies that. Great question. I'll tell her you asked that.
[00:58:49] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:58:50] Speaker C: I'll also tell her how I answered it initially too. So I'm gonna give some cool points.
[00:58:54] Speaker B: Thank you, John. You've given us a good hour of your time and we're grateful and we'll be eager. I want a selfie, Brick, and I want a selfie with you in Knoxville.
[00:59:04] Speaker C: Deal. We'll do it. Absolutely.
[00:59:06] Speaker B: All right, well, bye for now. God bless.
[00:59:07] Speaker C: God bless you guys. Thanks so.
[00:59:14] Speaker A: Much.
[00:59:18] Speaker B: John reminded us today that we have been called not just to a profession, but to a particular moment in history. And that is not an accident. God himself placed us here in this time and place for a reason.
In a culture that's losing its footing, Christians in health care right now have an incredible opportunity to be truthful and to be present in ways that are going to matter for eternity. As John put it, in the land of distrust, this is an opportunity for Christians to be trustworthy.
You can find more information about Truth Rising in our show Notes today.
Friends, if this conversation today encouraged you, I invite you to share it with a colleague.
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[email protected] next week. You don't want to miss the conversation because we're joined by Dr. Scott Glasberg, who is the former president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. And we're going to discuss the ASPs position statement, disavowing Gender Surgery for Children and Adolescents and what it means right now for Christian healthcare professionals navigating this issue.
I want to thank you for listening to Faith in Healthcare, where our promise to you as a listener or viewer, whether a healthcare professional or a patient who loves Jesus Christ is we will do everything that we can every single day to keep your faith and health care connected.
We'll see you next time, Lord willing.
[01:01:14] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Faith in Health Care the CMDA Matters Podcast.
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This podcast has been a production of Christian Medical and Dental Associations.
The opinions expressed by guests on this podcast are not necessarily endorsed by Christian Medical and Dental Associations.
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The views expressed on this podcast reflect judgments regarding principles and values held by CMDA and its members and are not intended to imply endorsement of any political party or candidate.
