Christianity – Family Council

Ready to Change the World? Eat Dinner With Your Family: Guest Column

Dec 16, 2024John StonestreetChristianityChristianity, Family Time

If the Christian’s civic duty is only to vote, then it is now safe to return to life as normal, at least until the next election cycle starts in a few months. However, much more is involved in the fight for the soul of any nation, including this one. Our civic duty extends beyond the ballot box.

The historic shifts in the platforms of both parties during this past election are not just due to changes in popular opinion. Rather, they point to how dramatically our collective cultural imagination has shifted, a shift that reflects our institutions. Public schools, universities, media outlets, digital platforms, publishing houses, Hollywood, corporate America, and even churches have become more progressive. Critical theory and gender ideology not only dominate the required reading lists of many schools but are also embedded in the community guidelines of countless digital platforms, the HR policies of many businesses and healthcare systems, not to mention the personnel of various government agencies.

But this collective cultural drift so evident in our politics has not simply resulted from bad ideas or personnel. The conservative Jewish political scholar Yoram Hazony once argued, “It is not disbelief that plagues us but dishonor.” Specifically, he meant the dishonor of the most essential institutions and the traditions kept by them. The breakdown of the family, the compromise and collapse of our religious consensus, and the loss of civil society has contributed greatly to an uncritical acceptance of bad ideas and destructive patterns of behavior.

As Hazony reported, even those who claim to be committed to and excited about conservatism have little intention of actually engaging in those practices worth conserving. Keeping the sabbath, reading Scripture, attending religious services, and hosting regular family dinners are more than just nostalgic traditions. And yet, as Hazony explained, these essential habits of a healthy and flourishing society are losing out weekend after weekend to heading to “the mountains or the beach, or staying home ‘to finish something for work.’”

Civic duty and political change cannot be reduced to how one votes. It’s how one lives, especially with those to whom we are (or should be) the closest, that matters more. For example, studies have long shown that regular family dinners bring enormous benefit, especially to children. According to the Director of the Family Dinner Project Dr. Anne Fishel, regularly gathering around the dinner table results in better nutrition, less obesity, and better mental health:

Regular family dinners are associated with lower rates of depression, and anxiety, and substance abuse, and eating disorders, and tobacco use, and early teenage pregnancy, and higher rates of resilience and higher self-esteem.

Even more, regular family dinners are also a predictor of long-term success. For school-aged kids, frequent family mealtime is “an even more powerful predictor of high achievement scores than time spent in school, doing homework, playing sports, or doing art.”

Yet, for all these benefits, only 54% of American families sit down to a daily mealtime, and for many who do, family dinnertime is constantly besieged by digital distraction. Even before the advent of smartphones and tablets, Neil Postman warned that “(a) family that does not or cannot control the information environment of its children is barely a family at all.”

It may sound too simple to be true, but it’s not. One way that Christians can make a lasting, significant difference in politics is by protecting and cultivating the dinner table. The future of our nation may indeed depend on whether Christians make family mealtimes, as one non-Christian sociologist has described, a “sacred space.”

It matters greatly who is in the White House, but it matters so much more who we are in our houses, in our houses of worship, and around our dinner tables.

Iran’s Jesus Revolution? Mosques Close as 1 Million Muslims Accept Christ: CBN News

Aug 21, 2024Jerry CoxChristianityChristian Persecution, Christianity

CBN News reports about major changes in the Middle East as people convert from Islam to Christianity and seek changes in their countries:

An unprecedented number of Muslims are choosing to follow Christ, especially in Iran as people search for a better life.

Iranians are growing tired of the ayatollahs and a nation led by the empty promises of their Islamic theocracy. An anonymous internal poll found that 80% now prefer a democratic government, and many are leaving Islam.

You can learn more by watching the video below.

Eric Liddell’s Legacy: 100 Years Later

Jul 29, 2024John StonestreetChristianityChristianity

This summer’s Olympic games will mark the 100th anniversary of the incredible performance and shocking faith of Scottish Gold Medalist Eric Liddell, whose story was immortalized in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire.

A devout Christian and son of Scottish Presbyterian missionaries to China, Liddell was an athlete of tremendous promise from his youth. In addition to running, Liddell was selected to play for Scotland’s international rugby team seven times. Alongside his rigorous athletic training was his rigorous faith. In particular, Liddell had a practice of resting on the Sabbath, which meant never racing on Sundays.

Liddell’s athletic prowess eventually took him to the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, France. That year, when the schedule of events was released, Liddell’s best race—the 100-meter dash—was scheduled for a Sunday. But because the race was scheduled on the Sabbath, Liddell dropped out.

As one of his peers recalled, Liddell’s decision “caused tremendous furore amongst many people, particularly with the newspapers and journalists,” with some even calling him “a traitor to his country.”

Nevertheless, the Scottish runner refused to race on Sunday, and instead ran in the 200-meter and 400-meter events, races not scheduled on a Sunday and for which he had not trained. Incredibly, he took bronze in the 200-meter and gold in the 400-meter, finishing five meters ahead of the pack.

Liddell saw his performance as an act of his faith in Christ. In his own words: “When the gun goes, I go as fast as I can, and I trust to God that I’ll have the strength to do the second half.” Liddell’s performance showed that excellence in one’s craft can be a witness for Christ, and his decision to change races bore witness to the fact that neither international fame nor Olympic gold were worth denying the Lord. In fact, his choice pointed to a treasure more precious than Olympic gold, the immeasurable riches of eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Liddell’s witness and renown did not end at the 1924 Olympics. As Liddell once said, God had not only “made [him] fast;” He “made [him] for China.” Following athletic success, Liddell returned to China as a missionary. There he bore witness to Christ by preaching the Gospel and teaching at a college. When Japan invaded China in 1937, Liddell decided to remain in the country while his pregnant wife and two children evacuated. In time, the Japanese placed him in an internment camp, where he faithfully served Christ and others before dying of a brain tumor in 1945.  

A century later, Liddell’s witness and legacy finds new traction with today’s Olympians.

Other devout athletes describe faith as strengthening their performance rather than undermining it. In 2020, Beatie Deutsch, an Orthodox Jewish runner, opted not to compete in the women’s marathon at Tokyo Olympics because it was scheduled on Saturday. As she described it: “Most people would see sports and religion as very separate, but I see a big overlap. Everything we have is a gift from God—He’s the one who’s given me this strength.”

American gold medalist in women’s 400-meter hurdles Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone found direct inspiration from Liddell’s historic decision to glorify God. In a space where it would be so easy to cave to the pressures of performance, McLaughlin-Levrone’s faith liberates her from doubt and fear:

For a long time, my identity was in track and field. But I realized that first and foremost, I’m a child of God. It set me free to run the race God has set out for me to run.

Liddell’s courage to honor the Lord has left a lasting impact. May his life and legacy continue to inspire new generations of Christians to courageously live out their faith even when it’s costly.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Hayden. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.