John Stonestreet – Page 3

Guest Column: Is Sports Betting Okay?

Nov 25, 2025John StonestreetGamblingGambling, Sports Betting

Last month, the National Basketball Association was rocked by the arrests of players and coaches resulting from an FBI probe into sports gambling. The charges ranged from mafia-linked poker games to rigging basketball games, and more indictments are expected. This month, two Major League Baseball pitchers were arrested in connection with a pitch rigging scheme, also tied to sports betting.

ESPN’s Michael Wilbon was dismissive, saying, “I don’t care.” But then, he put his finger on why the problem is so serious: “At the highest levels of the pyramid in this country, of this culture, everybody’s betting now.” Sports has long been plagued by gambling scandals, but today, sports gambling has been normalized and is pervasive in homes, high schools, and locker rooms across America.

A recent video in the What Would You Say? serie s discussed sports gambling and why it is such a big deal:

Betting on sports is nothing new, but since a 2018 Supreme Court case struck down a federal ban and paved the way for 38 states along with Washington, D.C., to allow sports gambling, it has exploded in popularity. So far, this national experiment has been a disaster for individuals and families.

The next time someone says, “Sports gambling is harmless fun. It shouldn’t be regulated,” remember these three things:

First, sports gambling is addictive and destroys lives. During the 2024 NFL season, $34 billion in bets were placed. That’s a third more than the prior year, and 100% more than six years ago, when sports gambling was re-legalized. During that time frame, sportsbooks have raked in over $300 billion. All that money isn’t coming from winners.

Most modern sports gambling is done through smartphone-based apps. Studies show that gambling on apps is even harder to stop than casino or other forms of gambling, and it attracts people to gamble who may have never otherwise tried it. Phone-based apps activate the same reward centers in the brain as drugs and alcohol, and are always available in users’ pockets, ready and waiting every time a game is on. Long gone are the days when fans had to visit seedy parts of town to place their bets. Now, eye-catching apps with flashy ads are never more than a tap away.

This increased access to betting has caused what one writer at The Atlantic described as “a wave of financial and familial misery,” which falls most on households least able to afford it. For every dollar spent on betting, household investing falls by an average of $2. In fact, since sports gambling was re-legalized, there has also been a notable increase in over-drafted bank accounts, maxed out credit cards, and debt delinquency. Sports gambling increases the likelihood that a family will go bankrupt by 25% to 30%. If it’s true that “the house always wins,” more households than ever are losing.

Second, sports gambling victimizes the innocent. One of the primary arguments for legalizing this kind of gambling is that it doesn’t harm anyone. So, why should the government tell people what they can do with their money? However, money problems and addiction are plagues on households, and sports gambling brings home the worst of both things. In the process, other social pathologies are made worse.

Research has found that an unexpected loss for an NFL team now correlates with a 10% spike in male domestic abuse. States with legalized sports gambling have seen an estimated 9% increase in violence against intimate partners. In other words, men who gamble on sports don’t just lose money. They lose their self-restraint and hurt innocent victims.

Sports gambling brings harm to those who don’t participate in it by causing financial ruin and fueling domestic violence. As one writer put it, this booming industry’s cost shouldn’t be measured in only dollars and cents. It should be measured in human lives, especially women and children who are dragged against their will into this destructive and addictive behavior.

Third, sports gambling corrupts sports. People play and watch sports for the athletic competition and team spirit. However, when gambling is introduced, athletes are incentivized to change or even degrade the way they play. Officials are tempted to cheat, and fans forget why they enjoyed a sport in the first place, focusing instead on financial gain.

Just last year, tennis players, Olympic competitors, and NBA referees were all caught fixing games and matches. In 2023, the NFL suspended five players for gambling-related violations, and one analysis found a 250% year-over-year increase in suspicious basketball matches. Far from improving sports, gambling has undermined trust, integrity, and all the other reasons athletes step onto the court or field. This will only get worse as sports gambling invades more franchises and fan bases.

The preoccupation with quick cash introduces another game, one that has nothing to do with athletics and everything to do with what the Bible calls “the love of money.” Paul said that the love of money is “the root of all evil.” The way that sports gambling has poisoned sports, addicted users, and wrecked households proves Paul was right. This national experiment with sports gambling has failed, and it’s time to end it. There’s nothing harmless about playing with people’s lives.

So, the next time someone says, “Sports gambling is harmless fun. It shouldn’t be regulated,” remember these three things: Sports gambling is addictive and destroys lives; sports gambling victimizes the innocent; sports gambling corrupts sports.

To see and share this video, visit the What Would You Say? channel on YouTube. You’ll also find dozens of other helpful videos on a variety of difficult topics.

Colorado and Assisted Suicide: Guest Column

Nov 18, 2025John StonestreetEuthanasia and Assisted SuicideAssisted Suicide, Euthanasia, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

In 2016, Canada legalized Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAiD. Less than a decade later, the practice accounts for one in 20 of all deaths in the country. How quickly the deadly practice expanded underscores how, anywhere it has been legalized, the “right to die” soon becomes the “duty to die.”

Assisted suicide is the definition of a slippery slope. Once passed, these laws always expand. In Canada, the law was recently amended to allow anyone with a mental illness, such as PTSD or depression, to obtain life-ending drugs. In the Netherlands, government surveys recently uncovered “thousands of cases” in which doctors “intentionally administered lethal injections to patients without a request,” including “children, the demented,” and “the mentally ill.”

It was also in 2016 that Colorado voters approved the End-of-life Options Act, to allow physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to adult residents with a so-called “terminal” diagnosis. Last year, the governor signed legislation to also allow some registered nurses to prescribe the lethal drugs and to reduce the waiting period from 15 to seven days. This year, a pair of lawsuits demonstrate just how slippery the slope is here, as well.

One of the pending lawsuits seeks to expand Colorado law even further. The euphemistically titled group Compassion & Choices, formerly known as the “Hemlock Society,” is challenging the residency requirement, arguing that it is “discriminatory” to prevent out-of-state residents from receiving drugs for assisted suicide. If this lawsuit is successful, Colorado would become a “suicide tourism” destination, allowing individuals anywhere in the United States to “shop for death.”

The other Colorado lawsuit seeks to curb the disturbing trend of prescribing lethal doses to patients with severe eating disorders. Under the guise of “terminal anorexia,” some doctors claim that, due to long-term effects of malnutrition, there are patients who lack the will to live and “simply cannot continue the fight.”

However, according to Denver-based psychiatrist Dr. Patricia Westmoreland, anorexia is primarily a psychiatric condition and is treatable, not terminal. Even more, according to Dr. Westmoreland, “Patients suffering from extreme anorexia are not mentally healthy enough to make a decision with such dire consequences.”

Doctor-assisted death is always sold to the public with promises of safeguards, such as consent, but these safeguards are quickly compromised. So is the meaning of what is considered a “terminal” condition. Predictably, Colorado is following the same troubling global trends as everywhere else medicalized death has been legalized.

Behind the second lawsuit to challenge Colorado’s assisted-suicide law is a group of disability-rights advocates led by the Institute for Patients’ Rights. They claim the law inherently discriminates against people with disabilities by singling out individuals with disabilities or medical conditions who struggle with depression and other mental health issues, including suicidal ideation. Rather than offering mental health care and suicide prevention services, as it does for non-disabled people who express a wish to die, Colorado offers those with disabilities the “option” of killing themselves. In effect, Colorado law tells people with disabilities that their lives are less valuable and not worth preserving.

At the center of their case is the story of Jane Allen, a 29-year-old woman who struggled with anorexia. In the midst of her mental health crisis, a Colorado doctor diagnosed her with “terminal anorexia” and issued her a lethal prescription. Thankfully, Jane’s father intervened, and a court ordered the drugs removed from her possession, saving Jane’s life. Her health improved, and she was able to live independently before she tragically died of a heart condition a couple years later.

Jane’s case illustrates the problem with assisted-suicide laws like Colorado’s. These laws prey on the most vulnerable, poison family relationships, and corrupt the medical profession. Rather than embracing the call to heal, doctors become dispensers of death. Even worse, they are forced to decide whose life is worth living and whose isn’t. This is not “care.” Nor is it “medicine.”

Every single life has inherent, eternal value. Lawmakers and medical professionals cannot change what the Creator has already decided. Christians must be clear on what is true about human value.

The slope of medicalized killing is slippery indeed. The safeguards cannot hold. Christians must pray for and push for laws that recognize the central truth that every human being, from conception to natural death, is made in God’s image and worthy of life. More importantly, believers must be discipled in this essential and consequential doctrine so that the unjust taking of life will never be accepted as normal, even where it is made legal.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Ian Speir.

Islam’s Growth in the West: Guest Column

Nov 13, 2025John StonestreetReligionIslam, Religion

Less than 25 years after Muslim terrorists killed nearly 3,000 people on 9/11, New York City, home of “ground zero,” just elected a Muslim as its next mayor. Some European cities are already majority Muslim, so what does this mean for America?

 Today on Breakpoint, speaker and author Abdu Murray takes a closer look at Islam in America and how Christians should respond.

The truth, as usual, is complicated. There are legitimate concerns about Islam’s growing influence in Western life. But there are also exaggerations—or flat-out falsehoods. Take the rumor that Dearborn, Michigan, has implemented anti-Christian missionary laws. It hasn’t. I’ve read the ordinances and confirmed with Christian friends who live there that they can still share the Gospel in Dearborn’s parks and streets.

Still, there are real tensions. When Dearborn’s mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, told Christian Dearborn resident and street preacher Ted Barham that he wasn’t welcome in Dearborn, the backlash was swift. In response, Hammoud issued a “sorry, not sorry” statement that Dearborn is open to people of all faiths. But he didn’t apologize or even address Barham. With a population that’s roughly 55% Muslim, Hammoud likely feels no need. His base will keep him in office.

That’s what makes the situation interesting—and instructive. Islam’s growth in the West isn’t hypothetical. It’s real, and it’s reshaping local cultures and politics. But contrary to some fears, Shariah law isn’t taking over Western legal systems. Islam’s spread in America isn’t primarily legal or coercive. It’s cultural, demographic, and deeply spiritual.

Despite its global PR problems—association with extremism, restrictions on women, authoritarian regimes—Islam continues to grow in the U.S. Yes, that’s partly due to immigration and birth rates. But it’s also because Islam offers what secularism can’t: a clear message and a sense of belonging.

For young men especially, Islam presents masculinity as virtuous, not toxic. It calls them to discipline, duty, and identity. In a culture that sneers at male strength and a mainline church that too often avoids moral rigor, Islam’s conviction can look like courage.

Islam also carries an underdog appeal. In the Western imagination, Islam is often the David facing a secular (or Western colonialist) Goliath—a minority religion maligned by elites. For younger generations trained to root for the oppressed, that story resonates. It resonates so strongly that some Western youth support Hamas despite knowing that Hamas wouldn’t return the favor. Meanwhile, many churches have grown timid. We’ve replaced persuasive proclamation with emotional appeal, trading substance for sincerity. In that void, Islam’s stridency looks refreshing.

It’s important to remember that Islam is not just a religion—it’s a total worldview that encompasses politics. Many Muslims envision a world submitted to Allah’s law. Muslims differ on how they think that should happen. Most believe in persuasion, service, and exemplary living. Others rely on demographic growth and migration. And a smaller—but concerning—minority openly speaks of Islam’s global dominance and rejects religious pluralism altogether.

Even secular observers have taken notice. Years ago, atheist Richard Dawkins remarked that “I have mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity, insofar as Christianity might be a bulwark against something worse.” That’s a remarkable admission, and it underscores that Gospel proclamation to Muslims and serious Christian discipleship are not only spiritually vital, they’re essential to preserving the moral foundations of the West.

None of this justifies hostility or paranoia. But neither does it allow for naïveté. As Muslim populations grow in key Western cities, the temptation to use social or political leverage to silence criticism or limit evangelism is real. Dearborn’s situation reminds us that political pressure to self-censor can emerge even in democratic societies. History shows that when fear of backlash overrides justice or truth, victims suffer and wrongdoing festers. Moral clarity must outrank cultural sensitivity.

But the greater danger isn’t that Muslims are gaining power. It’s that they’re gaining people. Islam is winning some hearts that long for meaning, conviction, and community—hearts that should be hearing the credibility of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The tragedy isn’t that Islam is advancing. It’s that the Church has been retreating. Islam’s growth doesn’t prove that the religion is true. It proves its followers take their faith seriously, and that should wake us up.

The Christian response must be urgency, not alarm. We need to recognize what makes Islam appealing—its conviction, its courage, its sense of mission—and rekindle our sense of those same virtues, but undergirded by the truth of Christ.

Our witness must be both persuasive and personal. Muslims and secular seekers alike should see in Christians a faith that is intellectually credible, morally grounded, and compassionately lived. The Gospel doesn’t offer domination, but deliverance; not control, but communion with the living God. So, let’s engage our Muslim neighbors, not avoid them. Let’s support those ministering in Muslim-majority communities. Let’s disciple men and women who embody truth with humility and conviction.

Islam’s rise in the West is not a reason to panic—it’s a reason to preach. Our Muslim neighbors aren’t the enemy. They’re people made in the image of God, searching for what only Christ can give.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Abdu Murray.