Culture – Page 2 – Family Council

Guest Column: From ‘Liberalism’ to ‘Progressivism’

May 27, 2026John StonestreetCurrent EventsCultural Commentaries, Culture, Current Events, Liberalism, Progressivism

In March, with an 8-1 majority vote, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “counseling conversations are speech and that states cannot silence viewpoints in the counseling room.” The majority included all but Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who claimed in dissent that states should be able to use “police powers to establish and enforce the standards of care that bind medical professionals,” including what she called “professional medical speech.” Apparently, for Justice Jackson, that power also includes the ability to determine what should count as “scientific consensus,” given the collapse of consensus on the issue of “gender-affirming care.”

In a concurring opinion, liberal Justices Kagan and Sotomayor noted that the Colorado law in question, which banned conversion therapy for minors, was not “viewpoint-neutral.” Had it been, they said, it would raise a different and more difficult question.” In another instance last summer, Justice Sotomayor did not agree with a Trump administration policy but also believed it was not the place of the Court to decide. Justice Jackson, on the other hand, described her appointment to the Supreme Court as an opportunity “to tell people in my opinions how I feel about the issues.”

This is an example of an ongoing fissure between liberals and progressives on the political and ideological Left in America. As Colson Center Senior Fellow Dr. Glenn Sunshine has previously described, part of this difference is that standpoint epistemology, the liberal idea that each has our own truth from our own perspective, has devolved into expressive individualism, the idea that “our truth” should be imposed on everyone else as a matter of human dignity.

The implications of this shift from “liberalism” to “progressivism” are significant, especially for rights of speech and conscience. On April 22, Lois McLatchie Miller posted a clip of a British police officer informing a street preacher that he could not share the Gospel in places or ways that “may” cause offense or dissuade people from seeking abortions.

Back in March, Päivi Räsänen, a lawmaker in Finland, was found guilty of “inciting hatred” for calling homosexuality a “disorder” in 2004. No riots or hatred were actually incited in the over twenty years since. She was guilty of believing and expressing the wrong things. Also in March, the Chicago Bulls waived guard Jaden Ivey “due to conduct detrimental to the team.” Given the conduct regularly tolerated by sports franchises, it is notable that Mr. Ivey’s “offense” was posting a video of himself critiquing the NBA’s promotion of “Pride Month.”

Many progressives left Twitter when it was purchased by Elon Musk, not because their ideas would be suppressed but because contrary ideas would not be. But the move to alternate social media platform Bluesky has turned out to be a mess. The progressive drive for ideological purity has stunted any real conversation. As biologist Colin Wright noted: 

I’m blocked by thousands of accounts on Bluesky I’ve never even interacted with, since I almost never post. People over there block on first contact with any ideological friction. That results in a bunch of small isolated communities. Not ideal for a social media app. 

This kind of intolerance is a feature of progressivism, not a bug. Though people often use “liberal” and “progressive” interchangeably, they are not the same thing. Like the new “dissident Right,” which devolved out of classic conservatism and rejected core tenets of it, progressivism and liberalism are not the same either. 

Liberalism calls for tolerance. Progressivism silences dissent and calls it tolerance. Progressivism claims to be about moving forward, but “forward” is just a rejection of anything old, traditional, and settled. To modern progressives, progress is transgression. They sense the world is not as it should be but are threatened by the idea that there is a way it should be.

Divorced from reality and reason, compliance with this vision cannot be argued. Rather, it must be enforced. Thus, the shift from “encouraging all viewpoints” to punishing all dissent.

Why the HENRYs Aren’t Happy: Guest Column

Mar 6, 2025John StonestreetCultureChristianity, Culture

A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted a group of people called “The HENRYs,” an acronym for “high earner, not rich yet.” The piece showcased earners with incomes well into the hundreds of thousands who still feel they are living paycheck to paycheck. According to author Callum Borchers, “The essence of being a HENRY is feeling a gap between what you have and what you think you need to be comfortable.”

Of course, it’s true that prices on many things, from housing to eggs to childcare, have never been higher. But some of the HENRY’s featured in the article have more than the economy to blame. For example, one mentioned her hefty student loan debt and Audi car payments as weighing down her list of expenses. Others seemed to find social status in living in very expensive cities while still trying to keep up with the Joneses. As Borchers noted, “What these high earners consider essentials might be termed luxuries (or nonsense) by the rest of us.”

What people believe to be truly essential perhaps, more than anything else, reflects their deepest loves and allegiances. “Where your treasure is,” Jesus said, “there your heart will be.” Today, with food supply relatively secure and basic necessities widely accessible, we are told to pursue happiness, which will come in the accumulation of things. But that is not the way happiness works. Studies show that once our most basic needs are met, there is no significant difference in levels of reported happiness in correlation with level of income. In other words, money can buy security, but it cannot buy happiness.

When Jesus told how difficult it is for the wealthy to come to Christ, He was probably referencing a level of security most of us have achieved. It’s less about the amount earned, and more about what we look to in order to secure our worship and devotion, and to fill the “God-shaped hole” each of us has. One must choose to serve either God or mammon, a term that refers to more than just money. But those who tie their contentment to the number of commas in their bank account will never truly find it.

The discontentment of the HENRYs is deeply connected to the larger, culture-wide crisis of what life is about and who we are. Simply put, we look for meaning and identity in all the wrong places. Comfort is not a big enough cause for which to live. Neither is luxury, especially the kind achieved through debt. (U.S. household debt is now over $18 trillion.)

In Romans, Paul lists generosity as a gift of grace, alongside service, teaching, acts of mercy, and other ways of living for others. As David Bahnsen described in his book Full-Time, a Christian vision understands our work as a calling, the way we steward what belongs to God and fulfills our creational calling. It is not merely a means to store up what is, in the end, perishable. Bahnsen’s book summarizes the inherent connection between work and the meaning of life, and what that means for how we should think about wealth.

This is why Christians have hope in all economic times. This hope is an incredible witness to the One who made us, but especially in times when we just lose sight of what life is about. We’ve been bought with a price, even greater than what eggs cost these days.

Request a copy of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life with a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/February.

Bluey, the Cultural Warrior: Guest Column

Feb 28, 2024John StonestreetCultureCulture, Culture War

The New York Times complains about fathers who might be too good in popular cartoon.

Recently in The New York Times, pop culture critic Amanda Hess argued that the immensely popular Australian children’s cartoon Bluey is problematic. According to Hess, the cartoon offers an over-idealistic portrayal of parenting, especially of fathers. Not only is Bluey’s puppy dad Bandit “a good father—he is a fantasy, one crafted to appeal to adults as much as to children.” Bandit seems “omnipresent” in the seven-minute episodes, Hess complains, too often playing with his daughters and doing housework. He “represents a parent freed of drudgery, one whose central responsibility is delighting his kids.”

The reason why a positive portrayal of dads is a bad thing has something to do with what former President George W. Bush once called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” Hess is not really arguing that cartoon dads shouldn’t be good dads, but if they are too good, then real-life dads might feel guilty and real-life kids with absent or abusive dads might feel worse. In other words, if everyone does not meet a high bar, we should lower it.

In a strange sense, of course, Hess is making a case that dads matter. Craving a dad who is consistently present, attentive, and loving reflects something about who we are and what we need, whether we received it or not. We have that craving because it is built into the fabric of reality. We may wish and often repeat that men and women are interchangeable, and therefore, moms and dads are too. But our own hearts say otherwise.

In fact, social science data routinely confirms how important dads are for the health and well-being of children. Kids who grow up without a dad at home are three times more likely to engage in criminal activity, more likely to engage in sexual activity earlier, less likely to go to college, more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems, more likely to struggle academically, and are twice as likely to commit suicide. As author and Professor Nancy Pearcey recently wrote, the best predictor that a child will hold on to their Christian faith into adulthood is if their dad held on to his faith and nurtured a close bond with his kids.

None of this means, of course, that children who grow up with an absent or abusive dad are doomed to failure, or that children who grow up with faithful, attentive fathers are guaranteed success. However, if we do know instinctively and empirically how important dads are, shouldn’t we hope for more good fathers to be modeled in the media and elsewhere, rather than fewer?

In an episode of Bluey called “Hospital,” Bluey and her sister pretend to perform surgery on their dad. As is characteristic of the show, a few jokes are clearly aimed at the parents watching. At one point, Bandit asks pleadingly if there is another game they could play in which he could just lie on the couch and do nothing.

This endearing example isn’t one of perfect fathering that Hess is complaining about, but it is quite realistic and perhaps reveals the real “problem” with this particular cartoon dad: He doesn’t treat his children like objects or status symbols or constant irritants, as items on a bucket list, or as obstacles to freedom, prosperity, and autonomy. As my friend and kids’ rights advocate Katy Faust puts it, we think of kids as means to serve adult desires, rather than as ends in and of themselves, whose needs and wellbeing should be put first.

According to Hess, the problem with Bluey is that it never portrays the “drudgery” of parenthood, peddling instead some irrational idea that a parent should delight his kids. In Hess’s critique, it’s not possible for a dad to feel annoyed, bored, and pulled in too many directions but still choose to play goofy games like “hospital” because he knows, at some level, just how consequential his love, time, and attention is for his kids. In fact, it’s more than possible that the ratio of annoyance to life-long importance is outrageously lopsided. It’s not only possible, it’s essential because only a dad can be a dad.

For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.