Contrary to what proponents claim, policies that support the social transition of children are not “kind.” Nor are they aimed at “what’s best for the kids.” Rather, these policies enable and protect practices that cause irreversible harm. This includes policies about pronouns. A pronoun matters because language matters. Language should match reality, not distort it. This is true for everyone everywhere, but especially for those who teach our children. Educators should not lie about reality, nor should the state force them to do so. 

Late last month, Virginia teacher Peter Vlaming won an important legal battle against the high school that fired him. Back in 2018, the well-liked French teacher was placed on administrative leave by West Point High School for failing to comply with the school district’s policy concerning preferred pronouns. Though Vlaming was willing to accommodate a request by a female student to use her chosen male name, he refused to refer to the student with the pronouns “he” or “him.”  
To be clear, Vlaming did not use female pronouns either. Rather, he chose to avoid using any pronouns to refer to the student. The school superintendent, however, told Vlaming that he could not avoid using the male pronouns, even when the student wasn’t present. Vlaming refused these demands, and within a few short weeks, was fired.  
In other words, Vlaming was fired for what he did not say, or as Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer put it, “what he couldn’t say … in good conscience.”  
Vlaming filed a lawsuit against the school in 2019. A lower court threw out the case, but, in 2023, the Supreme Court of Virginia reinstated the lawsuit, stating: 
Absent a truly compelling reason for doing so, no government committed to these principles [of free speech and freedom of religion] can lawfully coerce its citizens into pledging verbal allegiance to ideological views that violate their sincerely held religious beliefs. 
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Ultimately, the Birds & Bees curriculum gives parents clarity and confidence about a very confusing part of our culture, helping them raise their kids to steward their sexuality in a way honoring to the Lord. For more information about Birds & Bees or to enroll in their course, visit birds-bees.com. They also have a terrific podcast full of practical and helpful advice. 

I think it was in 2009 when, at an airport for an early morning flight, a wise Christian leader said to me bluntly, “John, the question is not if your daughters will see pornography. The question is what will they do when they see pornography?” 
I was stunned, but he was right. His words are even more true today, fifteen years later, than when he said them. Technology makes it way easier than ever before for predatory pornography to find our kids. Even if they are not looking for it, it is looking for them. According to a 2020 survey, a majority of U.S. children are exposed to online pornography by age 13. Many are exposed as young as seven. According to the same report, 84% of male youths ages 14 to 18 and 54% of young women the same age have encountered porn. Last year, Common Sense Media reported that a whopping 71% of teens surveyed had accessed porn within the previous week of being interviewed. 
If we aren’t teaching our kids how to think about sexuality and marriage, about their own bodies and how to respect others, someone—or something—else is. Parents must begin to teach even young children about who they are and how to deal with sexuality in a culture that is deeply broken. And they can start today. 
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Solzhenitsyn pointed to the lack of great statesmen as evidence of cultural collapse. While there were, he said, courageous individuals worthy of respect, consider how differently greatness was defined in the past. One rightly wonders what Solzhenitsyn would think about who is called “hero” and what is called “historic” today. A few years ago, for example, First Lady Jill Biden presented the International Women’s Day Woman of Courage award to a male politician who identifies as a woman. Wins at entertainment award shows are called “historic,” though no one remembers them within a few weeks. 

Though most commencement speeches are things worthy of forgetting, in June of 1978, at Harvard University, America heard the prophetic voice of renowned Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Boldly and without apology, Solzhenitsyn challenged politically correct and broadly accepted ideas, and he was booed for it. His stunning address may have made those assembled there uncomfortable, but the words have proven true. In fact, they are more relevant today than when he said them. 
Why would an audience boo a moral giant and Nobel Prize winner who had stared down Communist Gulags? Perhaps, they expected him to direct his moral condemnations only at Communism. Instead, he aimed at both Communism and the West and, in the process, courageously spoke of what was reviled by elites on both sides of the Atlantic: truth.  
Truth eludes us if we do not concentrate our attention totally on its pursuit. But even while it eludes us, the illusion of knowing it still lingers and leads to many misunderstandings. Also, truth seldom is pleasant; it is almost invariably bitter. 
In his profound analysis of the prevailing worldview in America, Solzhenitsyn said that the West had exchanged belief in unchanging truth for a relentless and superficial legalism. The most tragic and significant result, he said, was the absence of “civil courage,” and he pointed to three specific lines of evidence for his claim.  
First, “destructive and irresponsible freedom had been granted boundless space.” How a culture understands freedom—whether as a means of cultivating virtue or as a means of achieving immediate gratification—determines its stability. As Os Guinness wrote in his book A Free People’s Suicide, the greatest enemy of freedom is, ironically, freedom.
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Lewis lived in a time and place in desperate need of hope. He offered that hope by articulating the truths of the Christian worldview. Lewis did not bring novelty to the people of Britain during the war. He simply brought the truth and communicated it in a way that could be understood and applied. 

In the tumultuous era of World War II, amidst the chaos and uncertainty, Clive Staples Lewis offered a voice of reason and faith to a nation under constant threat. The BBC asked Lewis to give a series of radio broadcasts in response to the pressing need for moral guidance and spiritual reassurance. From 1941-1944, Lewis gave a total of 25 of these radio addresses, the last of which aired 80 years ago this month. These talks were later compiled into the bestselling and beloved book, Mere Christianity. 
The reach of Lewis expanded beyond his radio broadcasts. He is perhaps most well-known for the fictional children’s series, The Chronicles of Narnia, published between 1950-1956. These delightful stories depict the Christian story of the world. In fact, among the most consistent themes in all of Lewis’s writings is the truth and relevance of Christianity for all people and all times. 
Lewis recognized that the truths of Christianity held the key to the moral dilemmas and existential questions of his time. In his broadcasts, Lewis presented Christianity not just as a set of dogmas or rituals but as a worldview that could withstand scrutiny. With typical clarity, he articulated the timeless truths of the Christian faith in a way that appealed to both believers and skeptics. His approach was marked by clear writing, logic, and a deep understanding of human nature. He had a way of making complex subjects simple without being simplistic, perhaps seen best in his ability to confront logical fallacies with good humor and common sense. 
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Women have been led to believe that having children will destroy the possibility of fulfillment and happiness. This narrative is so dominant that many women feel stigma from finding any joy in motherhood. Cohen described as much in a remarkable section of her Vox piece: “When I started asking women about their experiences as mothers, I was startled by the number who sheepishly admitted, and only after being pressed, that they had pretty equitable arrangements with their partners, and even loved being moms, but were unlikely to say any of that publicly. Doing so could seem insensitive to those whose experiences were not as positive.”  

Recently in Vox, journalist Rachel Cohen attempted to explain how “millennials learned to dread motherhood.” Noting the troubling drop in global fertility rates, Cohen spoke to dozens of women about whether they hoped to become or hoped to avoid becoming moms.   
Today, the question of whether to have kids generates anxiety far more intense than your garden-variety ambivalence. For too many, it inspires dread. I know some women who have decided to forgo motherhood altogether—not out of an empowered certainty that they want to remain child-free, but because the alternative seems impossibly daunting. Others are still choosing motherhood, but with profound apprehension that it will require them to sacrifice everything that brings them pleasure.  
At least part of the dynamic at work here is cultural. Technology and evolving social norms have created the impression that the choice to become parents is simply one among many lifestyle “choices” we make, such as whether to buy or rent, or whether or not to get a dog. And like those choices, we make the choice to have children or not based on convenience, enjoyment, and personal fulfillment. It’s no surprise, then, that motherhood often lands on the losing side of that evaluation.   
This narrative has roots in second-wave feminism. Unlike early feminism, which was largely about correcting social injustices in pursuit of equal rights for women, second- and especially third-wave feminism went further, presuming that a woman’s value is found entirely in how she compares to and competes with men. In the process, women’s fertility was, in many ways, pathologized, treated as a bug rather than a feature of being a woman.  
Rather than liberating women as promised, however, one of the consequences of this brand of feminism is fear.
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While still in her womb, John helped his own mother prepare for the coming of the Lord. She then encouraged Mary in her preparation for the coming of the Lord, the One she was carrying at that time. After Elizabeth’s encouragement, Mary breaks out into song, the Magnificat, uttering words that have not only instructed and encouraged millions of people throughout Christian history as they prepare for the Lord, but which also definitively answer the question immortalized in another song, “Mary, Did You Know?” Apparently, she knew, and she composed a whole song about it.  

One overlooked grace from God is that He, in His infinite wisdom, gave us four Gospels, instead of just one or two. For example, if it were up to only Matthew and Mark, we’d have the impression that John the Baptizer appeared out of nowhere and was more than a little weird. After all, it is from their accounts of John that we learn of his odd wardrobe and even odder diet.   
A point about John that every one of the Gospels emphasizes is that he was a fulfillment of a promise from the prophets Malachi and Isaiah: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me” (Malachi 3:1).
A voice cries: 
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; 
     make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3).   
Neither Matthew, whose Gospel begins with a nativity story, nor Mark, whose Gospel does not contain an account of Jesus’ birth, include any details that connect John to the beginning of Jesus’ story. Luke and John, however, do make that connection.  
Luke’s Gospel contains the most details about John’s beginning, specifically that, like Jesus, John’s birth was miraculous and also involved a visitation from the angel Gabriel. But it is one particular detail, one often overlooked detail, that is especially remarkable and instructive for our cultural moment. Luke reveals that John the Baptist was the first person—other than Mary, who was told by the angel—to recognize Jesus as the Messiah.    
While Mary was still pregnant with Jesus, she went to visit John’s mother Elizabeth, who was also still pregnant. 
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Too often, assertions are mistaken for arguments, and there’s a vast difference between the two. An assertion is a definitive statement made about the nature of reality. An argument is presented to back up an assertion. By asking “how do you know that’s true?” we’ll move the conversation beyond dueling assertions to why those assertions should be taken seriously. 

It can be intimidating to engage our neighbors on cultural issues these days. It seems that every conversation is a potential minefield where the slightest wrong word can get you banished from polite society as a bigot or “hater.” This is where we can take a lesson from two of the greatest teachers of all time, Jesus and Socrates. Both were masters of their craft, and both used questions to lead their listeners to the answers they sought. 
Here are six questions I’ve found extremely helpful to create the sort of dialogue we should desire about issues of faith and culture. 
First: What do you mean by that? The battle of ideas is always tied up in the battle over the definition of words. Thus, it’s vital in any conversation to clarify the terms being used. For example, the most important thing to clarify about “same-sex marriage” is the definition of marriage. When the topic comes up, it’s best to say, “Hold on, before we go too far into what kind of unions should be considered marriage, what do you mean by marriage?” Often, when it comes to these crucial issues, we’re all using the same vocabulary, but rarely the same dictionary. 
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To be a Christian and to hold to Christian conviction about what is true about the nature and person of Jesus Christ, about human nature, and about the place of Christian conviction in the public square is to be more than out of step with the larger culture. It’s to be potentially at risk to some degree, something that Christians have faced since the beginning of the Church. It may very well be that we, too, will be forced to choose between our wellbeing in some sense and our convictions. 

Leaders of the early Church, both the Apostles and their disciples, wrote letters to churches facing difficult challenges. These epistles were to encourage and instruct, shoring up new believers against internal conflicts or creeping heresies and increasing persecution. 
I think of these letters whenever I think about what Jack Phillips has faced for over a decade now. After being harassed, mistreated, and maligned by Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission for not baking a cake for a same-sex wedding at a time when same-sex marriages did not exist in the state, Jack’s been targeted for harassment by a Denver lawyer for refusing to bake a cake celebrating gender confusion. Fearful that they would, once again, be smacked down by the Supreme Court for how they treated Jack, the state of Colorado had initially dropped their second case against Jack, based on a complaint filed by a man who presents as a woman. Early on, the transgender activist stated that he would not stop harassing Jack until either his (Jack’s) beliefs changed or Masterpiece Cakeshop was put out of business.  
A Colorado judge then allowed a civil case to proceed and, last week, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled against Jack Phillips and for the Denver lawyer, claiming that designing a cake to celebrate so-called gender change does not constitute speech. Jack, still represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, will appeal, and the case is likely headed back to the Supreme Court. 
To be a Christian and to hold to Christian conviction about what is true about the nature and person of Jesus Christ, about human nature, and about the place of Christian conviction in the public square is to be more than out of step with the larger culture. It’s to be potentially at risk to some degree, something that Christians have faced since the beginning of the Church. 
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Throughout human history, wherever the Church has gone, education has followed. This is because of how Christianity understands life and the world, particularly the nature of reality itself and the human person. Education doesn’t make sense in a worldview that is only about survival. In a worldview that is only about survival, education is only utilitarian.
But within a worldview that says that the world itself came from a first cause that is intelligent, reasonable, knowable, and – this is important – wants to be known, there is solid grounding for actual knowledge, and therefore education.
Christianity says that God has made us in his own image. In other words, not only is God knowable, but humans are knowers. So, the act of learning is nothing less than, as Johannes Kepler put it, thinking God’s thoughts after him. Knowing God’s world leads to knowing God, and knowing God is what life is all about.
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Christian education rests on the assumption that every person is made in the image of God, created by God for a purpose, called by God to live in the world He created, and specifically called to live for Christ in this cultural moment. Christian education equips and prepares students to understand reality and to live with the clarity, confidence, and courage they need to face the challenges of this broken world.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, since the start of the pandemic, more than 1.5 million students have left traditional public schooling. Parents and students, it seems, are looking for something different.
Many parents and students are looking elsewhere because students struggled to learn online or have even fallen behind. Others feel helpless to respond to how school districts and states have handled, and sometimes mishandled, the pandemic. Others are worried about their students learning bad habits with technology, or suffering from loneliness and despair.
And many parents have finally seen what their students are actually being taught. During the pandemic, various forms of anti-Americanism, sexual indoctrinations, and critical theory, that are being passed in the name of education, have streamed into homes through online Zoom classrooms. Many parents realized, some for the first time, that their students weren’t learning what the parents thought they were learning. As one former college professor noted, if you haven’t been in education in the past three years, it’s almost unrecognizable to what you experienced growing up.
All of which has led to incredible growth in the number of homeschooling families and record enrollments for virtually every Christian school I know.
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