Parenthood is widely seen as a consumerist activity. Children are viewed in the same way as pets or plants. They are objects to be acquired rather than persons whose intrinsic dignity must be respected. For many parents, children exist to serve their happiness, whether to be a parent’s “bestie” or to fulfill their parent’s hopes and dreams. 

Critics of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) have long warned that the technology could be used to customize children, allowing parents and doctors to effectively play God. According to a recent Slate article, which sounded like a review of the movie Gattaca, those fears were well-founded. According to the article,  
You can have a baby when it suits your career, thanks to egg freezing (or at least you can try). You can sequence your embryos’ genomes for $2,500 a pop and attempt to maximize your future child’s health (or intelligence, attractiveness, or height) … you can even select eye color. There is a vast disparity between who gets to use IVF… and who is using it to create designer families.  
Another example is sex selection. Numbers vary from clinic to clinic, but one Los-Angeles-based IVF clinic estimates that about 85% of its patients engage in sex selection. However, which sex is being selected is surprising.  
Historically, when parents choose between sons and daughters—think of China under its one-child policy or Romans who practiced infanticide by exposure—boys won out. Today, Americans using IVF are abandoning the sons in favor of daughters.  
“Abandoning” is the correct term when it comes to IVF. Standard procedure involves the creation of anywhere between five and 10 embryos that are then implanted either one at a time or in multiples. 
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Even more, in an age like ours, God’s people should be a notable exception or, as historian Tom Holland put it, “weird” in the sense that we are committed to the truth even if everyone else abandons it.

President Biden’s announcement to not seek re-election punctuated one of the most eventful and historic months in American politics in recent memory. The decision came after various political leaders and celebrities publicly and privately expressed their concerns about his age and ability, though Biden’s decline has long been apparent. In the end, even the best attempts of the First Lady could not overcome what everyone saw during Biden’s first (and last) presidential debate.
Still, politicians, celebrity donors, and the Biden family insisted that the President was fine, long after it was obvious that he was not, right up until his decision to withdraw. It’s now unreasonable to think that most of these voices did not know better. Clearly, they believed they could continue to misrepresent reality, even if their claims contradicted the obvious.
In an age in which digital technology can manipulate information in unprecedented ways, this kind of public gaslighting has never been easier. Take, for example, the decision by Veteran Affairs to ban the famous Times Square “V-J Day kiss” photo. After asking that the photo be removed from all facilities, lest the celebratory kiss “foster trauma,” the VA swiftly denied ever sending the memo due to the public backlash.
Or consider how the NFL handled Alicia Keys’ Superbowl Halftime performance earlier this year. When Keys hit a wildly off-key note, fans commented on social media and posted it there immediately. However, when the official video of the performance was posted to YouTube the next day, there was no trace of the wrong note.
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After months of repeated harassment and increasingly bizarre and perverse cake requests, the trans activist who had requested the “gender transition” cake filed a civil suit against Jack Phillips. The request to dismiss was denied by a progressive judge, and a lower court ruled against Jack. The Alliance Defending Freedom appealed the decision in the Colorado state supreme court. I attended the oral arguments, which were heard earlier this month, and the press conferences afterward. The contrast between Jack and his opponent was palpable and stark. 

This past month, cake artist and business owner Jack Phillips was back in court. After a Supreme Court win and 12 years of legal battles, an LGBTQ activist has continued to harass Phillips for his Christian convictions and his presumption to act upon them. 
Jack was first taken to court by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission in 2012, when he respectfully declined to bake a cake for a same-sex “wedding.” The couple pursued legal action against Jack despite his offer to serve them anything in his store and his recommendation of other cake shops that would gladly take their order. The case ended with a 7-2 ruling for Jack in the United States Supreme Court with a strong condemnation of the state of Colorado for its “clear and impermissible hostility” toward his faith.   
However, the state went after Jack again soon after for refusing a request to design a cake in celebration of a “gender transition.” This time, the Alliance Defending Freedom filed a countersuit on behalf of Jack against the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. They backed down.  
Though that should have been the end of Jack’s troubles, it wasn’t. After months of repeated harassment and increasingly bizarre and perverse cake requests, the trans activist who had requested the “gender transition” cake filed a civil suit against Jack Phillips. The request to dismiss was denied by a progressive judge, and a lower court ruled against Jack. The Alliance Defending Freedom appealed the decision in the Colorado state supreme court.  
I attended the oral arguments, which were heard earlier this month, and the press conferences afterward. The contrast between Jack and his opponent was palpable and stark. 
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In a Christian worldview, the creation is more miraculous than mechanical, more enchanted than we often realize. Of course, the world is orderly and works according to identifiable and predictable laws. And yet, as Paul wrote to the Colossians, it is graciously and lovingly held together just as it was brought into being, by the very Word of God. To learn more about the implications of God’s intimate, active role in creating and sustaining His world, see the new book by Dr. Edward Klink, The Beginning and End of All Things: A Biblical Theology of Creation and New Creation.

The familiar opening line of Genesis, that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” introduces a simple but profound idea. Everything that exists, visible and invisible, was created by God. If true, the world is infused with purpose and design. Life is not random but ordered. There are givens in creation and about the human condition to which we must conform.
And yet, as significant as these implications are, there is much more to the doctrine of creation than “God created.” Other passages throughout Scripture, for example John 1 and Colossians 1, claim that God’s creative work is not confined to the distant past. Rather, God remains present, involved, and sovereign over and in His creation. Specifically, it is in and through Christ that God remains present, involved, and sovereign over and in His creation. 
In Colossians 1:16-17, Paul wrote that it was by Christ, the “image of the invisible God and firstborn of all creation, that “all things were created.” And “in Him, all things hold together” (emphasis added). In other words, God is more than a first cause. He not only created the world; He sustains it. 
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The report affirmed that so-called “gender-affirming care” is built on “shaky foundations.” Far from being settled, the evidence supporting the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change surgeries to “treat” gender dysphoria is “remarkably weak.” According to the report, most of the studies cited in support of social, chemical, or surgical “transition” were found to lack the quality required to reliably and safely guide clinicians and families in caring for gender dysphoric young people.  

Recently, the United Kingdom’s National Health Service released an almost 400-page report on the state of “gender identity services for children and young people.” It’s named the “Cass report” after lead researcher and pediatrician Hillary Cass, who served as chair of an independent review that was commissioned by NHS of Great Britain. It is the most comprehensive evaluation of the available evidence and “sets out the recommended clinical approach to care and support they should expect, the interventions that should be available, and how services should be organized across the country.” 
Contrary to the standard narrative peddled by trans activists, the report affirmed that so-called “gender-affirming care” is built on “shaky foundations.” Far from being settled, the evidence supporting the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change surgeries to “treat” gender dysphoria is “remarkably weak.” According to the report, most of the studies cited in support of social, chemical, or surgical “transition” were found to lack the quality required to reliably and safely guide clinicians and families in caring for gender dysphoric young people.  
Specifically, the report found that, given the “lack of long-term follow up data,” the effects—both positive and negative—of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on minors remain almost entirely unknown. It’s unclear how these so-called therapies “impact gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health” as well as “cognitive and psychosexual development.” What’s more, none of these interventions guarantee or predict “which children and young people will go on to have an enduring trans identity” or not. In other words, kids who are encouraged to pursue “gender transition” have no evidence-based guarantee that these therapies will help them in the first place. And yet we do know that these same therapies come with permanent consequences. 
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In his book, The Beginning and End of All Things, Dr. Klink attempted to point Christians to the other important questions that are being asked and answered in the first few chapters of Genesis and how they connect to the rest of Holy Scripture. “But I would like to argue that the biblical text is not even primarily answering that question [how]. Rather than just answering the how question, it’s also answering the who, the what, and the why. And when you think of the who, the what, and the why, it’s orienting the reader to who God is and, even significantly, like in Genesis 1:26 to 31, who is male and female, made image bearers, made in God’s image?”

It’s not uncommon for Christians to devote study time to the first two chapters of Genesis. Typically, this takes the form of questions either about origins or how God created the world and the first humans or about genre or to what extent (if at all) the creation account that opens the Bible should be taken literally. These questions emerged as most important in the last 150 years or so in reaction to the rise and eventual dominance of the Darwinian account of origins in the Western world. 
Neglected in this discussion, understandably so, is often a study of creation as a concept rather than as an event. In other words, there are vast implications for life in the world due to creation being the opening chapter of the ongoing work of God in His world, particularly in terms of its purpose, function, story, and goal.
This focus on what is called creation theology is the subject of a rich and succinct new book called The Beginning and End of All Things: The Biblical Theology of Creation and New Creation by Dr. Edward Klink. In an episode of the Colson Center’s Upstream podcast Dr. Klink shared with host Shane Morris why he wrote a book on this topic of creation:
When you look at the Bible, creation is a theme that goes from Genesis to Revelation. It really is the story that God is doing.
Klink then suggested why so much of the focus has been on more scientific questions of creation vs. evolution, as significant and consequential as these questions are. At least part of the answer is our cultural history:
The Scopes trial limited the scope of Scripture’s story in our minds. We hear creation, we think origins.
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The redemption of the world through Christ and His Church isn’t a new idea. It’s simply the fulfillment of God’s original plan. God’s redeeming work does not scrap creation but restores and renews it. Remember that it is not only God’s people who are longing for Christ’s return, but it’s creation itself as in Romans 8. In Christ, Christians are called to participate in God’s renewal of His creation as His representatives.

When you hear the word “creation,” what comes to mind? For many Christians, the notion of creation is bound up in concerns about the age of the Earth or the important battles between intelligent design and naturalistic evolution. In these instances, considerations of creation are primarily focused on how the world was made.   
As important as those questions are, there are also other things Christians must consider, especially in a culture like ours. Namely, we must consider the implications from both that God created the world and why God created the world. Another way to think about it is that Christians need to be clear on what creation is for and what our place is in it.  
It’s tempting to see the biblical story of creation as God’s Plan A, something discarded on account of our sin. In this view, Christ’s work to redeem the world and the work of the Church is just the backup plan. In this view, the Christian life is often reduced to personal salvation, and the world around us to a kind of ticking time bomb waiting to be destroyed.  
This, however, is not consistent with the deep hope that the Gospel offers.  
According to author and theologian Edward Klink, God’s purposes have not changed since creation. In his latest book, The Beginning and End of All Things, Klink argues that “the goal of every Christian is not a departure to an otherworldly ‘heaven’ somewhere in the clouds but a ‘coming down’ of heaven to the earth … and the renewal of all creation.”  
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True love is, ultimately, rooted in Christ, who loved us too much to affirm our sin, rebellion, and brokenness. His love is both the example and the source of the love the world needs most right now, the kind which “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  

Perhaps no one is in a better position to challenge the reductive notion of love being mere “tolerance” than someone who has experienced “detransitioning.” At our most recent Lighthouse Voices event, a collaboration of Focus on the Family and the Colson Center, Laura Perry Smalts addressed the leading idea that, in the name of tolerance, Christians should use a person’s preferred pronouns, should only say and do what will never offend, and should be superficially sensitive.
The temptation to reduce love to only those actions and words that steer clear of offense is, like all lies, rooted in a half truth. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes love as “patient and kind,” “not arrogant or rude,” and “not irritable or resentful.” He also exhorts, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”
And yet, while love isn’t less than being kind and peaceable, it is more. Love requires that we tell the truth. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul also tells us that love does not “insist on its own way,” but on God’s way. And, most clearly, Paul states that love “does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”
In fact, once the foundations of truth and morality are brought into the equation, it becomes clear that the constant pressure to be tolerant today (which, as many have pointed out, is ironically intolerant) is a pressure to conform to the world, something Paul also warns against.
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This is a book to help readers understand what deconstruction is and what it isn’t—and understand common deconstructionist terms like “exvangelical.” It equips loved ones to identify the patterns of deceptive thought that lay underneath deconstruction and acquire wisdom for thoughtfully examining one’s own faith without merely punting to deconstruction. And it offers helpful tools for believers to relate in loving and truthful ways with those who are deconstructing around them. 

In the last few years, more and more younger Christians have been encouraged to deconstruct their faith. Often, it begins with a well-known Christian author, pastor, musician, or public figure announcing that they are no longer a Christian. They make an announcement online to their large following on Twitter/X or YouTube, recounting why they are letting go of core tenets of Christianity. Usually, it’s in the name of “inclusivity” and “tolerance” that they embrace non-biblical views and lifestyles, such as same-sex marriage, transgenderism, and abortion. Young believers are encouraged to follow suit.  
There are countless stories. A teenager grows cynical about Christianity, citing school friends and social media stars who label biblical ethics as first optional and then totally irrelevant. A close friend embraces same-sex marriage or LGBTQ ideology, claiming that affirmation is what Jesus would’ve done and is the only compassionate response. A spouse begins to claim that God is unloving to allow evil and suffering, or that Scripture might be useful but is not authoritative. A small group leader uses the latest social media controversy to judge and interpret Scripture, rather than the other way around. 
If any of this sounds familiar, the name for it is “deconstruction.” And it’s impacting families and Christian communities everywhere.  
Thankfully, a new book, The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive, and How to Respond explains deconstruction for what it really is and helps Christians respond with grace and wisdom. It is perhaps the definitive book on the deconstruction phenomenon and its impact on the Church today. Authors Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett cut through confusion by defining what deconstruction is, why it’s appealing to so many, and how it’s dangerous.  
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In a culture that refuses to accept mortal limits, Christians must not succumb to fear-filled, denial-ridden attempts to eliminate or control mortality in their own strength. While we can and should work to improve ourselves, including our physical health and wellbeing, we can face our mortality with humility and courage and, especially, hope. After all, we know the One who conquered death. 

Earlier this month, tech multi-millionaire and anti-aging obsessionist Bryan Johnson invited 2,500 people to apply for a spot in his latest endeavor. “Project Blueprint” is a 90-day, watered-down version of Johnson’s extreme $2-million-per-year anti-aging regimen. The project’s goal is simply, “Don’t die.” 
In addition to a $999 entry fee, those accepted will spend $333 per month on food products that make up about 400 calories of a daily diet. Those interested in tracking their progress more closely can purchase “more advanced biomarker measurements” for an additional $800 or $1,600, depending on the desired tier.  
Spending at least $2,000 on a three-month “self-experimentation study” that does not include daily groceries is a heavy lift. However, in less than 50 hours, 8,000 people had applied. 
In addition to his celebrity status, one factor that makes Johnson’s immortality experiment so compelling is the myth of “progress” that still holds significant sway over the modern world. With that myth comes the illusion that eventually, somehow, we will gain mastery over our mortality. After all, thanks to modern medicine, deadly diseases like measles, mumps, and polio—diseases that once devastated mankind—are now largely preventable. Others, like smallpox, have even been declared eradicated. Add in modern innovations such as public sewage, running water, and increased agricultural production, and in under 200 years, the average human lifespan has nearly doubled.  
Scientific discoveries and medical advancements are gifts of God. And yet, for all the benefits brought to the common good, a common side effect has been an inflated sense of control. It’s not difficult to see why so many people remain convinced that death can be defeated with ever newer and more impressive technologies. 
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