One group of people that's been particularly affected by our culture's new tendency to label others as toxic,

and then to cancel them out of our lives and an act of what some have called relational minimalism is grandparents.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. This is Breakpoint.

I found this out several years ago in the book A Practical Guide to Culture, which I co-authored

with Brett Kunkle, first came out. The intended audience for the book included parents and teachers

and pastors and anyone who's really interested in the next generation. What I did not expect was

the sheer number of grandparents who saw the book as a helpful resource in understanding

the culture of their grandchildren.

In fact, in a one month period before the COVID lockdowns, I spoke to about a thousand

grandparents on the content of the book.

And I heard so many stories during that same time.

And I talked to many grandparents who had effectively been

canceled out of their grandchildren's lives, sometimes by the grandchildren themselves,

other times by their own children, because of disagreements about theological, philosophical,

cultural, or moral issues. At the same time, there's a larger cultural narrative about grandparents,

that their main job is to move away and send checks for birthdays, graduations, and other

occasions. Several years ago, I got introduced to the concept of Christian grandparenting,

and in recent years have been connected with an organization called

the Legacy Coalition. The Legacy Coalition's mission is to help Christian grandparents recognize

the essential role that they play in the faith development of their grandchildren and to see being

a grandparent as a calling, a calling in helping raise the next generation to champion the faith in

this time and in this place. One of the things that the Legacy Coalition does each year is hold a

...