Kabul Suicide Bombing, Just War Theory, and Radical Gratitude
Breakpoint
Colson Center
4.8 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 27 August 2021
⏱️ 68 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
-- Story Resources --
Suicide Bomber Attacks Citizens at Kabul Airport
At least two explosions took place near the Kabul airport on Thursday as the US and other countries try to evacuate their citizens and Afghans at risk from the Taliban.
Three US officials and a source familiar with the situation said that, according to initial reports, there were some US personnel among the casualties.
The Crisis in Afghanistan And Humanity's Capacity for Evil
The desperate scenes at the Kabul airport are hard to take in. To describe America's exit strategy as "negligence" is charitable. More accurately, it's somewhere between folly and abandonment. It's the latest chapter in a war with, as Mindy Belz put it, "a history of political ambivalence." Even back in 2006, one frustrated soldier described it this way: "We're at war; America's at the mall." It may have been our culture of self-absorption that sowed such a catastrophic exit, but it's the Afghan people who are reaping the whirlwind
Prayer is Doing Something
I saw a tweet recently from a mom that described this well. "Sometimes," she said, "I'm mad at God that all he lets me do is pray about a situation that is out of my hands. I suppose that says more about me, and my frustration with prayer, than it says about God."
Chuck Colson on "Radical Gratitude"
A friend reminded me of a commentary by Chuck Colson from all the way back in 2005. It's safe to say that it has aged well. Despite how much has changed and how much more chaotic the headlines might be today, the core truth underlying his commentary is the same. A posture of gratitude is one that recognizes Whose world this actually is, and how we fit in God's overarching plan to make all things new.
BreakPoint>>
The Myth of Family-Friendly Abortion
Planned Parenthood's website says that "Deciding to have an abortion doesn't mean you don't want or love children. In fact, 6 out of 10 people who get abortions already have kids—and many of them decide to end their pregnancies so they can focus on the children they already have."
Less than six percent of Medicaid-enrolled women had both births and abortions. As study lead, Dr. James Studnicki remarked: "…abortion is in no way typical of motherhood…the overwhelming number of children are born to mothers who never have an abortion.
The Point>>
The Pronoun Revolution
Chicago public school teacher sent forms to Abigail Shrier that show teachers are explicitly required to keep kids' newly declared gender identities from parents.
Spike in Transgender Surgeries Show Medical Priorities
It's so strange that despite all the rationing we've been hearing about, there was a notable rise in so-called "gender confirmation surgeries" for women. These are procedures in which otherwise healthy body parts are removed from female patients suffering with gender dysphoria.
-- In-show Mentions --
How Does the Women's March Define What a Woman Is?
Joseph Backholm | What Would You Say? | January 22, 2020
Transgenderism Depends on Stereotypes
Joseph Backholm | What Would You Say? | January 15, 2020
The Last Christian on Earth
Os Guinness | Baker Books | 2010
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self
Carl Trueman | Crossway | 2020
-- Recommendations --
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to Breakpoint this week, where we're talking about the major news stories of the week from a Christian worldview. |
| 0:05.8 | Today we're going to talk about the ongoing strife in Afghanistan after a suicide attack leaves dozens dead at the Kabul airport. |
| 0:13.2 | We're also going to talk about the rise again in transgender ideology in public schools and in medical institutions. |
| 0:19.7 | We have a lot to get to today, but we're glad you're with us. |
| 0:22.4 | Please stick around. |
| 0:25.7 | Well, welcome to Breakpoint this week for the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. |
| 0:29.5 | I'm Maria Bear alongside John Stone Street. |
| 0:32.7 | John, we have a lot to talk about today, but this has just sort of been a nightmare of a week. Last week was |
| 0:39.3 | somewhat the same, but of course Thursday this week, we saw now a suicide attack at the |
| 0:45.9 | Kabul airport in Afghanistan while the U.S. military and others are trying to evacuate as many |
| 0:51.3 | people as possible in the wake of the Taliban takeover of that country. |
| 0:55.5 | So I know we're just jumping right into the heaviness here, but I really think we have a lot to talk about. |
| 1:01.8 | You shared a commentary this morning at breakpoint.org just about just war theory, which was really enlightening to me. |
| 1:11.0 | This is not something I have spent a lot of time really |
| 1:13.9 | wrestling with or thinking about. |
| 1:15.6 | But these are the sorts of events that I think |
| 1:17.7 | cause a lot of people to think about this kind of stuff. |
| 1:20.4 | And so you were talking about when our acts of war justified, |
| 1:25.5 | if that's possible? |
| 1:27.4 | How do we think about these things? Because of course on everybody's mind now, now that we've learned that I think 13 U.S. service members were killed and somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 civilians were killed in this attack at the airport, on everybody's mind is what are we going to do about it? You know, and President Biden made some comments at a news briefing that, you know, we will not |
| 1:49.7 | forgive and we will not forget and you will pay for this sort of thing. |
| 1:54.2 | Everybody's kind of wondering, what are we going to do and also what should we do? |
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