Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

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

While the season has begun, specifically the season of complaining that the world has forgotten,

the reason for the season. However, the reason that many seem to want restored has more in common

with hallmark than Christ.

While celebration, family, and friendship are indeed essential aspects of the holiday season as it is culturally practiced,

the church calendar offers the season of Advent as a way of preparing our hearts and minds for the feast of Christmas.

Essential to the season of Advent is to remember and rehearse the story of Scripture,

particularly those parts that promise God's salvation.

To this end, Michael Card's album, The Promise, is a staple in the Stone Street household this time of year.

And for the more musically gifted in our home,

of which I am not one, there's also the commitment of time to listen again and again to Handel's

Brilliant Messiah. Speaking of Brilliant, the witty G.K. Chesterton was a big fan of Christmas.

And in 2023, Ryan Smith wrote Winter Fire Christmas with G.K. Chesterton,

which is a delightful mix of Chesterton essays, articles, and poems, and meditations.

And of course, closer to Christmas Day, don't forget about G.K. Chesterton's letters from

Father Christmas. For those who are interested in going deeper, the 2024 book by

Rhine Putman, conceived by the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Birth and Scripture and Theology, is one of

those rare works for both laity and theological professionals. In it, Putnam describes Advent and

the birth of Christ by reaching across the story of Scripture

and into various elements of the practical Christian walk.

In Daniel Spanger's, Advent is the story, seeing the nativity through Scripture, combines rich

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