Culture Friday: Beyond government’s reach

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 20th of December, 2024.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

It’s time for Culture Friday, and joining us now is John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast.

Good morning!

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning!

EICHER: Just an awful story, a deadly school shooting at a Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin. Lots of initial speculation, questions around possible gender-identity problems. And in batting that down, Madison police chief Shon Barnes just had to fan the flames.

BARNES: I don’t know whether Natalie was transgender or not. And quite frankly, I don’t think that’s even important. I don’t think that’s important at all. 
I don’t think that whatever happened today has anything to do with how she or he or they may have wanted to identify. And I wish people would kind of leave their own personal biases out of this …

So whether or not she was, he was, they were transgender is something that may come out later. But for what we’re doing right now today, literally eight hours after a mass shooting in a school in Madison, it is of no consequence.

Getting the pronouns right, even when it’s not the issue, my goodness, that is not how you stamp out that kind of thing.

But John, clearly, troubled young lady here … and shocking that we’ve got another female school shooter … and you read what is likely her twisted rationale for the attack.

What’d you take from it, do you trust it?

STONESTREET: Well, I read it the day of—the manifesto that was shared widely online. Of course, it’s really difficult to trust that. I did trust it, mainly because the same source also confirmed the name, the age, and the identity of the shooter six or seven hours before it was confirmed. Because we’re talking about a young woman who clearly had a very large engagement and involvement on social media. The identification was, I think, more quickly done that way than in other ways.

There’s so many aspects of this that elicit, I think, proper reactions. We were shocked by the incident itself. God help us the day that it no longer shocks us.

I think when you look at the manifesto, the question is, how could it be possible that anyone, much less a 15-year-old girl, could be so overwhelmed by hate, by pain, by alienation. For a girl to reach that, and by the way, we have lots of girls in our society that have reached that: We’ve seen the incredible spikes of despair and depression and anxiety and mental health struggles and identity problems of that demographic in the last 10 years. But oftentimes they do take the form of sexual experimentation or identity experimentation.

This was new. This was overwhelming. She hated people, she hated herself, she hated her parents. That spoke to me about another take on this, and I’m speaking specifically of the statement from President Biden and some other officials. I was just struck by how many people talk about, how is it that we can’t protect our children from these acts? It was a child who carried out the acts!

So often, when public officials, claiming government responsibility to “do something,” they talk about the act as if it were an act of natural evil instead of moral evil. They act as if it were like a tsunami that no one saw coming unexpectedly, as opposed to a completely alienated part of our demographic—the one that used to be filled, you know, with hope and wonder and adventure and all that now filled with despair, meaninglessness and an identity struggle.

We see that as an epidemic across America, and then we talk as if, wow, you know, “How can we not protect our kids?” The problem with saying, which we always say, “do something.” Well, do what?

You have to know what’s wrong, to know the right thing to do. You have to be clear on what to do, to know the right thing to do. You have to be clear on who should do it.

When you read this creed that this poor girl wrote, it is obvious that the government didn’t do this. It’s more obvious that the government can’t fix this.

It’s not in politics, it’s not in our policies. It’s in the power of God working in the lives of people, and that comes through the church, and that comes through the home, not through the state.

EICHER: RFK Jr was making the rounds in the Senate this week … trying to shore up support with senators ahead of his confirmation hearings for secretary of Health and Human Services … very large federal agency. The buzz is that he’s drawing praise from pro-life Republicans. Despite Kennedy’s past comments on abortion … very inconsistent—ranging from supporting the right to abortion even up to full term, to expressing concern about the high number of abortions. But he’s assured pro-life senators that he will enforce Trump’s pro-life policies if confirmed. That includes reinstating the Mexico City Policy, barring federal funds for organizations that promote abortion, and restoring conscience protections for healthcare providers. What do you make of it?

STONESTREET: Yeah. I mean, look, I think Kennedy has sparked an overdue and an important conversation about health, about the healthcare industry. This is all coming out of the COVID chaos. But his views on abortion have troubled me from the very beginning.

It is encouraging to me that the Mexico City Policy will be reinstated and he will not fight that. I mean, listen, if there’s one thing we should not export around the world, it is the sexual revolution. But that is our number one export, not only from the media we send, but by basically tying things like abortion and transgender ideology and everything else to federal funding.

That’s an important part of this. If the Mexico City Policy is reinstated, that will have implications, not only whether, you know, we’re bribing abortion onto developing nations, but we’re bribing all the other sexual confusions that we export, right? I mean, these things come in a package deal. You know?

I think what’s clear is to get Kennedy’s endorsement, Trump promised him a lot. Kennedy asked for a lot, and Trump gave him everything.

The last thing I’ll say is I’m glad that we’re seeing more of Kennedy’s willingness to follow Trump’s agenda on life, but Trump’s agenda on life has not been consistent from the last term. You know, this is the same week that the former and future president said that he wanted to preserve access to the abortion pill, or more accurately, the abortion pill regimen. That’s a real problem, because that often comes along with binding the conscience of pharmacists, that comes along with states then passing legislation to ban abortion pill reversal, which has saved about 5,000 lives to the best that we know right now.

That’s a real problem, you know? So Trump’s not clear on this. I’m hoping the cabinet comes around the president, stabilizes his views on abortion, that that stabilizes the RNC views, that there’s some consistency that’s brought in there, and that Kennedy will follow that lead. But that’s a whole lot of pieces that have to be put in place first.

BROWN: Well John… moving from RFK to KBJ… that’s Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and her Broadway debut.

She appeared in a couple of scenes in New York City for a one-night role written just for her. She called it the fulfillment of a life-long dream.

Look, if I’m honest I have to admit one of my bucket list items is to perform in a stage musical… so I get that.

What I also wonder about is her timing. She’s gotten a fair share of criticism and skepticism over her participation in a production that has so-called nonbinary and queer characters and storylines…just weeks after the Tennessee case on transgenderism. Does that make her an activist, John? What do you say?

STONESTREET: Well, you know, look, I think that the best explanation is the simplest one. I don’t know that it’s a problem that she performed in a stage musical or not. You know, we remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg became quite a pop culture celebrity before she died. Never anything like this. And I think it’s certainly, you know, fine to question the wisdom of jumping into something like this. But let’s be clear, this looks to us like Clarence Thomas or a conservative justice speaking for one of the religious liberty groups looks to the other side. In other words, the issue here is not the performance itself. Although I do think it is amazing that we’ve reached a point where this kind of a storyline is not considered uncouth or, you know, reserved for late-night cable television. This is kind of mainstream, and that tells you a whole lot about these ideas and the culture.

But I think what we’ve seen from the very beginning, from her confirmation hearings, where she refused to answer the question, "What is a woman?" She said she didn’t know the answer. We know that’s not true, but she has to say that. Because she’s a loyalist to a set of ideas, to a worldview, to a way of seeing life in the world. Doing something like this,I’m not sure that it would have occurred to her that it would be considered so far beyond the pale by so many. Was it? Yes. But that’s because the culture has moved that far, and this set of ideas about life in the world is so dominant for a big part of the population.

It is a moment. I mean, I think it’s a "you-are-here moment." It’s less about her and more about the wider culture itself.

BROWN: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. John, we don’t talk again until after Christmas … so God bless you, brother, and have a wonderful holiday!

STONESTREET: Thank you both, and have a wonderful Christmas celebration with your families. Thank you so much.

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