BreakPoint on a Roll

It would probably be in my interest to avoid the BreakPoint website or listening to its radio commentaries. I'm afraid I could work full time simply refuting and deconstructing Stonestreet and company. Like his mentor Charles Colson he's almost always wrong, stunningly so – and even when he's right on something, it's for the wrong reasons and often the given justifications are confused and ultimately undermine his position.

Sometimes it's too much, day after day. That's how it was in late May when I encountered these three commentaries.

https://www.breakpoint.org/the-shooting-in-buffalo-and-cultural-narratives/

This was Stonestreet's mealy mouthed commentary on the Buffalo grocery store shooting. He tries to wiggle out of the charges concerning the shooter and the ideology that inspired him and he attempts to divorce the Evangelical movement from these ideas – but he's being dishonest. The Great Replacement narrative long associated with neo-fascism and White supremacy is now mainstream within the Right and quite common in Christian Right circles. Figures like Tucker Carlson evoke it regularly as do the movement's European allies – Orban, Salvini, LePen, and Meloni. But perhaps more poignantly, it's daily fare on FOX and on Right-wing radio, and several prominent figures within the GOP promote its ideas.

Stonestreet can try to put some distance between Evangelicals and the ideology of the shooter but to no avail. This is not to say that garden variety Evangelicals are likely to pick up guns and shoot up grocery stores – at least not yet. But what it does suggest is that Evangelicals are forming alliances with outside groups and ideologies that should be an embarrassment to them and are a sign of danger. The fact that Evangelicals are allying with evil shouldn't surprise anyone. And this did not begin with Trump. It's been going on for decades. It began with Nixon, Reagan, and other figures. The embrace of Trump marked a watershed of sorts as a lot of the pretense concerning morality and character were abandoned. With Trump, the naked quest for power was now on full display and it is increasingly taking on a fascistic tone.

And they're playing with fire. Not only have they allied with evil in the political and financial realm, they're also catering to the extremist fringe. And rather than whitewash this reality – Christian leaders need to call this out and call for discernment and repentance.

That of course is a death sentence. At the very least your position will be lost and you will be blacklisted. And yet for Stonestreet I'm not sure it's a matter of integrity as much as a lack of basic discernment – which is troubling as many turn to this man as if he represented some form of wisdom with regard to interpreting the culture and the application of Christian ethics. I pity such people because they are blind folk being led by a blind guide.

Stonestreet thinks that 'corporatism in disguise' somehow places the shooter in other than Right-wing categories as the critique can be made by both figures on the Left and even within the fascistic Right. Stonestreet ought to know that the Far Right is presently divided between concepts of national unity on the basis of tribalism and a more libertarian ethos. Corporatism can refer to the economic sector working with the nation and putting the national interest over politics and individual profits or it can refer to (in common parlance) the corrupt network of corporate money and influence controlling the state (sometimes called the Corporatocracy). It's unclear to me what the shooter meant and it's just as unclear as to what Stonestreet means by evoking this. Either way, the statement proves nothing nor does it disprove anything. It doesn't begin to generate the distance that he's hoping for between Replacement Theory and the Republican Party, let alone the Christian Right and factions of the Far Right.

What Stonestreet is trying to do is pretty simple. He's trying to muddy the waters and obscure any connections between the ideology of the shooter and current discussions floating around GOP and Christian Right circles. And yet he fails because the connections are in fact there.

This is also behind his attempt to pivot and spin the argument in the direction of Critical Theory – though it has nothing to do with this and the argument that Critical Theory has created the milieu in which such convoluted thinking as expressed by the shooter can flourish – is not only unconvincing, it's ridiculous. Replacement Theory isn't critical of social hierarchy. It embraces it and endorses it on the basis of race and culture. Stonestreet either does not understand what he's talking about or he's playing a game.

And then we have commentary number 2:

https://www.breakpoint.org/when-the-church-acts-like-the-world/

Stonestreet's response to the Southern Baptist abuse scandal wasn't much better. He starts by saying he could make excuses but he won't.

But then that's all he does for the rest of the commentary. He puts the blame on the over-sexualised culture and of course he quickly becomes lost because of all people the Dominionist Stonestreet cannot distinguish between the Church and the world.

Rather than repent and hold the Church to a higher standard, he launches a counter-attack (while pretending to do otherwise) in which he wishes to expose all the hypocrisy and immorality within Hollywood and the larger culture. Is this news? Is this somehow surprising? Did anyone think Hollywood or the larger culture to be Christian?

It almost seems like he wants to demonstrate how bad all of 'them' are so that 'we' (always confused in a sacralist context) can feel a little better or at least not so bad.

The commentary says the Church is more accountable and that we shouldn't compare ourselves to the likes of Weinstein and Heffner but that's exactly what he's been doing and why he's been reading through a litany of the industry's sins. This kind of schizophrenic reasoning and ethical judgment is all too typical when it comes to Stonestreet's commentaries.

He admits there's a problem, there's guilt, and the standard is higher for Christians, but the primary focus was on the sin and debauchery of our cultural context. The effect is to water down the sins of the SBC, which he barely touched on, and he did not even for a moment delve into the extreme nature of the corruption and the literally nefarious attempts at obfuscation and cover-up by people within that institution.

And finally number three:

https://www.breakpoint.org/sis-swimsuit-edition-isnt-empowering/

It must have been a slow day or something. I couldn't believe he was wasting his time talking about the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition? Why is this relevant? Who cares?

He offers a critique – on the basis of Scripture? A condemnation of immodesty? Temptation? Fornication? Lust?

No, his primary focuses are on psychology and feminism, just the sort of thing we expect from other Evangelical outlets like Chip Ingram's Living on the Edge and Focus on the Family.

How is this wisdom?

Even the feminist caricatures are misleading and at best represent an extreme minority view within feminist circles. The issue isn't impossible beauty standards, the self-esteem of women, questions of body image and the like. The magazine is smut. It's polite pornography, women covering just enough so that it can be purchased without embarrassment and sold without restriction. There's nothing to analyze. It's just fornication food and little more. It sells and so the magazine produces it and has clearly marketed it for decades. The ethics are utilitarian. People want it and by the standards of the market there's a demand. Therefore when viewed through the lens of capitalism it's deemed moral.

The offense to Christians shouldn't be the psychological categories of body image and whether or not the model is valued. It's a question of holiness which in terms of clothing and skin is connected to the Fall, and the demanded modesty which is a result of it. The women who take their clothes of for money and attention are in sin. They're whores and they are celebrated and highly prized in this culture. But likewise it's wrong for men to look at them and lust after them. Stonestreet's commentary is once again mealy-mouthed and schizophrenic, and an exercise in pseudo-intellectualism. There's nothing too difficult here but maybe this is more troubling to him because his Dominionist proclivities cannot simply write off and dismiss segments of the culture and so he attempts to interact with them but comes away from the encounter looking pretty lame.

Once again how is this wisdom? Where is the discernment? There's a pattern with BreakPoint and it's one of spin and deception. From defending Christendom, to obfuscating the sin of professed Christians and their political allies, to defending wars and even assassinations – Stonestreet offers little to nothing in the realms of wisdom, ethics, and discernment. In more intellectually robust circles he's not taken very seriously but is nevertheless respected as his reach is broad and he wields a fair degree of influence within the larger Evangelical sphere.

And as hundreds of thousands, and even millions (in the US and around the world) are influenced by his ideas – I tremble. He will give an account for it. I thought of him the other day while interacting with an old lady who listens to the 'news' on the local Evangelical station which places Stonestreet's commentary right in the middle of its coverage. I'm sorry to say it, but she probably thinks him wise because she doesn't know any better. I know what church she attends, and it's not surprising.