Point of View May 6, 2025 – Hour 2 : What Does it Mean to Be Happy

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Second hour today, I thought we'd get into a couple of other issues, but this first one is really intended to maybe make you smile or roll your eyes or shake your head, whatever. But I thought it would be appropriate.

[00:00:30] The other day when we heard that President Trump wanted to reopen Alcatraz, I said, well, there's a good example of what I call the social media president, who recognizes that by posting something like that on social media or making that announcement, it will then maybe redirect the media to other particular issues rather than talking about Doge or talking about deportation. All of a sudden everybody would be talking about Alcatraz. So I thought I'll just ignore that.

[00:00:57] But I thought actually there's a good way to evaluate that and that's our next article that I've posted for you by Haley Strack. Now, first of all, let's just acknowledge that this is a president. And even when he was candidate, I think back in 2015, President Trump or that time Donald Trump, no longer president, but wasn't president at the time. Candidate Trump was looking at the idea that sometimes I can just get a lot of attention by saying something that's a little bit outrageous, something that's beyond the pale.

[00:01:26] He has used that over the years. If you read his book, The Art of the Deal, he oftentimes will make a really outrageous statement or claim and then backtrack. And we were talking about this the other day. And so when I hear some of these things about, of course, they're talking about having an army parade next year. And when they're doing that army parade, it seems to coincide with his birthday, whether that was chosen by him, whether it's accidental. I mean, everybody's on the talk shows talking about it right now.

[00:01:55] And, of course, whether we have a parade or not is up to some kind of discussion. But nevertheless, this issue of Alcatraz is the case. And so he says, I'm directing the Bureau of Prisons, along with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt Alcatraz. Okay, I've got to have some fun at the expense of the president because the British newspaper Independent noted that at the time Donald Trump was in Mar-a-Lago, which is, of course, near Miami.

[00:02:24] And they noticed that Miami's local PBS affiliate was broadcasting Escape from Alcatraz. If you are familiar with that movie, that's where Clint Eastwood plays one of the prisoners that escapes. Never heard from again. I suspect he may be drowned in San Francisco Bay. But nevertheless, it was aired at 9 p.m. Eastern and then, again, re-aired. And so some people said maybe that was a factor in the president's announcement.

[00:02:52] But I like one why he said, perhaps the most shocking aspect of all of this is that Donald Trump watches PBS. So, again, I'm just having some fun. But the point I'm making is that it is unlikely, highly unlikely that is the case. First of all, do we need a supermax prison? No, we have one of those in Colorado. We have some older prisons out there. You've always heard about sending people to Leavenworth. It turns out that we have 122 federal prisons.

[00:03:20] The oldest one is the one in Leavenworth, Kansas. The youngest one is right in southwestern Kentucky. And, of course, you have right now for individuals that need to be in custody, federal inmates in custody, we're at about 92 percent. So it's not like we're busting at the seams. And, of course, one of the reasons Alcatraz was shut down more than six decades ago, by the way,

[00:03:49] was it was just too costly to run. It, even at the time, was three times more costly than other federal prisons. Let's recognize that if you ever had a tour of that, and you can get a tour of that place. There's no outside power lines, clean water. It's deteriorating because of time and saltwater damage and weather conditions and all that. It is undergoing right now a $50 million renovation.

[00:04:16] But to get that done, I mean, it's going to take out hazardous material, replacing some of the steel reinforcements and all the rest. But to think that they would actually want to refurbish this, you have to remind yourself, what state is Alcatraz in? California. California. And I think it's quite clear that California Democrats, you two Democratic senators from California, your governor from California's Democrat,

[00:04:46] probably would delay the process rather dramatically. And so, if anything, we don't really need another supermax prison. We have one in Florence, Colorado called the Alcatraz of the Rockies. But nevertheless, you'll hear about it for a few days, and I thought I just couldn't resist by pointing out that it just may be one of those attempts by the president to distract. And misdirection isn't just something that Harry Houdini did. It's something, oftentimes, that Donald Trump does.

[00:05:16] But just before I take a break, also, this is another one, shake your head for a different reason. The FBI now has been able to release, and this is because we have a new FBI director, Kash Patel, in which they did an investigation of the investigation. You might remember back in 2017 where you had a baseball field.

[00:05:37] They were practicing, and these individuals who were Republicans were shot at by an individual who unloaded, what was it? I've got a list here of how many shots he took there. But nevertheless, he was an individual who was radical, left-wing, Bernie Sanders supporter, on and on and on. But nevertheless, the individual filing was not willing to acknowledge any of that.

[00:06:06] As a matter of fact, if you go to the original report, it says the FBI case file makes it clear this case was a premeditated assassination attempt on Republican congressman by a radical left-wing political extremist who was seeking to affect the conduct of our government. But you didn't get any of that in the published report. And in some respects, they point out that this is an individual who was upset with Donald Trump's election,

[00:06:36] took a concealed carry firearms class, told friends and family they may not seem again, an individual that then began to actually case the Eugene Simmons Park baseball field for two months, and then shot more than 70 rounds. There, I found it there. And then even was hiding behind some of the various structures there so he would be able to be more successful.

[00:07:02] They also found that the Bureau, that is the FBI, the Bureau of Investigation, did not really investigate. They didn't interview many of the congressional lawmakers present at the ball field. One of those is former representative from Alabama, Mo Brooks, who was not interviewed at all, despite the fact that he was present at the shooting, and was one of those included on the list of targeted individuals this individual wanted to kill.

[00:07:29] And, of course, you might remember Mo Brooks, representative Mo Brooks, received a medal from the Capitol Police for exhibiting bravery during the shooting. And yet the FBI never did an interview with him. Any of you that are convinced that the government conceals information and maybe buys into those conspiracy theories, I think you can see some evidence that in a few cases that is the case.

[00:07:54] And there has been a deliberate attempt to prevent any kind of investigation of the investigation. But finally now you have the House receiving 2,500 pages from the FBI, because Kash Patel forced the issue. And it turns out that this shooting, which could have been disastrous, but fortunately everybody survived,

[00:08:19] was indeed something that was not adequately covered by the FBI. Well, if they didn't cover something that led to the shooting of congressional members of Congress, there might be some other things we need to investigate as well. So I just thought I'd let you see that story coming out today, and we'll probably talk about it again sometime in the future. Let's take a break. We'll be back with more right after this.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. The conflict between Harvard University and the Trump administration has been in the news. Victor Davis Hanson uses the news story to ask an important question. Do elite universities really wish to fight the federal government? In his commentary, he unveils a half a dozen problems at universities that might cause American taxpayers to reconsider how much money should be given to them. The first problem is well known.

[00:09:24] He says over the past half century, tuition has generally risen at twice the rate of inflation. A major reason for this is the fact that the student loan program is run by the federal government. Colleges counted on an insured stream of tuition money and so raised their prices inordinately given federal guarantees. Unfortunately, the percentage of students who have defaulted on their loans along with those currently late on their payments is increasing. That is why he suggests that universities with multibillion-dollar endowments

[00:09:53] should guarantee their own student loans. They would have a financial interest in seeing their own students graduate in four years, get jobs, and pay back their alma mater promptly and fully. A second problem is the lack of any intellectual diversity on campus. Some recent studies have found that liberal professors outnumber their conservative counterparts by a 10-to-1 margin, especially in the social sciences and humanities. They are conservatives and Christians with PhDs in the market,

[00:10:21] but they are excluded because of political bias. College students rarely get to hear the other side of an argument because professors with those views are essentially banned from campus. These are just two of the concerns documented by Victor Davis Hanson. Tomorrow, I will discuss a few of the others he mentions. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view. For a free booklet on a biblical view of intelligent design,

[00:10:50] go to viewpoints.info slash intelligent design. Viewpoints.info slash intelligent design. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Okay, for the rest of the hour, I thought we'd talk about some things that maybe apply more to your spiritual life rather than to some of the politics. We'll get back to some of that tomorrow. By the way, I think you will enjoy some of the conversation we're going to have tomorrow.

[00:11:18] We'll talk about an outreach in Uganda and reaching out to young women. We're going to talk about Hillsdale College, and in some respects, that relates very much to the conversation that we have here right now with my Viewpoints commentary. My commentary today is called Elite Universities Part 1. Tomorrow will be Elite Universities Part 2. And there have been some interesting things. Larry Arn, we've had him on before. He's the president of Hillsdale College, has said to the president there at Harvard,

[00:11:46] you could maybe learn some lessons from us. We know that you've been around at least 100, 200 years longer than we have, but we think maybe we've learned a few lessons here in Hillsdale, and one of those is maybe you shouldn't take money from the government anyway, along with a lot of other things. So we'll talk about Hillsdale tomorrow and the value of some of these different institutions, because as you're thinking about where you're going to send your children or grandchildren to college,

[00:12:11] there are better choices for them than just sending them to the state universities. And, of course, sometimes that's the best place to go if they're going to be in engineering or science. But if they really want to learn to think, they're going to probably learn that in some of these private institutions and in some of these Christian colleges. So we'll talk about that in just a minute. But one of the things I want to do today is mention that we just sent out my booklet on false spirituality.

[00:12:41] And as I've mentioned before, you can get the Viewpoints commentary for free, so there's no reason why you couldn't go to the website right now and click on that button that says Subscribe to Viewpoints, and that is something that you receive free of charge. However, as I've pointed out before, one of the things we like to send to our donors, those of you that are part of the Truth Team, are these booklets. But at the same time, I recognize some of you say, well, I can't join the Truth Team. I just am really tight on finances.

[00:13:10] I think from time to time we like to give you the information so, again, you can get it for free. And last week, Liberty McCarter did a great job, I mean, just an outstanding job, if I might say, on this issue of chemical abortion. She's written on that twice, and this most recent booklet is just chock full of information. And I might just say that if you run a pregnancy resource center, you just need to have some of those booklets because they are so well done, and they are well worth it, and they're educational,

[00:13:40] and it even gets into some of the political issues there as well. Well, if you receive the booklets, you've received it, because I know I received mine just the other day, and this one we titled False Spirituality. But really what it is is I couldn't find a title that emphasized what I really was trying to get at. And that is you've probably heard some people say, well, I'm spiritual but not religious.

[00:14:05] And it turns out, as I really dug into this, that there are sociologists that actually have given it an acronym, SBNR, spiritual but not religious, SBNR. So you're spiritual, not religious. And it turns out that there are studies that go all the way back to Carl Jung, of all places, probably even Sigmund Freud and others, that looked at, first of all, those people who practiced their religion,

[00:14:32] Catholic, Protestant, Jews, and then those who did not, and they had some level of spirituality, but they were not religious. Now, what that means, I think, for the younger generation, since we have a real desire to reach this younger generation, is, well, I'm sort of interested in spiritual things, but I'm not going to go to your church. It's kind of the case. If you dig in a little further, and you can find this in my booklet, and we'll be glad to give it to you free of charge.

[00:15:01] If you're not a donor, we'd be glad to send you one. And just simply let us know. We need an address to mail it to you, obviously, so give that to us in the email that you can get. And you can find all that on our website at pointofview.net. But it turns out that almost a quarter, 22%, in the latest Pew Research study, actually found that Americans, when they did their survey, fit into the category of spiritual, not religious.

[00:15:28] So if you're involved in evangelism, you're going to hear this phrase probably a little bit more than you might imagine. Now, about one in five, or 21%, fit into the category of neither spiritual or religious. And then a majority of Americans fall into the category of religious. So in some respects, it's a little fuzzy how to separate that out. And as we have always talked about before, and that goes back to another booklet that we've made available to you

[00:15:57] called A Biblical Point of View on the Next Generation. We, in that one, talk about those individuals that are oftentimes referred to as the nuns, N-O-N-E-S, or the unaffiliated. And those are individuals that are not affiliated with a church. And oftentimes, when they're asked for their religious preference, they'll say atheist, agnostic, or no preference. So in some respects, some of the nuns identify as atheist or agnostic.

[00:16:27] But the others that are sort of nothing in particular could be in this category as well. And so it shows that, first of all, they're spiritual but not religious. But when they were asked then if they were looking for a religion that would be right for you, the vast majority, 88%, said, no, not looking. Only a small 10% were. Now, here's the issue.

[00:16:52] You'll see all sorts of books talking about, I want to make this church a seeker-sensitive church. Now, last Thursday, you might have heard we did the broadcast from KYCC. I did an interview with an individual that talked about that, the seeker-sensitive churches. It's only 10% of those. 88% are actually not looking. And so I think the great challenge for those of you that are pastors and teachers and parents and everybody else

[00:17:21] is that you're going to have to show that there's a connection between their needs. Because this is a generation that's feeling high levels of anxiety, maybe even depression, maybe a higher iteration of suicide tendencies and things of that nature. You're really going to need to show them that those problems or issues they're dealing with do find their answer in the Bible, do find their answers in the person of Jesus Christ,

[00:17:50] can actually see a difference if they attend church. And so that is the case. And yet, at the same time, a lot of the individuals who are spiritual, not religious, basically have, if you might call it, bad theology. Now, we talk about that in our biblical point of view on The Next Generation. But in this one, I go into a book, which we did interviews on really decades ago,

[00:18:15] if you can believe that, soul-searching religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers, in which the individuals, Christian Smith and his co-author, identified what they called therapeutic moralistic deism, or moralistic therapeutic deism. And that is the idea that God exists, people should be good, God's going to grate on the curve, we're all going to go to heaven, and all the rest.

[00:18:41] And it was a concern back then, but recognize those teenagers that Christian Smith at Notre Dame and others were interviewing are now individuals that are raising their own kids, or maybe not married, but they're much older now, and a result, that is the case. And when they then ask them to maybe define why they believe that, the most often answer was, whatever, they really hadn't thought it through.

[00:19:11] Which, again, is one of the reasons why we like to teach this whole idea of apologetics. As a matter of fact, next hour, we're going to get into, as a matter of fact, later this hour, I should say, we're going to get into this whole issue of how to think from a biblical view. But how do we respond? Well, first of all, we recognize that these are individuals that have really adopted a false spirituality. And if you think about it, the scriptures talk about that.

[00:19:39] In 2 Timothy 3, Paul, in perhaps his last letter, certainly his last letter to Timothy, writes about those who have the appearance of godliness but deny its power. And it seems to me that one of the things we need to do as we engage somebody there is to help them understand that they may have an inadequate or a completely unbiblical view about God. Lots of times people say, well, I don't believe in God because I don't believe in the God of the Bible.

[00:20:07] Well, I don't believe in the view that you have of God either because you don't have a biblical view of God. But they also have an unbiblical view of human nature. If you think all people are basically good, well, then why do you need a Savior? It makes good sense. You know, if you think everybody's good, everybody's going to heaven, then you don't certainly need to talk about your sin nature. And so then I would say that Romans 3.23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

[00:20:34] and things of that nature are going to be really important. And so I take you through some of the theological issues, and then I really give you some action steps. What could pastors teach on? What could Sunday school teachers teach on? How could we maybe reach out to this next generation? Because in some respects, what we're talking about is a whole generation

[00:20:57] now in positions of authority who say, well, I'm spiritual, but I'm not religious. And again, be glad to make it available to you. Of course, it's one of the benefits of becoming a member of the Truth Team for a dollar a day, $30 a month or more. You'll receive these automatically, but we'd be glad to send them to you as well. And most importantly, let me encourage you to go to the website right now and sign up for the Viewpoints Commentary.

[00:21:25] We'll come back and talk about happiness right after this. Let's be honest. Getting a well-rounded and biblical understanding of current events takes time that many of us simply don't have. Well, here's the good news. You can get thoroughly researched biblical insight on a variety of topics in two minutes or less each day by subscribing to Kirby Anderson's Viewpoints Commentary.

[00:21:55] These short, free emails offer Kirby's personal perspective on issues affecting us in America, and they are filled with educational resources. Listen to this testimonial from David, a longtime Viewpoint subscriber. I've been reading Kirby's daily commentaries every weekday for years now. Never miss one because they're always incredibly well-written

[00:22:23] and researched to the point and really are meaningful. I would recommend the commentaries to anybody. Subscribe to Viewpoints for free by going to pointofview.net slash signup. That's pointofview.net slash signup. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:51] You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. As I mentioned, we're going to be talking about this issue of happiness. I think you really will appreciate that. And it comes from our friends at the Worldview Bulletin,

[00:23:21] which, again, I encourage you so often to subscribe to. I'm not asking you to do something I haven't done. And I do appreciate all the different articles that appear there. Now, one of the individuals that we like to interview from time to time is Christopher Reese, who is a blogger, really kind of an expert in Christian worldview issues and apologetics, author of, for example, 100 Old Testament quotes by Jesus, how Christ used the Hebrew scriptures.

[00:23:47] Also, of course, as we've mentioned before, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Worldview Bulletin, and an individual that we like to call on from time to time. So, Christopher, thank you for joining us once again here on Point of View. Great to be with you, Kirby. Appreciate those kind words about the Worldview Bulletin. I might just mention, too, that we will give you, at best, an overview in this last half hour here before the program ends. As I told my producer, Steve, it printed out as nine pages.

[00:24:17] Now, to be fair, three of those pages are end notes, but still, there's a lot to cover, so let's get into it. And that is, you certainly say that all normal human beings want to be happy. Aristotle observed that happiness is a goal of human life. We have life, liberty, and what? The pursuit of happiness. And so, in some respects, there is a real desire for Americans and for people in general to want to be happy.

[00:24:45] But happiness seems to be a lucy for a lot of individuals. And I'd love to know, if nothing else, why you felt that this was something you need to write about. Right, yeah. You know, I guess this is just such a kind of a fundamental issue, you know, that pretty much everyone can relate to. And it's something that I think we all think about and wonder about.

[00:25:10] And also, there are, you know, always these competing ideas in the culture around us about how we can be happy and achieve that. And a lot of times, those are in conflict with Scripture. And so, it just, you know, felt like a timely topic to talk about. Well, again, we've also talked about how there are some of these lies.

[00:25:35] And by the time I get to about your third paragraph, you're talking about one from a Disney soundtrack. You must be true to your heart. That's when the heavens will part. And then others, when you follow your heart, if you have to journey far, here's a little trick. You don't need a guiding star. Trust your ticker, and you'll get there quicker.

[00:25:54] So, part of the problem is, is that people have bought a false box top, a false worldview that says, if you want to be happy, then you just need to follow your heart. You need to do what you want to do. And yet, we see a whole generation now doing that. And they seem to be less happy than the previous generation, wouldn't you say? Yeah, that's exactly right.

[00:26:18] Yeah, it's amazing how widespread this idea is in culture about, you know, the way to happiness is just sort of looking within yourself. And, you know, if you just sort of stare in the mirror long enough, you know, you'll be able to find these answers to, you know, meaning and purpose in life. And, but, right, yeah, ultimately it will lead to disappointment if you do that.

[00:26:44] I think some people that would like to get into this a little bit more, you give us some really great quotes. Dallas Willard, and we have Martin Luther, we have Frederick Buechner, just all sorts of individuals. Thomas Tarrant, Timothy Keller. So, there are certainly a number of individuals that have looked at these issues of desires and goals.

[00:27:07] But one of the things that I think we can discern, even from the scripture, is to go back to the Hebrew word shalom. And early on, you talk about that because whether you look at the Hebrew word or the New Testament counterpart, it does seem to me that that's part of it. And in some respects, that's maybe the missing piece in this modern, fast-paced, frenetic, North American lifestyle. What are your thoughts?

[00:27:38] That's true. Yeah, when scripture talks about happiness, it doesn't use that word, but when it talks about that concept, it tends to use the word shalom. Right. And that word is often translated peace. But it has the idea of fullness and well-being, contentment and completeness.

[00:28:02] And so, it's not just kind of an emotional state of mind or a kind of subjective feeling, a good feeling. But it's this idea of kind of a holistic health and well-being in all areas of your life. One of the things that you also bring out, and you give some very good quotes, so I may even use those, is our relationship with God.

[00:28:29] Because just before you came, I talked about the latest booklet, the one I put out on a biblical view on false spirituality. Because we run into so many people that say, well, I'm spiritual but not religious. Which is another way of saying, look, I'm going to kind of be in a spiritual sense, but I don't need God. I don't need the Bible. I don't need church. And you give us some quotes from Dallas Willard talking about the fact that we're God's co-laborers.

[00:28:54] So, we should recognize that if that's the case, we should be related to God and we should see God's plan for our life. Or you also have a quote from Timothy Keller. Love this one. We labor under the illusion that we are competent to run our own lives, achieve our own sense of self-worth, and find a purpose big enough to give us meaning in life without God.

[00:29:18] In some respects, I thought that my commentary, this last segment before we had you on, and my booklet on false spirituality kind of underscores that. Because if you really want to be happy, you may be trying to fill this God-shaped vacuum with material goods, power, sexuality, whatever it might be.

[00:29:41] And even though you might say, I'm good, in the deepest part of your heart, you know that you're very unhappy because you just wander the planet looking for more. And you can't seem to find it because you resist the opportunity to look to God to find it. That's right.

[00:30:03] Another one of the folks that I quote in the piece is Blaise Pascal, who was a scientist and a great Christian thinker. And he mentions there that we as human beings have this infinite void in our souls. And the only thing that can fill this infinite void is an infinite being like God.

[00:30:27] And everything else will fall short, all the material things or the experiences or anything else. You never fill that chasm in our soul that can only be filled by God. And so, yeah, it's no wonder that a lot of people end up, you know, very disappointed when they pursue all these different things. And it just ends up in frustration for them.

[00:30:55] Again, we try to fill it, as it says, from all these surroundings. But these, again quoting from Blaise Pascal, are all inadequate. Because the infinite abyss can only be filled by the infinite and immutable object. That is to say, only by God himself. And for just a minute, let me digress from your article for a second. You speak on the issue of apologetics.

[00:31:17] But one of the apologetic arguments that C.S. Lewis oftentimes used is that if you find yourself looking around the world and find that nothing in the world satisfies, but you constantly long for it, it would suggest that you were made for something other than planet Earth. You were made for something more than just a physical reality here. And it seems to me that that can be a very powerful argument.

[00:31:47] It might not be one that I use for somebody in a third world country who's just trying to figure out whether or not to get the next meal. But you run into a lot of people here in North America that are fairly wealthy. And they've tried everything, and nothing works. And in some respects, that's a good apologetic argument, I think, for the existence of God and for the fact that you have a soul, don't you think? That's right.

[00:32:13] That's something that I believe Os Guinness calls a signal of transcendence. It's something that we observe about our experience that is really a pointer to God and his existence. And, yeah, we realize we have this sort of void in our lives, and we're looking for meaning and purpose, value.

[00:32:42] And so, yeah, that's really ultimately found in God. But that desire is definitely, you know, that's what C.S. Lewis talked about. And some people today call the argument from desire that you mentioned. Right. So it's definitely a pointer to something that is out there that we need. Christopher Reeves with us. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, we'll continue talking about what does it mean to be happy. We've talked about your relationship with God.

[00:33:11] In a minute, we're going to talk about a few other things, your relationship with ourselves and relationship with others. But as we go to a break, let me just mention that we have posted this article from the Worldview Bulletin newsletter. There is a way in which you could print that out. So, again, you don't have to subscribe, but there is a button to subscribe, and I would encourage you to do so. But if you find yourself saying, well, I'd kind of like to read this in its entirety, we've made it available for you on the website.

[00:33:38] But I hope you also might click on that button that says subscribe. I think you'd really benefit from all the articles they post. We'll be back right after this. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Talking for a few more minutes with Christopher Reeves. Again, this particular article, what does it mean to be happy?

[00:34:07] We have posted it, so you don't have to subscribe, and you can just download it. And it comes from the Worldview Bulletin newsletter. It might just mention that you can get a monthly amount or a yearly amount. I'll let you figure that out. I've just routinely had it charge my credit card. It makes a real simple, easy one for me. But I'll let you figure out what you want to do, if you want to do it at all. But I think these kinds of issues related to worldview and apologetics are so important.

[00:34:34] And when I first heard Paul Copan and Paul Gould and others talking about that, and then got to meet Christopher Reeves, just wanted to let you know from time to time that we find so many good articles there. We also have identified some great guests on this program who I was unaware of until they had written an article in this particular newsletter. So great resources. But let's get to a couple more real quickly.

[00:34:59] And that is, we talked about your relationship with God, but I thought another good piece that you had in there, Christopher, was your relationship with ourselves. Okay, we come to the fall, and because of that, our hearts were darkened, it says in Romans 1. We become idolaters. We're filled with all sorts of issues. And as one individual, you quote, Cornelius Platinga says,

[00:35:24] God hates sin, not just because it violates his law, but most substantially because it violates shalom, which we talked about. It breaks the piece because it interferes with the ways things are supposed to be. And that is, when we become Christians, God regenerates us, and this new self can be renewed, and we should be renewing our minds daily. And certainly that is the key that we talk about, and you can see that in 2 Corinthians.

[00:35:52] You can see that in Romans 12 and other passages. But it does seem to me that another very important foundational issue in happiness is having a right relationship with God and also understanding who you are in relationship to God. Don't you think? That's exactly right. Both of these are important aspects of shalom. And another way to think of shalom is flourishing.

[00:36:22] And in order to flourish, we have to have a right relationship with God, which we were just talking about, also a right relationship with ourselves. And we lost that in the fall. Martin Luther talks about our human natures being curved in on each other after the fall. Right. As a result of that. And so, yeah, and because of that, we have to be born again.

[00:36:51] And when we are, this starts a process of sanctification where God is healing aspects of our individual souls that need to be healed and repaired and made in his image. And as that process continues, we experience more shalom in our personal lives.

[00:37:16] The other issue I wanted to put on the table, relationship with God, relationship with ourselves, now relationship with others. Because once you have the fall, once you're dealing with fallen sinful individuals, broken individuals in a broken culture, we also look forward to the day in which things will be made perfect. Through heavens, new earth, return of Christ, all that.

[00:37:43] But it seems to me that even though there has been, as Christ talks about this, dividing wall of hostility, it's been broken down that Paul talks about in Ephesians 2. And in some respects, then we have a new person, a new humanity. And as a result, then some of the divisions begin to evaporate. Galatians 3.28,

[00:38:10] There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, male and female. We're all one in Christ Jesus. You have a passage in Colossians that goes into that as well. And it does seem to me that, again, sometimes we can't get happiness because we can't get along with the people next to us. And yet part of that goes back to the need for us to actually live out the Christian life on a day-to-day basis.

[00:38:38] That's right. So much goes back to Genesis 3, where the fall takes place. And we see what happens there after Adam and Eve sin. Their relationship with each other is ruptured. They're cast out of the garden, out of God's presence. And so that relationship is broken also.

[00:39:04] And then there's just sort of a downward spiral from there until God sends the flood. And, you know, he says he does that because, you know, human beings, the thoughts of their hearts are continually evil. And they're, you know, basically preying on each other and, you know, treating each other horribly. So, yeah, so much, you know, stems from that.

[00:39:30] But, again, you know, as we've been talking about, when we come to Christ, we're new creations. And God brings us into this new family, his family, the church. And it's a whole different type of interaction there. As you mentioned, Christ creates in himself one new humanity, as it says in Ephesians. And here the relationship is based on love and forgiveness,

[00:40:01] stimulating one another to love and good deeds, Hebrews says. And so as a result of that, shalom comes into our interpersonal relationships. And we experience that peace through that. Again, there are a lot of great points. But since we're coming to the end here, I thought I would mention one that made me laugh out loud. Maybe I've just got a funny sense of humor. But Thaddeus Williams, who had on the program, said,

[00:40:28] The more you worship yourself, the less you become yourself. You become a shadow, a specter, an unself. The longer and deeper you stare in the mirror looking for answers, the more it feels like you're looking at Edvard Munch's The Scream. This is the strange paradox of self-worship. If you've ever seen The Scream, I think anybody that's ever seen that painting, I mean, it's pretty horrible. But it's a reminder then that that is kind of this self-worship issue.

[00:40:58] And I don't know, maybe I'll even do a booklet on self-worship in the future. But nevertheless, you can find all of that in this particular article. What does it mean to be happy? I might just mention that, again, if you say, Well, what are some of the other issues that you've been talking about at the Worldview newsletter? Well, we have, for example, What I Learned from 100 Atheists Who Converted to Christianity. Melissa Kane Travis. I haven't had her on to talk about this. We kind of avoided that. But the mystery man of the shroud, she goes into that.

[00:41:27] But John West, we had just on recently. That's a summary of his book that we talked about, The Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. And, of course, we've had our good friend Doug Groteis on, On what is the future of apologetics. So those are just a few of the many good articles, some of which we've talked about on the program, others that we've referred to. And so if you'd like to know a little bit more, Of course, we have this article. We have a link to, of course,

[00:41:51] The information that is available there from the particular Worldview Bulletin. And so all of that is available on our website at pointofview.net. Christopher, as always, thank you for editing it. Thank you for joining us today here on Point of View. Thanks so much for having me. Always a pleasure to talk to you. We are just about out of time, So let me just mention a couple of quick things. If you find yourself saying, Okay, I want to find Gary Bauer's end-of-day report. That's our first article.

[00:42:20] We have a couple of others in terms of economic growth. We've talked about the so-called transphobic HHS report, As well as what does it mean to be happy? And most importantly, I hope that you might go to the website. Even if we go off the air, Click on that button that says subscribe today to the Viewpoints commentary. That's one of the things we've been talking about this week. And that's one of the reasons we had our good friend Gary Bauer on. But all of the material that we've talked about today,

[00:42:49] Available on the website at pointofview.net. Also want to thank Megan for help engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the program. And thank you for listening, Because we cover so many issues, And we're going to cover a whole lot more the rest of this week. So stay tuned, And we'll see you tomorrow right here on Point of View. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority.

[00:43:17] They say men can be women and women men. People are prosecuted differently or not at all, Depending on their politics. Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel like giving up. But we can't. We shouldn't. We must not. As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II, Never give in. Never give in.

[00:43:46] Never, never, never. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. And that's what we say to you today. This is not a time to give in, But to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos. We can't do it alone. But together, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness. Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net

[00:44:14] Or call 1-800-347-5151 Pointofview.net And 800-347-5151 Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.