Penna Dexter is a radio commentator and columnist for various Christian conservative outlets. She is a frequent commentator and guest host for Point of View Radio Talk Show with Kerby Anderson. Her weekly commentaries air on the Moody Broadcasting Network and the Bott Radio Network. Penna’s columns appear at Baptist Press and the Christian Post blog page. Penna is an executive at Todd Dexter & Associates, the integrated marketing consulting company founded by her husband, Todd Dexter.

For eight years she served as Marlin Maddoux’s co-host on Point of View and for two years she co-hosted a daily drive time live broadcast on the Dallas-based Criswell Radio Network.

Penna’s interest in conservative politics and the issues that affect the family began when she was a child working on political campaigns with her parents. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in International Relations. She spent 8 years in the banking industry. She and her husband Todd are members of Trinity Presbyterian Church. They have three children.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was on Hugh Hewitt’s show this morning. Naturally, the subject was North Korea. You can hear the interview here.

These are some highlights:

Growing increasingly dangerous, because the policy has changed from strategic patience, which is a code word for weakness, to denial of the capability to hit the American homeland with a nuclear-tipped missile. …[W]e will not allow North Korea to have an ICBM with a weapon on top to hit the American homeland. We’re not going to contain the threat. We’re going to deny that capability, and our policy has changed dramatically, and we’re trying to make sure that our allies and our enemies know that.

President Donald Trump's evangelical adviser is standing behind his claims that God has given the nation's leader the authority to take out North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, saying he believes the Bible is clear about using force to stop evil, but a Catholic priest Thursday argued the minister is misinterpreting scripture.

"There is a great deal of confusion among Christians when it comes to this idea of using force to topple evil," Pastor Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church of Dallas told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program. "I wanted clarify that I believe the Bible, especially Romans 13, does give President Trump moral authority to use whatever force necessary, including assassination or even war, to topple an evil dictator like Kim Jong Un."

The crisis over North Korea has deepened at a darkly fitting moment: in the week when we mark the anniversaries of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just as Christians (more than most Americans I think) debate the rightness or wrongness of those U.S. bombings to end a war, such a choice might be repeated. North Korea is testing missiles that could strike American cities with nuclear weapons. We stand in very grave danger, as we haven’t since 1991 when the Soviet Empire folded. We face very similar stakes to those Harry Truman did in 1945. And the same deep questions arise. There are no easy answers.

Right now, President Trump is certainly weighing the possibility of massive, pre-emptive airstrikes against North Korea. In such an attack, some hundreds of thousands of North Korean civilians would likely die, simply because they are too close to our military targets.

Millennials go out less and are lonelier than were teenagers and young adults only a decade ago.

I’ve picked up a new habit lately — more of a tic, perhaps. If I’m getting lunch or a coffee with a friend, I usually keep my phone in my pocket. My brother is a few years younger than me (18, I’m 21) and his social cohort generally finds it acceptable to browse their phones sporadically even on such occasions. Attitudes among my peers are more mixed but tend toward the negative: Most of my friends will place their phone facedown on the table or keep it in their pockets, and they would likely excuse themselves if they had to respond to a message or check their e-mail. Here’s the tic: If one person pulls out their phone, I pull out my phone. I used to do this consciously, if I was expecting a message or following a developing news story, since it is no violation of etiquette to check your phone if others are checking theirs.

Whether or when to wage war is not a question church leaders can answer with certainty.

Neither the Bible nor Christian tradition supports a prominent Baptist pastor’s assertion that God has specifically ordained Donald Trump to “take out” the North Korean regime. And it’s especially important for orthodox and conservative Christians to be very clear on this point. First Baptist Church of Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress, an outspoken Donald Trump supporter and a cable-news commentator, has excited attention with his claims, in an interview with the Washington Post, about the Lord’s plans for Trump and dictator Kim Jong-un:

The war rhetoric between North Korea and the U.S. turned nuclear this week, literally. Thankfully, Christians have thought about these things before.

U.S. intelligence now believes that North Korea—currently under the rule of a despicable, evil, irrational dictatorship—has capability to mount a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Kim Jong Un has said he’ll never give up his pursuit of nuclear weapons, and just this week, he threatened attacks on the U.S. mainland and the
U. S. territory of Guam.

In response, President Trump warned that if these threats continue, North Korea will face “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”