Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson A new term in psychology is eco-anxiety. Americans feel panic because of the hyperbole surrounding climate change. The chief science officer at the American Psychological Association concludes that existential concerns about the planet are now “impairing our ability to function every day.” A few weeks ago, a Scientific American article concluded that, “There’s growing recognition in the field of psychology that people are experiencing distress over climate change.” Three years ago, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication…

Kerby Anderson If you told me earlier this month that I would be doing a commentary on UFOs, I would not have believed it. But recent news stories require some comment. First, it was the TV program 60 Minutes doing a piece on UFOs that were spotted in restricted US airspace. The next night Fox News host Tucker Carlson devoted his opening segment and an interview to concerns about these UFO sightings. Former President Barack Obama said some of the…

Penna Dexter The US Supreme Court has agreed to review a Mississippi law that would ban nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.  Legal experts on both sides of the abortion issue have indicated that the case presents an opportunity for the court to modify — perhaps even to overturn — Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, challenged the 2018 law as unconstitutional. Both a district judge and a…

Kerby Anderson Yesterday I talked about the American Worldview Inventory done by George Barna. He found that very few American adults have a biblical worldview. The most dominant worldview would be the worldview that could best be described as syncretism. The other major worldview could be described as “moralistic therapeutic deism.” This is a term developed by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton in their book, Soul Searching first published in 2005. It was used to describe the worldview they were…

Kerby Anderson In his latest American Worldview Inventory, George Barna concludes that only six percent of American adults have a biblical worldview. This leads to the obvious question: What do the rest of American adults believe? Most of them (88%) hold to a worldview that could best be described as syncretism. Syncretism is a cut-and-paste approach to life. It is not an internally consistent and philosophically coherent perspective. Americans apparently are picking and choosing what they believe based upon their…

Kerby Anderson The three branches of our constitutionalist government are the executive, legislative, and judicial. Over the years, you may have written these names on a school test. You may have shouted them out as answers in a trivia game. But the three branches of government are much more than a school lesson or trivia game answer. They’re a big reason our freedoms have been protected so well for nearly 250 years. We enjoy such liberty and government continuity because…

Kerby Anderson The Democratic party has a God gap that will likely affect them in coming years. David French wrote about this in his recent book, but then decided to delete this chapter before it was published. Fortunately, he wrote about it earlier this month and joined me on radio to explain it. He begins by reminding us how close the last presidential election was. Donald Trump’s base shrank, yet Joe Biden nearly lost anyway. Roughly 44,000 votes in three…

Kerby Anderson This last year of the pandemic and lockdown have put so many middle-class families in a position of financial fragility. A few years ago, the Federal Reserve Board conducted a survey of Americans. They found that nearly half (47%) of the respondents said that the only way they could cover an unexpected expense of $400 would be by borrowing or selling something. They could not come up with the money any other way. Five years ago, writing in…

Penna Dexter In a study of 10th and 12th graders conducted during peak Covid-19 school lockdown months, fewer respondents reported feeling depressed than in a study conducted two years earlier. The study’s lead author, academic psychologist Jean Twenge, says spending more time with their families was good for these teenagers’ mental health. The baseline for Gen-Z happiness is low. Their extensive social media use and often minimal in-person social interaction makes healthy family life crucial for them. Yet there are…

Kerby Anderson Three scientific discoveries point to the existence of God. Dr. Stephen Meyer makes that claim in his book, Return of the God Hypothesis. A week ago, he was on my radio program to make the case for God. Arguments for the existence of God were compelling but began to be challenged in the 19th century. For example, we had Darwin telling us where we came from. Marx, with a secular eschatology, was telling us where we are going….

Kerby Anderson If you pay people for not working, then people aren’t likely to go out and look for work. Most of us would think that is basic common sense. But apparently that eluded many in Congress except for a few US senators like Ben Sasse and Lindsey Graham. Months ago, they warned that providing high unemployment benefits to those out of work would create a disincentive. Two weeks ago, the April jobs report lamented that only 266,000 jobs were…