Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson The phrase “white privilege” has been used in the universities for years, but now the phrase is everywhere in our society. But what does it mean exactly? I suspect that more than 95 percent of the people who use the phrase don’t even know where it originated nor what it was trying to convey. Professor Peggy McIntosh (Wellesley College) wrote a paper in 1988 about male privilege and white privilege. As a feminist author, she argued that men…

Kerby Anderson George Floyd was killed three weeks ago, and protests have been with us since the video surfaced. You would think that some of the focus would be on who is responsible for his killing and others like it in the city. Kevin Williamson says the “answer to that question is not unknowable – but it is, in many political quarters, unspeakable.” There is a reason for that. Minneapolis is a Democratic city with a Democratic mayor and a…

Penna Dexter Some colleges and universities have decided to stop using the SAT and ACT exams to make admissions decisions. The largest system to make such an announcement is the University of California. Its size and prestige will certainly influence others. The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley says, “That’s unfortunate because low-income minorities have more to lose than gain from the end of standardized testing.” One critique is that test questions contain cultural bias that would make it harder for…

Kerby Anderson George Barna has been doing an extensive inventory of the worldviews of Americans through the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University. He was on my radio program last week to talk about two of his most recent surveys dealing with truth and morality. Past generations of Americans viewed God as the basis for truth. Not only has that changed for the general population, it has also changed significantly within the church. He found that there were certain…

Kerby Anderson We have all heard the phrase: “the cure is worse than the disease.” Some have applied that to the pandemic lockdown, but is that claim really true? Dr. Scott Atlas is both a physician and a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He and his colleagues looked at the accumulated years of life lost because of the lockdown. They used information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Labor, along with various…

Kerby Anderson Has Christianity made a positive impact on Western civilization? That was a question I posed a few months ago in a commentary, and in it I provided a short list of atheists who would agree with that statement. Now, there are more atheists coming to that conclusion. Jonathon Van Maren writes about a number of atheists who he calls “King Agrippa Christians.” After the Apostle Paul gave his testimony and the gospel, the king said he was nearly…

Kerby Anderson Sometimes I feel that my responsibility is to provide context for events in the news. That was certainly the case when riots that started in Minneapolis broke out in cities across the country. Certain media personalities felt it was their responsibility to excuse and even downplay the violence and property damage of the rioters. This is not a new phenomenon. We need to explain, especially to our younger audience, that liberal and progressive stars in the media have…

Kerby Anderson The editors of the Wall Street Journal asked an insightful question. “Where would President Trump be if his critics didn’t so often help him?” What they are talking about was the decision by Twitter to fact-check the president for the first time. The president wrote that mail-in voting in places like California would be “substantially fraudulent” because the governor is sending ballots out to anyone living in the state. Twitter reminded everyone that the ballots are sent only…

Penna Dexter A dear friend texted me a photo of her daughter and two classmates on their graduation day from medical school. Decked out in traditional graduation garb — gathered in one of their apartments — these three young doctors were about to go online for their virtual graduation. Many colleges and universities have outright canceled graduation due to Covid-19. Others planned virtual ceremonies, complete with pre-recorded or remotely delivered speeches. A few schools will hold in-person ceremonies later this…

Kerby Anderson What has been the cost of the coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown? We usually hear pundits talking about the lives lost and the jobs lost. But there is another way to understand how much has been lost. Christopher Roach reminds us that “Life is Risky” by providing a few responses to the argument that everything must be done to “save just one life.” He reminds us that we do not save every life now because it would be…

Kerby Anderson Harvard professor Steven Pinker had a simple explanation for why Republicans wanted to reopen the economy. Evangelicals were exerting an influence because they believe in an afterlife, which he said is a “malignant delusion.” It was a bizarre tweet, even for an atheist. Although many have answered his comment, I thought we might revisit it because you are likely to run into similar arguments. Pinker argued that belief in an afterlife “devalues actual lives and discourages action that…