Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Before Thanksgiving and Christmas push the election from our minds, we need to remind ourselves how wildly inaccurate polling organizations were in 2020. We should recognize that political polling has always been an inaccurate science. Kristen Soltis Anderson reminds us that in 1936 Literary Digest declared Alf Landon would be the next president. The Gallup organization that year got it right only to later be embarrassed by being on the wrong side of the “Dewey Defeats Truman” upset….

Penna Dexter A faith-based foster care agency, Catholic Social Services, is suing the city of Philadelphia to restore its right to place foster children in homes. Children deemed in need of foster care are wards of the state. Governments partner with private agencies to recruit, evaluate, and endorse families for fostering. But Philadelphia is refusing to work with Catholic Social Services unless the agency consents to endorsing same-sex married or unmarried couples as foster parents. The city is thus depriving…

Kerby Anderson Sadly, it has become trendy in some circles to say that the world would be a better place without religion in general and Christianity in particular. I really do wonder if professors, commentators, and people on social media really believe this or are just saying it without any serious reflection. As I like to sometimes say to my atheist acquaintances, I see lots of Catholic hospitals, Presbyterian hospitals, and Baptist hospitals. I have never seen a humanist hospital….

Kerby Anderson Back in 1996, Samuel Huntington wrote The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. He predicted the current conflict between Islam and the West. In my book, Understanding Islam and Terrorism, I show how this clash of civilizations has had a profound impact on missions. In the past, countries that were closed to the gospel tended to be communist countries. Even so, there was still a significant amount of Christian growth in countries behind the Iron…

Kerby Anderson You don’t hear too many political commentators talk about the culture war these days. But I suspect that term might surface now that the election is behind us. Secular, progressive politicians felt they needed to hide some of their extreme views, but they will be more likely to promote them now that the election has passed. At the same time, many of the more moderate Democrats have voiced their concern that their party lost elections to the House…

Kerby Anderson Yesterday I ended my commentary by saying that you should trust your own judgement. Many of the so-called “experts” really don’t understand your world even though they have great power in the media and politics to control you. I think it is time to realize that censorship is going to happen, especially on social media platforms like Twitter, and plan accordingly. Last month, the Senate Commerce Committee held hearings on the topic of online speech. Jack Dorsey (CEO…

Kerby Anderson We are often told to “trust the experts.” And that is good advice when you are dealing with a true expert. I want a plumbing expert in my house if I have a water leak. I want a doctor with medical expertise doing surgery on me. I want a trained pilot flying the plane I am taking from one city to another. No, I am talking about “experts” who don’t really know the real world but often have…

Penna Dexter Though it’s taking a while to know the true outcomes of this year’s elections, we do know some important things: We know that, in the U.S. House of Representatives, the last four years have been characterized less by governance than by theater. In her post-election column, The Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel says, “Americans elect lawmakers to pass budgets, confirm judges, develop considered legislation.” What we’ve gotten, she writes is “day after painful day of faux scandals, gotcha…

Kerby Anderson Anyone looking at charitable giving can see that individuals and voluntary associations are very effective. Don Eberly talks about this in his book. The Rise of Global Civil Society. He points out that during recent disasters around the world, private voluntary organizations had the capacity to raise more funds than government. They were also able to mobilize resources and manpower with a speed and efficiency that matches (if not exceeds) the best government aid agencies could do. Private,…

Kerby Anderson Why are suicides surging in America? There is no easy answer to that question, but there are some important clues. Some of the answers have been put forth by the latest CDC reports. We do have a number of deaths of despair that result from intended suicides as well as from opioid overdoses. And we also see suicides that have increased among our veterans that show the relationship between military combat and PTSD. But there are social, intellectual,…

Kerby Anderson The mainstream media nearly always think alike. And the best example of that came two weeks ago when Glen Greenwald resigned from The Intercept. Now I am sure you probably haven’t heard about that news outlet, so let me explain why this provides such a great example of media groupthink. Glen Greenwald was one of the founders of The Intercept. He created it because he wanted to have a news outlet that was insulated from partisan pressures and…