Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson After some of the political battles on Capitol Hill and after the political ads during the mid-term elections, I think most of us would like a return to civility. Hillary Clinton explains when civility might once again become part of the political process. She told CNN, “You can’t be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for.” So she concluded that if the Democrats were “fortunate enough to win back the House and/or…

Penna Dexter There’s a particularly nasty battle tactic being deployed in the gender wars. Women are blaming good men, as a group, for the sins of bad actors. A recent op-ed in the Washington Post provides a disturbing example of this. Victoria Bissell Brown, a retired history professor from Grinnell College in Pennsylvania, wrote her piece in a tone that suggests she’s speaking on behalf of all women. Its title is: “Thanks for not raping us, all you ‘good men.’…

Kerby Anderson Christians are surrounded by a supermarket of worldviews, so it is not surprising that many have uncritically accepted many of these false views of reality. The Barna Group in association with Summit Ministries conducted a survey of practicing Christians to determine how they were influenced by these worldviews. They found that younger Christians (millennials and generation X) were much more likely to accept unbiblical worldviews than previous generations. They also found that males were more susceptible than females…

Kerby Anderson A recent Gallup poll found that three fourths (77%) of Americans believe we are a divided nation. But we may not be as divided on as many issues as we think. Dirk Philipsen believes that Americans actually agree on a lot. He says one reason we seem to disagree is due to “tribalism.” He lives in the North Carolina Research Triangle, home of the UNC-Duke basketball rivalry. His favorite teams are ‘Duke and anyone playing the University of…

Kerby Anderson The new book by David Green has the arresting title, Giving It All Away. He is the founder of Hobby Lobby and tells the story of his success and calls for Christians to give generously to churches and other ministries.He was on my radio program recently, and we talked about Hobby Lobby, the Museum of the Bible, and their court case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Green family has been at the center…

Kerby Anderson What makes a society successful? With all the talk about trying to “Make America Great Again,” the focus has been on individual political and economic policies. As important as those are, we need to step back and ask the bigger question about what makes for successful societies. Harvard historian Niall Ferguson has an answer to that fundamental question. His book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, puts so much in historical context: “For 500 years the West patented…

Kerby Anderson Khaldoun Sweis admits that reaching your secular friends with the gospel is difficult, but there are things we can do to be more effective. He and I have worked together at the International Society of Christian Apologetics, so I was excited to see many commentators like Ed Stetzer and Eric Metaxas quoting him. Khaldoun says we make a mistake “when we ignore the trends and zeitgeist of the times, and we make grave mistakes when we try to…

Penna Dexter The divorce rate is falling in America. According to an analysis of US Census Bureau data, it fell 18 percent from 2008 to 2016. Even after controlling for factors such as an aging population, University of Maryland sociology professor Phillip Cohen found the drop was still 8 percent. Underneath this trend there’s both good and bad news. The good news is: the marriages of Generation Xers and, to a greater extent, millennials are lasting longer. Couples are marrying…

Kerby Anderson In addition to my study of the millennial generation is my current research on the generation following them. Jean Twenge has given them the name iGen because their generation has always had digital devices like the iPod and the iPhone. They were born between 1995 and 2012. In fact, the leading edge of the iGen generation are now graduating from college. In many ways, they are different from previous generations. Here are a few characteristics that Jean Twenge…

Kerby Anderson A number of columnists and political thinkers have tried to explain why there is so much hate in the public arena. Shelby Steele is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He has some profound insights on “Why the Left is Consumed With Hate.” He takes us back to the 1960’s when this country “finally accepted that slavery and segregation were profound moral failings.” So the left put itself in charge of righting this wrong, thus giving…

Kerby Anderson Last month I quoted from Victor Davis Hanson’s article on “The Origins of Our Second Civil War.” One of his explanations focused on our college campuses. His insightful analysis is worth more than the few sentences I devoted to it a month ago. He argues that higher education helped split the country in two. For example, college campuses “competed for scarcer students by styling themselves as Club Med-type resorts.” This included upscale dorms with phenomenal buffets and lavish…