Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Your children are facing an onslaught of profanity through the media. Movies are one place where profanity reigns. One survey has been tracking profanity in movies from the first swear word on film (1939’s Gone With the Wind) to The Wolf of Wall Street, which holds the record with 798 swear words. There has been a 500 percent increase over these many decades. The Parents Television Council has documented the fact that the number of expletives on television…

Kerby Anderson A library in Oregon is providing a six-part course called “Adulting 101.” If it becomes popular, I suspect we will be seeing more of these courses nationwide. Maybe I need to back up and define the term “adulting.” Last year, the term began to be used more frequently. It means to “behave in an adult manner” or it can also describe the attempt to “make someone behave as an adult.” It gained some attention because millennials often go…

Kerby Anderson More than 100 million American adults claim to have a biblical worldview, but actually a much smaller percentage of adults do. That is one of the striking conclusions of George Barna’s survey with the American Culture & Faith Institute. It is important to know how many people have a biblical worldview because belief drives behavior. And it was important for George Barna to get an accurate baseline to use in future comparisons. His survey asked 20 questions about…

Kerby Anderson Let me give you some advice. The next time you hear a media report of a hate crime by a conservative or Trump supporter, wait a day and see if it is a hoax. John Hawkins lists “10 Examples of Hate Crimes that Turned Out to be Scams.” Elizabeth Nolan Brown documents in Reason that “There Is No Violent Hate-Crime Wave in Trump’s America.” Kevin Williamson, writing in National Review, talks about both “Fake Hate Crimes” and “Fake Hate.”…

Penna Dexter Remember the PBS television show Barney and Friends?  It premiered in 1992 and ceased production in 2009. The title character Barney was a purple tyrannosaurus rex who conveyed optimistic and educational messages through songs and little dance routines. The show was popular during an era when it was not politically correct to elevate the nuclear family — a mom, a dad, and their biological or adopted kids —as preferable to any other type of family. The children on Barney…

Kerby Anderson Christian young people are not spiritually thriving. That is the conclusion by Stephen Cable in his book, Cultural Captives: The Beliefs and Behavior of American Young Adults. Stephen Cable serves as Senior Vice-President of Probe Ministries. His book not only analyzes the survey Probe Ministries did with the Barna Group of emerging adults but also analyzes all of the other major surveys (National Study of Youth and Religion, Baylor Religion Survey, General Social Survey). He discovered that even…

Kerby Anderson An interesting aspect of the immigration debate is how forgiving many Americans can be toward illegal aliens, while never extending that same measure of grace to American citizens. One example can be found in the use of the term “false documents.” The discussion started with a Wall Street Journal editorial that expressed concern that the Department of Homeland Security policy might be “so sweeping that it could capture law-abiding immigrants whose only crime is using false documents to work.”…

Kerby Anderson The debate about the federal budget centers on whether the government is too big and too inefficient. Most Republicans argue that government is too big. Many Democrats ask, ‘Where is your evidence that government has grown too big? There are about the same number of federal employees today as in the past.’ George Will in a column writes about how “Big Government Sneakily Get Bigger.” He quotes from John Dilulio and his book and recent paper at the…

Kerby Anderson One of the many dividing lines between progressives and conservatives is their belief in the efficiency and effectiveness of government bureaucracies. Liberals may have some misgivings about how they are treated at the Department of Motor Vehicles or by the TSA at airports. Nevertheless, they tend to believe that government is the solution to most social and political problems. Conservatives are usually more skeptical about government and support the private sector over the public sector. But their reactions…

Kerby Anderson Ayaan Hirsi Ali begins her commentary with these words: “I was a Muslim refugee once. I know what it’s like.” She was en route to Canada to consummate a marriage arranged against her will by her father. At the Frankfurt Airport, she fled to the Netherlands. There she learned Dutch and received a master’s degree in political science before coming to America. She has worked as an interpreter for abused Muslim women and understands the Muslim refugee experience….

Penna Dexter There’s a welcome shift away from the social engineering in the military that drains readiness programs. The US Army released an official memo stating that “Transgender training is complete across the total Army.” For two years, the Army has been conducting mandatory transgender integration training at Army bases across the country. Two Obama-era directives necessitated this. One changed military policy as of July 1, 2016 so that an individual could no longer be discharged for being transgender. On…