Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Senator Ben Sasse writes in his new book about, The Vanishing American Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance. He recently took some material from the book and wrote about “What Happens When We Don’t Raise Kids to Become Adults.” He tells the story of being tapped to become president of Midland University at the age of 37-years-old. The board of directors did so because Ben Sasse had the reputation as a “turnaround”…

Kerby Anderson A phrase often used to describe the ideology of Muslim terrorists is the phrase “Islamist extremism.” British Prime Minister Theresa May, for example, used it after the terrorist attacks in London. Andrew McCarthy says the phrase illustrates “the Western schizophrenia about radical Islam.” He argues in a recent column that, “If you are an Islamist in the West, you are, by definition, an extremist. An Islamist is a Muslim who believes Islam requires the imposition of sharia, Islam’s…

Kerby Anderson Although Ramadan is a holy month of fasting for Muslims, you may have also noticed that it always seems to be a time of increased attacks on infidels. Last year during Ramadan there were 421 dead and 729 wounded. This year, the statistics will be equally grim. At first this seems like a contradiction. Ramadan occurs during the ninth lunar month in the Islamic calendar. It is time when Muslims fast from their first prayer of the day…

Kerby Anderson A family in Michigan was banned from selling their organic apples, peaches, and cherries at the farmers market. They weren’t banned because their produce is inferior or unfit for human consumption. They were banned because they believe in traditional marriage. They own a 120-acre farm and often bring some of their produce into the city to sell at the seasonal market. The farm also has a Facebook page. Their problem started when they expressed their traditional view of…

Penna Dexter Two United States senators have articulated a standard, which would disqualify any real Christian from office. The occasion was last week’s Senate confirmation hearings for Russell Vought, President Trump’s nominee for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Senator Bernie Sanders read from a blog post Russ Vought wrote, in January 2016, at the conservative website, Resurgent. The piece was a defense of Christianity and also of a religious school’s right to set standards for its…

Kerby Anderson In a speech at Hillsdale College, Andrew McCarthy told the story of leading the prosecution in 1993 of the terrorist cell that bombed the World Trade Center. At the time, other government officials told him that he “should read nothing into the fact that all the men in this terrorist cell were Muslims.” These officials explained that the terrorist actions weren’t representative of Islam, because it is religion that encourages peace. The government also portrayed the leader of…

Kerby Anderson College costs so much more than it did a few decades ago. When baby boomers went to college, they often paid for college with money they earned from summer jobs. Today, the millennial generation graduates with crushing amounts of student loan debt. So why is college so expensive now? The typical answer you get is that public funding for higher education was slashed and so the universities had to raise tuition year after year. It makes for a…

Kerby Anderson You have probably been hearing about the phenomenon of grade inflation for many years. It’s much worse than you might imagine. A recent report tells is all: “Everyone gets an A? College grade inflation spiking.” To make the point, I posted the graph of college grade distributions nationwide on my Facebook page and on Pinterest. The comments from people who saw the graph are very interesting. From the 1960s, you notice that the percentage of A grades increase…

Kerby Anderson You may have noticed that often during a conversation about Islam, someone points out that radical Muslims are but a small percentage of the whole Muslim population. That is true, but there is another percentage that rarely gets mentioned: the percentage of Muslims who want to make Sharia law the official law of a country. A number of years ago, Pew Research interviewed nearly 40,000 Muslims in 39 countries concerning sharia law. Let’s start with the two countries…

Kerby Anderson Dementia is typically a disease that affects the elderly. But doctors are starting to talk about a new type of cognitive condition affecting younger individuals. They call it “digital dementia.” It results, they say, from the overuse of digital technology, such as smart phones and computers. Brain function deteriorates because of digital overuse. The left side of the brain is generally associated with rational thought (numbers, and facts). The right side is responsible for creative skills and emotional…

Kerby Anderson Brian Thomas points out that the eastern two-thirds of the country have little federally owned land. By contrast, the federal government owns most of the land in the western states. Henry Lamb asks why the federal government owns 65 percent of the land west of Denver and only 2 percent of the land east of Denver. These questions are beginning to be asked by various commentators especially as citizens in western areas of America would like to develop…