Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Columnist Kyle Smith says that the Left have a hamburger problem. Let me explain. He borrows the phrase from Josh Barro who coined the phrase to explain why progressives and Democrats seem to be losing so much. He writes, “Democrats’ problem isn’t that they’re on the wrong side of policy issues. It’s that they’re too ready to bother too many ordinary people about too many of their personal choices, all the way down to the hamburgers they eat.”…

Kerby Anderson We need to help the next generation learn to navigate the culture. That is why I am so excited that John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle have written, A Practical Guide to Culture. The rowboat on the cover reminds us that this emerging generation will have to navigate through choppy waters. John was on my radio program recently to talk about the book and share his experiences from Summit Ministries and the Chuck Colson Center. Both of the authors…

Kerby Anderson David Brooks took on the difficult task of reminding us that class distinctions in America do make a difference. For that he was pilloried in the social media. He was trying to explain how the privileged elite are “ruining” America. He unfortunately came off to some as an example of another privileged elite. He may have fared better if he had not mentioned taking a friend (with only a high school education) to a sandwich shop that has…

Penna Dexter Calls for $15 hourly minimum wage laws are being answered in certain places across the country. Just this July 1st, 17 states and localities increased their wage floors. The idea of requiring companies to pay a so-called living wage sounds compassionate, but it’s not. Seattle started phasing in a $15 minimum three years ago and there’s little to celebrate. It’s hurting low-wage workers. A University of Washington study shows business establishments are simply cutting workers’ hours to compensate….

Kerby Anderson If you ask people around you about summer jobs they have held, you will notice a generation gap. The older people will recall some of the jobs they held as teenagers. The younger people may not have had any summer jobs. Forty years ago, nearly 60 percent of U.S. teenagers were working or looking for work during the summer months. Last year, that percentage was just 35 percent. Some of that decline is due to the lack of…

Kerby Anderson If you are on any social media, you have probably seen the many memes people have produced about Denmark. Some claim that Denmark has free healthcare and free college. All of them remind us that Denmark is the happiest country in the world. All sorts of articles and blog post challenge many of these claims. In fact, I feel sorry for people from Denmark because some of criticisms are very harsh. Let me say that if you live…

Kerby Anderson All the talk about possible collusion with Russia sometimes obscures the need for us to think clearly about Russia. In particular, I am talking about the leadership in Russia not the Russian people. The Russian people may be very nice, but their leader (Vladimir Putin) is another story. Colonel Allen West asks a good question. When did Russia become a threat? Most everyone considers it a threat now, but where were these critics just a few years ago?…

Kerby Anderson If you want to understand why the debate over Obamacare isn’t going well, all you need to do is look at the debate about Medicaid. In a recent commentary, Michael Tanner says: “Democrats have dug in over any change to the current program, solemnly declaring that changing so much as a comma or semicolon in the ACA’s expansion of the program would immediately sentence millions of children to death.” Obviously, we can’t have a productive debate if we…

Kerby Anderson When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, everyone wondered what the ruling would mean to bakers, florists, photographers, and others who choose not to participate in a same-sex ceremony. Next year we will find out. The high court decided to take the case of Christian baker Jack Phillips. When two men visited his Masterpiece Cakes bakery in 2012 and asked for a same-sex wedding cake, he refused. The men filed a complaint with the Colorado…

Penna Dexter As school ended this year, one northwest Washington DC educator commenced a summer project to try to pry students away from screen technology. She knows that, when school’s out, many of them have full access to cellphones, which are off limits during class time when school is in session. She worries that, rather than playing sports with friends or doing something like going to a museum, they’ll stay buried in screens all summer. The Washington Post reported that…

Kerby Anderson Is Christianity really as bad as atheists say that it is? For decades we have heard the charges from the new atheists. So we shouldn’t be surprised that many of those criticisms showed up at the 17th annual “White Privilege Conference” held last month in Philadelphia. Paul Kivel (founder of the Challenging Christian Hegemony Project) blamed Christianity for “almost every dysfunction in society, from racism and sexism to global warming and a weak economy.” He warns that the…