Recent Viewpoints

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…

Kerby Anderson True health care reform will be difficult due to the many political and economic barriers erected by the health care stakeholders. Foster Friess was on my radio program recently to talk about his op-ed  When Hospitals Resist Change that ran in the Washington Times. One problem is who gets to make decisions. Drug companies, insurance companies, and hospitals get to sit around the decision-making table while “the ‘patient lobby’ is sitting on the side of the room as…

Penna Dexter We’re officially in Lent, the period of 40 days, which comes before Easter in the Christian calendar. It’s a time of preparation for Easter, and, in many Christian traditions, a season of remorse. I think Lent can serve a good purpose even for people who are not in liturgical churches and don’t observe or think about it much. For many Christians, there’s a sense in which we get surprised by Easter. There’s such a long ramp-up to Christmas…

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, and General Social Survey). He discovered that…

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…

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 is the past. George Will in a recent column writes about how “Big Government Sneakily Get Bigger.” He quotes from John DiIulio and his book and recent paper at…

Kerby Anderson President Trump caused a stir at his campaign rally last month when he talked about “what happened last night in Sweden.” There was no terrorist attack. What in the world was he talking about? It turned out he saw a Fox News show discussing the refugee issue in Sweden. Various pundits reacted by charging the president with being everything from inflammatory to inarticulate to imprecise. Almost on cue, riots in a Swedish suburb broke out and focused attention…

Kerby Anderson Last month, the Trump administration announced that it was rescinding the Obama administration “gender identity” policy. Ryan Anderson says that the administration “is doing the right thing in correcting Obama’s unlawful overreach, which imposed a one-sided solution on all 50 states.” A little history is in order. The Obama administration redefined the term in the Title IX law prohibiting sex discrimination to include “gender identity.” On May 13, the Justice Department and the Education Department sent a “Dear…

Penna Dexter As the Trump Administration considers cutting funding of public broadcasting — NPR and PBS – one state governor is ready to zero it out. Jim Justice is Governor of West Virginia. His 2018 budget cuts funding for WVPB, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, from where it is now, $4.6 million, down to zero.  The Daily Signal reports that West Virginia currently has a $500 million shortfall. Well, the money has to come from somewhere. States don’t carry deficits from…

Kerby Anderson Even though the Supreme Court has already ruled on the constitutionality of the Second Amendment in the Heller decision, the Fourth Circuit court judges decided to rewrite the opinion and ban certain guns and magazines. In January, the court ruled that lawful gun owners are inherently “dangerous” and can face search and seizure limitations on their constitutional rights. Then last week in February, the court upheld Maryland’s ban on assault weapons and any magazine that holds more than…