Recent Viewpoints

The editorial drumbeat against guns continues while the evidence mounts that gun deaths are decreasing. Two articles from last week illustrated these contradictory claims. The editorial board of the New York Times attacked what is called the “fantasy” that carrying a concealed weapon makes you safer. Meanwhile, Pew Research reported that the “nation’s overall gun death rate has decline 30% since 1993.” The New York Times editorial cited statistics from the Violence Policy Center that “since 2007, at least 763…

Numerous surveys suggest that the millennial generation is quite willing to reject the Bible and Christian faith. In the past, it was seen as a road map for life. Now, if it is considered at all, is often seen as merely a book of suggestions. Ken Ham’s latest book, Ready to Return, documents this secular trend and provides recommendations on how to reverse this trend. The book is the third book in a trilogy. The first book, Already Gone, showed…

When a cold-case detective decides to use his analytical skills to evaluate the Bible or the evidence for God, it can be a fascinating journey. In his previous book, Cold Case Christianity, J. Warner Wallace applied time-tested investigative tools and techniques to evaluate the claims of the gospels. This time his book, God’s Crime Scene, applies those same techniques to examine the universe as a crime scene. He invites the reader to sit on a jury as he makes a…

How bad is the economy? Many people believe it is still in bad shape. Others don’t see any problem. They will point to a low unemployment rate, record corporate profits, and a booming stock market. The difference in perspective is explained in a recent column on, Why This Feels Like a Depression for Most People. It begins with this simple observation. “Everyone has seen the pictures of the unemployed waiting in soup lines during the Great Depression. When you try…

Penna Dexter It would be nice if the current presidential campaign were more about issues and less about personalities. Then maybe we’d be hearing more from the campaign trail about the collapse of what was supposed to be healthcare reform under the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare. Former President Bill Clinton did bring up one aspect of this in a speech last week in Flint, Michigan. It was a powerful commentary on the health care law’s impact on the consumer….

Kerby Anderson The fastest growing religious group of our time is the group of young people who check “none” or “none of the above” on religious survey questions. Social scientists therefore refer to them as “the nones.” A few years ago, I did some commentaries about the “nones” but wanted to revisit this topic because we now have more survey statistics that illustrate their growth. From the 1930s to the 1990s, the percentage of “nones” in America was less than…

Kerby Anderson According to Jonah Goldberg, our political culture seems to be obsessed with narrative building. This is an effort by the speaker to connect the dots between a selective number of facts and statistics to prove a point. Trial lawyers understand how important this is. Our minds look for patterns but are often blocked from seeing them because there might be contradictory facts and data. Shape the narrative into a compelling story, and the jury will arrange the facts…

Kerby Anderson Homosexual activists have been encouraging television producers to promote the LGBT agenda for decades. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that we will now see a transgender child on a TV sitcom. When the television program “Modern Family” debuted seven years ago, it was obvious that the purpose was to push the LGBT agenda and gain wider acceptance of homosexuality. Now they have introduced a transgender child actor who is only 8 years old. I do not…

Kerby Anderson It is puzzling to hear people say that Christians are intolerant when often it is the people making those statements who demonstrate their intolerance. A case in point would be a recent free speech symposium at the University of Missouri. Sally Kohn, a highly visible liberal commentator and LGBT activist, argued that free speech advocates were afraid of multiculturalism and trying to stifle diversity. “If they feel like they can no longer speak against positive social change, good,”…

Kerby Anderson Civilizations that abandon God as a foundation of their society will ultimately fall into decay and decadence. They must root their rights and liberty on the bedrock of faith in God or else anarchy and nihilism are the result. Those are the powerful conclusions of the new documentary film, Torchbearer. In it, Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson stands like an Old Testament prophet and challenges the modern, post-Christian worldview prevalent in our secular culture. He takes us through history…

Penna Dexter Walt Heyer is a former transgender who lived as a woman for eight years. He took hormones and had surgery. After returning to being a man, he wrote, “I wish the guy who approved me for gender surgery had told me about the risks.” He says medical professionals are too quick to prescribe hormone therapy and “irreversible reassignment surgery” to individuals who are confused about their gender. Instead, he says, these professionals should be looking at the underlying…