Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson It is estimated that Charles Wesley wrote over 6500 hymns. Perhaps his best- known hymn is “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” Over the years it has been edited slightly, but the meaning and theology remains as he wrote it more than two centuries It begins with a proclamation of the birth of Jesus: “Hark! the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King; Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.” The hymn reminds us why…

Kerby Anderson This is Christmas week, and so I thought we might reflect on the hymn, “O Holy Night” by John Dwight. “O holy night! The stars are brightly shining. It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.” Jesus came into the world to save us and so we feel valuable and our soul feels its worth. Perhaps the most quoted…

Kerby Anderson This is Christmas week, and I thought it might be worthwhile to spend a moment to reflect on the words to the hymn, O Little Town of Bethlehem. It was written in 1867 by Phillips Brooks (an Episcopal pastor from Philadelphia). He had been in Israel two years earlier and had celebrated Christmas in Bethlehem. He wrote this song to reflect on what the night of the birth of Jesus might have been like. O little town of…

Penna Dexter Some public education officials are conflicted this time of year. Oh it’s fine for educators to celebrate all the trappings of Christmas at school. Even to get a couple of weeks off because of it. But dare mention the real reason for the season, the birth of Jesus Christ, and you’re censored. That’s what happened to Dedra Shannon, a staffer at Patterson Middle School in Killeen, Texas. She decorated the school’s nurses’ office door with images to recreate…

Kerby Anderson After many long hours on a road trip, I decided to stop at a McDonald’s to use the restroom and get something to drink. As I entered, I saw their new self-service kiosk. Immediately I thought, “this is what happens when you demand a $15 minimum wage.” I was not wrong. Ed Rensi, is the former president and CEO of McDonald’s USA. He explains that increasing the minimum wage is why we will be seeing more of these…

Kerby Anderson For more than six years, Republican politicians have been repeating the mantra of “repeal and replace” concerning health care. But they were never very clear about what the replace part of the equation would look like. Now we have a much better idea. When Donald Trump tapped Representative Tom Price to head the Department of Health and Human Services, he signaled that the proposal by Dr. Price would most likely be the Obamacare replacement plan. For the last…

Kerby Anderson The CEOs of major corporations may be smart people when it comes to business, but many of them apparently don’t know when to keep their comments to themselves after the 2016 presidential election. Their public rants against Donald Trump’s election and their criticism of voters aren’t likely to encourage people to buy their products. Matt Maloney is the CEO of Grubhub. The company offers take out, but lately seem more intent in telling its conservative employees to get…

Kerby Anderson A new report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) finds that teenage virgins are healthier than other students who are sexually active. At first, you might think that is merely an obvious conclusion since virgins are not likely to contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD). But the conclusions are based on many other factors as well. Students who are virgins actually rate significantly and consistently better in nearly all health-related behaviors and measures than their sexually active…

Kerby Anderson Should Christian doctors be purged from the U.S. medical system? The question is absurd. Even so it is seriously asked (in a less offensive way) in a recent bioethics journal article. The two authors argue that Christians (and other people who hold to traditional religious beliefs) should not be given the right to refuse to perform services that the physician believes are ethically questionable. They believe that Christians (and others who hold to traditional views) should not be…

Penna Dexter It looks like we’ll end the year with a final defense bill that provides more money for military and defense operations than requested by the administration. It’s normal, in December to find lawmakers working hard to get the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA, finalized and to the president’s desk. There are lots of pieces and parts to this bill and members of the conference committee appointed to reconcile the House and Senate versions had their work cut…

Kerby Anderson Dr. Anne Bradley has been on my radio program and in a recent article talks about her first trip to the Soviet Union. Even as a teenager she could see through the attempt to make Russia look more prosperous than it was. In fact, her visit was one of the reasons she became an economist. She ends her article by telling the true story of what happened when Boris Yeltsin visited the United States. He was newly elected…