Recent Viewpoints

Today is Earth Day. When the first Earth Day was held in 1970, nearly 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums. Back then there were significant environmental concerns about our air and water. I participated by inviting a leader that I knew at the Sierra Club to come to my high school and speak. Many people believe this celebration launched the modern environmental movement. Looking back I have noticed two significant changes that are worth noting. First,…

Biblical illiteracy is a problem that is getting worse in America. Mark Yarborough and I were talking about this recently on my radio program as we discussed his new book, How to Read the Bible Like a Seminary Professor. We were talking about the article by Ed Stetzer, Dumb and Dumber: How Biblical Literacy Is Killing Our Nation. Ed Stetzer reminds us about the Bible’s impact on this country. “It has shaped our laws, social systems, and even language.” Unfortunately,…

We have a problem in the medical field. More than 100,000 people who need an organ transplant cannot get one. Some deal with declining health. Many of them die waiting for a transplant. A company in California has a solution. Take the organs from aborted babies and grow them in animals until they can be transplanted into humans. If the thought of this is repugnant, you are not alone. Leslie Hanks of the Colorado Right to Life says: “This kind…

On April 28, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Obergefell vs. Hodges, the historic marriage case in which the institution’s very definition will be decided for the nation. In June, the Court will issue its decision, the repercussions of which will affect laws and practices in every state. The stakes are so high, it causes me to tremble. Marriage is God’s design, but, sadly, that will not be an acceptable argument for it in Court. Because marriage…

Not so long ago, the biggest problem in the job market was that there weren’t jobs for the American worker. Now many employers are complaining that they are unable to fill many jobs. In other words, the job market is weak in many areas, but tight in various job sectors. Stephen Moore provides one estimate that there are 30,000-35,000 trucker jobs that could be filled if workers would take these jobs. Domino’s Pizza says that the franchises around the country…

Atheists cannot live consistently with their worldview because it contradicts what we know about the world. That is just one of the key principles in the new book by Nancy Pearcey, Finding Truth: 5 Principles for Unmasking Secularism, and other God Substitutes. She develops five principles from Romans 1 that provide a guidebook on how to evaluate other worldviews while also making a convincing case for Christianity. One of the stories she tells in her book and told on my…

Today is Tax Day. But a more important date is Tax Freedom Day. That is the day when your tax burden is lifted. It is calculated by dividing the official government tally of all taxes collected in each year by the official government tally of all income earned in each year. Put another way, it is when you are no longer working for the government but are now working for yourself and your family. This year Tax Freedom Day arrived…

A few weeks ago, the editors of the Wall Street Journal wrote about “The New Intolerance.” They argued that “Indiana isn’t targeting gays. Liberals are targeting religion.” The Indiana law was merely a version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act that passed overwhelmingly in 1993 and was signed by President Clinton. Indiana actually needed such a law because “neither its laws nor courts unambiguously protected religious liberty. Amish horse-drawn buggies could be required to abide by local traffic regulations….

Sometimes events covered by the press create a perception that is far from reality. That is certainly the case with the press coverage of the political events in Indiana. Reading the newspapers and watching TV coverage, you would think that that the whole nation is disturbed by the fact that the legislature passed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was subsequently signed by the governor. Recent polls show a much different picture. Let’s start with the poll I mentioned last…

Legislators in Indiana began well when they passed their Religious Freedom Restoration Act a couple of weeks ago. Like the federal RFRA and RFRA’s in 19 other states, this law protects religious freedom by providing people the right to go to court and challenge a demand to violate their faith in some way. Under RFRA, if society insists on violating someone’s religious liberty, that person or entity can ask for proof that there’s a compelling government interest in doing so….

Psychiatrist Lyle Rossiter wrote an article entitled, “Following the Rules.” He has noticed among his clients and among Americans in general an unwillingness to follow basic rules in various arenas. As he points out, there are consequences for breaking the rules in those five areas. “In the care of our bodies we have to obey the rules of physics, chemistry, and biology.” When we break these rules we get fat, we get sick, and we can even die. Moreover the…