Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Has Christianity made a positive impact on Western civilization? Most Christians would respond positively, with wholehearted agreement. In the past, atheists have usually pointed to how religion has been abused and misused and rarely acknowledge the contribution of Christianity to society. Richard Dawkins is one of the most prominent New Atheists. Yet even he has begrudgingly admitted that a belief in God has made a difference. He expressed his fear that the removal of religion would be a…

Kerby Anderson Credit goes to Senator Ben Sasse who has tried to get the US Senate to pass the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act. This time, it was filibustered by 41 Democratic senators. Let me remind you that the bill would merely require doctors to provide medical care to infants who survive an attempted abortion. You might think that would be standard medical procedure. But you would be wrong. Some who oppose the bill counter that the legislation is unnecessary or…

Penna Dexter Even if you’d rather not worry about it — and you can certainly put me in that category — coronavirus is, if not front and center, at least brewing below the surface for most of us. On weekends, I read Peggy Noonan’s column. She’d planned on writing her latest piece about presidential politics: the South Carolina primary, Super Tuesday, etc. “But,” she wrote, “my mind kept tugging in another direction.” We can’t just say of this virus, it’s “over there” and…

Kerby Anderson For the last approximately 100 years, Americans knew what type of person they wanted in the Oval Office. It was someone with executive experience. Most of the time it was a former governor, but sometimes they would settle for a general or even a business executive. The list is rather obvious. You had Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, Governor Jimmy Carter, Governor Ronald Reagan, Governor Bill Clinton, and Governor George W. Bush. Add to that General Dwight Eisenhower, along…

Kerby Anderson A number of pro-family leaders are starting to ask if Sesame Street is safe for kids. Of course, this isn’t the first time that question has been asked. But recent events are the reason for asking the question with even greater concern. For more than 50 years, the television show Sesame Street has been a program that parents could endorse. It had lovable characters and even taught children some basic educational concepts along with important social skills. Sometimes…

Kerby Anderson In a recent presidential debate, Senator Bernie Sanders defended his candidacy by proclaiming that he was trying to “give a voice to people who after 45 years of work are not making a nickel more than they did 45 years ago.” It was a powerful statement, but it deserves more scrutiny. Let’s begin by acknowledging that the graphs of wage growth since 1975 are essentially flat when adjusted for inflation. There’s more to the story though, but let’s…

Kerby Anderson Boys are in crisis. That should be obvious, but Dr. Warren Farrell still has to spend his first six chapters documenting it. He was on my radio program to talk about the book, The Boy Crisis, that he wrote with Dr. John Gray. First, there is the crisis of our sons’ mental health. For example, the increase in the suicide rate among white males led to as many white male deaths as were lost to AIDS. The rate…

Kerby Anderson When the Boy Scouts of America filed chapter 11 bankruptcy recently, was anyone really surprised? Wasn’t this the most predictable “I told you so” moment for those of us in the Christian world? We supported the Boy Scouts through all of their troubles and lawsuits. But when they decided to turn their backs on their history, we could see what would happen. To be fair, the Boy Scouts spent decades fending off the unholy trinity of G’s: gays,…

Penna Dexter Where do public school bureaucrats get the idea that they, not parents, have the final authority to decide, in some very sensitive areas, what is best for children? In Madison, Wisconsin, this attitude is some parents’ worst nightmare as teachers help children begin gender transitions without notifying their parents. Fourteen Wisconsin parents, representing eight families, are bringing a lawsuit against the Madison Metropolitan School District. They are asking a state court to halt a district policy whereby teachers…

Kerby Anderson Even though there is lots of evidence that violence is declining, many people don’t believe it. On my radio program, we have documented that the violent crime rate has dropped significantly over the last few decades. And if you want a longer look at the decline in violence over millennia, you could pick up the 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, by Steven Pinker. Apparently, many people don’t believe it. That is why he spends a…

Kerby Anderson Nine years ago, I quoted historian Niall Ferguson in one of my commentaries. His book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, explained that Western Civilization succeeded because of six “killer apps—competition, modern science, the rule of law and private property rights, modern medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic.” These are the secret sauce of Western Civilization. Last week he explained this in a PragerU video with the title “Why the West Won.” Since you probably won’t…