Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson If you visited New York City more than a decade ago, you likely saw this sign on buses or on subway cars. “If you finish high school, get a job, and get married before having children, you have a 98% chance of not being in poverty.” That phrase may sound familiar since I have mentioned it in previous commentaries. It is known as the “success sequence” that was first articulated by two scholars at the Brookings Institution. It…

Kerby Anderson Yesterday I talked about the research by Jonathan Haidt and others on young girls and ended with his comment that his explanation for girls did not seem to apply to boys. His article attached to his commentary is a preview of his forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation. Rates of mental problems rose significantly around 2013, and the impact of social media on girls is the logical explanation. But we didn’t see the same rapid increase for boys. Rates…

Kerby Anderson Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and author of books like The Coddling of the American Mind. I have interviewed him on that book and hope to interview him on his forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation. You can get a preview of his research in the attached article, “I’m Worried About the Boys, Too.” The research on the problems girls face is well-known. He explains, “Since 2015, I have been trying to solve a mystery: all of a…

Kerby Anderson On this Christmas day, I think it would be good to reflect for just a moment on the Incarnation. God became man and took on human flesh. This is a great theological wonder and mystery. Malcolm Muggeridge wrote this to describe the importance of the birth of Christ. “Thanks to the great mercy and marvel of the Incarnation, the cosmic scene is resolved into a human drama. A human drama in which God reached down to relate Himself…

Penna Dexter We rarely connect the dots between feminism and our current societal woes. But political commentator and activist, Matt Walsh does so on a regular basis. During a recent episode of his podcast on The Daily Wire, he described in detail a memo drafted in 1969 by Frederick Jaffe who was then a vice president of Planned Parenthood. The document, known as the Jaffe memo, was written in response to a request from the head of an influential population-control…

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 During this Christmas week, I have taken the time to discuss the theology of some of the Christmas hymns and carols that we sing. Today I would like to talk about The First Noel. It is an English song dating back to the sixteenth century. Some people believe that the First Noel was French because of the French spelling of Noel, but it is actually an English song. The French word Noël does mean “Christmas” and it is…

Kerby Anderson The carol “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is an English translation of a Latin hymn that is sung during Advent and Christmas. The text goes back to at least the 18th century (and perhaps much earlier) while the music put to it goes back to the 15th century. “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel. That mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”…

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 remain as he wrote it more than two centuries ago. 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 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 It’s December: time for another UN climate confab. Global socialists who see a climate emergency in every heat wave are meeting in Dubai for the 28th annual Conference of the Parties. Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depot says, “COP 28 is shaping up to be a doubling down on the green agenda despite the massive failure on a grand global scale.”   These conferences have no effect on climate. They have sparked little significant change in energy consumption. People…