Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Who would have ever thought that classical education would be controversial? The fact that Professor Adam Carrington had to write that “classical education is not a threat” is another indication of how everything has become political. He begins by asking the question: “Is education Republican or Democrat, conservative or progressive?” His answer is that in a rightly ordered system, it should be neither. It should instruct students about America’s history and ideals. One of the reasons such education…

Kerby Anderson Let me begin by wishing you a Happy New Year. At the start of this New Year, I wanted to pass on some advice. In previous commentaries, I have talked about the value of using this time of year to change something in your life. There is nothing magical about using January 1 as a start date, but why not use it to improve yourself? First, I would recommend you pick just one thing to change. If you…

Penna Dexter As 2023 ends, we see less evidence than ever of the Christian consensus that used to exist in the United States. Not that we were a “Christian nation.”  But norms existed — I guess you could call them family values — that, although not practiced by everyone, were at least considered good and true. All of that is waning. Author and cultural commentator, Rod Dreher points back to another observer of American society, sociologist Philip Reiff. Dr. Reiff,…

Kerby Anderson Most Americans are already financially worse-off than they were before the pandemic. But here is an arresting statistic. JP Morgan estimates that 99 percent of all Americans will be financially worse-off by next year. The majority of Americans have burned through their excess savings they accumulated during the Covid-19 pandemic. The last few percentages of Americans will have used them up by July 2024. The bank’s top stock strategist points to the fact that most Americans are already…

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…