Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Teresa Mull wrote a fascinating article with an intriguing title: “Why lumberjacks are happy and you’re not.” A Bureau of Labor Statistics survey reported that lumberjacks and farmers are the happiest, least stressed, and most fulfilled workers.” The reason is simple: they work outside. It also illustrates that what provides the most joy and satisfaction isn’t manmade. This is one of the reasons I am such a supporter of Christian camps and any outdoor activity that connects God’s…

Kerby Anderson Yesterday I talked about social media and the teen brain. Today I want to talk about social media and its impact on teenagers’ mental health. An article in Axios reminds the reader that experts have been “increasingly warning of a connection between heavy social media use and mental health issues in children.” Apparently, there are lawsuits against social media producers that accuse them of contributing to a youth mental health crisis. One of the experts quoted is Jean…

Kerby Anderson What is the effect of social media on the brain? Nicholas Carr made this observation fourteen years ago in an article in Atlantic. “Over the past few years, I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory.” In a book he later wrote, he blamed the internet and social media. We now have studies that seem to confirm what most of us suspected. Neuroscientists at…

Kerby Anderson Two decades ago, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead was on my radio program. At the time, she was one of the co-authors of a study done by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University that came to this conclusion: “Cohabitation is replacing marriage as the first living together experience for young men and women.” What was true then is true today, but there is even more evidence of changing attitudes as well as additional social research on cohabitation. A survey…

Penna Dexter It was once a given that a young person would graduate from high school, get a job, marry and then — and only then — have children. No longer. Today, half of American babies are born to unmarried mothers. Economist Melissa Kearney, author of The Two Parent Privilege says, “Roughly 30 percent of kids in the U.S. live outside a two-parent home.” The results are devastating. She says, “kids growing up in single-mother homes are five times more likely…

Kerby Anderson One phrase I frequently use on my radio program is this, “Each year researchers spend millions of dollars to discover what most moms already know.” This comment certainly applies to a study reported a few weeks ago in Fortune. Here’s the headline: “Women are more empathetic than men, study of hundreds of thousands of people finds.” Women are more empathetic than men. Who knew? Just about everyone with a little common sense. But we live in a world…

Kerby Anderson One of the most influential figures in the development of the American government was the English philosopher, John Locke. Thomas Jefferson explained that many of the ideas he drafted into the Declaration of Independence came from Locke. Joe Locante, who has been a guest on my radio program, has written an insightful essay on “The Gospel According to Locke.” As you might gather from the title, he spends much of his essay showing the connections between Locke’s philosophy…

Kerby Anderson During a radio interview with Professor Winfield Bevins, he told the story of how the president of Asbury Theological Seminary welcomed incoming seminary students. He began, “Welcome to life on the fastest-growing mission field in the world: North America.” Consider the estimates just from the United States. Approximately 180 million have no connection to a local church. That makes it one of the fastest-growing mission fields in the Western Hemisphere. One survey estimated that as many as 700,000…

Kerby Anderson Technology makes our lives easier, but digital technology can also make our lives more complicated. Over the last two decades, we have seen the rise of misinformation, polarization, and conspiracy theories. How can we navigate a world where so much information is coming at us at light speed? Jason Thacker provides some important guidelines in his new book, Following Jesus in a Digital Age. He challenges us to consider how social media is shaping our worldviews and then…

Kerby Anderson Today is Memorial Day. For many Americans, it is merely a day off. For others, it marks the start of summer. But hopefully for many of you, it is a day to honor those who fought for our freedom and especially for those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Sure we can enjoy our picnics and go for a walk or go for a swim. But we should take some time to put up a flag, make a banner,…

Penna Dexter Planned Parenthood released its annual report right in the middle of House Republicans’ effort to defund the organization. What timing! The report shows that, in 2024, Planned Parenthood committed more abortions than the previous year and soaked in 13 percent more funding from the U.S. taxpayer. The $792.2 million U.S. taxpayers provided to Planned Parenthood is 39 percent of the organization’s annual revenue. That makes the U.S. government Planned Parenthood’s largest contributor. Planned Parenthood was responsible for 402,200…