Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson No doubt you have heard the phrase, “politics is downstream from culture.” It is a way of explaining that what is at stake in our world often begins upstream in the culture. Popular culture is all around us and delivered to us through broadcast media and social media. We perceive the world through news reports, through movies, through entertainment programs, and through music. Every form of communication has a message. Sometimes it is blatant and intentional. Often it…

Penna Dexter As we entered 2021 many communities, in an effort to expedite the reopening of schools, began to prioritize K-12 educators to receive the coronavirus vaccine. Yet teachers’ unions in some of the nation’s most populous cities still argued for keeping schools closed. Many schools capitulated, promising instead to reopen for in-person instruction in the fall. Parents, doing their best to coach their kids through — in some cases — an entire year of remote learning, learned what their…

Kerby Anderson In a recent Point of View booklet that I wrote about media bias, I began by talking about the influence that “the narrative” has in the establishment media. The narrative in the minds of reporters and editors helps them determine which facts to include and which to discard. In a recent article, columnist Wilfred Reilly catalogs the many current examples of how the media narrative was wrong but blinded those in the media to some important facts and…

Kerby Anderson Michael Berry opens his commentary with these words: “246 years after the U.S. Army was established, today’s Department of Defense appears to be distracted from its national defense mission.” He should know. He has served as a Marine in the military and heads up the military division of First Liberty Institute. He is the only conservative participant on the Pentagon’s newly formed Countering Extremism Working Group. He explains that “the Pentagon is on a mission to identify and…

Kerby Anderson The latest battle in the culture wars has been the teaching of critical race theory. Concerned parents have been expressing their concern at school boards across the country. Defenders have responded in at least two ways: the critics don’t know what they are talking about, and schools are not teaching critical race theory. While it may be true that some critics don’t understand all the nuances of critical race theory, there have been numerous articles that can quickly…

Kerby Anderson It’s one thing to continually repeat the slogan “voter suppression,” but it is quite another to prove it in a court of law. The Biden Justice Department announced a week ago that it would file a lawsuit against Georgia because of its new election law. The US attorney general alleges that the new law would restrict the rights of minorities. The “complaint alleges that recent changes in Georgia’s election laws were enacted with the purpose of denying or…

Kerby Anderson Eight years ago, I was writing about the decision by the IRS to deny tax-exempt status to a few Tea Party groups. Back then, Lois Lerner served as the IRS Director of Exempt Organizations. She may no longer be working at the IRS, but there are other bureaucrats who have an even more bizarre notion of what can be designated as a tax-exempt non-profit organization. The group Christians Engaged was formed to educate and empower Christians to pray…

Penna Dexter Parents across America are getting wise to the indoctrination that’s been taking place in their neighborhood schools through the teaching of critical race theory. Many schools have adopted the “1619 Project” which portrays America as a fundamentally racist nation and makes slavery the central story of American history. As of January 2021, this curriculum was being taught in 4500 classrooms nationwide. Most parents aren’t happy when they learn their children are being taught that America is evil. It’s…

Kerby Anderson It has become trendy in some circles to say that the world would be a better place without religion in general and Christianity in particular. I really do wonder if professors, commentators, and people on social media really believe this or are just saying it without any serious reflection. As I like to sometimes say to my atheist acquaintances, I see lots of Catholic hospitals, Presbyterian hospitals, and Baptist hospitals. I have never seen a humanist hospital. Previous…

Kerby Anderson Are single-parent families just as good for children as two-parent families? Some of the headlines recently in newspapers and news magazines seem to say so. But all you have to do is look back at academic studies to see that, in nearly every case, two parents are better than one. One older family study deserves renewed attention. Dr. Patrick Fagan, using data from the National Survey of Children’s Health, found two important factors. Children who grow up in…

Kerby Anderson Americans in general, and even evangelicals in particular, seem confused about important details of their faith. A study done by Lifeway Research found that Americans don’t know much about theology, and many evangelicals seem confused as well. Tyler O’Neil wrote about the “12 Lies American Evangelicals Believe.” Here are a few of them. Americans generally believe that their personal salvation depends on good works. The survey found that three-fourths (77%) agreed with the statement that people must contribute…