Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson More than a decade ago, Vanderbilt University issued an ultimatum to religious student groups that they must affirm the school’s nondiscrimination policy. The Christian group on campus believed that the leader should share the religious beliefs and values of the religious organization. David French was a religious liberties litigator at the time and wanted to help the organization. But the leader (Tish Harrison Warren) felt that a Christian conservative lawyer, who was an Iraq War veteran, was the…

Kerby Anderson Charles Cooke tells a story about a friend who was taken on the 18th birthday and forced to take out $70,000 in student loans and then forced to go to college. At the end, he complained about having to pay back that student loan. He was, of course, kidding about the story that he used to explain how some college graduates and some politicians make it seem like student loan debt was extracted at the point of a…

Kerby Anderson The latest news on the pandemic is troubling. Cases and COVID-19 deaths have increased. You might expect that the FDA would work even harder to push to get more effective drugs on the market. John Stossel, in a video and commentary, talks about the deadly delays that come from a plodding government bureaucracy. For example, Pfizer’s Paxlovid was found to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death by 89 percent. In fact, it was so effective, that the…

Penna Dexter New research on family life shows that COVID-19 has exacerbated a growing divide in family formation, with higher-income, better-educated Americans more interested in getting married and having children than those with less education and lower incomes. Marriage rates are falling. Birth and fertility rates are at record lows. The fertility rate is only about 1.7 children per woman. well below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. All kinds of problems result from this decline in family…

Kerby Anderson Yesterday I talked about charitable giving. Today I wanted to follow up by challenging us as Christians to consider giving even more than we do. Perhaps the best book on that subject was written by David Green. It has the arresting title, Giving It All Away. He is the founder of Hobby Lobby and tells the story of his success and calls for Christians to give generously to churches and other ministries. He and the rest of his…

Kerby Anderson As we come to the end of this year, you have probably been thinking of any final gifts you might want to give to your church or Christian organizations. Here is an interesting fact: generosity is good for the soul. Arthur Brooks has discovered that people who donate to charities are happier and healthier. In the past, I have quoted from him and his book, Who Really Cares? He wrote that many years ago when he was a…

Kerby Anderson A case before the Supreme Court should give a significant boost to religious schools. This month, the High Court heard oral arguments on the case from Maine. That state has one of the country’s oldest school choice programs. Unfortunately, religious schools are excluded. That may change when the justices hand down their ruling next year. The educational program in Maine provides tuition for students who live in rural areas that don’t have a local school. Parents are allowed…

Kerby Anderson Big government isn’t working, according to Newt Gingrich. He doesn’t ask you to accept his conclusion but encourages you to check it out for yourself. Here are his suggestions. “Go to your local gas station and ask folks filling up their gas tanks if they think things are working. Go to the grocery store and watch people coping with the rising cost of food and ask if they think things are working. Go to small businesses whose shipments…

Kerby Anderson The US economy is not in good shape, and inflation hasn’t been this high since 1982. You wouldn’t expect to hear so many pundits try to convince you that everything is just fine. But that is just what we have seen from the establishment media, along with some economic cheerleaders on financial shows. Charles Cooke provides a list of these cheerleaders, from writers at the New York Times and the Washington Post to broadcasters at MSNBC and CNBC….

Penna Dexter My prayer for 2022 is that Christians across America would have courage. When a person chooses to be the best person he or she can possibly be when the consequences for doing that could be very harmful to them — that’s courage. Principled Christians can be cancelled, lose jobs, even face criminal penalties for standing against evil and for truth. Authoritarian leaders engender fear and foster a culture of victimhood and dependence. But Christians who are not mastered…

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…