Viewpoints with Kerby Anderson

Kerby Anderson
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban TikTok in this country unless the company was sold to Americans. Chinese national security laws require Chinese-owned companies to assist the government in intelligence-gathering.
But Lathan Watts reminds us that our own government has also been engaging in censorship and surveillance of US citizens. That is why he wonders if putting TikTok under American ownership would merely be an example of “jumping out of the wok and into the fire.”
He cites two recent Supreme Court cases that illustrate his concerns. The first is Murthy v. Missouri. The Biden administration is accused of a coordinated campaign to force social media companies to censor what the government deemed as “misinformation.” During the oral arguments, one Supreme Court justice announced to the attorneys that her biggest concern “is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government.” But isn’t that why the First Amendment was written in the first place?
The other case is NRA v. Vullo that involved the state of New York using its power to force banks and insurance companies to deny services to the National Rifle Association. Perhaps you don’t have any problem with that action. Would you feel differently if another state encouraged financial institutions to deny services to the ACLU or Greenpeace?
One week prior to the Supreme Court hearings, a US House subcommittee documented how the Treasury Department colluded with America’s largest banks to monitor customer financial transactions. The suggested criteria include transactions with stores like Cabela’s and the purchase of “religious texts.”
All of this illustrates the authoritarian impulses we see today in America. That is why Lathan and I wonder if transferring TikTok ownership to Americans would merely be jumping from the wok into the fire.

Kerby Anderson
Perhaps you have noticed that many young Christians are being convinced to deconstruct their faith. Occasionally we read about a prominent Christian author or musician who announces they are leaving the Christian faith.
The irony of this is the fact that there is an increasing amount of evidence for the Bible and Christian faith. We seem to be living in “the golden age of apologetics.” But it isn’t the evidence that causes these people to leave the faith but usually it’s their concern over social issues like abortion or transgenderism.
Fortunately, there are some excellent books that address this trend of deconstruction. Sean McDowell and John Marriott have written, Set Adrift: Deconstructing What You Believe Without Sinking Your Faith. They establish the biblical foundation for our faith and then provide practical advice on how to rethink and reassemble what is truly Christian and culturally relevant. They also utilize creeds as boundary markers for what is essential.
Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett have written, The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive, and How to Respond. They argue that “deconstruction is a death of sorts.” It is not only a death of beliefs but a death of their community and relationships. That last point is significant since deconstruction not only affects the person going through it but also has an impact on friends, family, and the church.
People throughout the centuries have been questioning their faith and having doubt about biblical truth. But this current phenomenon of deconstruction comes from secular leaders and even progressive Christians promoting “inclusivity” and “tolerance.” It is therefore important to understand how our culture is promoting deconstruction and to know how to provide encouragement to people experiencing doubt.

Kerby Anderson
J.K. Rowling is best known as the Harry Potter author, but she is also beginning to be known as a political activist. She lives in Scotland and has been leading the charge against Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act.
The bill criminalizes “stirring up hatred” in such a way that “a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive, or insulting.” There need not be any specific victim of the crime.
In order to draw attention to this authoritarian bill, she posted this statement. “I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.”
She won’t be arrested, but it is likely that someone will be arrested sometime in the future for this abusive hate crime law. It is also ironic that when the law was first introduced, it was put forward as an attempt to amend an 1837 blasphemy law. Some critics have suggested that it merely swaps out one blasphemy law about religion for another blasphemy law about political correctness.
Most of the hate crime laws in this country or in other countries were drafted to address the problem of racism. This law clearly wants to expand the focus from racism to transgenderism. When J.K. Rowling heard she would not be arrested, she responded: “I hope every woman in Scotland who wishes to speak up for the reality and importance of biological sex will be reassured by this announcement, and I trust that all women — irrespective of profile or financial means — will be treated equally under the law.”
Hate crime laws have always been a bad idea, but this is even worse. It criminalizes the commonsense observation about the difference between women and trans women.

Kerby Anderson
Today is Tax Day. Perhaps you are like many other Americans and wonder if your tax forms will be audited. It turns out that the IRS has been audited. The editors of the Wall Street Journal noticed two irregularities.
The editors quote from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. The editors conclude that the Biden administration’s goal of wanting “to audit more ultrawealthy and fewer middle-class filers is not going so well.”
The original plan was to disproportionately target individuals making at least $400,000. But the IRS “did not include specifics on how the IRS was going to ensure it met this commitment.” No wonder. The most recent data shows that the IRS is still focused on the middle class. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of the new audits targeted taxpayers with income less than $200,000.
To be fair, the IRS never claimed it would decrease middle-class audits. All it claimed is that it would increase audits on more wealthy Americans. The billions of dollars Congress allocated to the IRS was supposed to fund that increase. But the IRS hasn’t been able to hire all those new IRS agents.
A little over a year ago, we were told after passing the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, that the IRS would be focusing their audits on the very rich. Instead, they are still focusing on the middle class. Why?
First, the IRS has been going after the middle class for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks. Because that’s where the money is. Second, Americans in the middle class are more likely to settle with the IRS rather than endure costly expenses of appeal and litigation even if they have a good case.
Nearly two years later, we were promised that the IRS would target the wealthy. Instead, the middle class has been the target of so many of their audits.

Penna Dexter
Back in 2017, Ed Stetzer, then a professor, dean and executive director of Wheaton College’s Billy Graham Center, published an essay on the website, In All Things, titled “How Can the Christian Church Thrive In a Non-Christian World?” He wrote, “Our society no longer assumes the gospel, which means the Church often stands at odds with the rest of society.”
Seven years later, a U.S president proclaimed that Transgender Day of Visibility will be recognized on March 31, Easter Sunday. Was the president trying to spite Christians? Though Trans Day of Visibility has been around for 10 years, the president’s words in affirmation of “transgender Americans” stand in direct opposition to Christianity. He stated that transgenders “deserve, and are entitled to, the same rights and freedoms as every other American, including the most fundamental freedom to be their true selves.” He then blasted Americans working to protect society and its children from the fruits of the transgender movement: pornography in schools, mutilating surgeries, violations of basic female privacy, and fairness in athletics.
If this is not hostility to Christianity, it is blindness. Cultural commentator Rod Dreher writes, “The more troubling thing is that Biden’s kind of Christian sees no contradiction between linking Easter with Trans Day.”
He wrote, “In the 1970’s, the gay rights movement adopted the Greek letter lambda as its symbol. This is why the premiere gay rights advocacy organization is called Lambda Legal. What we are living through now is a cosmological struggle within our culture, a fight to the death between the Lamb and the Lambda. The ruling Class — our political leaders, but not only them — is on the side of the Lambda.”
Dr. Stetzer wrote, “the gospel is always clearer in an age when it is not culturally assumed.” We can proclaim a “radically distinct” gospel message. But Rod Dreher wonders: “Can Christian faith be sustained for long without the support of a nurturing Christian culture?”
Lord help us.

Kerby Anderson
A few months ago, I talked about the future decline in home ownership. For example, the number of first-time homebuyers declined to just 26 percent in 2022. This was the lowest level since the National Association of Realtors began tracking data.
The latest research from Zillow explains this significant decrease. The report estimates that you would need to make more than $106,000 annually to comfortably afford a home. Put another way, that suggests that more than half of American households can’t afford homeownership.
Let’s compare home prices and annual income in 2020 to this year. Back then, an annual income of $59,000 could pay a mortgage without spending more than 30 percent of the income (assuming a 10 percent down payment). That year the US median income was about $66,000. More than half of American households could afford homeownership.
Today the median income is around $81,000, which is far short of the $106,000 need to comfortably maintain payments. The monthly payment on a typical US home has nearly doubled since 2020.
Of course, these are averages. Here is a short list of cities that need a much lower household income to afford a home: Pittsburgh, Memphis, or Cleveland. Compare that to cities that require the highest family income: San Jose and Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
The cost of housing has skyrocketed, and interest rates have also increased. First-time home buyers are the families most affected by these increases. That makes it hard not only to find a home but to find one you can afford.
Owning a home used to be the American dream. For an increasing number of Americans, that dream seems out of reach.

Kerby Anderson
Veronique de Rugy begins her column with positive economic indicators (unemployment is low, wages are up, inflation is down), but then acknowledges that “the American people are grumpy about the state of the economy.”
I love it when this brilliant woman with a prestigious doctorate in economics refers to Americans as grumpy. She points to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research that concludes the government underestimates the true level of inflation.
One of the authors is Larry Summers, who served as Treasury Secretary under President Clinton. He notes in a recent tweet on X that before 1983, mortgage costs were used in calculating the Consumer Price Index. Car payments were used until 1998. Now the index does not include borrowing costs. When interest payments jumped significantly last year, the index did not capture the effects.
Here’s the shocker. Larry Summers goes on to argue that if we measured inflation the way we did in the 1970s, the inflation rate that started in 2021 would have peaked at 18 percent. That is double the official reported peak of 9 percent. Put another way, we have been living through an inflation rate higher than anything Americans experienced in the 1970s and 1980s.
No wonder Americans are grumpy about the economy. The government statistics are telling them one thing, but their personal experience is telling them something very different. A recent Gallup poll found that two-thirds (63%) said the economy is getting worse. Nearly half (45%) think the economy is already poor.
Government officials and the compliant media can cite all the economic figures they want, but it appears they have underestimated the impact of inflation on the American consumer.

Kerby Anderson
Is there a leftist bias in artificial intelligence? A Washington Post tech writer has written about various research papers about the liberal bias within Open AI’s ChatGPT. Although the AI program tells users that it doesn’t have any political opinions or beliefs, it shows certain biases.
A study by the Springer Journal of Public Choice also found that ChatGPT produced responses that were in line with leftist thought. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that OpenAU’s models typically produce left-leaning responses.
One extensive study came from John Lott, who has been on my radio program many times in the past. His Crime Prevention Research Center asked questions of twenty AI chatbots on topics related to crime and gun control. He then ranked the answers on how liberal or conservative their responses were.
Only Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbots gave conservative answers on crime. But even these programs gave consistently liberal answers on gun control. Bing was the least liberal chatbot on gun control. The French AI chatbot Mistral in the only one that on average was neutral in its answers.
John Lott concludes that these AI programs are very liberal in their answers on crime and gun control. But they also provide liberal answers on economic and social issues, with Google’s Gemini being the most extreme. He also notes that Musk’s Grok has moved more toward the political center, but much more needs to be done.
As I document in my recent booklet on A Biblical View on Artificial Intelligence, there are many concerns that researchers have about AI, but one that certainly needs to be addressed soon in the obvious leftwing bias in these programs.

Kerby Anderson
What is America’s future? Columnist Cal Thomas considers that question in his book, America’s Expiration Date. The book came out years ago but has a new preface and is more relevant today. He was on my program recently to talk about the fall of empires and the future of the United States.
He begins with an observation by Sir John Glubb, who wrote The Fate of Empires and the Search for Survival. He noticed an interesting historical fact. The average age of a nation or empire’s greatness is only 250 years. Most nations lose their way in a relatively short amount of time.
Using that ruler, Cal Thomas gives us a history lesson of the Persian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Arab Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, and the Russian Empire. He concludes with the United States.
Each empire fell for different reasons, but they are lessons to us today. Sometimes they fell because they became too prosperous and thus too apathetic. Sometimes they fell because the empire was over extended. Most had a period of decadence and decline. The Spanish empire was so riven with conflict, they were never invaded because other countries saw nothing worth conquering.
All of that brings him to this country. He said that whenever he hears the song, “God Bless America” sung at baseball games and patriotic events, he asks himself, Why Should He? America doesn’t seem to be doing much that would find favor in God’s sight. We seem to be living in our own age of decadence.
He does believe that there is still time to resurrect the republic, but the answer can’t be found in politicians. Our future doesn’t depend on the White House, but instead is dependent on what we do in our house.

Kerby Anderson
Law professor Glenn Reynolds wonders why so many woke institutions continue to do things that hurt their bottom line. We have all heard the catchphrase “go woke, go broke.” Yet, he laments that “people at the top of major corporations and government agencies keep, well, getting woke and going broke.” Here’s his short list.
First, there is Harvard University, “roiled by antisemitism scandals in which woke politics kept administrators from protecting Jewish students.” The school has lost so much in donations that it shut down a library and is looking to borrow money to meet expenses. Reynolds reminds us that it does have a gigantic endowment but needs daily cash to meet expenses.
Second is Disney that is losing money, especially because of failures at the box office. The Lucasfilm chief Kathleen Kennedy has been known for the “South Park” joke about her films: “put a chick in it and make her gay.”
Sports Illustrated managed to alienate readers with its venerable swimsuit issue “by featuring trans, obese, and old models on the cover.” Meanwhile, Planet Fitness decided to embrace men who identify as women. The stock plummeted while terminating memberships of women who complained.
This list would not be complete unless we mentioned beer and the military. The Budweiser debacle over Dylan Mulvaney as a Bud Light spokesperson will probably be studied for years in marketing classes. And the US military’s focus on woke politics and “white nationalism” have led to dramatic enlistment declines.
The leaders of these organizations might like the fact that some applaud their ESG scores and DEI scores. But the American people have been voting with their feet and pocketbooks and are punishing these woke institutions.

Penna Dexter
Last month, more than two decades after the Clinton FDA approved the abortion pill, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that challenges the agency’s progressive easing of restrictions on chemical abortion.
The case is Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine vs. Food and Drug Administration. 
Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit in federal court on behalf of four medical organizations and four doctors seeking to have the drug, mifepristone, removed from the marketplace. Mifepristone is the first in a 2-drug regimen that constitutes a medical, or chemical abortion. Chemical abortion accounts for over 60 percent of abortions done in the U.S.  
A federal judge in Amarillo, Texas ruled that the drug’s initial approval was unlawful.
But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals left intact the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone. Its ruling would reverse changes regulators made in 2016 and 2021 that eased some conditions for administering the drug.
In 2000, the FDA approved the 2-drug regimen to be used during the first seven weeks of pregnancy and then, in 2016, extended it to be used up to 10 weeks’ gestation.
Over time, the FDA has also removed the requirement that a woman be examined in person when receiving a prescription for chemical abortion drugs.
According to Mary Szoch, Director of the Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity, “the use of the abortion drug is especially egregious, because we know that the abortion drug is four times as dangerous as surgical abortion for the mother.”
Increasingly, medication abortions are prescribed via telemedicine — that means there’s no physical exam, no ultrasound study. Prompt ultrasound evaluation is key in diagnosing ectopic pregnancy, which can prove deadly to the mother if not caught early enough.
The justices seemed to doubt the doctors’ standing. Nonetheless a competent FDA would do its job and reinstate the requirement that existed as recently as 2021, that to get a medication abortion, a woman must first see a medical provider.

Kerby Anderson
In the opening chapter of his book, The Privileged Planet, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez talks about watching a total eclipse in India in 1995. In order to have a solar eclipse, you need to have an object come in front of the sun. But in order to have a total solar eclipse, you need the right ratios in size and distance.
As one website explains it: ‘The Sun’s diameter is about 400 times greater than that of the Moon, but it’s also about 400 times farther away. This coincidence of nature means that the Sun and the Moon appear to be roughly the same size in our sky.”
But he began to wonder, Is it merely a coincidence? He begins to play the “what if” game. What if the Moon were much closer to earth? What if the Moon were less round? What if the Moon had an atmosphere? What if we were living on another planet in the Solar System? In case you are wondering, Earth is the only planet where a total solar eclipse can be seen.
The ratios of size and distance are “just right.” As you have probably heard me say in previous commentaries, the growing list of parameters in our universe, our galaxy, and our solar system are all “just right.” Some astronomers looking at these “just right” anthropic coincidences say we live in a Goldilocks Universe.
Non-Christian scientists are aware of these parameters and merely argue that we were fortunate and won the cosmological lottery. But others, like Guillermo Gonzalez, see the so-called coincidences are evidence of intelligent design.
Next Monday, when you look up in the sky, make sure you have approved solar eclipse glasses. But as you watch or even see the event recorded on the Internet, remember Psalm 19 – “The heavens declare the glory of God.”

Kerby Anderson
Inflation has been so much a part of our economic lives, so we take it for granted. Although the Federal Reserve aims for an inflation target of 2 percent, some economists are suggesting we should reexamine that target especially since we won’t be hitting it very soon.
Two years ago, I mentioned a book by Jeff Booth. In the The Price of Tomorrow, he argues that we should be seeing deflation in our society. His argument is simple: Technology is deflationary. That is the nature of technology.
Think about cell phones. He explains that his first cell phone (which was a Motorola 8000). “It had thirty minutes of talk time before it needed to be charged for ten to twelve hours, and it cost about $2,000.” Think of the cell phone in your hand today.
While we are talking about cell phones, perhaps you have seen the graphic that compares the Apollo 11 computer with the Apple iPhone. The Apollo guidance computer used 12,250 flops (floating point operations per second). The Apple iPhone 12 now processes 11 trillion flops. It is 900 million times faster than the Apollo computer and also a fraction of the cost.
Jeff Booth reminds us, “Our economic systems were not built for a world driven by technology where prices keep falling. They were built for a pre-technology era where labor and capital were inextricably linked, an era that counted on growth and inflation, an era where we made money from scarcity and inefficiency.”
We should be experiencing deflation, which is a world where you get more for your money. But we have inflation due to money printing and the declining value of the dollar. Perhaps it is time to rethink how we do this economy.

Kerby Anderson
The most recent Gallup survey has both good news and bad news. The good news is that Americans over the age of 60 may be some of the happiest people on earth. The bad news is that young Americans under 30 are not happy. In fact, they rank very far down the chart on global happiness.
Smartphones explain the difference. Two professors have been documenting this for the last decade. Jean Twenge is best known for her book, iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–And Completely Unprepared. She found consistently decreased levels of happiness beginning in 2013.
Because they were on their phones, adolescents were spending less time interacting with others. They spend less time developing friendships, get less sleep, and attend fewer religious services. Instead, they spend their time looking at screens, posting comments on social media, texting, and playing games. No wonder she has found a causal link between teen depression and smartphones.
Jonathan Haidt has been on my program to talk about his book, The Coddling of the American Mind. His new book just came out: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.
He provided a preview of his research in Atlantic, “End the Phone-Based Childhood Now.” He begins his article by documenting that “something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s.” Suicide rates (along with loneliness and friendlessness) rose dramatically. Young people were struggling to find meaning in life.
I encourage you to read his twenty-page article in Atlantic. It should be a wake-up call to all parents.

Kerby Anderson
Bjorn Lomborg reminds us, “More than one million people die in traffic accidents globally each year.” He says we could solve that problem by having governments reduce speed limits to 3 miles an hour. Of course, we will never do that because you need to consider other factors.
He makes that point to illustrate that the mantra “follow the science” does not allow a rational evaluation of cost and benefit. “That assertion lets politicians obscure—and avoid responsibility for—lopsided climate-policy trade-offs.”
The Biden administration has set a goal of achieving a net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050. Outgoing climate envoy, John Kerry, has said there is no alternative, and has also dismissed the idea that this goal is politically motivated.
Lomborg explains that this way of thinking “conflates climate science and climate policy. Man-made climate change exists, but what societies do in response is still a matter of choice.” The mantra that we must “follow the science” essentially shuts down rational discussions about the enormous and unsustainable costs being proposed.
He reminds us that “the world still gets four-fifths of its energy from fossil fuels” and “half the world’s population entirely depends on food grown with synthetic fertilizer.” Economist Neil Record showed an abrupt end to fossil fuel use would cause six billion deaths in less than a year.
In addition to the human cost is the economic cost. The latest economic research estimates that net zero policies would be more than seven times as costly as the climate problem it is trying to address.
We need a sensible, rational policy discussion when addressing the issue of climate change.

Kerby Anderson
Four years ago, we heard the announcement about “15 days to slow the spread.” The anniversary of that campaign brought many articles. Scott Atlas wrote about “Covid Lessons Learned, Four Years Later.” John Stossel did a YouTube video and follow-up commentary on “Covid: Don’t Let Them Off the Hook.”
Scott Atlas reminded us that the benefits of the lockdowns were tiny. It supposedly prevented some deaths, but those numbers are very small when compared to the number of Americans who die of the flu each year. The number of non-Covid excess deaths are huge, especially when compared to other European countries. A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that the U.S. “would have had 1.60 million fewer deaths if it had the performance of Sweden.”
The impact on the economy and jobs was staggering. “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as many as 49 million Americans were out of work in May 2020. This shock had health consequences.” And prolonged school closings led to permanent learning loss and later increases in “psychiatric illness, self-harm, obesity, and substance abuse.”
John Stossel says he was always wary of politicians but “was surprised at how authoritarian many were eager to be.” Many mayors and governors locked down the society in ways that didn’t even make sense from a medical perspective.
It is worth mentioning that four years ago, I did a radio program and radio commentaries on the book, The Price of Panic. It was written by experts in several fields documenting the problems with the lockdowns and predicting much of what we can now see clearly.
These are lessons learned that we need to remember, especially during this election year when candidates will be asking for your vote.

Penna Dexter
This true story has a positive ending. But it never should have happened. Dr. Johnson Varkey is a biology teacher, adjunct professor at St. Philip’s College in San Antonio, Texas.   
He was fired for stating a fact of human biology: that sex is determined by X and Y chromosomes.  
I learned in 9th grade that females have two X chromosomes in their cells, while males have one X and one Y. For 18 years, Dr. Varkey taught this in his Human Anatomy and Physiology classes at St. Philip’s. But in November 2022, 4 students walked out of Dr. Varkey’s class for presenting this basic scientific concept.
Two months later, St. Philip’s College fired Dr. Varkey, citing “numerous complaints” about his “offensive” speech in the classroom and accusing him of “unacceptable religious preaching.”  First Liberty Institute was asked to help. The firm’s attorneys wrote a letter to the school outlining the illegality of its action in firing Dr. Varkey. First Liberty states it also “filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.”
Several members of Congress weighed in. Last month, a full year after Dr. Varkey was fired, St. Philips College and the Alamo Community College District — of which the college is a part — reinstated Dr. Varkey. According to the settlement, Dr. Varkey will be back in the classroom this fall.
In today’s academy, an admired professor gets fired for teaching biology because someone steps up and defines sex differently. Dr. Varkey is a quiet, serious academic. Since he’s known to be a Christian, he’s a target.
Christian professors in these environments are being told to lie. So are Christians in other workplace settings — think pronoun requirements. But people do not have to capitulate to woke policies and regimes contrary to their faith.
Last year, a Supreme Court decision affirmed postal worker Gerald Groff’s right to his reasonable practice of faith. That was First Liberty’s case. Its powerful protections are a game-changer. 

Kerby Anderson
Today is Good Friday. On this day, believers around the world commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. We all understand that. What most of us don’t understand is why this dark day in which Jesus suffered and died is called “Good Friday.” Why isn’t it called Bad Friday or Dark Friday?
Over the years, people have put forward various theories. Some argue that it is called Good Friday because something good came about because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. While that is certainly true theologically, that is not the linguistic origin of the term Good Friday.
Others have suggested that Good Friday came from a shortening of the words God’s Friday. Although you do see that suggestion in some articles on the Internet, there really isn’t any connection between the words god and good. At best, this is mere linguistic speculation.
It is more likely that the term “Good Friday” comes from an older meaning of the word good. It used to mean holy. So you can think of the term Good Friday as really meaning Holy Friday. This fits with other languages that refer to this day as Sacred Friday or even Passion Friday.
Today we commemorate when the wrath of God was poured out on Jesus. He was sinless, and thus the perfect sacrifice for our sins. He paid the penalty that we deserved to pay. As the song says: “He paid a debt He did not owe” because “I owed a debt I could not pay.”
Good Friday begins the most momentous weekend in the history of the world. Because of the death of Jesus, we can receive the free gift of eternal life. Because of the resurrection of Jesus, we can know that there is life beyond the grave. That is why this weekend is a cause for great celebration.

Kerby Anderson
The latest research shows that Christian parents are sending mixed signals to their kids about living the Christian life. More than a decade ago, Probe Ministries surveyed born-again millennials and found that if parents had an inconsistent biblical view, their children would also have an inconsistent view. The only major exception to that would be for kids who got involved with a campus Christian ministry and grew in their faith.
The latest research by George Barna illustrates this same finding in even more detail. His research at Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center found that “a mere 5 percent of parents have beliefs that are in harmony with a biblical worldview, more often than not, those same parents do not follow through with consistent biblical behavior.”
Put another way, most parents are not even talking the talk, but the few that do are not walking the walk. This is sending mixed signals to their children who quickly pick up contradictions between what parents say they believe and how they behave.
Among pre-teen parents who attend Catholic, mainline Protestant, or traditionally black churches, merely 3 percent were found to have a consistent biblical set of beliefs. Surveys of parents attending Pentecostal, non-denominational or independent Protestant churches show only 9 percent of the parents of pre-teens had a biblical worldview.
George Barna concludes that, “It’s not surprising that young people in our nation are confused regarding gender and sexuality, the value of human life, and even why and how to nurture positive personal relationships.” Churches, he says, “must be facilitating clarity rather than confusion.”
Parents need a better understanding of biblical viewpoints and biblical behavior. And they shouldn’t feel guilty about imposing their views on children but should “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

Kerby Anderson
I have found that most speakers can tell you what question they receive most often. Melissa Cain Travis was on my radio program recently and said her most asked question is about the possibility of extraterrestrials. That makes sense since she often speaks on science topics that include a discussion of the vastness of the universe.
The quick answer is that Scripture is silent on the possibility of other intelligent life forms in the universe. She reminds her audience that the Bible isn’t meant to be a comprehensive cosmic encyclopedia. The discovery of divine creations that aren’t mentioned in Genesis would not undermine the veracity of Scripture.
What if we did discover extraterrestrial creatures? Wouldn’t they need salvation just like we need? There are two possible answers to that question. If their world was fallen, then they would also need salvation. But there is another possibility that C.S. Lewis proposed in his Ransom trilogy. An alien world may not be fallen.
Of course, atheists love to pursue that question. Scientific American posted a provocative article entitled, “Did Jesus Save the Klingons?” The author suggests that the discovery of life beyond Earth “might wreak havoc on certain religions.” She goes on to argue that this would be a “serious theological problem” to imagine Jesus being born in many different alien worlds.
But Melissa doesn’t see a problem with that view. There doesn’t seem to be any theological reason why the Son of God may have been incarnated and atoned for sin in more than one place. That wouldn’t diminish our value as described in Psalm 8.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As I discussed in a commentary in May of last year, the ongoing investigations of UFOs haven’t turned up any extraterrestrials just yet. The question is still hypothetical.