Viewpoints with Kerby Anderson

Kerby Anderson
Today is Tax Day. But I would suggest that a more important date is Tax Freedom Day. That is the date when your tax burden is lifted. It is calculated by dividing the official government tally of all taxes collected in each year by the amount of all income earned in each year. Put another way, it is when you are no longer working for the government but are now working for yourself and your family.
This year Tax Freedom Day occurs on April 12. And remember this is an average. Citizens in states like Louisiana already have had their Tax Freedom Day. Citizens in New York must wait until the middle of May for their Tax Freedom Day. Some estimate that Americans will pay more in taxes than they will spend on food, clothing, and housing combined. Another estimates we pay more in taxes than we spend on food, education, and healthcare combined.
There is one more date worth mentioning. It is called Cost of Government Day. This is the date on which the average American has paid his share of the financial burden imposed by the spending and regulation that occurs on the federal, state, and local levels. This date occurs sometime in July. This date is a little less precise since it is difficult to calculate all the costs of government regulations.
Even so, the Cost of Government Day really puts things in perspective. It takes a little more than half of the year to finally get government off your back so that you can begin to earn a living for you and your family.
Both dates help us realize what is happening around us. There is a cost, but often we don’t see it. Our taxes are withheld from each paycheck, so we often don’t think about what we are paying. And since the cost of most regulations is hidden, we don’t see those costs either.
Imagine if we had to pay all our taxes in one lump sum. You can bet there would be an outcry from taxpayers that year.

Kerby Anderson
Tomorrow is Tax Day, and I would like to focus some needed attention on the significant cost of tax compliance. But before I get to those facts and figures, let’s start with some first principles.
Many people refer to April 15 as “the day we pay our taxes.” But most of our taxes were already withheld from paychecks. Tax Day is when we file the more than 280 million tax returns to see if we get any money back from the Federal treasury.
Tax compliance has become more difficult because the federal government spends more than it receives. It needs to print more money to cover the nearly $2 trillion annual deficits they run up. That means the dollar is worth less each year. If you put the money you try to save merely into a bank account, you are losing more and more value each year. To keep up with monetary inflation, we need to either become investment experts or hire one.
If we hire a financial planner, things usually get more complicated because our money is often invested in ways most of us don’t completely understand. Then we usually need to hire a tax professional. During this time of year, I often say that I am at the mercy of bookkeepers and accountants. They are the experts in the Byzantine tax code that runs more than 6,800 pages and take billions of hours to apply that knowledge to the multiplicity of investments and then fill out the mountains of IRS paperwork and tax returns.
Americans spend about 8 billion hours trying to comply with the tax code at a total compliance cost of more than $550 billion. We do this because government spends too much and therefore must print too many dollars. If you dread tomorrow, perhaps you should agree with me to cut the cost of government and simplify the tax code.

Penna Dexter
President Trump recently told reporters he would ”be honored” to defund National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. He said they are “a waste of money.” But it’s worse than that.
Both PBS and NPR have long exhibited a decidedly liberal political bias and, more recently, have advanced far-left positions on issues like gender ideology.
Currently, PBS and NPR receive approximately $500,000,000 per year in federal funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a private non-profit organization authorized by Congress in 1967, when were three network television choices: CBS, NBC, and ABC. Today there are hundreds of channels available for viewing on various devices. Plus, as Washington Post columnist George Will points out, there are 15,000 commercial radio stations, more than 425 U.S. satellite radio channels, and over 4 million registered podcasts worldwide.
The heads of PBS and NPR testified at a recent House Oversight Committee hearing. PBS President Paula Kerger told the committee, “We bring “a diversity of viewpoints.”
But CEO Katherine Maher conceded in her testimony that NPR botched coverage of Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop. House members also pointed out that the network misinformed the public on COVID-19 origins and the Russian collusion hoax.
According to Victoria Taft at P J Media, “Eighty-seven out of 87 editors at NPR are leftist Democrats.” She wonders, “why are we funding them?” If we stop, she writes, PBS “stations won’t be destitute.”
They fundraise through telethons and on-air messages — really ads. They receive funds from leftist organizations, like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has called for removing all taxpayer funding of both PBS and NPR. At the House hearing, she told their leaders, “We believe that you all can hate us on your own dime.”
Conservatives in Congress often advocate defunding these entities. But many legislators fear local pushback. If they can’t summon the courage, DOGE can help them.

Kerby Anderson
Corporate wokeness may be fading, and one illustration of that can be found in the change in corporate policies at one of the largest corporations in the world. Lathan Watts (Vice President of Alliance Defending Freedom) was on my radio program to talk about his article, “Will Walmart Be a Leader in Abandoning Corporate Wokeness?”
Recently, Robby Starbuck and the rollback DEI campaign announced that Walmart distanced itself from its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Lathan Watts reported that “investment advisers, corporate-engagement consultants, and investors who manage billions in assets and millions in Walmart stock recently sent a letter of encouragement to Walmart.” Also joining as signatories to the investors’ letter “were members of the State Financial Officers Foundation, a coalition of 38 financial officers from 28 states.”
The letter offered support for Walmart’s decision but also pointed to the fact “that DEI has the opposite effect of its stated goals. DEI policies introduce serious legal, operational, and reputational risk to companies.” In previous commentaries, I have documented numerous studies that illustrate the failure of DEI policies and the problems they often present to a company.
In the letter, the investors and state financial officers also pointed to the most recent executive orders from President Donald Trump aimed at removing discriminatory DEI practices from the federal government and private companies.
Walmart executives probably also learned from the cautionary tales of brands like Bud Light, Disney, and Target. Consumers want companies to provide quality goods and services and stay out of the culture wars. Walmart made the right decision.

Kerby Anderson
Pundits and political consultants warn that the Democratic party needs to reevaluate some of its policy positions. The editors at The New York Times argue “that the party moved too far left on social issues after Barack Obama left office in 2017.” They explain that the party not only lost the presidency, but also the Senate, the House of Representatives, and most governor’s races.
Will Democratic candidates moderate their position on a topic like transgenderism? In a recent commentary, Jack Butler says that is unlikely, and points to the harsh reaction from the left to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s statement that allowing men to compete against women in sports is “deeply unfair.”
Jack Butler doubts moderation will happen on the transgender issue due to three powerful forces: money, science, and religion. First, there is a“tremendous institutional and financial network in place to ensure Democrats, both aspiring and elected, yield to the utmost-left-possible iteration of transgender ideology.” To understand this, just follow the money.
Second, leftist science is a different form of science. You have probably seen yard signs that say: “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” and “Science is Real.” What that often means is to “trust the science” when it conforms to your view of reality and reject it when it doesn’t.
Third is religion. All it takes is a few religious leaders to call for transgender acceptance to reinforce transgender ideology. Jack Butler calls this a classic postmodern trick: if you can find religious differences of opinion, then there is no genuine truth.
Any moderation on the issue of transgenderism will expose weaknesses and logical flaws. That is why it is unlikely to see many Democratic candidates changing their position.

Kerby Anderson
Last week the president launched tariffs and a trade war. Nearly everyone has an opinion about tariffs, but it is worth looking back at an article written in 1985. Why should we consult an essay that is 40 years old? We should pay attention to it because it’s talking about something that happened nearly a century ago.
Ed Yardeni provided a reprint of his article, “The Protectionist Road to Depression.” He believes “the single more catastrophic cause of the Great Depression was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of June 1930.” Yes, the stock market crash in October 1929 was significant, and so were other economic events at the time. But if you look at his graphs about what happened after passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, you can see his point.
A little history might be in order. Representative Willis Hawley from Oregon introduced a tariff bill in 1929. Senator Reed Smoot of Utah introduced his version of a tariff bill that was finally passed in 1930. A conference bill was later passed. As critics predicted, international trade retaliation came from numerous countries. Soon world trade collapsed as he shows in one of his exhibits.
He wrote his essay because he was seeing protectionist sentiments “spreading at an alarming rate.” One bill (at the time) would impose a 25% tax on all imports from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Brazil. Sound familiar? The countries targeted might have changed, but the percentages proposed are the same.
Will the current tariffs bring jobs back to this country? On my radio program, I read the long list of companies who say they will invest in America. Yes, there is some good news with the tariff announcement, but there is also concern. That’s why learning a bit of economic history might be helpful.

Kerby Anderson
The procedure of de-banking is a problem that needs to be addressed. Unfortunately, the problem is often ignored because leaders of financial institutions maintain they do not deny banking services to individuals because of their political views.
In previous commentaries, I have talked about how Nigel Farage lost access to banking services in the UK, which he believed was due to his previous involvement in Brexit. I’ve quoted Marc Andreesen, who in a Joe Rogan interview said he knew 30 tech company founders who have been de-banked within the past four years.
Fortunately, I have some good news. Lathan Watts (Vice President of Alliance Defending Freedom) was on my radio program to talk about his article that describes how they have “Won a Major Victory Against De-Banking.” After a series of negotiations with attorneys, “JPMorgan Chase agreed to adopt language in its code of conduct that protects against political and religious de-banking.”
In the interview, we talked about some of the action behind the scenes. Two years ago, 19 state attorneys general and 14 state financial officers sent letters calling on Chase to provide transparency on the cancellations.
Also, financial adviser David Bahnsen (who has been on my radio program) filed a shareholder resolution urging Chase to do the same. Even though the CEO of Chase denies they punish accountholders for their political or religious views, he probably wanted to avoid the need to respond to that shareholder resolution.
At the same time, Tennessee lawmakers adopted a first-of-its-kind law prohibiting viewpoint-based de-banking. Other legislatures are considering similar legislation.
If this trend continues, the problem of de-banking may soon be relegated to the past as a relic of financial institutional discrimination.

Kerby Anderson
In previous commentaries, I’ve talked about the seven million young men who are not working but also are not looking for work. Generation Z behind them has four million who have been given the term NEETs. NEET stands for “Not in Education, Employment, or Training.”
One article clarifies that “some Gen Zer’s may fall into this category because they are taking care of a family member,” but cautions that “many have become frozen out of the increasingly tough job market where white-collar jobs are becoming seemingly out of reach.”
Why has this happened? One political commentator blames how society values certain forms of employment. “In many cases, young people have been sent off to universities for worthless degrees which have produced nothing for them at all.” He concludes, “They would be much better off if they apprenticed to plumbers or electricians, they would be able to look forward to a much more abundant and satisfying life.”
Too much time has been focused on promoting a college degree as the only reliable path to financial success. Many of the students who enter the university do not finish. Even those that graduate lack the skills they will need in the 21st century. Just as robotics changed the nature of jobs in the factories, artificial intelligence is certain to alter the white-collar job market.
Besides a skills gap, there is a will gap. Many in this generation aren’t as work motivated as previous generations. The article laments that “Gen Z finds doomscrolling at home more enjoyable than navigating an economy completely different than what their teachers promised them.”
It is time to rethink how we prepare students for this changing economy. It is also time to challenge pastors, parents, and other leaders to encourage this generation to develop a work ethic.

Penna Dexter
It may not be their ideal life dream, but a Wall Street Journal analysis concludes that “American women have never been this resigned to staying single.”
In response to major demographic shifts and also divergent beliefs about what a family should look like, today’s single women are less anxious to get married than they used to be and less interested in marriage than their male peers.
In her piece, titled “American Women Are Giving Up on Marriage,” Rachel Wolfe, economy reporter for the Journal, writes “A rise in earning power and a decline in social stigma for being single has allowed more women to be choosey.” She cites a 2023 survey of over 5000 U.S. adults conducted by Pew Research Center in which “48% of women said that being married was not too or not at all important for a fulfilling life, compared with 39% of men — up from 31% and 28% in 2019.”
In an American Enterprise Institute survey of college-educated women, also done in 2023, half of respondents said they’re single because they haven’t found anyone who meets their expectations.
Throughout her article, Rachel Wolfe presents stats that show that American women of marriageable age are better educated and have better career prospects than men. She quotes sociology professor Brad Wilcox, a fellow at the Institute for Family Studies who says, “people prefer to date in terms of comparable education or income.”
Lyman Stone, a researcher at IFS points out that “Men’s odds of being in a relationship today are still highly correlated with their income.” In an interview for an article in The Atlantic, he said “a lot of young men today just don’t look like what women have come to think of as ‘marriage material’.”
The bitter fruit of 60’s feminism is that many women really do want marriage, but they don’t think they need it.

Kerby Anderson
Rich Lowry proclaims that “Safety is the Worst Word in the English Language.” You might think that statement and commentary are strange unless you have been paying attention to the release of the “Twitter Files.” Safety has been used as a justification for the censoring of Twitter posts and the de-platforming of certain people who post tweets that some of the leadership at Twitter considered harmful or unsafe.
He is not the only person to focus on the misuse of the word safety. In previous commentaries, I quoted Jonathan Haidt, who was on my radio program to talk about his book, The Coddling of the American Mind. One of the key points in his book was the “Untruth of Fragility: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Weaker.”
He argues in the book that the younger generation has been protected by a culture that promotes “safetyism.” It has become a cult of safety that is obsessed with eliminating threats (whether real or imagined) to the point where fragility becomes expected and routine.
Concerns about safety morphed from a desire to protect bicycle riders with helmets to protecting students and the public from harmful ideas. Professors issued “trigger warnings” to “show students that you care about their safety.” The former Global Head of Trust & Safety at Twitter used concerns about safety to protect readers from encountering offensive speech.
Rich Lowry adds one more ingredient to this toxic mix. The 2016 election of Donald Trump was supposedly won because of misinformation. Once you considered that a threat, the “license to censor became broad and far-reaching.” That’s why Rich Lowry says safety has become the worse word in the English language.

Kerby Anderson
Merrill Matthews was in my radio studio recently to make the case that the “Axis of Evil” is now bigger, bolder, and more evil than twenty years ago. Back in 2002, President George W. Bush identified three countries during the State of the Union address that he designated as the “Axis of Evil.” Those countries were Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.
Merrill Matthews suggested that we now identify the countries that should be listed as part of the “Axis of Evil.” Twenty years ago, those three countries were relatively small, failed states. His current list of countries is composed of countries that are much stronger and more dangerous.
China, for example, is the world’s second-largest economy and brings numerous financial and industrial resources to the network. Both China and Russia have huge natural resources. If you look at those countries, along with the other countries aligned with one or both, you are talking about a land mass that includes most of Asia. And their proximity to each other allows them to expand trade and even allows the movement of banned or sanctioned products (like weapons and drugs).
Not only do these countries have stronger economies, but they are also dedicated to expanding their territory. Neither Russia nor China is content with their borders. Russia is expanding through war (in the case of Ukraine). China is expanding through threatened aggression (in the case of Taiwan).
China has already absorbed Hong Kong and is now plotting how it will be able to take Taiwan. They have also built islands in the South China Sea that can be forward military bases. And it is worth mentioning that China has the largest army in the world and the largest navy in the world.
Twenty years ago, the “Axis of Evil” was dangerous. Today our world is more dangerous than ever before.

Kerby Anderson
Doubt is a perennial concern for Christians. Every Christian has feelings of doubt at one time or another. Unfortunately, many Christians assume that doubt is the opposite of faith. They assume that wandering among the hard questions of faith will lead us further from a belief in God.
Travis Dickinson is a professor of philosophy at Dallas Baptist University. His latest book is, Wandering Toward God: Finding Faith Amid Doubts and Big Questions. He was in my radio studio recently to talk about his book and provide hope and guidance for Christians who have questions about their faith.
Doubt is a natural phenomenon. He quotes from C.S. Lewis who said: “Now that I am a Christian, I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable, but when I was an atheist, I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.”
Part of the problem with the way many see doubt is that they assume we must have certainty. But even prominent atheists reject the idea of certainty. Bertrand Russell observed, “The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.” Voltaire concluded, “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.”
Travis Dickinson encourages us to ask big questions and then look for answers. There are so many theologians and apologists who provide clear and cogent answers to the many questions Christians and non-Christians are asking today.
In the concluding chapters, Dickinson gives us reasons for God and reasons why we can trust the Bible. He also addresses a few of the common questions raised against the gospel and Christianity: Is the God of the Bible Good and Loving? and Why is There So Much Pain and Suffering?
If you know people struggling with doubt about their faith, this is a book that will take them on a journey back to a biblical foundation.

Kerby Anderson
We face a battle for truth every day. That is why I was delighted to interview Dr. Jeff Myers (Summit Ministries) on his new book, Truth Changes Everything. His first four chapters focus on truth in various ways. One chapter explores the difference between the Truth viewpoint and the truths viewpoint. Another chapter tells ancient stories about truth. Most importantly, he provides a method to evaluate different views of truth and shows how non-biblical views of truth always fail.
One of the most valuable sections of the book are the eight chapters that go into detail about how Jesus’ followers have changed art, science, justice, and work as well as our perspective on so many important ideas. For example, Jesus’ followers have changed how we value life. Until Jesus, care, charity, and compassion were usually seen as defects rather than virtues. That we consider human life valuable and want to help others through the development of medicine and mental health care can be attributed to a biblical worldview.
Jesus’ followers have changed the world of science. He explains that nearly every founder of various scientific disciplines during the scientific revolution was a Christian, or at least a theist. Jesus followers have changed the world of art by making the case for objective beauty and by their involvement in the transformation of the visual arts. We would also add the influence Christians have had in politics with the writings that set forth principles we hold based on law, liberty, and freedom.
He concludes with practical ideas and describes fourteen ways to practice speaking up, personally, in a way that builds truth. If you want to understand today’s challenges and want to provide a wise, biblical response, I recommend Truth Changes Everything.

Kerby Anderson
If you want to understand the collapse of the Judeo-Christian consensus in this country, you need to look beyond individual programs and policies and take a more expansive view. In a speech for Hillsdale last year, Christopher Rufo (Manhattan Institute) provided a multi-decade description.
The original leftist dream expected a rebellion from the working class in America. That never took place by the end of the 1960s. Leftists, therefore, abandoned their original plan of waging a revolution with the proletariat and instead, they focused on the elites.
That idea can be easily traced to an Italian communist by the name of Antonio Gramsci, who I sometimes mention on my radio program. He proposed, “capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.” This long march through American institutions began a half-century ago. If you look around today, you can see it has been most successful.
Christopher Rufo says he has “looked at the federal bureaucracy, the universities, K-12 schools, and big corporations.” What he found is that the revolutionary ideas of the 1960s “have been repackaged, repurposed, and injected into American life at the institutional level.”
He adds that most Americans were shocked to discover this. They were outraged that children were being taught gender theory and critical race theory. And that the educational elite saw no problem with teaching about race, sex, and gender at very young ages.
Those revelations and the inevitable backlash had an impact on various state and local elections and will continue to be issues that parents will need to address in the future. The lesson here is that all this didn’t happen by chance but was planned decades ago.

Penna Dexter
President Trump has signed an executive order directing U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to dismantle the Department of Education. The order recognizes the fact that the administration cannot shut down the department on its own. Congress must be involved.
However, there is much the secretary can do to begin the process of closing the agency. She is quickly proceeding to slash the Department of Education’s staff by half, eliminating 1,950 positions. She has ended some of the department’s smaller programs, including its research arm. She has scaled back the Office for Civil Rights.
The Department of Education carries $1.6 billion in student debt on its books. The Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel figures that this would make it the nation’s fifth largest bank. The program has become an entitlement and is ripe for reform. President Trump has suggested it be managed by the Small Business Administration or the Treasury or Commerce Department.
Secretary McMahon points out that test scores have been falling since the department was formed in 1979. She frames the task of shutting down the department as her “final mission.”
In a column, The Journal’s Kim Strassel says, “never has a department been more deceptively titled.“  The reality is, “Our federal education bureaucracy takes no part in the daily, hard-fought grind of teaching.”
“The department’s only job,” she continues, “is to act as the keeper of the education treats.” The agency hands out about $80 billion per year to get school districts to comply with its directives, one of the most recent of which was Former President Biden’s transgender requirements.
Until Congress sees fit to close the Department of Education, reform-minded governors should be tapped for expertise. Funding should be in the form of block grants to states and school districts, removing the conditions on how these funds are spent. Better yet, authority over how children are educated should fall to parents through school choice. 

Kerby Anderson
Elon Musk is in the news again, but his comments this time are about the military. Recently he posted that “America needs a large quantity of long-range drones.” He argued that “Anything manned will die very fast in a drone war.” In a previous post, he shared a video of Chinese drones, with the caption, “Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35.”
This is a quick way to get criticized by certain members of Congress and companies that make up the military industrial complex. But there are military strategists who believe we need to change strategies. An essay in The New York Times explores the idea of “Reimagining the American War Machine.”
The war between Russia and Ukraine illustrates why the current administration wants to change the type of weapons the Pentagon buys. “In Ukraine, drones of all types — from cheap quadcopters and radio-controlled boats to long-range attack drones — have radically altered battle in the war with Russia.” And it is worth mentioning the speed of innovation. “The Ukrainian military reportedly introduces drones with new capabilities every few weeks. As the Russians adapt, the Ukrainians respond in turn.”
We are entering into a new age of autonomous warfare. However, as I mentioned in a previous commentary about “killer robots,” we must not allow AI, robots, and drones to fight battles with little or no human oversight.
Modern warfare is changing, and the Trump administration is ready to scrap a 20th century warfare mindset and swap it for a 21st century military. Elon Musk may be the one criticized for his comments about the military, but there are others in the administration convinced we need to be better prepared for the future.

Kerby Anderson
Many stories are surfacing about waste, fraud, and abuse, but there is one story that is being mentioned by numerous commentators. The Department of Justice has been investigating the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. This was created when Congress passed President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund was a $27 billion program within the Environmental Protection Agency and was lauded as a “first-of-its-kind” program to address the climate crisis while revitalizing marginalized communities. Although it was supposed to help people in communities that were “historically left behind,” very little of the money went to those communities. Instead, the money went to the bank accounts of environmental nonprofits with boards and staff that included Democratic donors and people with connections to the Obama and Biden administrations.
Bari Weiss described a Free Press investigation that concluded that most ($20 billion) of the funds allocated were “rushed out the door to eight nonprofit groups after Biden lost the election—but before President Donald Trump took office.” On my radio program I recently talked about how a former EPA official admitted (in a secretly recorded video) it was like they were “tossing gold bars off the Titanic.”
Katie Pavlich quotes the Washington Free Beacon story that DOGE discovered that $2 billion of those funds went to a “non-profit linked to perennial Georgia Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett concluded: “We all think there’s waste. There is abuse. I think there may be real fraud here.”
Perhaps you can now understand why there has been such a rabid response to the DOGE investigation.

Kerby Anderson
In her book, Uncommon Courage, constitutional lawyer Keisha Russell warns that the seeds of tyranny have taken root and are reaching a critical tipping point. She was on my radio program recently to describe what is happening and expose the tactics of forces attempting to undermine the foundations of this republic.
She begins by talking about the foundation for freedom in this country that comes from Christianity. The framers had a biblical view of government and of human nature. That is why our republic is constructed this way.
She then talks about how tyranny and totalitarianism have spread in other countries and applies those historic patterns to the US. She believes we have an opportunity through the church. She has been defending the religious liberty of Christians and others and commends them for their courage: hence the title of her book.
She applies her biblical worldview to many of the contemporary issues of our day. A Supreme Court decision about contraception led to the infamous decision about abortion. Once life was redefined, it was only a matter of time before marriage would be redefined.
She focuses due attention on America’s original sin: slavery. In many ways, the argument justifying slavery was only slightly modified to justify abortion and even legalizing dehumanization. It even led to the legalization of infanticide.
How should be respond? We should live with purpose. We should pursue a kingdom agenda. We should stand for what is right and resist the pressure placed upon us. She also had instructive suggestions on how to improve our criminal justice system and public education.
Finally, we need to boldly speak out. We should recognize truth in a world filled with historical propaganda. Put simply: it’s time for Christians to take a stand.

Kerby Anderson
John West (Discovery Institute) was on my radio program recently to talk about his book, Stockholm Syndrome Christianity. To understand his conclusions, you need to remember what Stockholm Syndrome means.
The phrase comes from a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden that took place in 1973. An escaped convict and his accomplice took four bank employees hostage, who began to bond with the criminals and started to view the police and the government as enemies.
John West asks a powerful question: What if American culture isn’t collapsing because of crusading secularists? What if it’s failing because many leading Christians identify more with secular elites than with their fellow believers?
His book catalogs many examples. One chapter describes how Stockholm Syndrome Christians have infected the pastorate of churches leading to a dismissive view of the Bible. He quotes a pastor who wants to discard the Old Testament. He quotes others who are deconstructing God’s Word.
He details how Stockholm Syndrome Christians promote a diminished role for God in creation. He discusses the rise of scientific materialism. And he talks about Christians who seem to be evangelizing for Charles Darwin’s evolution.
As you might imagine, he also describes how Stockholm Syndrome Christians damaged our understanding of sex and gender. This has led to a redefining of marriage and abandoning biblical standards.
He concludes with a call to wisdom, a call to action, and the call to faithfulness. He also includes a website (www.stockholmsyndromeChristianity.com) with an online assessment that will help you diagnose you, your church, and others. He also provides discussion questions and a curated list of resources.
If you want to diagnose Stockholm Syndrome Christianity and provide a remedy, this is a book and website you will need.

Kerby Anderson
The U.S. has two debt problems: one long term and one short term. The first problem is a national debt of $36 trillion that has been increasing. Also concerning is the fact that the rate of indebtedness is also increasing.
The second problem is the current need to refinance so many federal treasuries this year. These T-bills are how we finance our debt, and $7 trillion of debt needs to be financed, along with the $2 trillion deficit this year. That means $9 trillion of current debt needs to be purchased.
Who is going to buy our debt? Not China, probably not Japan or any country in Europe. We need something to entice countries and companies to buy our debt.
Bitcoin might be the answer. At the Bitcoin Policy Institute, Michael Saylor ran models to show how investing in the bitcoin strategic reserve would build assets to offset the growing national debt. I mentioned that in a previous commentary.
But another presentation proposed a bitcoin bond (called a bit bond) that would increase an investor’s interest in buying bonds. Most of the purchase would go to the government, but a portion of the purchase would go to buy bitcoin. At maturity, the holder would receive all the upside price appreciation of bitcoin to a certain level. After that the additional appreciation would be split by half with the government.
The benefit to the holder would be an investment that likely would return a better percentage than normal. The benefit to the government would be the purchasing of bitcoin for the strategic reserve that is “budget-neutral” as required by the executive order signed by President Trump earlier this month.
Bitcoin might be way to pay off our national debt in the future but also attract needed investors to finance our debt today.