Viewpoints with Kerby Anderson

Kerby Anderson
Whenever there is a discussion about immigration and border security, proponents of open borders assure us that the vast majority of migrants are just coming for a better life. That is probably true. But when you point out that many may be coming for nefarious reasons, they may reluctantly admit that a few that have been caught at the border were on a terrorist watch list. But those are very few compared to the millions who have crossed the border.
My perspective is that even one illegal alien in this country on a terrorist watch list is one too many. But the argument also ignores the substantial number of migrants who are listed as “got aways.” A terrorist is less likely than other migrants to be caught.
The argument also ignores what are called “special interest aliens,” also called SIA. Customs and Border Enforcement flagged 74,904 SIA between October 2022 and August of this year. An SIA is a foreign person who is identified by travel patterns that suggest a potential risk to the US or its interests.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that a special interest alien is a terrorist. But it does mean that person has traveled to countries known for terrorist activity. At the very least, it suggests the need for heightened screening and further investigation by the government.
So how are we treating these SIA? Mark Morgan is the former acting Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. He announced the other day that federal authorities chose to release illegal migrants who were known to be SIA. Add to that the fact that customs authorities are seeing a surge of individuals on the terror watchlist.
The border is not secure, and dangerous and potentially dangerous individuals are crossing our border into this country.

Kerby Anderson
Although there have been numerous attempts by this administration and certain members of Congress to assure us that our border is secure, most Americans can see that is not true. At least 7 million-8 million illegal immigrants have come into this country since the beginning of the Biden administration.
The American people can see the numbers and the strain the mass of immigrants is having on social services around the country. Even the New York mayor, who used to brag about being a sanctuary city, is now complaining about the billions of dollars his city government must spend to feed and house these new arrivals.
Yet the flow of illegal immigrants continues as costs continue to rise. Who is benefitting from illegal immigration? The typical answer to that question is businesses looking for cheap labor and politicians hoping these new immigrants will become a new political force.
There is another group that benefits. Columnist Katie Pavlich refers to the “Illegal Immigration Industrial Complex.” Various non-profit groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receive billions of dollars in federal grants to deal with the influx of immigrants.
A Heritage Foundation report puts it this way: “For more than two years now, the Biden administration has been encouraging and mass-releasing millions of illegal aliens into the country. To accomplish its goal of unlimited illegal immigration, the administration relies heavily on NGOs to receive, process, transport, lodge, and counsel the illegal aliens.”
One group estimates that the Biden administration released 100,000 people onto the streets since September 1. The flow of immigrants isn’t likely to stop when federal funds continue to flow to NGOs that are bussing and flying immigrants around the country.

Kerby Anderson
If you are familiar with the World Economic Forum, you are probably also familiar with the slogan: “You will own nothing, and you will be happy.” The phrase comes from a 2016 article by Ida Auken that was published on their website.
The article was her attempt to describe the world of a fictional citizen living in 2030 where people do things differently. Private ownership of homes and cars is a thing of the past. What we now consider a product has become a service. No need to own a house when you can rent. No need to own a car when you can use public transportation or even have a self-driving car pick you up and then go back to a parking lot waiting for the next consumer.
Although previous presidents pursued policies designed to increase home ownership, the current trend is going in the opposite direction. Inflation and higher interest rates have made it difficult for the younger generation to own a home. Meanwhile, major companies are buying many of the homes coming on the market as investments. We are becoming a nation of renters.
When someone else owns your house, your car, or your appliances, they make the decisions about what you can do with them. The corporation or the government can implement ESG regulations along with social credit scores.
That last point brings us back to the original article that had the title: “I Own Nothing, Have No Privacy, and Life Has Never Been Better.” Big Tech, corporations, and the government are collecting massive amounts of information on you. That makes sense if the goal is to provide goods and services to you that they own. Supercomputers and artificial intelligence make it easier to crunch Big Data, and that makes it easier for corporations and the government to control you.
This was supposed to be a utopian vision, but I doubt many Americans think this will be a positive step toward the future.

Kerby Anderson
Michael Brown predicts “The Coming Collapse of Our Secular Universities.” While it is true that the major universities with hefty endowments will survive, he makes the same prediction I have been making for many years and adds some other reasons for a future decline in the numbers and influence of universities.
“First, there has been a serious dip in enrollment in our colleges and universities across the nation.” Even before the pandemic, there was a plunge in enrollment at certain universities (especially those that made the news because of their woke policies or protests). The current decline in enrollment is the worst ever recorded.
When I talked about this decline in enrollment on my radio program, I reminded my listeners that a decline in freshman enrollment is not a mere one-year economic blip. Fewer freshmen mean fewer sophomores, juniors, and seniors. A one-year decline is felt for many years.
“Second, declining birth rates are contributing to lower enrollments.” The demographic downturn is affecting universities but also many other aspects of our society.
Michael Brown also reminds us of something I have discussed in previous commentaries: Christians and conservatives have more children than secularists and liberals. While secular universities are seeing enrollment declines, Christian colleges are seeing an increase in enrollment.
Finally, he explains that “the more these schools embrace radical Marxism, the less students will receive a practical education and the less equipped they will be for the real world.” Parents and prospective students are already questioning whether a college education is essential given sky-high tuition and the growing hostility toward a biblical perspective.
These factors suggest a major shift in higher education in America.

Penna Dexter
Thankfully, outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, four-star Army General Mark Milley’s end-of-tour award citation narrowly escaped the Pentagon’s wokification efforts before it was issued.
General Milley retires at the end of September when his four-year term as Joint Chiefs Chairman ends.
On August 7, the Department of Defense issued an update to its regulation for joint declarations and awards. Change 5 requires that “gender-neutral” pronouns be used for the six most prestigious joint service awards.
According to Change 5, the wording should include the recipient’s rank, name, and branch and then state that this officer (quote) “distinguished themselves by superior meritorious service in a position of significant responsibility.” The position, duty assignment, and time served in that assignment follow.
According to Change 5, General Milley distinguished — not himself — but themselves.
How ungrammatical. How awkward. But General Milley’s citation, drafted the old way, needed to be fixed.
Somebody in the Pentagon told the Daily Signal about Change 5. Reporters Cully Stimson and Dakota Wood broke the story.
When Senator Tom Cotton, a retired Army officer, got wind of the change, he took the opportunity to poke some fun at it in a public letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. “The Department’s embrace of far-left gender ideology doesn’t merely subvert the English language in ways that would astonish George Orwell. Worse,” wrote the senator, “it exemplifies a Pentagon leadership consumed by the fads of the faculty lounge at a time when the Army can’t hit its recruiting goals.
The Senator also asked the Secretary some serious questions, like: “Who approved this?” and “…can service members request the use of the male or female pronoun on their award citations and at award and retirement ceremonies?”
That answer, according to a Pentagon spokesperson was “Yes”. But the default pronoun is themselves.
No longer. On September 19, the Pentagon quietly posted Change 6, reversing the pronoun rule. Good work, Daily Signal.

Kerby Anderson
We are a divided country, but it may be worse than we imagined. An article in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences discussed what is called “motive attribution asymmetry.” That’s a technical term for the assumption that your ideology is based on love and your opponent’s is based on hate. Put another way: we are the good guys, and they are the bad guys.
They discovered that the average Republican and the average Democrat today are as divided as the Palestinians and Israelis. In his op-ed in the New York Times, Arthur Brooks says we see the other side as “an enemy with whom one cannot negotiate or compromise.”
He comes to this startling conclusion. “People often say that our problem in America is incivility or intolerance. That is incorrect. Motive attribution asymmetry leads to something far worse: contempt, which is a noxious brew of anger and disgust.” And it is made worse by what he calls the “outrage industrial complex” that caters to one side and criticizes the other.
When people hear about political conflicts, they often prescribe the wrong solutions. Just because we disagree, doesn’t mean we should put aside our disagreements. Arthur Brooks says we need not disagree less. Instead, we need to disagree better. Whether we are discussing politics, economics, or philosophy, we should engage in a robust “competition of ideas.” We can disagree without being so disagreeable.
He suggests two steps. First, turn away from what he calls the “rhetorical dope peddlers.” These are powerful people on your side who are profiting from the culture of contempt. Second, make a commitment never to treat others with contempt. Christians should be civil and gracious.

Kerby Anderson
You have heard most of them before. They are little phrases and one-liners that Christians (and even non-Christians) say in order to encourage you. You might be going through some tough struggles, and they remind you, “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” At a funeral for a child, someone will likely explain, “God gained another angel.” And of course, there are the millions of people who believe that “God just wants you to be happy” and that you need to “Believe in yourself.”
Fortunately, Shane Pruitt has been willing to tackle these and other false one-liners in his new book, “9 Common Lies Christians Believe.” He was on the Point of View Radio Talk Show to discuss his book.
Shane wrote about these common lies because of his own experience. When his wife and he adopted a disabled child from Uganda, they faced numerous surgeries for him and major emotional challenges. That is why his first chapter addresses the lie that, “God won’t give me more than I can handle.” He takes on that misunderstanding both with personal examples and sound biblical interpretation.
Some of the lies we believe have been challenged in society. Common lie #5 says you must “follow your heart.” Mike Rowe is known for his work on such TV programs as “Dirty Jobs” and “Returning the Favor.” No doubt you have also seen his YouTube videos or Ted Talks about how we are doing a disservice to so many young people by telling them merely to “follow their heart.”
Shane also addresses some important theological errors. Common lie #6 is “God doesn’t really care” and common lie #8 is “I don’t think God likes me.” He hears these comments not only in this country but even when he has traveled to Africa.
I recommend this book for a sermon series, for small groups, and for individual study. We need to reject these lies and embrace God’s truth on these issues.

Kerby Anderson
The US Constitution reminds us that the responsibility for our government rests with “we the people.” In order for us to be effective, we need to know something about our government and our history. Citizens in countries ruled by dictators don’t need to know much since the major decisions are made for them. But we Americans should be educated and informed.
Unfortunately, we are not well educated and informed. A study done by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation discovered that only one in three (36%) Americans could actually pass the US citizenship test. And I might add that you only have to get 60 percent of the questions right in order to pass the test.
For example, a majority (57%) did not know how many justices serve on the Supreme Court. Nearly three-fourths (72%) could not accurately identify which states comprised the 13 colonies. And only a quarter (24%) even knew why the American colonists fought the British in the Revolutionary War.
Most disturbing was the fact that young people performed worst on the test. You might excuse an elderly person for forgetting some facts about government or history. But less than one in five (19%) under the age of 45 could pass this test.
In previous commentaries, I have proposed a solution that some states have considered. Require students to pass the citizenship test before they graduate from high school. Consider the fact that a naturalized citizen probably knows more about America’s history and structure of government than someone who was born in this country.
Young people in America cannot pass a citizenship test for one of two reasons: either they weren’t paying attention in class or they weren’t taught this material in the first place. Let’s require students to pass a citizenship test before graduation. We require it of people who want to be American citizens. Why not require it of students who are already citizens because they were born here?

Kerby Anderson
Although America is certainly a divided nation, the divisions between the various tribes are not as great as you might be led to believe. Yes, the social and political debates are loud and intense, but the fringe, rather than the mainstream, gets most of the attention.
A study done by the group “More in Common” discovered “The Hidden Tribes of America.” The researchers discovered that a small group (8%) in the liberal wing and a smaller group (6%) in the conservative wing are the ones who consistently shout, post, and vote while the rest of America is often exhausted by all of the rhetoric.
Here is an interesting contrast. On the one hand, these two groups hate each other and disagree with each other on just about every topic. On the other hand, they are very much alike. Both groups are mostly white, educated, and politically active. They always vote and give time and money to political campaigns.
But here is the relevant fact: the two groups combined only constitute 14% of the American population. In other words, 86% of most of us watch and listen to these two groups argue and criticize each other while ignoring the many points in common we might have.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to you if you have been listening to my commentaries for any length of time. In the past, I have talked about various points of agreement. For example, Dirk Philipsen made the argument many years ago that you could fill a room with Tea Party members, Occupy Wall Street activists, and concerned Americans and find agreement. He says you would find people concerned about concentrated power, out-of-control change, and concerns about a government that no longer represents the people.
After this divisive election season, we need to find a way to bring the American people together. But we won’t bring people together if we let the two fringe wings of the political spectrum dominate all our discussions.

Kerby Anderson
The term “anti-Semitism” has been loosely thrown around for years, and has been used to label President Trump, even though he has Jewish people in his extended family. It is about time to give specificity to a real problem that has often been redefined and demeaned by misuse.
At the core of anti-Semitic thought is that Jews are the source of many social problems and thus the Jews are guilty of everything. This is what is so crazy about this false belief. Supposedly Jews are the reasons for problems in commerce and our culture. Arab countries have 40 times the population of Israel and occupy a land area that is 500 times greater. Yet, it is Israel that is the problem and must be pushed into the sea. And the United Nations routinely passes resolutions condemning Israel while ignoring significant human rights abuses in other countries.
The murderer who rushed into the Pittsburgh synagogue and killed 11 Jews certainly believed that Jews were the problem and needed to be killed. If you read some of his Gab posts, you would be horrified by his anti-Semitic words and images.
Dennis Prager reminds us that Jews understand this hatred. On Passover, they read from a Jewish prayer book these words: “In every generation, they arise to annihilate us.” Notice it doesn’t say “persecute us” or even “enslave us.” Anti-Semites want to kill all Jews and eliminate them from this planet.
The level of this hatred isn’t just irrational; it’s demonic. That’s about the only explanation you can have for people possessed by a level of hatred that makes no sense. Jews number 18 million in a world population of 7.5 billion. Israel occupies a land mass no bigger than New Jersey. Yet, Jews are the problem, and Israel is the problem. This only makes sense when viewed through the lens of spiritual warfare.

Penna Dexter
Twenty-two states, so far, have enacted restrictions on performing so-called “gender-affirming” medical interventions on minors. Many of these laws have faced court challenges and there’s good news: Two federal appellate courts have upheld these laws.
This legislation not only prevents young people from medical and psychological harm, it protects the rights of parents, who in many cases are not told by schools that their children are actively pursuing gender transitions.
Should a school ever keep parents in the dark when a child asks to be treated as a different gender? These 22 states said ‘no.’ In California, state officials say ‘yes.’ Some school boards are pushing back.
Orange Unified School District has become the sixth California district to require that parents be notified if a child takes steps toward identifying as a member of the opposite sex. This follows Rocklin Unified School District, near Sacramento, which passed a policy, by a vote of 4 -1 which requires that schools contact parents within three days if their child asks to use a name, pronouns, or single-sex facilities “that do not align with the child’s biological sex.”
These actions stand in opposition to Governor Gavin Newsome’s stance against parental notification policies.
In July, Chino Valley Unified School District, near San Bernardino, became the first California district to approve one of these common-sense parental rights policies. State Attorney General Rob Bonta recently obtained a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the Chino district’s policy. Lance Christenson of the California Policy Center told The Washington Stand, “Gov. Newsome and other state officials are on a mission to strip parents of their rights and give control over their kids to the government.” He said the attorney general is attempting to “scare other school boards that are considering adopting parental rights policies.”
This is a state government attempting to hide vital information from parents and to facilitate minors’ gender transitions without notifying their parents.  May additional school boards join the rebellion. 

Kerby Anderson
Jason Riley wrote about the war on meritocracy. In previous commentaries, I have discussed this disturbing trend to no longer evaluate students based on merit. Jason Riley, as an African American, adds an important perspective to this ongoing debate.
While so many are criticizing Governor Ron DeSantis for a few sentences in a 200-page black history curriculum, there is a bigger issue. Just a little over a third (39%) of Miami-Dade County fourth graders are proficient in reading. By eighth grade, the percentage (31%) drops even further. Jason Riley asks, “Who cares if kids have access to books by Toni Morrison or Jodi Picoult if most of them can’t comprehend the contents?”
He goes on to remind us that the problem in Miami isn’t an isolated educational problem. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (what I have frequently referred to as the “Nation’s Report Card”), scores for black fourth graders trailed that of white fourth graders by 29 points. After spending so much money and manpower, the report acknowledged that the “performance gap was not significantly different from that in 1998.”
Bureaucrats, educators, and activists have a solution. If certain minority students do poorly on tests, then get rid of the standardized tests and lower the standards. He quotes economist Walter Williams who lamented that we have been giving black students “phony grades and ultimately fraudulent diplomas.”
This war on meritocracy has been taking place throughout the educational spectrum. This isn’t just a problem in K-12 education, but Jason Riley talks about how the war is even being waged in our medical schools. We need to hold students to a higher standard of excellence and return to a foundation of meritocracy.

Kerby Anderson
Humans are created in the image of God. That is one of the foundational principles in developing a biblical worldview. Understanding that key insight provides a biblical perspective on issues ranging from abortion to race relations to artificial intelligence.
That is what you will discover by reading the new book, Created in the Image of God: Applications and Implications for our Cultural Confusion. The various essays are edited by David Dockery and Lauren McAfee. She was on my radio program to talk about the importance of the doctrine of human dignity.
Ben Mitchell writes about what it means to be human. A century ago, virtually everyone would know the answer to that question. But secular, progressive ideas have challenged the biblical idea of human nature. This has profound implications especially in the field of bioethics.
Scott Rae explains the sanctity of human life. This perspective has been under attack since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and has intensified with the 2022 Supreme Court decision to overturn that decision. He also explains how the devaluing of human dignity at the beginning of life has led to the devaluing of human dignity at the end of life.
Katie McCoy explains what it means to be male and female. This is an issue that would have seemed obvious to anyone a few decades ago. But we don’t live in that world today, which is why this essay was included in the book.
And there is also the question of what it means to be a person. Jacob Shatzer writes about artificial intelligence, transhumanism, and the question of person. Once again, this would seem to most people a few decades ago as obvious.
The biblical understanding of the image of God is so important, especially in our day. That is why I encourage you to get a copy of the book.

Kerby Anderson
Maintaining any semblance of discipline in the public schools is becoming harder and harder each year. Daniel Buck acknowledges that “schools always have had to and always will need to manage misbehavior, and some students will push any boundary you set for them.” But changes in policies along with problems that surfaced after the pandemic lockdown make the current discipline problems greater than ever.
One teachers’ organization reports that their members “have been kicked, hit, scratched, and had objects like globes or furniture thrown at them.” Another educators’ organization reports that incidence of classroom violence has doubled since the pandemic.
But even for teachers who do not face violence and other forms of misbehavior, there is the problem of chaos in the classroom. Students grow impatient with learning simply because they cannot hear their teacher over the classroom noise.
Significant changes in classroom policy began in 2014 when the Obama administration issued a “Dear Colleague” letter that threatened legal action against school districts if their discipline policies resulted in different outcomes. Put simply, if a significant percentage of minority students received punishment for misbehavior, the federal government will sue you.
I believe the bigger issue involves a false view of human nature. Administrators, educators, and bureaucrats often have a liberal, progressive view of human behavior. As Daniel Buck observes, “Misbehavior stems not from sin or human imperfection but from broken systems and root causes.”
To fix this problem we need to begin by recognizing that “misbehavior is inherent to children and to humanity in general.” We will never remove it, but we can demand discipline and institute punishments. We need to hold children and their parents accountable for classroom behavior.

Kerby Anderson
In one of her songs, Carole King asked, “Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?” It’s a good question. People in America move around even more than when she wrote that song. I have discussed these national trends in a previous Point of View booklet on “American Realignment.” Americans have been moving from high-tax states to low-tax states. Conservatives and Christians have been having more kids than liberals and secularists.
Those trends continue. For example, the states with the highest personal income growth are Texas, Idaho, Nevada, Florida, North Carolina, and Arkansas. California ranked last along with Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Hawaii.
California’s food and accommodation growth was the second lowest in the country, likely due to the creation of a state council that dictates wages and work conditions at fast-food franchises. California employers may be struggling to find workers because so many have moved to lower-cost and low-tax states.
Yesterday, I talked about some global trends and explained that futurists guessed wrong about which nations would be dominant in this century. Those same futurists also suggested that mayors would be more influential in the world and this country because of the significant growth of major cities.
That has not happened. A professor at Columbia University has observed a “doom loop” in New York City. More people work from home, office space is less valuable, and the city gets less revenue from real estate taxes. People with money, whose work no longer requires them to be in the city, move out, taking their tax dollars and retail spending with them. In ten of the largest cities, half of all offices sit empty. America’s big cities lost two million people between 2020 and 2022.
This is not what the world futurists predicted, and we should take note.

Kerby Anderson
Futurists attempting to predict our global future haven’t been very accurate. Last month while talking about the new book by Senator Marco Rubio, I mentioned the fact that a few decades ago various authors predicted the “end of history” where there would be a liberal global order.
Instead, we have a world that looks more like the book, The Clash of Civilizations, written by Harvard Professor Samuel Huntington. These nations do not share the same global worldview. Some are turned inward, while others are working to be the dominant force in the world.
Futurists assumed the world would be run by the G7 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US). But its percentage of global GDP has dropped significantly over the last two decades. And it is unlikely that the woke policies of the current government and corporations are going to reverse that trend any time soon.
By contrast, the greatest percentage increase in global GDP has been among the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). China produces more manufactured goods than Japan, Germany, and the US combined. There are more billionaires in Beijing than in New York City.
As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, China faces significant economic and demographic problems. It has the fastest-aging society in all of human history. Its working age population peaked in 2011 and is declining every year.
On the other hand, India is now the most populous country in the world. It is consistently ranked as the fastest growing large economy in the world. It does have a young population to make the country prosperous.
It is easy to see which nations are rising in influence and which ones are declining in influence. This isn’t what the futurists predicted.

Penna Dexter
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that: “More hospitals are getting out of the maternity business.” Maternity wards are closing across America, especially in sparsely-populated or aging communities.
Hospital executives report difficulties recruiting enough staff to safely operate. It’s hard to attract doctors and nurses to hospitals where births are declining.
Order of St. Francis Healthcare, which operates in Illinois, is finding it necessary to close certain maternity units. According to OSF’s chief operating officer, “There’s just not enough babies to be had.”
The March of Dimes defines maternity deserts as counties that have no hospital or birthing center, and that lack O.B.s and nurse midwives. As of 2020 there were 1052 counties on the March of Dimes’ list — 70 more than 4 years earlier. These counties were home to approximately 2.2 million women of childbearing age.
This is a dangerous situation. The Journal cites research showing that women who do give birth in remote, rural areas that have lost maternity wards are more likely to deliver too early or to encounter serious complications, such as acute kidney failure.
The growth of maternity deserts reflects our declining marriage rate, which translates to lower birth rates. A new study shows that 25 percent of Americans are turning 40 without ever having married. This is up from 20 percent in 2010 and 6 percent in 1980.
Married couples are having fewer children. Or no children. Some cite global problems like “climate change.” Others say they can’t afford kids.
Author Rod Dreher highlighted the Journal’s story in a recent blogpost, stating, “I have never understood how it is that every generation in the West had much more materially difficult lives than we do today, and yet they all chose to have families.”
Thomas à Kempis wrote of those “always searching for ease and not the things of Christ.” Let this generation not be, as Rod Dreher described them, “too rich and comfortable to want kids.”

Kerby Anderson
I imagine that every older generation complains about the younger generation. But something is different. The youngest generation in America is desperately worried about themselves. That is the conclusion Mary Wakefield draws from the latest research done by Dr. Jean Twenge in her book, Generations.
She says we are right to be concerned. “Almost 30 percent of American girls have clinical depression and it’s the same across the Anglosphere. The suicide rate for ten-to-24-year-olds has tripled.” These are staggering statistics.
In previous commentaries, I have quoted Jean Twenge, who noticed major shifts in attitudes and behaviors starting in 2012. She wrote about this in her book, iGen, which identified the problems that surfaced due to the smartphone. It is clear, “The more hours a day a teen spends on social media, the more likely it is that he or she is depressed.”
Here is an interesting irony. Young people spend lots of time communicating online, yet they are lonely and isolated. According to her book, Generations, Twenge concluded that “One of the eye-popping facts is that teens are much lonelier now than they were 15 years ago.”
Why is this true? She explains, “Interacting face to face tends to be more co-operative and more emotionally close. It’s more honest but it’s also more agreeable. People have a very strong tendency online to say cruel things that they would never say to someone’s face.”
Mary Wakefield asked Jean Twenge if her kids have social media. Even the oldest of her three daughters does not have social media. They seem to be doing fine without it, believe it would be a waste of time, and consider it like junk food.
We know why teenagers are unhappy. Parents and grandparents should take note.

Kerby Anderson
When we look back at the history of new technologies, we find a similar pattern. First, there are the early adopters, then a majority adopt the technology, finally you have the skeptics, often referred to as the luddites.
Often the biggest problem with technological adoption is the fact that the government or entrenched interests fight the adoption and even engage in scare tactics. Before we look at some current examples, let’s look at some history.
It is hard to imagine now, but there was not only resistance but significant fear about bringing electricity into homes. One headline said: “Man picks up telephone, dies from shock.” You can see sketch drawings of people dying merely by walking near a power pole.
When Karl Benz brought out the first automobile, there wasn’t much of a threat to existing industries. But as more cars were produced in America, you could see ads worrying that the nation was making “sacrifices to the modern Moloch,” which was a reference to the Canaanite deity who demanded child sacrifices. And there were the warnings of an increase in what were called “motor killings.”
More recently, we have had a long list of warnings about the Internet along with so many commentators that dismissed it as a fad. One headline observed that the “Internet may be a just a passing fad as millions give up on it.” Even Wired magazine concluded, “Most things that succeed don’t require retraining 250 million people.”
By the end of this decade, we will see more innovations in areas ranging from artificial intelligence to digital currency. We will need biblical wisdom to evaluate the impact of so many of these and would be wise to learn from lessons from the past about technological adoption.

Kerby Anderson
The latest statistics from the CDC are disturbing. The US suicide rate hit a record high in 2022. That is why many experts are calling it a “silent public health crisis.” Nearly 50,000 Americans committed suicide last year. That is the highest number on record. To put that in context, that amounts to one suicide every ten minutes.
The suicide rate grew fastest among older Americans. The suicide rate for adults 65 and older grew by 8 percent, and the rate for adults 45-64- years old was up 7 percent. In the past, we have talked about suicides among young people affected by social media and the pandemic. That is still the case, but the rising suicide rate among older Americans is also becoming an issue.
Most Americans (9 in 10) believe our country is facing a mental health crisis. These statistics illustrate that this perception is correct. And there are a multitude of factors ranging from genetics to finances to social isolation. As we have discussed in previous commentaries, the latest reports once again link time spent in social media to suicidal thoughts among teenagers, particularly girls.
It is also fair to say that we don’t know all the reasons for the increase in suicides. But if you link suicide to other “deaths of despair” that include drug overdoses and alcohol abuse, you can see a pattern. In our increasingly secular society, people have less to live for. Suicide becomes an option when life is sterile, superficial, and soulless.
We are living amid a suicide epidemic. Families, churches, and social groups can provide a biblical answer. And each of us should be watching people of any age crying for help and attention.