Viewpoints with Kerby Anderson

Kerby Anderson
Two months ago, I talked about the push toward central bank digital currencies in several countries, including our own. Earlier this month, John Stossel sat down with Governor Ron DeSantis. One of the topics was the US government’s plan for a central bank digital currency.
The governor makes it very clear what he thinks about a CBDC. He warns, “Sometimes government does things that may appear to be benevolent but really are kind of like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Instead, he says, “This is a wolf coming as a wolf.”
The Biden administration says a CBDC will “protect consumers, investors … and the environment.” The governor responded that the last statement is a “tell.” The government, he argues, would impose certain criteria. “You’re filling up too much (with gas). Wait a minute — climate change. You can’t be doing that! You bought another firearm?”
Lest you think that would never happen, let me remind you about what happened in Canada to the truckers protesting the vaccine rules. The government blocked their bank accounts. That would be even easier with a CBDC.
Ron DeSantis also questions the legality of a CBDC. “The Federal Reserve has come out and said, we would only do it after consulting with the legislative and executive branches. Ideally, we’d get specific congressional authorization.” The governor responded that this isn’t just ideal, it is constitutionally required.
This debate will end up in Congress. Senator Elizabeth Warren argues that “Legitimate digital public money could help drive out bogus digital private money.” Senator Ted Cruz has already introduced legislation to prohibit the Federal Reserve from developing a central bank digital currency.
It’s time for debate to begin in Congress on the future of digital currency.

Kerby Anderson
The Biden administration is taking aim at nearly every appliance in your home. Three months ago, I talked about the gas stove controversy. But that is just one example of how the proposed Energy Department standards will affect your home. The administration has proposed or finalized new standards for ovens, microwaves, refrigerators, and laundry machines. This is in addition to other rules that will affect furnaces, air conditioners, and lightbulbs.
The latest set of rules will apply to dishwashers. The editors of the Wall Street Journal refer to these as “The Federal Dirty Dish Rule.” The regulations are an attempt to make dishwashers more efficient in terms of energy and water. New appliances must cut energy usage by 30 percent and reduce water use from 5 gallons to 3.2 gallons.
A little history is in order. Back in the Obama administration, dishwasher regulations raised the average price of a machine nearly $100. But trying to make dishwashers more energy and water efficient didn’t make them more efficient at cleaning glasses, dishes, and utensils. One consumer complained that it’s “ridiculous that dishwashers I had years ago worked better than the high-tech ones today.”
Slowing dishwashing times is also a complaint. To meet higher efficiency standards, the machines recirculate water in longer cycles. A typical run time can be two or three hours. Once the cycle is over, many owners may decide to run the dishwasher again. That seems to undermine the administration’s goal of energy and water conservation.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, nearly 20 percent of American households own a dishwasher that is never used. I think it is time for the government to rethink their “dirty dish rule.”

Kerby Anderson
Wokeness can be found in just about every academic discipline including the recent revelations of woke science. If there is anything more dangerous, it is “woke medicine.” The attack on meritocracy is well documented in Heather Mac Donald’s book, When Race Trumps Merit.
As important as the book is, the danger is driven home by Ann Coulter’s column, “No Biggie, Just the End of Civilization.” Many institutions have dropped their standards, but she decided to focus on the impact on medicine. For example, “the American Medical Association, the American Association of Medical Colleges and the American Association of Pediatrics have all agreed that medicine is racist.” You can find lots of articles in science journals and medical journals talking about racism.
The solution is to lower standards or change standards for medical school. Heather Mac Donald writes “the average score for white applicants on the Medical College Admission Test was in the 71st percentile … The average score for black applicants was in the 35th percentile – a full standard deviation below the average white score.”
Therefore, we shouldn’t be surprised that “medical schools responded by dropping the MCAT for black and Hispanic students.” One medical school offered these students admission based on their “strong appreciation of human rights and social justice.”
One medical institute announced it would spend $2 billion. Was it to find a cure for brain cancer? Parkinson’s disease? Heart disease? No, the $2 billion was set aside to promote “diversity and inclusion in science.”
I think you would agree with me that when it comes to various professions like medicine, I want doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals selected for their expertise not for their skin color.

Kerby Anderson
David Bernhardt reveals that “The Deep State Is All Too Real.” He should know since he has worked in the government as a cabinet secretary and writes about it in his new book. He says we have “two competing conceptions of American governance: the version students are taught in the classroom, and the one that exists in the real world.” Unfortunately, more and more rules and regulations are being made by the administrative deep state rather than by Congress.
Much of this began in the 1930s when Congress delegated much of its lawmaking authority to the executive branch. Federal agencies issue regulations that have the force and effect of law. And to make matters worse, the Supreme Court’s Chevron doctrine encourages courts to defer to executive branch interpretations of the law.
You might then reasonably ask, where is any accountability? He reminds us that the federal government has 2.2 million civilian employees, but only 4,000 of them are political appointees the president can remove. In other words, career bureaucrats (who were not elected by the American people nor appointed by the president) make major policy decisions.
In my booklet, A Biblical View of the Deep State, I dismiss the idea that the federal bureaucracy is like a military unit (where every order is routinely obeyed). Instead, the bureaucracy is often more like a university faculty (where many have their own ideas about what should be done).
David Bernhardt does provide some hope. In 2020, President Trump issued an executive order that would let the president remove certain federal employees in the bureaucracy. The Supreme Court will hear arguments for a case that would force the judges to reconsider Chevron defense.
These two actions might return the American government back to some necessary checks and balances.

Penna Dexter
During her senior year swimming for the University of Kentucky, Riley Gaines learned something about feminism’s identity crisis. She says she never considered herself a feminist. She told FOX News, “It almost goes against the co-dependency that I believe the sexes should have.”
Then, last spring, Riley tied for fifth place in the NCAA 200-meter freestyle finals with the University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who for 3 years, had been swimming, as William Thomas, for the men’s team. Riley and her teammates were also subjected to Thomas in all his undressed glory in the women’s locker room.
Riley told FOX News: “The feminist movement has gone two directions,” She says she resonates with one of those branches and it’s not the one that’s “fighting for male inclusion in women’s sports, women’s spaces.”
Lia Thomas says of the criticism from female teammates, “They’re using the guise of feminism to sort of push transphobic beliefs.”
Laura Favaro is also a feminist and a sociologist at City University of London. Like Riley Gaines, she believes in just two biological sexes. She conducted research, she says, “to investigate the disputes around sex and gender that have escalated dramatically since the 2010’s.” Her plan, as described in The Telegraph and by Daily Signal writer Nicole Russell, was to conduct “the first taxpayer-funded study into ‘whether social scientists at universities feel censored over their views on transgender issues.’” Laura interviewed 50 feminists who worked in gender studies departments and surveyed 650 social scientists.
Scholars who were open about their traditional views of sex and gender reported they had experienced threats and smears from colleagues. They sometimes feared for their jobs. These findings were deemed “dangerous’ by Laura Favaro’s bosses at City. Eventually, administrators denied her access to her email account and demanded she give up her material and findings. She ultimately lost her job.
Riley and Laura are learning what it costs to be the wrong kind of feminist.

Kerby Anderson
Economist Stephen Moore wonders if the goal of President Biden and his administration is to turn out all the lights. His climate change agenda is forcing us to buy a certain type of lightbulb and to use a certain kind of energy. In the end, we may not have enough electricity to keep the lights on or to keep electric cars moving.
A few weeks ago, the Biden Administration proposed limits on tailpipe emissions that would essentially require two thirds (67%) of all new vehicles sold in the US by 2032 to be all-electric. But the latest polls show that nearly half of all Americans don’t want an electric car and only 6 percent of drivers are buying them.
Stephen Moore says “that was child’s play compared to the latest Biden scheme to shut down as many as half of our electric power plants across the country. These are the plants that charge those Tesla batteries and cellphones. They also keep the lights on in our factories, schools, hospitals, stores, and homes and power the internet.”
On one hand, the administration is working to force more Americans to drive electric cars. On the other hand, the same administration is pushing a plan that would shut down most of the nation’s gas-fired and coal-fired plants that provide electricity. Stephen Moore asks, “Where are we going to get the electric power to charge 150 million EVs every night? From windmills?”
We need more power plants to generate electricity, not fewer. Even if these power plants do not shut down, the administration says they will have to pay for carbon offsets to justify any carbon emissions. Guess who will pay for that? You, the consumer, will pay for that with higher utility bills.
I believe these administration policies will turn the lights out on our economy.

Kerby Anderson
The Federal government is running out of money and needs to raise the debt ceiling. But the debate centers on whether Congress can bring some controls on spending before raising the debt limit. The argument for spending controls was strengthened by the latest numbers from the Congressional Budget Office for the month of April.
April is usually the best month for the federal government since that is when tax payments are due for the previous year. But the April 2023 budget surplus fell by $135 billion from April 2022. When you include various adjustments, the decline was $275 billion. That means higher budget deficits for the rest of the year.
The primary reason for the mounting deficit is spending, which is up 12 percent in the first seven months. Entitlements are up 11 percent, while education spending is up 56 percent.
The other reason for the increasing deficit is decreasing revenue to the Federal treasury, which fell by 10 percent. Individual income taxes fell 18 percent.
Here’s a quick summary. Spending has increased significantly, while revenue has decreased. And the president and many Democrats do not want any spending decreases tied to what they feel should be an automatic increase in the debt limit. Does that make any sense to you?
By the way, it gets worse. Interest on the national debt rose 40 percent. That is due to the Federal Reserve raising interest rates. That portion of the Federal budget is growing faster than any other area. And borrowing more money in the future will also be more expensive.
The national debt is larger than our nation’s Gross Domestic Product. Federal spending is up, and federal revenues are down. And the cost of borrowing more money is increasing significantly. That’s why it is time to rein in spending.

Kerby Anderson
Until recently, reading articles in Scientific American was an important way for those of us who love science to keep up with research trends. That isn’t the case anymore. Last year at this time, an article in Scientific American argued against banning gender-reassignment surgery because it ignores the health benefits to trans people.
This month, Scientific American published an essay by a Princeton professor with the provocative title, “Here’s Why Human Sex Is Not Binary.” He starts with a statement we can accept that “ova don’t make a woman, and sperm don’t make a man.” That is true, but the rest of the essay strains at trying to make the case for sex being more than male and female.
It is hard to imagine two decades ago an essay like this showing up in a scientific magazine. But I was encouraged to read some of the reactions to this essay that are summarized in an article by Joshua Klein.
Colin Wright fumes “This new piece . . . arguing that ‘Human Sex Is Not Binary’ is so poorly argued I’m embarrassed on his behalf. I don’t even know if it even qualifies as ‘pseudoscience’ because it’s just so supremely confused.”
Another on Twitter exclaimed, “Another load of balderdash published in Unscientific American. Where do they dig up these grifters?”
Stephen Knight proclaims, “This is insane. This article attempts to argue that by using objective biological criteria to differentiate between the two human sexes (large gametes or small gametes), we are actually just ‘trying to restrict who counts as a full human in society.’”
It’s good to see this backlash from scientists who haven’t lost their common sense and scientific integrity.

Kerby Anderson
What does the word “Christian” mean these days? It doesn’t seem to mean very much. The last few reports from George Barna’s Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University reveal that a very small percentage of American Christians have a Christian worldview.
Nearly seven in ten (69%) of Americans self-identify as Christian. Yet only about 4 percent of Americans have a Christian worldview. George Barna explains, “Christian has become somewhat of a generic term rather than a name that reflects a deep commitment to passionately pursuing and being like Jesus Christ.”
The self-identified Christians may embrace many basic doctrines of the Christian faith, but then diverge on one or more important issues. For example, a significant number deny the idea of objective truth rooted in Scripture. They deny the existence of absolute truth, and thus make their decisions based upon relative ethics and personal experience
Most Christians may say they believe in the Bible and the gospel message. But they also indicated on their surveys they believe people are basically good. Of course, if people believe they are good, then they may not believe in sin and the need for a savior.
If you look at the cultural issues, you find even more discrepancies between their views and a Christian worldview. These differences in biblical beliefs will then manifest themselves in the widely divergent views today among American Christians on questions of morality and politics. This includes divergent views on sex, marriage, family, and abortion. Those, in turn, affect how American Christians vote on candidates and key political issues.
If you are a pastor or Bible teacher, you need to get back to the basics. It is likely that many of the people you teach do not have a Christian worldview. They need your biblical teaching and biblical discipleship.

Kerby Anderson
Each year I teach second-year students at a bible school a class on homosexuality. One of the questions we discuss is what percentage of the population is homosexual. I quote from studies done by the University of Chicago and the Alan Guttmacher Institute which put the percentage around 2 percent. Then I show the students a Gallup poll that found US adults estimated that 25 percent of Americans are gay and lesbian. Of course, those estimates are off by an order of magnitude.
We now have articles quoting the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System of the CDC that estimates that only 75 percent of American high-school students now identify as heterosexual. The headlines and articles therefore claim that 25 percent are LGBTQ.
In a recent commentary, Wilfried Reilly raises some significant questions. First, “there is simply no genetic or biological explanation for a surge like this one.” This is significantly different from the many studies I have quoted in the past.
Attempts to argue that this is due to “increased social tolerance for gays” does not hold either, especially when you consider that many other European countries have been even more tolerant of LGBTQ. I think a better explanation is social contagion, which I have discussed in relation to transgenderism in previous commentaries.
Andrew Sullivan is a prominent gay columnist and provides this answer. “The most plausible explanation is that everyone wants to be LGBTQ now — so why not lie and be cool? Only problem is that this makes the LGBTQ community majority straight.” As you can tell, he doesn’t believe the 25 percent headlines and doesn’t think this is helpful to his gay agenda.
There is no reason to believe the 25 percent claim. It reminds me of the Gallup poll estimate from many years ago.

Penna Dexter
Early last year The Daily Wire investigated Vanderbilt University Medical Center and found a robust gender transition program including pressure tactics against conscientious objectors and a “Buddies Program” in which trans activists accompany patients seeking treatment to make sure nothing deters them along the path to transition. Doctors pushing for the gender program touted so-called gender affirmation surgeries as “huge money makers.”
When Tennessee House Republicans saw this evidence, they sought clarification from Vanderbilt Medical Center. The clinic paused transition surgeries on minors, pending “review” of the program.
Fast forward to the session of the Tennessee General Assembly that wrapped up last month. Legislators passed and the governor signed, SB1, which prohibits gender transition procedures from being done on minors.
House Majority Leader William Lamberth exhibited blunt southern honesty when he stated,  “We’re not gonna have any kind of quack doctor coming to this state and start doing double mastectomies on children that are suffering through body dysphoria.”
The U.S. Department of Justice has now sued Tennessee to block this law. The DOJ claims SB1 violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The complaint states that this new law “denies necessary medical care to children based solely on who they are.”
The complaint argues that, under SB1, a doctor would be allowed to prescribe testosterone for a “non-transgender male minor” for delayed puberty, but would be prohibited from issuing that same prescription for a transgender male — i.e., a biological female.
SB1 defines a person’s sex as “determined by anatomy and genetics.” The DOJ’s complaint, instead, elevates gender identity over sex “assigned” at birth. In an article describing the lawsuit, Washington Stand writer Joshua Arnold, points out that the DOJ is supposed to enforce federal law. But the language in this complaint signals what he terms “a revisionist reality at work,” which “would retroactively rewrite laws distinguishing the sexes.” 
The courts must shut down this overreach.

Kerby Anderson
Historian Nial Ferguson begins his PragerU video with a lament that few students graduate from college with any idea of what makes Western Civilization different from the rest of the world. In his video with the title, “Why the West Won,” he summarizes a few key points from his book, Civilization: The West and the Rest. He explained that western civilization succeeded because of six killer apps—competition, modern science, the rule of law, modern medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic.” These are the secret sauce of Western Civilization.
You may not have time to read his book, therefore, I suggest you take five minutes to watch the video. And since these ideas aren’t being taught in the universities today, you might share the video with some young people.
These are the six killer applications. The first was economic and political competition. The second was the scientific method. All the major 17th century breakthroughs happened in Western Europe. A third application was the rule of law and representative government. This included private property rights and representation of property owners in elected legislatures.
The fourth was modern medicine. Nearly all the 19th and 20th century breakthroughs in health care were made by Western Europeans and North Americans. Fifth was the consumer society. The industrial revolution took place because there was both a supply and a demand. Sixth was the work ethic. Westerners worked harder and saved more of what they earned. This led to capital accumulation which in turn led to investment in the wonders of modern technology.
These six killer apps made the West successful and have now been downloaded to other countries as well. That is why the west won.

Kerby Anderson
Leftists have redefined many key terms to push their radical agenda. One of those words is the word “equity.” We traditionally understood the term to mean equality. You can even find this word in the Bible. But in our modern culture, equity doesn’t mean equality of opportunity but equality of outcomes.
Activists push DEI, which stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. At universities DEI bureaucracies have grown significantly. A study by the Heritage Foundation found 163 DEI personnel at the University of Michigan, 94 at the University of Virginia and Ohio State, 86 at the University of California, Berkeley, 83 at Virginia Tech, and 80 at Stanford. I recently wrote about the behavior of the DEI Dean at Stanford, who has now been put on leave.
Jack Miller in a recent column writes about “Equity’s War on Equality.” The equity agenda is making its way into K-12 schools across the country. In some schools, honors classes are being eliminated so as not to “perpetuate inequality.”
He laments that “teachers are simply slowing down instruction for everyone. Students are increasingly taught at the lowest common denominator rather than being challenged to do their best.” Motivated students complain that often the students slowing them down are unmotivated and have no desire to try harder.
Jack Miller does have some good news. Parents are mobilizing at the ballot box and at school board meetings. “They do not want to sacrifice academic excellence for grand social experiments. They want their kids to become educated and ambitious, not indoctrinated, and complacent.”
Equity, the way it is currently being defined, is not equality. Rather it is an attack on meritocracy and keeping gifted and motivated students from doing their best.

Kerby Anderson
Periodically I must remind my listeners that you should pay less attention to what people say and more attention to what they do. Climate change activists encourage us to lower our carbon footprint while flying to conferences in private jets. Progressive politicians warn that global warming will raise the level of oceans yet live in homes next to the shore. Liberals claim there is a rape epidemic on college campuses, but still send their daughters to the university.
The latest claim is that “coffee is racist, and drinking coffee perpetuates white supremacy.” Therefore, argues the author, “It’s time to boycott and divest.”
According to the article, “Coffee first came to North America and Europe between 1650 and 1700. But coffee was an important, almost religious, part of Black culture going as far back as the 1400s in Ethiopia. After the whites got the first sip of the Black delicacy, they brutally enslaved people of color to keep up with demand, turning a ritualistic drink into another consumer product in the colonial capitalist machine.”
I don’t know how much of that can be verified by historians, but let’s assume it’s all true. The argument is that by consuming coffee you are helping an industry built on racism. By consuming coffee, you are perpetuating white supremacy.
Now for the more important question: do you think we will see a massive boycott of coffee over the next few months? I doubt we will see a dent in the coffee business, and if there is any decline in coffee sales it will pale in comparison to the number of people who no longer buy Bud Light.
The article may claim that coffee is racist and call for a boycott. But I doubt we will see any boycott. Once again, we can see the value of paying more attention to what people do rather than what they say.

Kerby Anderson
Perhaps you have heard of the “heckler’s veto.” This occurs when someone who disagrees with a speaker’s message triggers actions or protests to disrupt the event and get the speech cancelled. We have seen this tactic on university campuses primarily used against conservative speakers.
I thought of this tactic when I read about the controversy surrounding expensive security fees charged against Turning Point USA at a Texas university just thirty miles from my radio studio. The administration charged the conservative group $28,000 for security, without obtaining permission for the charges.
The justification for the huge charges apparently was based upon “subjectively evaluating possible actions in which protestors might engage.” It doesn’t appear that any major protest took place. But consider the precedent this might set. If the university administration thinks a particular speaker or conference might draw protestors, they would feel free to charge huge amounts for security.
The ADF has written to the campus police about their actions because the university charged “outrageous security fees for two small campuses events simply because of fear of how others might react.” And they argued that this security fee is essentially a heckler’s veto.
I suspect this might become a new tactic used by radical groups. Threaten a protest or even a riot, and the university feels the need to charge the sponsoring group so much that the group must cancel.
Over the years, I have scheduled speakers to address controversial topics like climate change, radical Islam, and gender confusion. If I was confronted with such an outrageously expensive bill, I would probably have to cancel. This might become a new tactic to silence free speech.

Kerby Anderson
While looking at various headlines and reading many of the news articles, I noticed a trend that should be highlighted. It appears we are being conditioned to accept high inflation and become resigned to a poorer standard of living.
A headline last year predicted, “Inflation’s New Normal Will be 4%. Get Used to It.” Her prediction was right. Inflation has been with us and will continue to be with us. Another headline reported that “Consumers Are Getting Used to Higher Inflation.” He assumed that workers would demand higher wages to keep up with inflation. As I mentioned in a previous commentary, wages have not kept up with inflation.
The most recent headline came from a podcast in this country done with the Bank of England’s top economist. He said people in the UK need to accept that they are poorer. He lamented there was a “reluctance to accept that, yes, we’re all worse off.” He was concerned that people demanding pay increases and businesses raising prices will fuel more inflation. Fortunately, the article also quoted another economist that pointed to the “massive expansion” in the money supply as a reason for inflation.
Missing from these stories is who benefits from inflation and who is hurt by it. Remember the classic quote, *“Inflation is the surest way to fertilize the rich man’s field with the sweat of the poor man’s brow.” Increasing prices harm the poor more than the rich, and inflation is stealing the wealth of everyone as the dollar devalues.
God condemns Israel in Isaiah 1:22 by saying, “Your silver has become dross, your best wine mixed with water.” People were cheating each other by adding cheaper metals to their silver and by adding water to their wine. That is why we should NOT be conditioned to accept inflation.
*The quote is credited to Charles Holt Carroll, but also attributed to Daniel Webster.

Penna Dexter
The trend toward de-emphasis on hard work and merit is playing out in large school districts in Nevada, California, Iowa, Virginia and other states. Policies there now require that schools make doing homework optional and give students multiple opportunities to complete tests and assignments. The Wall Street Journal reports that these districts have decided to jettison hard due dates, giving students “more chances to prove they have mastered a subject without being held to arbitrary deadlines.” Students’ knowledge of material is only measured at the end of the term.
This is being done, says The Journal, “in recognition of challenges some children have outside school” — perhaps a job or caring for siblings. A new theory, equitable grading, purportedly eliminates bias toward students living in stable homes. It relies on students’ “intrinsic motivation” in allowing them to decide when, or if, they will turn in homework.
Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, is the fifth largest school district in the nation. Laura Jeanne Penrod, who teaches English there, told The Journal, “intrinsic motivation…is the furthest thing from the truth” for students in her 11th grade honors class. With an assignment to write a persuasive essay, she would normally require them to first brainstorm the project and then to write a rough draft. Under the new system, students skip these steps without penalty, but they miss out on the teacher’s guidance along the way.
Alyson Henderson, another Clark County high school English teacher says, “If you go to a job in real life, you can’t pick and choose what tasks you want to do and only do the quote big ones.” Samuel Huang, a straight-A student in the district doesn’t like the new system. He sees AP students skipping class until the exam and says “There’s an apathy that pervades the entire classroom.”
These are top students. Ditching homework is even worse for average students and those who struggle. They need more accountability, not less. 

Kerby Anderson
Many critics in the current generation are making unfair judgments about past generations with an air of moral superiority. I call it generational judgmentalism. Victor Davis Hanson merely says that these critics are self-important and ungracious and have very little gratitude for those in the past that did so much for all of us.
He observes that these “21st-century critics rarely acknowledge their own present affluence and leisure owe much to history’s prior generations whose toil helped create their current comfort.” Of course, we could also add the millions buried in military cemeteries who fought and died for the freedoms we enjoy today.
He also asks several important questions. “What will our grandchildren say of us who dumped on them over $30 trillion in national debt—much of it as borrowing for entitlements for ourselves?” Another is, “What sort of society snoozes as record numbers of murders continue in 12 of its major cities?”
One of the key buzzwords for this generation is “infrastructure.” But Hanson wonders “when was the last time it built anything comparable to Hoover Dam, the interstate highway system, or the California Water Project—much less sent a man back to the moon or beyond?”
It is easy to criticize previous generations while using today’s standards of morality and behavior. It is easy to forget the struggles previous generations had to face because they were not blessed with the numerous technological advances we enjoy today.
It’s easy to tear down. It’s not so easy to rebuild. These are the questions we need to ask of the critics bent on destroying society. They don’t seem to offer anything significant in its place.

Kerby Anderson
Today is the National Day of Prayer. It is a vital part of our American heritage. The first call to prayer happened before the American Revolution. In 1775, the Continental Congress called on the colonists to pray for wisdom as they considered how they would respond to the King of England.
Perhaps one of the most powerful calls to prayer came from President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. In 1863, he issued a proclamation for a day of “humiliation, fasting and prayer.” Here is some of that proclamation:
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand, which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
In 1952, Congress passed and President Harry Truman signed a resolution that declared an annual, national day of prayer. In 1988, President Reagan signed into law a bill that designated the first Thursday of May as the time for the National Day of Prayer.
It is estimated that there have been more than 130 national calls to prayer, humiliation, fasting, and thanksgiving by presidents of the United States. There have been 60 Presidential Proclamations for a National Day of Prayer because every president has signed these proclamations.
Today is the National Day of Prayer. Please pray for this nation and its leaders.

Kerby Anderson
A recent poll by Pew Research Center discovered that 27 percent of Americans view evangelicals as the most unfavorable faith. They also discovered that Jews ranked as the most favorable religious group.
The poll asked Americans to rank six of the mainstream religious groups. Those were Jews, mainline Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Mormons, and Evangelical Christians. The greatest number of unfavorable feelings were expressed toward Evangelical Christians and Mormons.
By contrast, the most positive feelings were reserved for Jews at 35 percent. In fact, only 6 percent said they had a negative view of them. Catholics came in second with 34 percent saying they viewed them favorably and only 18 percent said they had negative impressions of them.
I would contend that this poll not only tells us something about people’s attitudes toward various religious groups, but it also reminds us of the nature of those groups.  On my radio program, I mention that a majority of Supreme Court Justices are Catholic as are a sizable number of members of Congress. Then I ask, what does that tell you about their politics? Of course, the answer is that it doesn’t tell you anything because some take their Catholic faith seriously, while many do not. You could do the same by providing a list of prominent Jewish people.
The religious groups with the highest favorability (Jews, Catholics) also have the greatest theological diversity. Often the religious label says less about their faith and more about their family background. The groups with the highest unfavourability (Mormons, Evangelical Christians) have the greatest theological cohesion.
Put another way, many Americans have no problem with religion unless the religious person takes his or her religion very seriously.