The date today is October 31st. Most people know it as “Halloween” but it also has long been known as The Festival of the Dead. The Celtic tribes and their

priests, the Druids, celebrated this day as a marker for the change from life to death. November 1 was the beginning of the New Year, so Halloween or

“Samhain,” was like New Year’s Eve. It was both a time of death and new beginnings.

The young would wander the countryside disguised in scary masks, carrying turnips carved into scary jack-o’-lanterns to frighten off ghosts and goblins. They

believed that the veil between the living and the dead was the thinnest at this time, and therefore one could most readily communicate with loved ones in spirit.

Witches also celebrate Halloween as the “Feast of Samhain” which is the first feast of the witchcraft year. Being a festival of the dead, Halloween is a time

when witches attempt to communicate with the dead through various forms of divination. Contrast this with God’s command against divination in Deuteronomy

18.

The term Halloween is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before “All Hallows’ Day” also known as “All Saints’ Day.” Pope Gregory moved the

day from May 13 to November 1. This made Halloween the eve of this celebration. November 1 became “All Hallow Mass,” and October 31, became “All

Hallow’s Even.”

Today, Halloween has become one of the more celebrated holidays. We are told that people spend more on decorations at Halloween that any other holiday

except Christmas. And often the Halloween celebrations have included more and more occultic activity. Christians have two options: to ignore Halloween or to

provide an alternative (like a Fall Fun Festival).

I hope you have thought about what you will do today and tonight. Don’t just go with the flow. Make an informed decision about what you will do on Halloween.

Representative Chris Smith says that Americans “deserve to know if their health plan will be subsidizing a culture of death.” He is concerned that now that

the state exchanges are online, pro-life citizens may end up supporting abortion because they aren’t able to determine which plans exclude abortion.

The Affordable Care Act requires premium payers to be assessed an abortion surcharge every month to pay for abortions. Pro-life Americans “may

unwittingly purchase pro-abortion plans because of a marketing secrecy clause embedded in Obamacare.” They may only discover it at the time of enrollment,

and that is assuming that are able to read and understand the fine print.

Representative Smith believes that pro-life citizens should know what they are purchasing. They should not be misled by this highly deceptive practice.

They should know before they sign up whether their premiums are funding abortion on demand.

That is why he and other members of Congress have introduced the Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act (HR 3279). The bill requires information

“regarding either inclusion or exclusion of abortion coverage as well as the existence of an abortion surcharge to be prominently displayed in all marketing or

advertising materials.”

These last few weeks have illustrated why this is so important. Go on the government website. If you are able to get to the description of policies, you will

discover that there is no explanation of abortion coverage. The official word is that you would have to wait until you pick a plan before you could find out if it

covers abortion. That’s not how the government website should work.

Pro-life Americans should not have to spend so much time to discover whether their premiums might go to a procedure for which they have moral objections.

We live in a society where we believe that people have a right to know how their money is spent. We expect full disclosure in most areas of our lives. Pro-life

citizens need to have this information so their dollars don’t go to support abortion.

Earlier this month dozens of U.S. Army active duty and reserve troops were told in a briefing that the American Family Association should be classified as a

domestic hate group. This is not the first time they and other pro-family groups have been labeled as such because of their traditional family values and

religious beliefs.

If the briefing at Camp Shelby were an isolated incident, it would be easy to ignore. But these pro-family groups have sometimes found themselves listed in

PowerPoint presentations along with the Ku Klux Klan or the Black Panthers.

Imagine the reaction from soldiers who support groups like the American Family Association (AFA). One soldier even asked a news outlet if he might be

punished because he regularly donates to AFA. Others who are not familiar with these groups would just assume they are potentially dangerous groups and

view them with suspicion.

The designation comes from the Southern Poverty Law Center that may have been a credible source in the past, but certainly should not be used today as

a source when it comes to pro-family religious groups. Todd Starnes with Fox News has been able to verify that the Army does use the Southern Poverty Law

Center as a source for military trainings.

The U.S. Army admitted it was wrong to use false information in their training. Their statement said a trainer created the slide portraying AFA as a “hate

group” without Army approval. They went on to say that the Army presentation earlier this month “does not reflect the policy or doctrine” of the Army.

While that is true, Tim Wildmon (president of the American Family Association) hopes that the Army will do more “to end the spreading of these untruths

once and for all.” I certainly hope so. There have been too many of these so-called “isolated incidents.”

The American Family Association is not a hate group but they have been the victim of false statements about their organization and character.

The recent debate about raising the debt ceiling highlighted two very different views about the national debt. Those two views can be found in the words of

Barack Obama and have been well documented by Victor Davis Hanson in a recent column. First, let’s hear what Senator Barack Obama said about federal

deficits and the national debt.

In 2006, Senator Barack Obama was very critical of the Bush administration’s deficit spending. That year the annual deficit was $250 billion. That was

enough for the senator to vote against raising the debt ceiling. He explained his opposition by reminding us that: “Washington is shifting the burden of bad

choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”

He also explained the impact more debt and borrowing would have on future generations. He said: “Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not

going to investment in America’s priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans—a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk

about.”

In 2008, candidate Barack Obama continued to speak out against reckless spending. He called the Bush deficits “irresponsible” and even “unpatriotic.” The

accumulated national debt was around $10 trillion.

Let’s now hear from President Barack Obama. He argued for raising the debt ceiling because increasing the debt ceiling “does not increase our debt; it does

not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you’ve already racked up.” He said this last month after the government had

run five consecutive $1 trillion deficits. The national debt is now $17 trillion.

I think Senator Obama was right and President Obama was wrong. Debt and deficits matter and are being put on the backs of our children and

grandchildren.

Every year there are lawsuits attempting to remove the phrase “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance or to remove “One Nation Under God” from our coins. But where did the phrase originate? Anyone who was supposed to memorize Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address could probably answer that question.

When Lincoln traveled to that Pennsylvania town in November 1863 to dedicate a national cemetery, he used the opportunity to define (we might even say, to redefine) the nature and purpose of this “great Civil War.” He concluded his speech by saying “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

There is some indication that Lincoln added the words “under God” while sitting on the stage since they are not found in the copy of the speech he carried to the ceremony. All who heard the speech agree that he used the words “under God” and it is found in subsequent copies of the speech that he wrote out in longhand.

It is possible that Lincoln adopted those words from George Washington (either indirectly or directly). One of Lincoln’s favorite books as a child was Parson Ween’s biography The Life of George Washington. The phrase is used in a description of Washington’s death.

It is also possible that Lincoln also knew of George Washington’s orders to the Continental Army. Washington’s written orders said “The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.” On July 9, 1776 he directed that Declaration of Independence be read aloud to the troops so that they would know “that now the peace and safety of the Country depends, under God, solely on the success of our arms.”

Today we often use the phrase “under God” and it worth knowing about its rich history. Let us pray that the anti-God forces never remove it from our country. I’m Kerby Anderson and that’s my point of view.

Yesterday I talked about the new book by Mark Levin. He explains the constitutional problem in The Liberty Amendments and then proposes a constitutional remedy.

A major concern with the federal government is out of control spending. The country is headed over a financial cliff unless we can limit the spending and money printing by the government. Congress continues to spend using continuing resolutions. At other times they have adopted omnibus spending bills that are so large no member of Congress even reads it.

The federal debt now stands at about $17 trillion. But that does not even include the unfunded liabilities of various entitlements that push the total to around $100 trillion. Obviously, we cannot continue to spend like this without facing the same consequences that have befallen countries like Greece.

Related to this spending has been the huge expansion of the federal bureaucracy. In many ways, the federal bureaucracy has superseded the legislative branch. In 2011, Congress passed and the president signed 81 laws. During that same period, various federal regulatory agencies issued 3,807 final rules.

Mark Levin proposes an amendment where Congress must adopt a preliminary budget and submit that budget to the President. If they fail to do so, or if the President fails to sign the budget into law, there will be an automatic, across-the-board 5 percent reduction in expenditures from the prior year’s fiscal budget. Total outlays shall not exceed receipts for that fiscal year. And total outlays shall not exceed a percentage of the Nation’s gross domestic product.

Various federal departments and agencies must be reauthorized every three years by the majority vote of both Houses of Congress. Regulations that exceed a set dollar amount shall be submitted to a permanent Joint Committee of Congress for review and approval.

His amendments would be an effective way to slow the expansive growth of the federal government. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

Mark Levin has written a new book talking about the constitutional challenges we face today. In his book, The Liberty Amendments, he explains the problem and then proposes a constitutional remedy.

One problem this nation faces is the fact that too many members of Congress serve too long.  Since there are no term limits for Congress, some serve for decades while a few voluntarily term-limit themselves. The reelection percentage for the House of Representatives is over 90 percent, and the reelection percentage for the U.S. Senate is over 80 percent. Ronald Rotunda (Chapman University law professor) explained that the “turnover rate in the House of Lords has been greater than the turnover in the House of Representatives. There was even more turnover in the membership of the Soviet Politburo.”

Part of the problem is gerrymandering. As I have often said on “Point of View,” the voters may choose their senators, but in the House of Representatives, they choose their voters. State legislatures construct safe House districts. Add to that the power of incumbency (patronage, publicity, fund-raising events), and you have virtually no turnover in the House of Representatives.

Term limits apply to those in the executive branch. Thirty-six states have term limits on governors. The Twenty-Second Amendment limits the President of the United States. It would make sense to have some limit on those who serve in Congress. Certainly they should be in office long enough to gain expertise but not be in office so long that they essentially forget the will of the people they are serving.

His proposed amendment says: “no person may serve more than twelve years as a member of Congress, whether such service is exclusively in the House or the Senate or combined in both Houses.” This amendment is an attempt to return Congress to a place where citizen legislators serve for a time and then return to the people.

We may disagree about whether twelve years is the right limit, but I think we can all agree that some members of Congress have been there too long. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

The latest survey from the Barna Group shows “How Technology is Changing Millennial Faith.” This generation has been called “digital natives for good reason. They are the most technologically savvy generation in history. We should not be surprised that they are using technology as part of their faith experience.

Millennials are the most likely to check their phones as they wake up and before they go to sleep. Ask them the phone number of their friend. They haven’t memorized it. They grab their phones. Ask them a question; they will “Google” the answer. Those habits aren’t likely to change in their spiritual lives.

The Barna survey found that seven out of ten practicing Christian millennials read Scripture on a screen. A majority (54%) of them are heavy users of online videos that pertain to their faith.

About one-third of all millennials use an online search to scope out a church, temple or synagogue. This percentage increases to over half (56%) of practicing Christian millennials who do the same. The Barna Group concludes that this generation is likely “checking out a faith community online, from a safe distance” and this may be “a prerequisite for the commitment of showing up in person.”

They are also likely to check out spiritual content online. They already do this if they are curious about a restaurant, museum, or movie. It would make sense they would also do this in reference to spiritual content. Nearly six out of ten practicing Christians (56%) say they search spiritual content online. Other millennials are also doing this, suggesting a possible online outreach for churches and Christian ministries.

They are also fact checking. A percentage of millennials say they search to verify something a faith leader has said. Here’s a word to anyone who is teaching in church or a Bible study: millennials will double check what you teach.

The latest Barna survey reminds us that technology is changing the faith of millennials. Church leaders need to read the entire survey if they are to understand the impact it will have on their ministries. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.

The latest survey from the Barna Group shows “How Technology is Changing Millennial Faith.” This generation has been called “digital natives for good reason. They are the most technologically savvy generation in history. We should not be surprised that they are using technology as part of their faith experience.

Millennials are the most likely to check their phones as they wake up and before they go to sleep. Ask them the phone number of their friend. They haven’t memorized it. They grab their phones. Ask them a question; they will “Google” the answer. Those habits aren’t likely to change in their spiritual lives.

The Barna survey found that seven out of ten practicing Christian millennials read Scripture on a screen. A majority (54%) of them are heavy users of online videos that pertain to their faith.

About one-third of all millennials use an online search to scope out a church, temple or synagogue. This percentage increases to over half (56%) of practicing Christian millennials who do the same. The Barna Group concludes that this generation is likely “checking out a faith community online, from a safe distance” and this may be “a prerequisite for the commitment of showing up in person.”

They are also likely to check out spiritual content online. They already do this if they are curious about a restaurant, museum, or movie. It would make sense they would also do this in reference to spiritual content. Nearly six out of ten practicing Christians (56%) say they search spiritual content online. Other millennials are also doing this, suggesting a possible online outreach for churches and Christian ministries.

They are also fact checking. A percentage of millennials say they search to verify something a faith leader has said. Here’s a word to anyone who is teaching in church or a Bible study: millennials will double check what you teach.

The latest Barna survey reminds us that technology is changing the faith of millennials. Church leaders need to read the entire survey if they are to understand the impact it will have on their ministries. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.