Now that we are officially in the Christmas season, it might be good to look at the

amount that the average American will spend on gifts at Christmas. The estimates vary

from eight hundred dollars up to twelve hundred dollars. And as one commentator noted,

that doesn’t even include the Christmas parties and travel during Christmas time.

Now there is nothing wrong with giving gifts at Christmas, but I couldn’t help but

take a moment to compare what we spend at Christmas to what most Christians give

throughout the year. Barna Research did a study of giving by Christians and found that

less than ten percent of born-again Christians give ten percent to their church. Now I

know that we are no longer under Old Testament law where the tithe is mandatory. But

you do have to wonder about our priorities when less than ten percent even give a tithe.

Moreover, it appears that a majority of Christians spend more for presents at Christmas

than they give to the church and Christian organizations throughout the year.

I might add they also found that age and annual income were significant

indicators of giving. For example the older you are, the more likely you were to tithe.

Also, the poorer you were the more likely you were to tithe. A person who makes

$20,000 a year is twice as likely to tithe as a person who makes $40,000-50,000 year.

And a person who makes $20,000 a year is eight times more likely to tithe than a person

who makes $75,000 a year.

Do those statistics bother you? They bother me and are worth reconsidering at

this time of year. You have to wonder about priorities. We seem to be more willing to

give presents at Christmas so others can lay up treasures on earth instead of investing in

God’s work and laying up treasures in heaven.

So during this Christmas season, I hope you will take a moment and consider

what you might do to support your church and worthwhile ministries.Let’s reevaluate our

financial priorities and try to get our spending and giving ratios back in line.

Each year, we take time from our busy lives to celebrate a day of Thanksgiving.

Though many holidays have become secular celebrations, this holiday still retains much

of its historic religious overtones.

A day of Thanksgiving was set aside by the Pilgrims who founded Plymouth

Colony. Life was hard in the New World. Half of the Pilgrims died in the first terrible

winter. After the first harvest was completed, Governor William Bradford proclaimed a

day of Thanksgiving and prayer. By 1623, a day of fasting and prayer during a period of

drought was changed to one of Thanksgiving because the rain came during their prayers.

The custom prevailed in New England and eventually became a national holiday.

Religious freedom is one of the lessons of Thanksgiving. In 1606 William

Brewster led a group of Separatists to Leiden (in the Netherlands) to escape religious

persecution in England. After living in Leiden for more than ten years, some members of

the group voted to emigrate to America. Having been blown off course from their

intended landing in Virginia by a terrible storm, the Pilgrims landed at Cape Cod on

November 1620. While still on the ship, the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact.

The Mayflower Compact provides the second lesson of Thanksgiving: the

importance of political freedom. On November 11, 1620, Governor William Bradford

and the leaders on the Mayflower signed the Mayflower Compact before setting foot on

land. They wanted to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in their lives and their need to

obey Him.

During this Thanksgiving season, let’s return to the wisdom of the Pilgrims. They

valued their religious freedom and were willing to endure hardship in order to come to

this country and freely worship. They also valued their political freedom and drafted the

Mayflower Compact in recognition of God’s sovereign hand in their lives. Let us thank

God for these freedoms and be willing to defend them against all who would seek to take

them away.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I suspect that you are doing lots of things to get

ready for this special day. Let me suggest you add one more item to your to do list. Visit

the Probe website (www.probe.org) and download a copy of my Thanksgiving Quiz.

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to gather as a family, but I also believe it can be

a great time to teach our children and grandchildren about America’s godly heritage. I

created this short quiz to be a conversation-starter around the Thanksgiving table.

Perhaps you share my frustration about how Thanksgiving is often a missed

opportunity. We used to go around the table before the meal and ask our children to tell

what they were thankful for. After a few years of hearing about how they were thankful

for their cat, their doll, their video games, I knew we needed to do something else.

The Thanksgiving Quiz was born out of that frustration. It has nineteen questions

and answers on the Pilgrims and the Mayflower Compact as well as some questions and

answers about the Christian heritage of America.

Who were the Pilgrims and why did they leave Europe for America? Why did

they celebrate Thanksgiving? What is the Mayflower Compact, and why is it significant?

What lessons did the Pilgrims learn about work and even free enterprise? How did the

Christian faith influence America? These are just a few of the sorts of questions that you

can ask around the table and give short answers.

Perhaps it is time to recapture the importance of Thanksgiving. On the

bicentennial celebration of the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, Daniel Webster

on December 22, 1820, declared the following: “Let us not forget the religious character

of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian

religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate

its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all

their institutions, civil, political, or literary.”

It is my hope this quiz will help your family see the importance of Thanksgiving.

The latest survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life proclaims that

those who have no religious affiliation are increasing. This group is often call “the

Nones” because they are likely to say “none of the above” when asked about their

religious preference.

The report identifies a number of trends. Two that have been given the most

attention are the decline in Protestants and the rise of “the nones.” The study asked nearly

3,000 adults nationwide this question: “What is your present religion, if any? Are you

Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such as Greek or Russian Orthodox,

Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, something else, or nothing in

particular?”

No longer are Protestants a majority in America. Those who identified themselves

as Protestant was 48 percent, which is a drop of five percent in the last five years. It is

worth noting that in 1960, two-thirds of Americans defined themselves as Protestant.

The more significant trend was what Pew called “the rise of the Nones.” An

increasing percentage of people are identifying themselves as religiously unaffiliated.

The Pew study explains that the increase is due to the “growth in nondenominational

Christians who can no longer be categorized as Protestant and a spike in the number of

American adults who say they have no religion at all.”

Unfortunately, the study puts those two groups together when they significantly

differ from each others. Many don’t categorize themselves as Protestant, but that doesn’t

necessarily mean they aren’t Christian or at least believe in God. Two-thirds of the

“Nones’ say they believe in God. They are very different from those people who say they

have no religion at all. Only 2.4 percent of Americans describe themselves as atheist.

The Pew study should be a wake-up call to the church. We should reject the idea

that the “Nones” are turning to atheism. But we should also realize that these religious

unaffiliated people aren’t planning to attend your church services this Sunday.

Trying to predict the future is a difficult task as George Friedman makes clear in

his book, The Next 100 Years. His brief summary of the 20th

unpredictable the future can be. He says, “Imagine that you were alive in the summer of

1900, living in London, then the capital of the world.” The future seemed fixed

“peaceful, prosperous Europe would rule the world.”

By 1920, this assumption would seem like a distant memory. “Europe had been

torn apart by an agonizing war. The continent was in tatters. The Austro-Hungarian,

Russian, German, and Ottoman empires were gone and millions had died in a war that

lasted for years.” Although there was lots of uncertainty, one thing was certain “the peace

treaty that had been imposed on Germany guaranteed that it would not soon reemerge.”

Twenty years later in 1940, Germany had not only reemerged but conquered

France and dominated Europe. The Soviet Union was allied with Nazi Germany, and it

looked like Germany would dominate Europe and most of the world.

By 1960, Europe was very different. Germany had been crushed and Berlin was

split down the middle by the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States had

emerged as a superpower as it attempted to face down communism in both the Soviet

Union and in China.

Twenty years later, the world was different again. “The United States has been

defeated in a seven-year war—not by the Soviet Union, but by communist North

Vietnam.” It was not only expelled from Vietnam but from Iran (and its oil fields seemed

to fall into the hands of the Soviet Union). “To contain the Soviet Union, the United

States had formed an alliance with Maoist China.”

By 2000, the Soviet Union had completely collapsed. China was communist in

name but has become capitalist in practice. NATO had advanced into Eastern Europe and

even into the former Soviet Union. Add to that how September 11, 2001 changed the

world again.

All of this is a reminder that the future is always changing.

century reminds us how

One of the buzzwords in business and government these days is “big data.” We are able to collect and analyze information in ways never before possible. This gives trend watchers, businesses, corporations, and governments the ability to understand the world in new and more accurate ways.

On the other hand, big data represents some significant challenges for us. There is a greater potential for privacy invasion and personal exposure. Mistakes in data collection or analysis can even result in damaging a person’s character or credit rating.

A major concern is over how much information is being collected on each of us by both the public sector and private sector. Government and businesses are collecting and retaining massive data sets on every person. They are also making assumptions and extrapolating from the data. It may not bother you that businesses are using this data to guess what purchases you might make next year. It should bother you that other entities (like the government) are using the data to assess what kind of person you are based upon your purchases of reading material and consumer goods.

Big data can also accentuate class differences. Already insurance companies treat the healthy differently than the sick. People who are rich, well educated, and influential receive better treatment from companies than those who are poor and underprivileged. Credit card companies already treat people with a good credit history better than those who do not. Now we are learning that they are using information about the payment history of other customers to assess the credit-worthiness of a potential customer.

It is easy to disregard such assessments if you have a good credit score. But what if there are erroneous records in all of the big data that is collected? Anyone who has worked to clear up inaccurate records can see the potential danger of big data. Often it takes time and tenacity to get back your good name. That is why we need to pay attention to the collection, analysis, and storage of big data.

When Kristi Burton Brown saw a recent article about “10 Reasons to Have an Abortion,” she felt the need to give a rebuttal. She is a pro-life attorney who has volunteered for Life Legal Defense Foundation and is also an allied attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom.

One of the reasons given for abortion is: “Having a baby would endanger your life.” This seems to be stated as a fact. Sure, there are some women who have high-risk pregnancies. That is a reason to find a good doctor to manage that pregnancy. That is not a reason to have an abortion.

Another reason given for abortion is: “Your birth control failed.” But the failure of birth control is not a reason to kill a child. Brown argues that: “If a person is adult enough to have sex, they should be adult enough to take responsibility for a natural consequence of their actions.” An unplanned child still has the right to life.

Some women will say they don’t want to have a child because of their career. Brown then asks, “So, the answer to a successful career is killing your child?” How are women being empowered when the message from the culture is abortion is the best stepping-stone to success?

Age is another reason given for abortion. Some feel they are too young to raise a child. Others feel they are too old. Of course, there are many examples of young mothers and quite old mothers who do an excellent job raising children. Even if a woman is convinced she cannot raise a child, she can give her child up for adoption.

Another reason given for abortion is overpopulation. Brown asks, “Does overpopulation justify killing your neighbor? A random person in the grocery store?” Clearly we would not do that. But somehow many have bought the lie that an unborn child can be killed in the womb because of overpopulation.

Kristi Burton Brown gives good answers to many of the other so-called reasons for abortion. In each case, it is easy to see how flawed the current arguments for abortion are.

The Affordable Care Act is running up some significant costs, and various news organizations have been keeping track of the Obamacare costs.

Let’s start with the estimated cost to taxpayers. The ten-year estimates vary from $1.8 trillion to $2.6 trillion depending on which estimate you use. The lower estimate comes from the Congressional Budget Office. The higher estimate comes from the Republican Senate Budget Committee that believes the CBO number has too many overly optimistic assumptions. Either way, we are talking about costs much greater than was promised when the Affordable Care Act was being debated in Congress.

For many weeks, the media has been reporting that the cost of the health care website was approximately $600 million. A Bloomberg analysis calculated that it would top $1 billion once you factor in the cost of the website and the supporting structures.

What is the cost to people who have lost their health insurance? An Associated Press article estimates that 3.5 million Americans have already lost their health insurance. But many more will also lose theirs. There are approximately 19 million people in the individual health insurance market. Before President Obama’s announcement last week, some estimated that as many as 16 million could lose their health insurance.

There is another incidental cost to Obamacare. Tens of thousands of workers have seen their jobs cut or their hours cut. Investors Business Daily has been keeping a record of employers that have cut jobs or hours. Already that number is over 350 employers.

Perhaps the greatest cost will be the additional costs so many will be paying for new health care policies. Young men and women will see their premium costs rise dramatically under Obamacare, but everyone will see an increase either in premiums or deductibles or both.

Each day we are finding more evidence that the Affordable Care Act is actually unaffordable. This is not what we were promised a few years ago when the bill was debated.

Last month, National Geographic presented a docu-drama that detailed what would happen in the United States if there were a major disruption in the country’s electronic grid. The film “American Blackout” portrays a life without power due to a cyber attack. Everything we take for granted in the 21st century is affected: food, water, fuel, transportation, medicine, communications and finance.

It is worth mentioning that the scenario depicted in this docu-drama assumes that the disruption will only last ten days. The impact over a ten-day period is bad enough, but many believe that an EMP (an electro magnetic pulse) would lead to even more catastrophic devastation. According to the chairman of the Congressional EMP Threat Commission, if the power goes out and stays out for as long as a year, nine out of ten Americans will be dead.

What has been the reaction to this horrible scenario? Last week various electric utilities sponsored a nationwide exercise (known as GridEx II) to demonstrate how well the grid can cope with various disruptions. Members of the EMP Coalition doubt that such an exercise really tests the nation’s energy grid. A man-caused or naturally occurring EMP could cripple the United States.

Fortunately there are many who are taking an EMP threat seriously. Frank Gaffney (Center for Security Policy) was on my program. He says we can take appropriate steps to prevent or greatly reduce the impact of long-term blackouts due to an EMP event. The original estimated cost of protecting America’s power grid was roughly $2 billion. That cost is not much if spread to all consumers. And there is now evidence that new technology will make it possible to protect the grid for a fraction of that amount.

Representatives Trent Franks and Pete Sessions have introduced legislation that would move America forward in protecting our electronic grid. The cost of protecting us is minimal compared to the toll we would pay in lives and lifestyle if we fail to protect America from an EMP.