Is a prayer before a town meeting constitutional? That is a question the Supreme Court will be deciding. Earlier this month, the high court heard oral arguments on a case from Greece, New York. They begin their town board meetings with prayer from anyone who is willing to offer one. Most of the prayers are from Christians. But there have been a very small number from other faiths, like Wicca and Baha’i.

A local resident petitioned the board to stop praying altogether. The board refused and the case has now made it all the way to the Supreme Court because of the lower rulings. The Second Circuit Court ruled that the “steady drumbeat of Christian invocations violates the Constitution’s prohibition against government endorsement of religion.” Of course, that is not the fault of the town’s leaders. There are just a lot more Christians wanting to offer prayers than people from other religions.

David Cortman with the Alliance Defending Freedom has been one of the attorney’s representing the town of Greece, New York. He was on my radio program to explain the case. He believes that “community leaders should have the freedom to pray without being censored.” He and others who filed briefs in the case reminded the court that opening meetings in prayer has been a cherished tradition and religious freedom that even precedes the establishment of this republic.

In my office I have a poster of a painting that depicts the first time the Continental Congress met. They wanted to open in prayer but faced a choice of which pastor and denomination to choose. Samuel Adams said he was not a “bigot” and could hear a prayer from any man who loved his God and his country. The painting shows these men on their knees praying.

It is also worth noting that the same members of Congress who passed the First Amendment also were the ones who established the tradition of chaplains who open each session of Congress with prayer. And the Supreme Court has ruled in other cases that prayers before a meeting are constitutional. We should hope and pray that the justices on the Supreme Court remember these precedents as they consider how they will rule on this case.

The latest research by the Barna Group has uncovered three trends that are redefining the information age. Social media (like Twitter and Facebook) along with other digital platforms (like eBooks and mobile apps) are changing the way we are processing information. We are now much more likely to scroll and skim rather than read in depth.

The first trend the Barna Group identified was the feeling most people have that modern life is accelerating and becoming more complex. A majority of adults believe life has become more complicated.

Those who feel the greatest strains fall into two groups. The first are those who lack certain social supports like quality education, a stable income, or a spouse with whom they can face life’s challenges. The second group is people of faith who are more likely to feel that life is getting more complex.

A second trend is the reality that more and more people are becoming accustomed to skimming content. More than 7 out of 10 affirm this self-description. This is understandable. In a 24-hour news cycle, “keeping up” can be hard work.

A third trend is the desire on the part of many to move beyond mere facts and information. They are looking for a holistic integration of faith and life. They want to be informed, but they want that information in a way that gives them a meaningful life. Put another way, we don’t want more data. We want meaning and want to know what all of this data means to us personally.

For Christians this means a “rich integration of faith and life.” A sizable majority of practicing Christians say they want to know how their faith speaks to the current issues they face. But even American adults in general say they are searching for ways their faith addresses current challenges and opportunities.

Put simply, we are overwhelmed with data and information. We are looking for people and organizations like churches and Christian media that can give meaning to this overload of information.

Lots of myths surround the subject of divorce. One of the most pervasive is the concept of a good divorce. Book titles like The Good Divorce, Collaborative Divorce, and Happy Divorce keep coming.

Diane Medved has seen enough and wrote a great column in USA Today on the myth that divorce is good. She is certainly qualified to write on this subject. She is married to film critic and radio talk show host Michael Medved. She also wrote a book many years ago with the title: The Case Against Divorce.

She points out that the claims that divorced couple settle amicably and are better for the decision doesn’t hold up. Family researcher Maggie Gallagher noted that 80 percent of U.S. divorces “are unilateral, rather than truly mutual decisions.”

Children are often “collateral damage” when a divorce takes place. Judith Wallerstein is the author of a landmark 25-year study of divorced families. She rejects the cliché that “kids are resilient.” She documented the negative impact divorce had on children and showed that it continued into their adult years. She found that “many of these . . . children forfeited their own childhoods as they took responsibility for themselves, their troubled, overworked parents; and their siblings.”

The increase in divorce has also changed our perception of marriage. Diane Medved says that our notion of commitment has become shorter. Couples walking down the aisle hope their marriage will last, but they have much less assurance that their marriage will last in a culture where divorce it so prevalent.

Divorce has also decoupled paternity from marriage. The latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that 48 percent of women cohabited with a partner as a first union. The overall out-of-wedlock birth rate is now at 40 percent.

Not all marriages can survive, especially when one partner strays sexually or is hopelessly addicted or abusive. But we now live in a world where divorce has become commonplace, and that is not good for marriage, family, and children.

Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy signed legislation creating a federally funded Community Mental Health Centers program. It was the last piece of major legislation signed by President Kennedy. Fuller Torrey of the Treatment Advocacy Center reminds us of the significance of this in a recent column.

Torrey has been advocating a change in the way we deal with mental illness. It is the reason we have so many problems in society. Untreated mentally ill people are the reason for clogged hospital emergency rooms and scores of homeless people on our streets and in our parks. According to the Department of Justice, approximately 15 percent of prison inmates and 20 percent of jail inmates are seriously mentally ill.

As I have mentioned in previous commentaries, the seriously mentally ill are also responsible for many of the mass killings. These killings have taken place at Virginia Tech, Tucson, Newtown, Aurora, and the Washington Navy Yard.

The goal of the legislation signed by President Kennedy was to remove the mentally ill from mental institutions and place them in state and local facilities where they would receive comprehensive mental health services. Torrey explains that: “We did an excellent job of emptying state hospitals but an atrocious job of providing treatment in the community.”

He proposes that we call this 50-year federal experiment a failure and reverse course. Let states do what is best both for the mentally ill and for the citizens adversely affected by putting the seriously mentally ill out on the streets. For 150 years, the care of mentally ill people was the responsibility of the states or local communities. It is time to rethink the way we treat the mentally ill.

America is paying a heavy price for a 50-year experiment that has put strains on our hospitals and communities. And if we are really serious about preventing future mass killings, we should follow the recommendations of Fuller Torrey.

Attending a top university and graduating at the top of your class is often an important key to success. Unfortunately, that is not true if you plan to be a federal judge. That’s the conclusion of John Lott in his latest book, Dumbing Down the Courts.

He tracked the federal judge appointments over the last four decades and found some startling statistics. Graduates of the top ten law schools who also served on their school’s law review had a 30 percent lower confirmation rate than their peers. He also found the confirmation took 65 percent longer for those who did reach a federal judicial post. And he also found that the confirmation length for graduates of the top law schools who distinguished themselves further by getting clerkships on circuit courts and then the Supreme Court was 158 percent longer. Put simply: there seems to be a bias against the best and the brightest when it comes to federal court appointments.

To illustrate why this is so, John Lott explained that someone like me probably doesn’t get to serve on many juries. A lawyer would look at someone who could sway other jurors as a potential problem. So lawyers on either side would want to use a peremptory challenge to keep me off a jury.

The same seems to hold true for judges on a federal court. A smart and persuasive judge could influence other judges to change their votes. Liberals don’t want smart, influential conservatives on the court. Conservatives don’t want intelligent, articulate liberals on the court. While this is true of both parties, John Lott did find that a Republican nominee usually faces more difficult confirmations.

This problem has grown worse over time because the courts are making more and more decisions. Thus, the stakes are higher. When Ronald Reagan was president, it took an average of 68 days to get his nominees confirmed. By the time George W. Bush was president, the average wait was 362 days.

John Lott’s book is a reminder of how dysfunctional the judicial confirmation process has become. We are the worse for it.

Throughout the debate on health care we heard the president and many members of Congress repeat the mantra that “if you like your policy, you can keep your policy.” Although many critics at the time doubted whether that would be true, only now are many people finding out that it is not true for them.

The reaction to the other mantra has been even more visceral. We are also told that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” As reality sets in, many citizens realize that will not be true for them either. Insurance policies come and go, but losing your family doctor has become the last straw for many people.

Jonah Goldberg uses an illustration that captures the current situation and helps explain why people are becoming so angry. Like all illustrations, it’s not perfect but it’s close.

He says, “Say I like my current car. The government says under some new policy I will be able to keep it and maybe even lower my car payments. But once the policy is imposed, I’m told my car now isn’t street-legal. Worse, I will have to buy a much more expensive car or be fined by the IRS. But, hey, it’ll be a much better car. Why even though you live in Death Valley, your new car will have great snow tires and heated seats.”

Three years ago, we were told that health care reform would lower our premium costs. I never believed that, but many probably did. We would also told we could keep our policy if we liked it. Instead, as many as 16 millions Americans will lose their individual policies. Now they have to buy a more expensive policy. And when they get another policy, it will require mandates they would never use. A woman in her 60s needs maternity care about as much as a person in Death Valley needs snow tires and heated seats.

I think the car illustration helps explain why so many are angry and frustrated. People are being forced to buy something they don’t want and don’t need and have to pay more for it.

For years, politicians and pundits have tried to separate the social issues from the economic issues. Social issues (like abortion and marriage) supposedly have nothing to do with economic issues (like the national debt or entitlements). They are much more connected than many liberals and libertarians would like to admit. That is why I wanted to highlight a recent column by Star Parker.

She says it is “simply false that we can consider the challenges to our federal budget without thinking about the state of the American family, our birthrates, and abortion.” Our federal entitlement programs (Social Security and Medicare) nearly account for a majority of our federal budget.

Many of these programs focus primarily on the elderly and are financed through the payroll taxes of the younger population that is working. The ratio between workers and retirees has been decreasing every year. When we had 40 workers for every one recipient, the system worked well. Now the ratio is down to three to one.

Americans are also living longer and having fewer children. Birthrates are dropping significantly. Reasons for the decline include birth control, later marriage, and fewer women choosing to have children. One significant factor often ignored by the media is abortion. One of my guests (Jerry Tuma) created a chart that added in the children aborted to the demographic profile of baby boomers, baby busters, and later generations. It is easy to see the impact abortion is having and will have on paying for federal entitlements.

We cannot change the past, but certainly we might learn from it as we plan for the future. I agree with Star Parker that the best thing that could happen to America’s economic picture would be a “renaissance in American family life” that would include a “restoration of marriage and children” and a “purge of the scourge of abortion.” Economic issues and social issues are more connected than many people might think.

Here is an interesting fact. Families in San Francisco give almost exactly the same amount to charity each year as families in South Dakota. Arthur Brooks talked about this in his book, Who Really Cares? He went on to explain that these two communities were very different. They were separated by not only geography but by many cultural differences.

Their donations to charity also represented a significant difference due to income. The average San Francisco family made (back when the book was written) nearly twice as much each year as a family in South Dakota. Put another way, an average South Dakota family gave away 75 percent more of its household income each year than the average family in San Francisco. When Brooks asked an executive of a foundation in South Dakota why people in her state gave so much more, she had a simple answer: religion.

People of faith give much more than secular people. In his book, he divides Americans into four groups to show their differences in giving to charity.

Religious conservatives are the largest group of the four. They represent 24 percent of all Protestants, 19 percent of Catholics, along with a number of other religious groups. This group is most likely to give money to charity and they give away the most money.

Religious liberals are the smallest of the four groups. They are almost as likely to give as religious conservatives. They are a little less likely to volunteer

Secular conservatives are much less likely to give to charity. They are also much less likely to volunteer or help people in need. Secular liberals are the second largest group and have the highest average income. Nevertheless they are poor givers, even to secular charities they might be expected to support.

The obvious conclusion is that faith makes a big difference in whether someone gives time or money to a charity.