Do our leaders still value the wisdom of the founders? American presidents no longer quote the founders of America the way the used to in their speeches. This thought ran through my mind as I read the latest book by Dr. Paul Kengor on the “11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative.”

He has a section on the founder’s wisdom and vision. Ronald Reagan placed great faith not only in America but especially in the American founders. It was their vision, he believed, that paved the way to America’s success.

Every president has invoked our nation’s founding fathers. But some have done so more than others. President Obama rarely talks about the founding fathers and when he did recently, he called them “men of property and wealth.” Other presidents mentioned the founding fathers more frequently.

Paul Kengor researched this in the official Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Most of the presidents quoted from the founders in the range of 100-200 times. John Kennedy was approximately 160 times. Lyndon Johnson at roughly 240 times. Nixon and Clinton were around 100 times.

Some presidents (like Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush) infrequently quoted the founders. In the case of presidents Ford and Carter this is indeed puzzling, since their time in office was during the American bicentennial.

As you can probably guess by now, the president who quoted the founders the most was Ronald Reagan. He cited them some 850 times. No president in modern times quoted the founders as much as Ronald Reagan. He not only quoted Jefferson, Washington, and Lincoln. He also quoted the early founders from pilgrims to John Winthrop to William Penn.

This statistical analysis reminds us of what we are losing. Americans no longer hear about our history from our presidents. Fewer American students hear about our history in their classrooms. We are losing the memory of the wisdom and vision of our founders.

Many scientific studies demonstrate the long-term effects of marijuana use. Last summer, for example, I documented a few examples from medical journals.

The British Journal of Psychiatry “reviewed four large studies, all of which showed a significant and consistent association between consumption of marijuana

(mostly during teenage years or early 20s) and the later development of schizophrenia.” Likewise a study published in the British medical journal Lancet

concluded that marijuana use increases the risk of young people developing psychotic illness, such as schizophrenia.

Earlier this month came the first study, done by researchers at Northwestern University, which examined the relationships between casual marijuana use and

brain changes. Their findings published in the Journal of Neuroscience, found “significant abnormalities in two important brain structures.” These abnormalities

in the working memory of your brain affect judgments, decisions, and planning.

It is worth mentioning the subjects of their study. Their sample of patients included young people between the ages of 18 and 25. The casual marijuana users

were compared to a group of well-match control subjects. Some used marijuana once or twice a week, while others used it every day. The researchers then

used MRIs to evaluate the brains of the participants.

Abnormalities were found in all of the marijuana users. They were also dose-dependent. That means that the changes were greater with the amount of

marijuana use. Future longitudinal studies might answer the question of whether the effects continue or decline if a marijuana user quits.

Because the brain regions affected are important in motivation, the studies confirm what many of us have noticed. Marijuana users become less oriented

toward goals and purpose in their life. They also seem less focused.

At the time when states like Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana and other states are considering legalization, we are learning more about the

deleterious effects of marijuana use. Not only are long-time users affected, but casual users are also affected. Legislators should reconsider this issue.

How important is church to spiritual growth? Apparently lots of Americans don’t think church attendance is all that important. The Barna Group recently asked this question: What helps you grow in your faith? They received lots of answers: “prayer, family or friends, reading the Bible, having children.” Unfortunately “church did not even crack the top-10 list.”

When asked about church, Americans were split down the middle. Half (49%) said church attendance is important or somewhat important. The other half (51%) does not think it’s important.

Future trends are not encouraging. The Millennial generation is the least likely to value church attendance. Only 2 out of 10 believe it is important. The Barna Group also reports that more than one-third of Millennials (35%) take an anti-church stance.

The quick response from some is that the young often leave church but will return. If you have read any of the books written over the last few years about the attitudes of the Millennial generation, you have to be skeptical about that prediction. But even if you believe they will return you must at least admit that the young adults today are starting from a lower baseline for church participation than previous generations of young adults.

The study by Probe Ministries done in conjunction with the Barna Group also found that many born-again Millennials also felt church was optional. In order to participate in the survey, you had to be between the ages of 18-40 and have had a born-again experience that was still meaningful in your life.

The survey found that born-again Millennials divide into thirds. One third attend church on a regular basis and have a biblical worldview. One third attend church but do not have a biblical worldview. And a final third do not attend church and do not have a biblical worldview.

Put another way, half of these young adults in church don’t have a biblical worldview. You have to wonder how long they will stay in church if they aren’t looking at their life from a biblical perspective. The latest Barna surveys remind us we have lots of work to do.

The United States just set another record. It’s not a record we would like to brag about. The federal government set a new record by issuing final rules that consume 26,416 pages of the Federal Register. President Obama and his administration have passed a milestone in the number of regulations in one year. No other president and administration have even come close.

The latest evaluation of these regulations comes from the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Wayne Crews publishes an annual review of federal regulations with the provocative title, “Ten Thousand Commandments.”

There are 3,659 actual “final” rules in the Federal Register. Those must be obeyed immediately. Then there are 2,594 proposed rules that will no doubt be finalized and then must be obeyed in the future. I might also mention that another 3,305 regulations are moving through the pipeline and will probably be imposed in the future.

There is a cost to these regulations. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial laments that often “politicians and the media treat regulations as a largely cost-free public good.” They are not. Wayne Crews estimates that the economic impact of regulatory compliance in American is about $1.9 trillion annually. This equals the annual GDP of countries like Australia or Canada.

These regulations cost America in other ways. It makes U.S. businesses less competitive. It drives businesses and corporations overseas. And when goods and services do remain in this country, we pay for them because of the costs are embedded in the prices of these goods and services.

Do we need regulatory control? Of course we do. Do we need all of these government agencies making all of these regulations? I think we know the answer to that question.

It is time for Congress to put a halt to a bureaucracy that is making rules and regulations faster and faster. It is time for bold members of Congress to stand up and say the word, STOP.

Brain researchers have found that we respond differently to higher prices with what they are calling a “money illusion.” Researchers at California Institute of Technology and Stanford University reported that the higher the price tag that wine tasters saw on a bottle of wine, the more “pleasantness” they experienced from drinking it. In other words, their brain told them to expect a higher quality because they saw the higher price on the label.

Craig Smith in his book, The Great Withdrawal, uses this research to talk about all the ways this influences our economy. For example, the money illusion influences people to respond favorably to larger numeric quantities of money, even if the quantity has a lower purchasing power.

It can also explain how we have been reacting to inflation. The price of everything has been going up for decades. You could just as easily call the “money illusion” something like the “inflation illusion.” In many ways we as individuals and as society as a whole have become addicted to inflation.

Economist Milton Freidman used to compare inflation to alcoholism. “When the alcoholic starts drinking,” he said, “the good effects come first.” But the next morning are the bad effects (hangover, etc.). He said that the “parallel with inflation is exact.” The initial effects on a country seem good (business is brisk, people are happy). Increased spending starts to raise prices and workers find their paycheck doesn’t go as far. When wages go up, we feel like we are moving up. Actually, we are just trying to stay even.

The solution to alcoholism and spending is to stop. That is why Craig Smith calls his book The Great Withdrawal. Just like the alcoholic, we have to go through withdrawal. This is hard for Americans to do since the “inflation illusion” makes you feel like you are doing better than you are. I think this explains why very few people seem too concerned about rising prices and increased government spending. Our brains are telling us that everything is getting better, even when its not.

Today is Earth Day. When the first Earth Day was held in 1970, nearly 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums. Back then there were significant environmental concerns about our air and water. I participated by inviting a leader that I knew at the Sierra Club to come to my high school and speak. Many people believe this celebration launched the modern environmental movement.

Looking back I have noticed two significant changes that are worth noting. First, the environmental movement has embraced the philosophy of pantheism. Many of the leaders have gone from protecting the environment to worshipping the creation. I began to notice this in the 1970s. Now it is visible to anyone to see in many of the celebrations that will be taking place today.

Some leaders even call for the worship of Gaia and Mother Earth. According to this view, human beings have damaged or even destroyed the fragile balance of nature. And they believe we need to embrace this New Age perspective to bring balance back to the earth.

A second change I have noticed is in the complexity of the issues. Back in the 1970s, it was pretty clear what the problems were and what we needed to do. Air pollution and water pollution needed political and technological solutions. The problems were easy to spot, and the solutions were pretty obvious.

Now many of the issues are much more complex. Take global warming, for example. In previous commentaries, I have talked about some of the fundamental questions about what we can and should do to deal with climate change. The answer is not as clear as previous environmental questions.

A number of years ago, a panel (that included three Nobel Laureates in economics) evaluated strategies to deal with major problems facing humanity. When they listed these alternatives in descending order of effectiveness, things like treating communicable disease and hunger were at the top of the list while dealing with climate change were at the bottom of the list.

If we are to be wise stewards of this planet, we are going to need to make wise decisions about complex issues.

Tomorrow is Earth Day, and I expect we will hear lots of warnings about potential environmental disasters. We don’t want to discount all of these predictions, but we should also exercise some discernment when we hear these warnings.

When I was in college, a report by the Club of Rome warned of impending environmental disasters. It said we would run out of various essential minerals by the 1980s and would run out of petroleum and natural gas by the early 1990s. That didn’t take place and illustrates the need to view many of these warnings with a few grains of salt.

Walter Williams talked about some of these wild predictions in one of his columns. He pointed out that Stanford professor Paul Ehrlich predicted there would be a major food shortage in the U.S. and that “hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death” in the 1970s. He went on to forecast that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980 and 1989. He had even gloomier predictions for England. He said: “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.”

He was not alone in his warnings. In 1975, the Environmental Fund took out full-page ads warning, “The World as we know it will likely be ruined by year 2000.” And Harvard professor George Wald in 1970 warned, “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

It is also instructive to remember that the fear forty years ago was not global warming but global cooling. Environmentalist Nigel Calder warned at the first Earth Day that: “The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind.” C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization said: “The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed.”

The next time you hear an environmental warning, remember that many of them just never took place.

Sundays are the worst day for many waiters and people in the service industry. That is what you would conclude as you read the stores of bakers, pizza delivery drivers, and people in the food service industry. You can find them at a website called “Sundays Are the Worst” created by a pastor in Kingsport, Tennessee.

Jim Denison wrote about the website in his daily “Denison Forum on Truth and Culture” blog and talked with me about it when he was on my radio program. Most of us have heard some anecdotes about how rude and demanding Christians can sometimes be to people serving them. The stories on this website are eye opening and heart breaking. Most of the stories are from very hard-working people who deal with critical Christians who don’t even think about the fact that a generous tip might be the difference between them paying rent or having to work another part-time job.

A pizza delivery driver lives in a community with lots of churches. He has two other jobs, but works this one because he is a single dad. When a church makes a large order, he has to carry 100 pounds of food up and down stairs in a church. He is often treated poorly, even told that he was a lazy kid who made bad choices. He depends on tips (that are often meager or nonexistent) to feed his son and pay for gas to respond to calls. Then after all of this ill treatment, some of the members invite him to attend their church.

Let’s also acknowledge that this isn’t always the case. Jim Denison points to one survey that found that “the vast majority of Christians tipped at or above the normative 15 percent of bill size.” This illustrates the sad reality that one bad experience is remembered much longer than 30 positive experiences. We all tend to remember the insults much longer than compliments.

I hope you will remember this as we go into the weekend. If you are a pastor, I hope you might say something from the pulpit. The world is watching us. We should have a good testimony before others.