Whenever I do a radio program on abuse and domestic violence, I often wonder if women sometimes ignore clues that their future husband will abuse them. Apparently I am not the only one thinking about this. Dr. Laura Riley recently wrote an article with the helpful title: “How to Spot an Abuser Before It’s Too Late.” She asks nine questions that can be predictors of future abuse.

1. How does your date handle stress? Does he solve problems with words? She has found in more than three decades of clinical experience that abusers are often unable to solve conflicts verbally. Under stress, words fail them.

2. Is your date possessive? It may seem romantic that he calls eight times a day but this could be a sign of possessiveness, especially if he begins driving away your friends.

3. Is he excessively jealous? Abusers are insecure and afraid of losing you to other men. Does he get angry when you talk to other men?

4. Does he say you’re the special one, the only person who understands him?

5. Does your date’s treatment of people depend on their rank? Often an abuser can be charming to the boss and a tyrant to others. He can be one person in public and a very different person in private.

6. Does he get mean or violent when he drinks?

7. Does he blame others for his problems? Abusers blame their victims for doing things that make them explode or lash out. They don’t take responsibility for their violence.

8. Is he moody? Abusers are often unpredictable in their moods. Victims learn to tiptoe around them to avoid their wrath.

9. How does he handle frustration? If your date hits you or breaks something of yours, it’s goodbye.

I might add that these can also apply to men dating women. Both men and woman can be abusers. Let me end by asking if you know someone who needs to read this. If so, pass it on.

The word “impeachment” is once again in the air. Some want the president brought up on charges of impeachment, while others hope to use it as a campaign issue in the fall. With all this talk of impeachment, it seems like a good time to review the origin and history of the concept.

Article I, Section 2 gives to the House of Representatives “the sole power of impeachment.” Article I, Section 3 says that the Senate “shall have the sole power to try all impeachments” while the Chief Justice presides.

It seems clear that the framers of the Constitution intended impeachment to be a necessary part of the checks and balances of government. It was crucial to a republic they intended to be a limited government with a separation of powers.

Alexander Hamilton writing in Federalist Paper #65 said that impeachment was necessary “for those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” It seems clear that the framers intended that the power of impeachment would be used more frequently than it has been used.

That has not been the case. Only three presidents faced impeachment. In 1868, the House impeached President Andrew Johnson. The Senate heard the charges and failed to convict him. President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974 after the House Judiciary voted to impeach him. And President Clinton was impeached in 1998 and acquitted the next year.

I might also add that the Senate passed a resolution of censure against President Andrew Jackson. Did that have any effect? Pull out a twenty-dollar bill and see whose picture is on it. Sadly, impeachment and censure haven’t had much of an impact.

Some argue that they can make a strong case for impeachment of this president. That may be true. You can also make the strong case that the president would not be removed from office. Voting for impeachment would mostly be a distraction during this election year.

The immigration surge at our southern border has not only created a humanitarian crisis but also has the potential to collapse our immigration system. There simply are not enough ICE agents and other government officials to effectively deal with this illegal immigration invasion.

Some members of Congress believe this was intentional, that is was part of a Cloward-Piven strategy to overwhelm America. Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were professors at Columbia University (where the president attended as an undergraduate student). They proposed a strategy intended to overload America’s welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis. Doing so, they believed, would force politicians to replace the current welfare system with a national system of “a guaranteed annual income.”

Representative Steve King (R-IA) said he feels the current crisis in an “attempt to flood the border with illegals” and “is playing out the Cloward-Piven theory.” Representative Steve Stockman (R-TX) also believes the administration “is trying to do a Cloward-Piven thing with the border.”

Was this immigration surge intentional or accidental? There is good evidence at least that the government was preparing for this. Back in January the Department of Homeland Security put out a purchase order for escort services for 65,000 unaccompanied illegal alien children. A funding report for the Department of Justice asked for funding for “a pilot unaccompanied alien children program.”

Whether this immigration surge was intentional or accidental is a topic for others discuss. The reality is that we have tens of thousands of unaccompanied children crossing into America. They are not being sent back. A leaked Homeland Security memo admitted that “only 0.1 percent of the Central American minors illegally entering the U.S.” were deported in the last fiscal year.

There is no reason to believe that many more will be sent back to their home countries. I expect some liberal judges to rule against deportation, and we all know that continuous media stories will drive public opinion against deportation. Whether intentional or accidental, the Cloward-Piven strategy is unfolding before our eyes.

In a recent editorial, Merrill Matthews reminds us that America has now passed the entitlements tipping point. As you might have guessed, Obamacare is what has pushed the United States over the tipping point. Nearly 7 million Americans who have signed up for Obamacare receive taxpayer-provided subsidies, and another 3 million have signed up for Medicaid. This brings the total of 161 million Americans who are now getting government subsidies of some kind.

In the past there have been politicians complaining that we have too many people in the wagon and too few people pulling the wagon. You even had a presidential candidate lament that too many American are “takers.” Let’s reject some of those stereotypes.

Many of the people receiving government aid deserve it. For example, 42 million seniors are receiving Social Security and Medicare. Merrill Matthew says: “They aren’t getting something for free; they faithfully paid into the system for decades with the expectation that they would be getting it back at retirement.” Of course we can add to this those who receive benefits because of their service in the military or other parts of the government.

My point in raising this issue is not to begrudge those who deserve to receive benefits but to look at the larger issue. More than half (52 percent) of households receive benefits from the government. When a majority receive benefits from government, it will be even harder (perhaps impossible) to reduce spending and balance a budget. Benjamin Franklin warned that: “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” Let’s hope not.

Certainly some people can look past their needs to the needs of the country. I have had people call my radio program who receive Social Security or other government payments who have said they would be willing to sacrifice something if it would help future Americans. But I suspect they are few in number.

It will be even harder to control government spending when a majority of Americans depend on government spending.

Two weeks ago the Supreme Court handed down it’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. You would think that the fuss over their ruling would have died down by now. I should have known better. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal suggested that the liberal reaction was so over the top that you would think the high court imposed Shariah law.

At the heart of the decision is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The 1993 bill passed in the House by a voice vote and in the Senate 97 to 3. President Bill Clinton signed it into law. You can hardly find a better example of bipartisan legislation.

This law requires the government to implement the “least restrictive means” when devising a policy that could affect religious liberty. The justices held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act does cover closely held, family-run businesses like Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties.

Critics (like Justice Ginsburg) predict that companies will demand exemptions from civil rights laws, coverage of blood transfusions, and much more. Where was all the concern about this law before last Monday? The Religious Freedom Restoration Act has been in place for two decades. Only now are we hearing this parade of horribles.

Some legislators have suggested that it is time to narrow the scope of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. But for some, that is not enough. On Twitter you can follow the hashtag: ?repealRFRA. Some legal groups want Congress to completely scrap the law.

On the other side are other religious liberty groups who applaud the decision and believe it will clear the court docket of many of the religious challenges to Obamacare. Last week, a number of religious leaders sent a letter to Congress asking lawmakers not to touch the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

I am ready for this debate. Bring a bill to the floor of Congress so the American people can see who supports religious liberty and who couldn’t care less.

Ed Stetzer has been following and predicting church trends for many years. He sees a number of church trends that all of us should consider.

His first trend is that the word “Christian” will become less frequently used and that will also make the term clearer. Part of the problem is that three-fourths of Americans call themselves Christians. The term obviously means different things to different people.

Ed Stetzer describes three categories of people who call themselves Christians. Cultural Christians say they are Christians because they aren’t atheist or another religion. Congregational Christians have had some loose connection with church (baptism, wedding). Convictional Christians are those who identify themselves as Christians because they orient their life around their faith in Christ. The first two groups are more likely to stop calling themselves Christians, leaving the last group who use it in a more meaningful way.

Another trend he predicts is that “the nominal will increasingly become the nones.” Let’s go back to the categories we just mentioned. The Cultural Christians are more likely to move away from the Christian faith since they aren’t really committed and will be significantly influenced by the culture rather than by biblical principles. And the Congregational Christians are nominal in the sense that they are only casually involved with a church and body of believers.

These two groups of nominal Christians will probably be more influenced by the secularism of the culture. Certainly their children will be affected by the secular culture. Apart from a profound born-again experience, these nominal Christians are likely to become one of the nones. The nones are people who say they have no religious preference.

These two trends remind us that the world around us is changing and that nominal Christians are changing with it. It is call for us to make sure of our commitment to Christ. We should not be conformed to the world and we should avoid being taken captive by the culture.

Liberals come in different forms just as conservatives have different perspectives. Charles Murray argues in a recent op-ed that: “not everyone on the left wants to quash dissent.” He makes a distinction between liberals and progressives. While some might disagree with his definitions, I think most of us would agree that there are significant differences between two groups often given the designation of liberal or progressive.

He explains that: “liberalism has nothing in common with the political mind-set that wants right-of-center speakers kept off campus, rationalized the forced resignation of a CEO who opposes gay marriage, or thinks George F. Will should be fired for writing a column disagreeable to that mind set.”

As a Christian speaker on college campuses, I appreciated that liberal professors would often invite me or other people on our speaking team to address the course topics from a Christian perspective. But there were others (professors and administrators) who did all they could to prevent us from speaking at all on campus. Eventually their numbers and influence grew so much that we rarely had opportunities to speak on college campuses.

We see these two camps in action today in the political arena. Liberals support the right of debate and dissent. Charles Murray uses the example of liberals who gave money to the ACLU in the 1970s even when it defended the right of neo-Nazis to march.

Contrast that with progressives who historically “were in favor of using the state to mold social institutions in the interests of the collective.” Progressives today want to shutdown any debate and demonstrate an intolerance greater than the intolerance they accuse conservatives or Christians of exercising.

Like I said, some may not accept his particular definitions of liberal and progressive. Charles Murray, nevertheless, has reminded us of the difference between these two groups. One camp allows debate even if when the views expressed are antithetical to their position on policy issues. The other group works to stop debate and marginalize anyone who may disagree with them.

Over the last few years, various courts have issued rulings arguing that a state’s marriage amendment violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In a recent column, Ryan T. Anderson takes on this bizarre interpretation. He is the coauthor of the book, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, and has appeared on my radio program.

Let’s begin with some agreement with the court decisions. Most courts that cite the Fourteenth Amendment argue that it “protects the fundamental right to marry.” Ryan Anderson agrees that the Fourteenth Amendment does protect marriage. But the key question in how do you define marriage. The founders, the framers, and the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment all understood marriage to be between one man and one woman. Until a few years ago, every court decision accepted the traditional definition of marriage.

Let’s also acknowledge that the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly define marriage. I doubt any of the founders or framers would ever have thought that would be necessary. So if the Constitution is silent on what marriage is, it would logically follow that states should be able to define what marriage is.

Judge Paul Kelly at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals dissented from two other justices and made this very point. “The Constitution is silent on the regulation of marriage; accordingly, that power is reserved to the States, albeit consistent with federal constitutional guarantees.” Later on he warned the court about the implications. “If the States are the laboratories of democracy, requiring every state to recognize same-gender unions—contrary to the views of the electorate and representatives—turns the notion of a limited national government on its head.”

Ryan Anderson concludes that whatever you might think about marriage, “the courts shouldn’t redefine it. Marriage policy should be worked out through the democratic process, not dictated by unelected judges.” Put simply, the Fourteenth Amendment doesn’t give judges the right to redefine marriage.