Carbon emissions are rising but global temperatures aren’t rising as fast as many scientists predicted. So instead the rhetoric about climate change is what is on the rise. Climate change alarmists are making statements that do not match the facts.

Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, provides some examples of some of the extreme claims made by alarmists. He rightly argues that these worst-case stories are a poor foundation for sound policies.

Alarmists point to Artic sea ice that is melting but ignore that their computer models also predicted Antarctic sea ice would decrease. The ice in the Antarctic is increasing. They worry that sea levels are rising, but sea levels have been rising long before our current industrial period. The most recent papers show a small decline in the rate of sea-level increase.

Every weather phenomenon these days seems to be blamed on global warming. We are told that is why we are seeing more and more droughts. But a study in the journal Nature actually shows a decrease in the world’s surface that has been affected by droughts since 1982. Hurricanes are also blamed on climate change. Yet the only thing that is going up appears to be the damage costs from hurricanes. And that is due to the fact that more people, with more expensive homes and property, are living near coastlines that have annual hurricanes. If you adjust for population and wealth, hurricane damage has actually decreased.

If you dig into the Oxford University database for deaths from floods, extreme temperatures, droughts and storms, you find that the death rates are dropping. Economic development is the primary reason. A hurricane may damage homes in Florida but will kill few people. A hurricane in a poor country like the Philippines will kill many more people and devastate the economy.

The super-heated rhetoric of climate-change alarmists does not advance the discussion about policy alternatives. It causes the average citizen to roll his or her eyes and turn a deaf ear to the debate. These doomsayers are losing credibility because of their climate alarmism.

Today is George Washington’s birthday. He was actually born on February 11, 1731 according to the Julian calendar. But later the colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar making his birthday February 22. But now the federal government declared the third Monday in February as his birthday.

In his eulogy for George Washington, Henry Lee said he was, “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” We could also say that Washington demonstrated Christian character both in war and in peace.

One of his orders while serving as the general in the Revolutionary War was to establish chaplains. He wrote that: “All chaplains are to perform divine service tomorrow, and on every succeeding Sunday . . . The commander in chief expects an exact compliance with this order . . . and every neglect will be consider not only a breach of orders, but a disregard to decency, virtue and religion.”

Washington grew even more explicit as the war dragged on: “While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of a Christian.”

In his inaugural address, Washington said: “No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.”

He issued a thanksgiving proclamation in 1789 in which he asserted “the duty of all nations” in regard to God. And in his farewell address, he reminded Americans that: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports.”

Washington demonstrated Christian character in war and in peace.

Most Americans do not like the idea that Sharia law could be implemented in the United States. That is why more than half dozen states have already passed a ban on Sharia law either through the legislature or through a ballot measure. States like Alabama, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Tennessee have such bans. Oklahoma voters approved a ban that was struck down by a federal appeals court. Missouri passed a measure banning foreign law, but the governor vetoed the bill.

Opponents argue that these bans are unnecessary. But they need to read the report from the Center for Security Policy on “Shariah law and the American State Courts.” They found 50 significant cases of Sharia law in U.S. courts just from their small sample of appellate published cases. When they looked at state courts, they found an additional 15 cases in the trial courts and 12 more in the appellate courts. Judges are making decisions deferring to Sharia law even when those decisions conflict with the U.S. Constitution and the various state constitutions.

How should we respond to the increased use of Sharia law in America? Here is a simple way to explain your concern to legislators, family, friends, and neighbors. Remember the numbers 1-8-14. These three numbers stand for the three amendments to the U.S. Constitution that prevents the use of Sharia law.

The First Amendment says that there should be no establishment of religion. Sharia law is based on one religion’s interpretation of rights. The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of any national religion (including Islam).

The Eighth Amendment prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment.” Most Americans would consider the penalties handed down under Sharia law to be cruel and unusual.

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees each citizen equal protection under the Constitution. Sharia law does not treat men and women equally, nor does it treat Muslims and non-Muslims equally. This also violates the Constitution.

The next time you have a discussion about Sharia law, remember the numbers 1-8-14. Sharia law is unconstitutional.

During certain religious holidays (like Christmas and Easter) you can expect the newsmagazines to trot out a cover story on Jesus, the Bible, or Christianity. They are rarely uplifting to those of us who have a true faith. Often the newsmagazines heavily quote liberal theologians and only mention that there are conservative theologians and millions of Christian who actually believe the Bible and the claims of Christ.

So it was not too surprising that Newsweek magazine started the year of 2015 with a massive cover story on the Bible. But this time, there was no attempt at objectivity. The author begins with this screed. “They wave their Bibles at passersby, screaming their condemnation of homosexuals. They fall on their knees, worshipping at the base of a granite monuments to the Ten Commandments while demanding prayer in school.”

It gets worse as you make your way into the article. But you get the idea. Any pretense of fairness or objectivity flew out the window in the first two paragraphs. Do you recognize this crude caricature of Bible-believing Christians? I don’t.

Dr. Albert Mohler posted a blog to respond to some of the outrageous statements in the Newsweek article. When he was on my radio program, we dealt with a number of them. The Newsweek author argues that we all are reading a bad translation of the Bible and makes much of the fact that the story about the woman caught in adultery isn’t in the oldest manuscripts of the gospel of John. The first claim is wrong. The second one is something most Bible students and all seminary students know. I doubt anyone would accept the author’s claim that the story was “made up sometime in the Middle Ages.”

You can read the blog by Al Mohler if you want to get more details. He concludes that: “no honest historian would recognize the portrait of Christian history presented in this essay as accurate and no credible journalist would recognize this screed as balanced.”

It might be tempting to just ignore such articles, but people read it and believe it. That is why we should follow 1 Peter 3:15 and always be ready to give an answer.

White House spokesmen have lately been claiming that the Taliban is not a terrorist organization. We can speculate as to why the Obama administration is making this argument in a moment, but let’s look at the facts.

Under federal law, a group qualifies as a “foreign terrorist organization” if it meets three requirements. First, it must be foreign. Second, it must be engaged in “terrorist activity” which would include bombings or assassinations. Third, it must be a national security threat to the United States.

I would think that anyone looking at the facts would have to conclude that the Taliban in Afghanistan qualifies as a terrorist organization. The reason the U.S. sent troops into Afghanistan was due to its involvement in global jihad. When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan they allowed groups like al-Qaeda to set up headquarters there and attack U.S. embassies and eventually to attack America on 9/11. The Taliban still has alliances with groups like Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Andrew McCarthy believes he knows the reason why the current administration does not want to call the Taliban a terrorist organization. They try to distinguish between “insurgents” and “terrorists.” To them, an insurgency is just a domestic uprising. But if they use terrorist tactics, McCarthy argues that at the least they should be called domestic terrorists. And the Taliban is more than just an Afghanistan phenomenon.

Andrew McCarthy understands these issues. He is a former federal prosecutor who convicted the notorious “Blind Sheikh” and other jihadists who attempted in 1993 to destroy the World Trade Center. McCarthy believes the Obama administration continues to reject the terrorist label for the Taliban because the administration wants to negotiate with the Taliban. As a nation, we have rejected the idea of negotiating with terrorists because that might encourage them to engage in more terrorist acts. Instead, the administration believes it should negotiate with the Taliban as “insurgents.”

This administration may not want to call the Taliban a terrorist organization, but their attempt doesn’t square with the facts.

Dr. Al Mohler recently wrote about the conflict between religious liberty and erotic liberty. He says we are witnessing an unavoidable conflict between the two because erotic liberty is being claimed on the basis of sexual identity and activity. Whenever there is a conflict between religious liberty and erotic liberty, we are being told that religious liberty must lose.

One example he uses is the decision to fire Atlanta’s fire chief Kelvin Cochran. He was fired because of his religious beliefs, and specifically what we wrote in a booklet used in a men’s Bible study. When a few city employees got a copy of the book, they made this an issue. The mayor of Atlanta fired him, even though Cochran has had exemplary service in the fire department.

Just days after his firing, openly homosexual columnist Frank Bruni wrote an essay with the provocative title, “Your God and My Dignity.” He argues that it is absurd for conservative Christians to claim their religious liberty is endangered. They are free to believe whatever they want within the walls of the church. Actually, he seems to contradict even that later in the essay when he laments that churches can adopt a “ministerial exception” to hiring homosexuals.

But let’s leave that aside for a moment to look at the bigger issue. Bruni argued that religious freedom generally should be restricted to “religious services or what happens in a church, temple, or mosque.” In other words, religious liberty applies to freedom of worship. Believe what you will and practice what you believe inside the church. But don’t bring those ideas into the public arena.

Al Mohler warns that the “front lines of the battle for religious liberty will be at the door of your congregation very soon.” At best, we are being told that we have “freedom of worship” within the church walls. That’s not very much. Al Mohler asks, “What about the right of religious schools to hire, admit, and house on the basis of Christian moral judgment?”

Both the actions of politicians and words of columnists show that they believe that whenever religious liberty and erotic liberty conflict, religious liberty must lose.

Should America be the world’s policeman? That was a question I asked my radio audience when I had Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Bret Stephens on to talk about his book, America In Retreat. His argument is that world situations are aflame because America has decided to retreat from a role it inherited after World War II. We currently have a foreign policy that is heavy on rhetoric and light on action.

A key part of his argument can be seen in what is often called the “broken window theory.” In the late 1960s, Philip Zimbardo parked a car on a street in the Bronx, with the hood up and without license plates. Within minutes, vandals began to strip the car of anything valuable. By the next day, people were destroying the car, ripping up upholstery and smashing windows.

He conducted the same experiment in Palo Alto, near the Stanford University campus. This time the car (with hood up and license plates removed) sat untouched for days. Then Dr. Zimbardo smashed a window. That changed everything. With a few hours, the car was destroyed.

This study shows that social disorder and crime are linked. The same principle applies to what is happening in the world. If the world is in disorder and the world’s policeman does nothing, it emboldens others. A Syrian dictator murders thousands. America does nothing. The Russian president seizes Crimea. The radical Muslim group ISIS begins taking land in Syria and Iraq. These are not unrelated actions. This is what happens in a broken-windows world.

Bret Stephens says that at the very least we should provide the military with what it needs to project force and once again become a deterrent. Increasing the military budget to previous levels (around 5 percent of GDP) would allow the Navy to build needed ships and the Air Force to replace a fleet of aircraft whose planes are the oldest in its history.

The world needs a policeman who is willing to walk the beat in order to prevent bad guys from taking over large parts of the world.

The Supreme Court is ready to once again rule on same-sex marriage, and various cities are passing sexual orientation laws. Is there anything you and your church can do to protect itself from lawsuits and government action?

Last week I had Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel on my radio program. We spent part of our time talking about the constitutional and cultural issues surrounding the impending decision by the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage. Then I turned the conversation to what churches and Christian organizations can do. We should all be in prayer about the decision by the Supreme Court. But there are some changes churches might make to their bylaws and constitution that can protect them.

His website has many wise suggestions about what can be written into the church bylaws. One safeguard is to have a written policy about church facilities. This should state that the church property and facilities cannot be used for any activity or speech that is contrary to the religious belief or practice of the church. Some churches might even limit the use of church facilities only to members of the church, but that might be more restrictive than a church might want to implement.

In order for this addition to the bylaws to be effective, it would be wise to add something to the doctrinal statement about marriage. It would state that the church accepts the historic Christian position that marriage is the union of one man and woman. It could add that the church believes that marriage and family are the foundation of society.

In the past, many churches have included a statement about sin and church discipline. A church member who engages in a sinful sexual practice (either heterosexual or homosexual) will face discipline from the leadership of the church. It would be wise to add some language about the church ministers and church staff. State that they cannot be forced to use their position in any way that undermines the teachings of the church and the Bible.

I would encourage churches and church leaders to evaluate what they might add to their bylaws in order to protect them and their congregation.