I know that many Americans suffer from addictions, but I never ran the numbers and so was shocked by what I read in David Kupelian’s new book, The Snapping of the American Mind. In the midst of his discussion of social problems in America are some sobering chapters about our addictions.

Nearly 25 million Americans are current illicit drug users. Marijuana is the most commonly used drug. Cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and other drugs also are part of that statistic. Add to that alcohol consumption and the estimate that nearly one-quarter of all Americans participated in binge drinking. According to the Department of Health and Human Services: “In an average year, 30 million Americans drive drunk [and] 10 million drive impaired by illicit drugs.”

This means that well over 80 million Americans are intoxicated in one way or another with illegal drugs or alcohol, and 40 million of them have been at one time or another being driving under the influence.

But there is a parallel drug program. This is the rapidly increasing number of people taking medically prescribed but poorly understood, mind-altering psychiatric drugs. This includes such thing as opioid analgesics to suppress pain as well as various mood-altering drugs.

David Kupelian says when you add all of these numbers you can easily estimate that at least 130 million Americans are taking some drug (legal, illegal, alcohol). In a nation of 320 million, 130 million using some sort of drug is astonishing.

Then he begins to document all sorts of other addictions like addictions to sex, pornography, gambling, and even our digital devices. It doesn’t take long befor

Is America suffering from Affluenza? Actually that is the title of a book published a number of years ago to define the problems of materialism in general and consumerism in particular.

The authors say that the virus of Affluenza “is not confined to the upper classes but has found it way throughout our society. Its symptoms affect the poor as well as the rich . . . Affluenza infects all of us, though in different ways.” The authors go on to say that “the Affluenza epidemic is rooted in the obsessive, almost religious quest for economic expansion that has become the core principle of what is called the American dream.”

Anyone looking at some of the social statistics for the U.S., might conclude that our priorities are out of whack. We spend more on shoes, jewelry, and watches than on higher education. We spend much more on auto maintenance than on religious and welfare activities. And three times as many Americans buy Christmas presents for their pets than buy a present for their neighbors.

Debt and waste also show skewed priorities. More Americans have declared personal bankruptcy than graduated from college. Our annual production of solid waste would fill a convoy of garbage trucks stretching halfway to the moon. We have twice as many shopping centers as high schools.

The cure for the virus Affluenza is a proper biblical perspective toward life. The only problem is that this virus has infected many Christians. So we need to return to biblical priorities ourselves.

Jesus tells the parable of a rich man who decides to tear down his barns and build bigger ones (Luke 12:18). He is not satisfied with his current situation, but is striving to make it better. Today most of us have adjusted to a life of affluence as normal and need to actively resist the virus of Affluenza.

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 freedom and were willing to endure hardship in order to come to this country and freely worship. 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 our website 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.

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.

A generation ago, the middle class in America had a significant influence on the political and cultural direction of the country. Now we are seeing greater polarization of incomes and a large cultural disconnect.

At the top end are wealthy people who are making policy and driving culture. They live in upscale locations on the West Coast and East Coast. They include the political elite and the media elite. Those in government pass laws or implement policies that don’t really affect them. The laws they write or administrate on issues ranging from medical policy to immigration have a significant impact on the general population. These policies really don’t affect them adversely. They have enough money to get the doctors and hospitals they need. They live in gated communities unaffected by poverty or changes in immigration laws.

At the other end are the poor or the working poor. They try to make ends meet, and most of them are dependent upon federal entitlement programs. These range from welfare to student loan programs. Any change in any government policy affects them much more than it affects the wealthy in America. The poor and the working poor live in communities that usually are deteriorating and have to deal with crime.

Victor Davis Hanson explains in many of his columns that California provides a view of what America might look like in the future. The golden state has become two cultures. “The coastal elites champion wind and solar mandates, transgender restrooms in the public schools, gay marriage, and high-speed rail. In the interior, rarely visited by the elites or the journalists friendly to them, the preponderance of poorer and minority residents largely explains why of all the states, California has the largest number of welfare recipients and the highest percentage of the population below the poverty line, and why it is nearly dead last in public-school performance.”

California is a picture of America’s future unless there are major political and cultural changes. The country is becoming two disconnected cultures.

Christians depend on their pastors for spiritual guidance. But if they are looking for guidance in how to think about cultural and political issues, most of them will be disappointed. That is what George Barna has found in his latest surveys.

Through the American Culture and Faith Institute, he has focused on what pastors believe and what they have been teaching. When it comes to cultural, social, and political issues there is often a significant disconnect. He found that an overwhelming majority of conservative pastors believe that the Bible addresses these issues. He has also found that only a small percentage of those same ministers preach on those issues.

Let’s look at the big “hot button issues” of abortion and same-sex marriage. A survey of 412 theologically conservative pastors found that nearly all of them (95%) believe that the Bible addresses these two issues. But only 47 percent of those same pastors said they had preached about abortion in the last 12 month. And only 50 percent of them said they had preached a message relating to the issue of same-sex marriage.

The percentages drop much further for other issues. Most conservative pastors (96%) believe the Bible addresses environmental care, but only 14 percent have preached on the subject of care and concern for the environment. Most pastors (90%) believe the Bible deals with the subject of gambling, but only 13 percent have preached on the subject at the last 12 months. Three fourths (77%) of pastors believe the Scriptures provide insight into government spending, but only 4 percent shared those insights with their congregation.

Christians in these churches deserve to hear what the Bible says about every area of life. The congregation is not well served when pastors ignore important issues and topics. Pastors should not be reticent to share biblical insights with their congregation especially when we seem to be losing the culture wars.

No doubt you have heard the phrase, “the barbarians are at the gate.” It described what happened when the barbarian hordes descended on Rome. Mark Steyn employs a powerful turn of phrase with the title of his recent column: “The Barbarians Are Inside, And There Are No Gates.” He was writing about the jihadist attack on Paris, but he could just as easily have been writing about any country in Europe or even in North America.

It is easy to see that refugees are flooding into Europe from Syria and other parts of the Middle East. We also know that ISIS operatives have used this mass migration to infiltrate into these countries. At least one of the jihadists who attacked innocent citizens in Paris came into the country this way. The barbarians are in the country precisely because there is no gate. The open borders in the European Union have allowed them to move freely and attack at will.

The ironies surrounding this terrorist action are many. The president stated in one interview on “Good Morning, America” that ISIS had been contained and is not gaining strength. His administration also announced that the U.S. State Department is planned to open a processing center for Syrian refugees in Erbil, Iraq. After all, we need to be able to process the 10,000 refugees America has decided it will take.

In light of these recent attacks on places like Beirut and Paris, shouldn’t the world leaders get together to plan appropriate measures and strategies? Well, sleep well America. Many of these leaders are coming together this month in Paris. But they aren’t gathering to discuss Muslim terrorism. They are meeting to talk about climate change.

You have to wonder how serious all this talk about fighting terrorism really is. We need more than mere promises and candlelight vigils. We need world leaders to be as serious about fighting jihadists and Muslim terrorism, as many of them seem to be about fighting supposed global warming.

Media bias comes in many forms. Bias shows up when we see how a story is covered selectively. Certain voices and perspectives are given prominence. Others are not. But a more common form of media bias occurs when media outlets simply ignore a story that does not fit their narrative.

Robert Knight has seen this in operation when we worked at the Los Angeles Times and when he has worked with various conservative organizations. He writes about how the media pushes their “super story.” You can see this in how they often cover Muslims.

When a radical Muslim beheaded a female co-worker in Oklahoma City last year, there was very little press coverage. Compare that to how the media focused lots of attention on a Muslim boy who was suspended from school in Texas for bringing a clock to school that authorities mistook for a bomb.

Robert Knight sees the media bias by omission in the November 2015 elections. When the voters in Houston overwhelmingly defeated a homosexual/transgender nondiscrimination proposition, I wondered how they would cover it. Many media outlets hardly talked about it. Others cited it as an example of hate winning over compassion. The voters understood what was going on, especially when the mayor of Houston tried to subpoena the sermons of pastors who worked to get the proposition on the ballot so the citizens of Houston could vote on it.

And while the media did report that Kentucky elected a new governor, they didn’t report the reason for his victory. Tea Party favorite Matt Bevin surprised many because he won by embracing social issues. In fact, he even visited county clerk Kim Davis when she was in jail. You may remember that she was the clerk who refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses with her name on the certificate.

If you want to see media bias, you not only need to look at what the press says about a story, but you need to also notice what stories they ignore.