Earlier this month, a mob on campus shut down the lecture and attacked a professor. The protest I am talking about took place at Middlebury College but could have taken the place at the University of California at Berkeley or at the University of Missouri or a number of other campuses.

Conservative author Charles Murray was scheduled to deliver a talk and then be interviewed by politically progressive professor Allison Stanger. Students in the room shouted him down. They moved to another room to stream the discussion. Protestors tried to break into the room and pulled fire alarms which temporarily shut off power to the live stream. As they exited the building, protesters wearing bandanas attacked them, pulling Stanger’s neck, injuring her and sending her to the hospital. Once they got into the car, protesters pounded the car and jumped on it. Professor Stanger wrote in her New York Times op-ed that she feared for her life.

Some have tried to argue that Middlebury students may not have been responsible for the violence. Professor George Yancey writes that: “We can only absolve students, however, it we are sure we know who it really was instead.” He adds that: “even if students didn’t throw a single rock, they still shared culpability for the violence. Their protests created the atmosphere in which the violence occurred. Once it began, they made no visible effort to curb it.”

David French is not encouraged that various pundits, professors, and writers have condemned the mob censorship and mob violence. He concludes that “the rioters won” because they shut down free speech. “If the mob is able to dictate the facts on the ground, op-eds and professor letters will be meaningless.”

The mob shut down this opportunity for free speech, and now the threat of future mob violence will prevent future opportunities. David French is right: “On campus, the mob is winning.”

Recently I was asked to be on a two-hour radio interview to talk about fake news. Initially, I wondered if I would have enough to discuss for two hours. As it turns out, there was more than enough to talk about.

Now there is even more to discuss since universities are beginning to post what they call a “fake news list” of news organizations. A Harvard University library website provides students with a section called: “Fake News, Misinformation, and Propaganda.” It is intended to give them tools for “reading the news with a more informed eye.”

The problem with the list is simple. According to one report in the Washington Examiner, it “lists nearly every legitimate conservative-leaning news groups alongside hoax websites.” Some of those include the Daily Caller, Independent Journal Review, The Blaze, Red State, and the Weekly Standard. There are a few liberal news sites that are listed, but others (like Mother Jones, Vox.com, Media Matters, and the Huffington Post) are conspicuously absent.

It is worth mentioning that the list is not a Harvard creation. It was developed by an assistant professor at Merrimack College for her students. She points out that is was not supposed to be a fake news database, but apparently now has morphed into one. And there are similar lists popping up at other universities.

These fake news lists have two problems. First, the liberals who create these lists seem much too willing to label conservative sites as fake news sites. Second, they conflate two different types of news sites. Often the fake news lists group websites that generate stories that are fabricated out of thin air with legitimate news sites.

True fake news sites are guilty of purposefully publishing misleading information and deserve to be labeled as such. But legitimate conservative news operations do not deserve to be lumped with them.

Your children are facing an onslaught of profanity through the media. Movies are one place where profanity reigns. One survey has been tracking profanity in movies from the first swear word on film (1939’s “Gone With the Wind”) to “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which holds the record with 798 swear words. There has been a 500 percent increase over these many decades.

The Parents Television Council has documented the fact that the number of expletives on television programs has doubled in just the last decade. Kids and adults use more profanity simply because they hear it more than ever before.

Let’s start with a definition. The word “profane” means: to treat something that is sacred with abuse or contempt. It means to desecrate. Something profane is unholy. It is certainly not a positive attribute. What does the Bible teach?

Paul says in Ephesians 4:29, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs.” Colossians 3:8 say, “Rid yourselves of all things such as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips.”

Sometimes we hear young people say that it really doesn’t matter what you say, it is only words. Words make a difference. Make a joke in public about hijacking a plane and see if words have consequences. Make a derisive comment about people’s appearance to their face and see if they merely ignore it.

As believers, we should submit our vocabularies to the Lord. The world is watching us. 1 Peter (2:12) admonishes us to keep our “behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.” In a world awash in profanity, Christians should watch what they say.

A library in Oregon is providing a six-part course called “Adulting 101.” If it becomes popular, I suspect we will be seeing more of these courses nationwide.

Maybe I need to back up and define the term “adulting.” Last year, the term began to be used more frequently. It means to “behave in an adult manner” or it can also describe the attempt to “make someone behave as an adult.” It gained some attention because millennials often go through various life stages (getting married, starting a family) much later than previous generations.

Adulting is one way of acknowledging that eventually millennials have to engage in adult behaviors like paying taxes or buying a house. Sometimes they aren’t prepared for that next step. That is where a course on adulting becomes important.

The Oregon course covers some basic tasks, like checking your oil, setting a budget, cleaning your oven. It also ventures into tricky topics like spotting fake news and learning how to get along with your roommate.

The first part of the series is “Bare Essential Cooking.” It begins as a standard culinary course, but also veers away into lots of creativity since millennials may not have a fully stocked kitchen. In fact, they might be trying to function in a dorm or an efficiency. They even learn how to make quesadillas using a towel, aluminum foil, and an iron. This isn’t exactly Home Economics 101.

Other adulting courses help millennials develop life skills. They include topics like “Getting a Job” and “Financial Know-how” and “Moving Out.” If students have already learned some of this, there is the “Inside the Lines Adult Coloring Club.”

You may be wondering if we really need to provide courses on adulting. Apparently there is a need, and we may see more of these courses in the future. In the past, we had extended families, involved parents, and classes in shop and home economics. Now, it seems, we are destined to see more courses on adulting.

More than 100 million American adults claims to have a biblical worldview, but actually a much smaller percentage of adults do. That is one of the striking conclusions of George Barna’s survey with the American Culture & Faith Institute.

It is important to know how many people have a biblical worldview because belief drives behavior. And it was important for George Barna to get an accurate baseline to use in future comparisons.

His survey asked 20 questions about core spiritual beliefs and 20 questions assessing behavior. You were considered to have strong biblical beliefs if you got at least 80 percent of the questions correct. Based on that, they concluded that 10 percent of American adults have a biblical worldview. This pales in comparison to the 46 percent of adults who claim to have a biblical worldview.

When you look at the 20 questions assessing biblical behavior, you see similar trends. You were considered to have strong biblical behavior if you got 80 percent of the behavior questions correct. Based on that, they concluded that 18 percent of American adults have strong biblical behavior.

The survey also identified what it called an “Integrated Disciple.” They are Christians who have the intention of being an imitator of Christ. They blend their belief and behaviors into a Christ-like lifestyle. About 10 percent have strong biblical beliefs and behavior. That means they correctly answered more than 80 percent in each category in the survey.

One of the trends that match other studies was the realization that the “younger an adult is, the less likely they are to have a biblical worldview.” Just 4 percent were Integrated Disciples, while much older adults were in the 16 percent range.

This survey of core beliefs and behavior is one more reminder about the need for good Bible teaching and biblical discipleship. Obviously, we have more work to do.

Let me give you some advice. The next time you hear a media report of a hate crime by a conservative or Trump supporter, wait a day and see if it is a hoax.

John Hawkins lists “10 Examples of Hate Crimes that Turned Out to be Scams.” Elizabeth Nolan Brown documents in Reason that “There Is No Violent Hate-Crime Wave in Trump’s America.” Kevin Williamson, writing in National Review, talks about both “Fake Hate Crimes” and “Fake Hate.” There is even the fakehatecrimes.org website that documents these fake crimes in the hundreds.

Juan Thompson, a left-wing journalist who was fired from his position at The Intercept, was in the news again for making a string of threats to Jewish community centers. Apparently, he was trying to frame his ex-girlfriend as a “racist white girl.”

Three black coeds at the University of Albany said they were attacked on a city bus by a group of white men using racial slurs. Hundreds came to a campus rally against racism based on their false report. Surveillance videos contradicted their account, as did statements by fellow passengers. Actually, they were the aggressors who hit a 19-year-old white woman on the bus.

Muslim women at the University of Louisiana, the University of Michigan, and the University of New Mexico made false claims they were attacked and had their head coverings pulled off. In a number of cases, we don’t know the names of some of these hijab hoaxers. Frankly, I don’t think we should be protecting the identities of people who file false police reports.

A student at Beloit College reported anti-Muslim graffiti on his door and outside his dorm room. After police investigated, they found he perpetrated the fraud himself.

The news media will continue to report each of these incidents, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to wonder if many of them are frauds and nothing more than fake hate crimes.

True health care reform will be difficult due to the many political and economic barriers erected by the health care stakeholders. Foster Friess was on my radio program recently to talk about his op-ed “When Hospitals Resist Change” that ran in the Washington Times.

One problem is who gets to make decisions. Drug companies, insurance companies, and hospitals get to sit around the decision-making table while “the ‘patient lobby’ is sitting on the side of the room as observers along with doctors.”

Most Republican health care proposals include HSAs (health saving accounts) that give patients choice and autonomy. Hospitals don’t like them and “are delighted that Obamacare pays them for services for what they previously did not get adequately paid.”

He uses a great example. “When we drive from Arizona to Wisconsin and crash our car in Iowa, insurance covers it.” But if we sustain injuries in the crash, our health insurance doesn’t function as efficiently and effectively as our car insurance. This is just one of many examples of the crazy health insurance system we currently have in America.

Foster Friess reminds us that a “one size fits all” solution does not apply in health insurance. Many of us would like a high deductible policy tied to HSAs, but that doesn’t work for everyone. Why not allow President Trump and Congress to write a federal check to each of the 50 states from what is now spent on Medicaid.

He also believes we should be allowed to buy a health care policy through an association of our choice (alumni group, church, bowling league). And they could be required to take on the small percentage of people with higher medical costs.

Foster Friess sees some of the health care obstacles but also has some creative ideas on how to overcome them.

Christian young people are not spiritually thriving. That is the conclusion by Stephen Cable in his book, Cultural Captives: The Beliefs and Behavior of American Young Adults. Stephen Cable serves as Senior Vice-President of Probe Ministries.

His book not only analyzes the survey Probe Ministries did with the Barna Group of emerging adults but also analyzes all of the other major surveys (National Study of Youth and Religion, Baylor Religion Survey, and General Social Survey). He discovered that even though commentators sometimes cite these other surveys to prove that young people are doing well, all of the surveys are actually quite consistent. When you dig deeper into the data, you find they all paint a bleak picture.

The percentage of people generally who check “none of the above” for religious preference is increasing. That is especially true of young people. In fact, the percentage of emerging adults who do not claim any affiliation with Christianity rose from 20% in 1990 to over 43% of the population today.

Stephen Cable found that only 14 percent of born-again, emerging adults combine a biblical worldview with biblical practices, such as reading the Bible or attending church. He also found that less than 2 percent of born-again, emerging adults apply a biblical worldview to life choices. In other words, only this small percentage has biblical beliefs on topics ranging from abortion to sex outside marriage to science and faith.

This is a major reason why Probe Ministries has developed an integrated strategy known as Periscope aimed at reversing these trends. The learning experience involves an entire church congregation over a seven-week period and includes sermons, videos, original music, and additional material for individuals and small groups.

Stephen Cable’s book is a wake up call to the church. We need to reverse these ominous trends and do it quickly before the trends become even worse.