An LGBT group known as Campus Pride has published a list of more than 100 Christian colleges and universities that are deemed dangerous because they don’t affirm the homosexual lifestyle. They hope that corporations will use this “Shame List” to blacklist graduates from these Christian institutions.

Rod Dreher is concerned that this is exactly what will happen. Companies and corporations that take pride in being inclusive and diverse may decide to avoid recruiting on these campuses and might even blackball anyone with one of these schools on his or her resume.

He asks a number of good questions. “How long do you think those colleges and universities will be able to hold out if major corporations, yielding to pressure from LGBT groups, treat diplomas from there as badges of shame? If graduate schools refuse to consider students with bachelor’s degrees from the ‘shame’ schools? How many of those schools on the Shame List will be there in 20 years?”

This list compiled by Campus Pride illustrates something I have talked about for years. Homosexual activists aren’t really interested in dialogue. They merely want to marginalize anyone who disagrees with them and punish them if there is an appropriate mechanism to do so. The Shame List is an attempt to negotiate the terms of a Christian college’s surrender. Comply with our demands or be forced out of business because your students won’t get jobs and won’t get into any graduate school.

If you look through the list of Christian colleges, you will find that, for many of these schools, their supposed “offense” isn’t something that would even arouse concerns from many liberals or progressives. One administrator of a Christian school that was not on the Shame List said he was surprised his university was not on the list. He may not have long to wait. Even opposition to a piece of legislation or an executive order is enough to put you on the list. Your time is coming.

Over the last two decades, Christian Smith has helped us understand what is in the heads and hearts of young people. He is the coauthor of such books at Soul Searching, Souls in Transition, and Lost in Transition. In his books, he coined the now famous term “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” The term came up in a discussion on my radio program with Kara Powell about her book, Growing Young. She and her coauthors have identified a number of strategies that will attract young people to your church.

The term “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” came up in the discussion because it is a good way to identify the beliefs of so many youth and young adults. It includes five key points: (1) “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” (2) “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.” (3) “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.” (4) “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.” (5) “Good people go to heaven when they die.”

As you can see, this viewpoint is not exactly orthodox Christianity and certainly does not encompass the gospel. Instead, young people want to be moral and believe in a God who is removed from their daily lives.

An important question is whether this “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” viewpoint is in the heads of young people because of bad theological teaching or poor listening. The authors in Growing Young argue that it is probably both. Sometimes pastors have not taught good theology, but we also must admit that most young people today are captive to the culture (Colossians 2:8). That is why we must work harder to teach a biblical worldview to adults and youth.

Economic inequality is one of the themes that ran through the presidential election and congressional races. Edward Conard has been challenging many of the myths surrounding this debate. That is why I had him on my radio program to talk about his new book, The Upside of Inequality: How Good Intentions Undermine the Middle Class.

Four years ago, he wrote the controversial bestseller Unintended Consequences, which attempted to set the record straight on the 2008 financial crisis. He is now trying to set the record straight by debunking the economic myths used to justify more income redistribution.

One of those myths is the belief that the rich get richer by making the poor poorer. Central to this belief is an assumption of a zero-sum game. That is certainly true in sports or chess. It isn’t really true in America. He makes the case that no other high-wage economy has done more to help the world’s poor than the US economy.

Related to this is the myth that success is largely unearned. Not only does he address this myth in his book, but also dealt with it in an op-ed in Time magazine. Politicians and economists pushing economic redistribution argue that the successful 1% achieved their wealth from crony capitalism. He notes that “seventy percent of the wealth of the top 0.1% is owned by self-employed business owners who bested competitors to satisfy customers, not cronies, to earn their success.”

His book not only debunks various economic myths but also plots a way forward. He believes that the challenge facing America today is how to accelerate growth, employment, and wages in our economy. We also need to train America’s talent to be more effective. And we need to lower corporate taxes and restrain perennial trade deficits without restraining trade. I wish more political candidates would read his book.

You have probably seen campaign yard signs popping up in your neighborhood. That is a vivid reminder that we are headed to another election season. The general election isn’t until November, but party primary elections will be taking place in the next few months.

What will be the agenda for the candidates for these political parties? The Republican agenda should be fairly easy to predict. Incumbents will point to the recently passed tax reform bill and ask to be reelected to focus on unfinished business like health care reform and welfare reform. Other Republican candidates may argue that they should be put in office instead of career politicians so we can “drain the swamp.”

The agenda for Democrats isn’t so easy to predict. They can point to wins in Virginia and Alabama. They say President Trump is unpopular. But they don’t really have an agenda that would make people want to vote for their candidates.

Some have suggested that the current debate about DACA and dreamers will be a possible item on the Democratic agenda. Matthew Continetti in a recent column explains why that won’t be an effective strategy. A Pew poll that surveyed public priorities ranked immigration fifteenth. The top three items were terrorism (76%), the economy (73%), and education (69%). It is also worth mentioning that the debate about the status of dreamers will be resolved (one way or the other) long before the November elections.

Running against the president and the Republican leadership in Congress isn’t a very compelling reason for potential voters to turn out in an off year election. Matthew Continetti says the Democratic policy cupboard is empty. “There was no alternative Democratic health care bill, no alternative Democratic tax bill.”

This isn’t the first time both Republican and Democratic candidates have tried to run on an agenda of obstruction. I think voters are looking for more.

The discussion earlier this month about the possible political future of Oprah Winfrey provides a commentary on America’s religious landscape. Ross Douthat reminds us that “We’ve heard about Oprah the entrepreneur, Oprah the celebrity, Oprah the champion of holistic medicine” etc. But the press usually ignores her place as a religious teacher to millions of Americans.

He also says we need to understand that there are “three broad approaches to religious questions: one traditional, one spiritual, and one secular.” The traditional approach may take various forms. There are Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, and Orthodox Jews. They believe in specific revelation, have a holy book, and follow various creeds.

The secular tradition is also easy to document. It is rooted in the Enlightenment, in rationalism, and in the scientific method. In previous commentaries, I have written about the New Atheists as well as the rise of the nones (Americans who have no religious preference).

In between these two traditions is the spiritual. No doubt you have heard friends or colleagues say “I’m not religious, but I’m spiritual.” This view encourages syncretism (merging various religious ideas) and relativism (no belief in absolutes). When Oprah Winfrey tells us to pursue “your truth” rather than “the truth,” she is talking to this broad tradition.

It is worth noting that Americans in the spiritual tradition aren’t very political, but they might be more involved if someone like Oprah Winfrey runs for office. And it is likely that some in the other traditions might be willing to cast a vote for her. Traditionalists might be attracted to someone who still uses religious language. Secularists might be attracted to someone who isn’t quite so dogmatic about religion and morality.

Most of us grew up believing that the life expectancy of Americans would increase every year. After all, advances in medicine should almost have guaranteed that to be the case.

That is why it is so shocking that American life expectancy declined in 2015. It was even more shocking that it declined again in 2016. And I predict that it will once again decline in 2017, once all the facts and figures are in.

Our lifestyles, in many cases, are the reason for the decline. Poor eating habits and little exercise come to mind. But it also appears that suicides and drug overdoses account for even more of the continued decline in life expectancy.

The suicide rate hit a 30-year high three years ago and continues to climb. The overdose numbers are staggering. More Americans died of overdoses last year than were killed during the entire course of the Vietnam War. Many of those who died (42,000) were due to opioid overdoses that exact a great toll on younger and middle-aged Americans.

Consider this contrast: the US spends more on health care than just about any other country. Life expectancy is rising in most developed countries. Our life expectancy continues to decline.

Of course, we can spend more money on programs dealing with addiction and build quality rehabilitation facilities. But sadly money doesn’t always translate into better outcomes. We probably all know wealthy families that spent lots and lots of money for treatment and programs in order to help their kids. Often it was to no avail.

Addictions of any kind are hard to break. They destroy lives and empty souls. The gospel and faith-based programs have something to offer, but they are only effective if an addict wants to quit and has a caring committee around him or her. Even then, they aren’t always effective. That is why America’s life expectancy is declining.

In many of my commentaries I have talked about how some college campuses have been a center of intolerance. Many have even been repressive with speech codes and student protests inside the classroom and on the campus.

There is mounting evidence some corporate cultures have become at least as intolerant, perhaps even more so, as college campuses. We now have abundant evidence of that in Google because of a class-action lawsuit filed by former Google employee James Damore. You may remember he was the person who wrote a lengthy memorandum and was subsequently fired for asking some important questions about why more men than women work in the high-tech field.

He has filed a 181-page complaint that includes screen shots of Google communications along with various postings on Google message boards. You don’t need to read his court filing. You can merely go to various articles that provide ample examples.

Rachel Stoltzfoos provides “19 Insane Tidbits From James Damore’s Lawsuit About Google’s Office Environment.” David French writes about “James Damore’s Lawsuit Exposes Google’s Culture of Ignorant Intolerance.” French concludes that the screenshots “constitute strong evidence of hostile-environment race-and-gender harassment if the races and genders were reversed.”

Conservatives face a blacklist and are often blocked from in-house communication. Googlers (as they are called) boo white-male hires and “openly discuss committing acts of violence against political opponents.” By the way, watch yourself if someone calls you a Nazi. “The ‘punch a Nazi’ debate is alive and well at Google, and the definition of ‘Nazi’ is extraordinarily broad.”

Of course, we have only heard Damore’s side of the story. But the screenshots make it difficult to deny what is happening within the walls of Google. And if you think this is an isolated example, you haven’t been talking to people in corporate America.

Today is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. When the Supreme Court removed most state restrictions on abortion back in 1973, who could have predicted the world we live in today?

When the ruling came down, few understood the long-term implications. I remember speaking on the issue in college classrooms a few years later and wondering when the Supreme Court would reverse its decision. By the 1980s, it seemed like only a matter of time that abortion would once again be restricted in America. That did not happen.

A whole generation of young people has grown up never having known a time when abortions were illegal. They may have seen some protests and may have heard some debate about the subject. But that is perhaps the sum total of their experience.

Abortion has left a scar on the soul of this nation, just like the scar slavery left on America’s soul in previous centuries. Unfortunately, many Americans cannot see the scar that abortion has left on this country.

I see the evidence of these scars when I take phone calls from women who were exploited by abortion. I see evidence of these scars when I hear the cavalier comments of young people about human life. I see these scars when I hear people debate related issues like stem cell research and physician-assisted suicide.

But I also see the healing when I see the good work of pregnancy resource centers. I understand from people working in this area that there are three times as many pregnancy resource centers in this country as there are abortion clinics. In many ways, the pro-life movement is winning the war of ideas.

And I am encouraged that so many young people (our future leaders) are pro-life and understand the importance of being pro-life. So, there are some encouraging signs even as we see the scars left by abortion.