Just about anyone who sets out to defend Western civilization will be criticized and vilified. Jonah Goldberg wrote about Western civilization in his book, the Suicide of the West. Ben Shapiro has recently written about The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great.

In a future commentary, I plan to discuss Shapiro’s book but for now will merely look at two incidents that prove my point. First, when his book came out, the Economist magazine smeared Ben Shapiro by calling him a member of the alt-right. This is crazy. He is an orthodox Jew who frequently has criticized the alt-right. The magazine did apologize.

Second, he was criticized for a tweet that lamented the collapse of the roof of the Notre Dame Cathedral because he referred to it as a “magnificent monument to Western civilization.” His follow-up tweet even acknowledged that it was “built on the Judeo-Christian heritage.” A Washington Post article included his tweet alongside various conspiracy theorists and Richard Spencer (the man who coined the term “alt-right”).

The trouble with all this criticism of Western civilization is that is coming from people who enjoy the fruits of the West but may not even recognize it. Jonah Goldberg uses an illustration that I found helpful.

Imagine a party platform that had these planks: support for human rights, belief in the rule of the law, dedication to democracy, free speech, freedom of conscience, admiration of the scientific method, property rights, and tolerance of technological and/or cultural innovation.

He argues that 90 percent of the people who criticize the defenders of Western civilization actually believe these things. They just don’t see the connection. That’s why we need to help them connect the dots.

While I was doing a radio program, news outlets were reporting that the Cathedral of Notre Dame was burning. My producer asked if we wanted to start covering it. Since I already had guests on the program, I suggested we wait and see if it was an accident or an attack. His response was that never occurred to him.

So you may wonder, what is wrong with me that I would consider the possibility that the fire might have been deliberately set? Perhaps it was the fact that nearly 2,000 houses of worship in France have been desecrated in the last two years. Mind you, I said 2,000 not 500 and not 200.

You may not have heard this. In fact, whenever some expert being interviewed about the fire at Notre Dame brought this up, interviewers changed the subject or stopped the interview. They might have felt the comments were off-target since the fire was an accident. More likely, they probably didn’t want to do anything what might incite an anti-Muslim response.

The fact remains that various churches and other houses of worship have been attacked on an average of two a day. Raymond Ibrahim (Gatestone Institute) explains that the “authorities and media obfuscate the identity of the vandals.” Even when they identify the attacker as a Muslim or migrant, the media presents the attacker as suffering from mental health issues.

This so-called “code of silence” by the French media has developed because of a desire to avoid blaming migrants or other French Muslims. And it is fair to say that groups other than Muslims may have been responsible for some of these attacks. But Raymond Ibrahim says you can read police reports about altars being smashed and Bibles set on fire while doors are smeared with Islamic expressions like “Allahu Akbar.” These leave little doubt about the perpetrators.

Perhaps now you can see why I waited to obtain more information about the fire at Notre Dame.

Funerals are starting to look very different. An article in the Washington Post predicts that “the funeral as we know it is becoming a relic.” Many of our time-honored rituals are being set aside.

One of the first books I wrote was on the subject of death and dying. I noted then that we were a death-denying culture. The elderly used to die in our homes, but now were dying in hospitals and care facilities. And we tried to cover the reality of death with euphemisms like “he passed on” or “she is in a better place.”

Four decades later we see that our secular society is changing the rules about dying. Americans are less like to spend as much money on somber, embalmed-body funerals. Cost is part of the reason, which may also explain why more than half of all American deaths lead to cremations. That is nearly double the percentage less than two decades ago.

Some of the changes in funerals parallel other changes in major life events. There are more destination weddings than just a few decades ago. Some of the gender-reveal celebrations are becoming theatrical productions. So we shouldn’t be surprised that some funerals look more like retirement parties or even birthday parties.

Concern about the environment probably explains why many are opting for green funerals. The body is placed is a biodegradable coffin or shroud. One state has approved legislation that allows for human composting. There are even businesses to turn one’s ashes into vinyl or jewelry.

Each generation tries to make it peace with the inevitability of death, and we are seeing new trends in that regard. As Christians we can take comfort that we will be raised from the dead just as Christ was raised from the dead. And we know that death will be the final enemy to be destroyed.

We often hear the campaign slogan “Defund Planned Parenthood.” But we don’t always hear why governments should defund this organization. Alexandra DeSanctis has put together four arguments for defunding Planned Parenthood because she is concerned that pro-life politicians need to learn how to articulate them.

The first argument is that Planned Parenthood performs the most abortions in the US, even as our abortion rate steadily drops. Organizations like the Guttmacher Institute report that the number of abortions performed in America has been dropping since the 1990s while the number of abortions performed at Planned Parenthood facilities has doubled.

Second, Planned Parenthood offers very few necessary health-care services. The past president tried to argue they were providing all sorts of tests and screenings. As I mentioned in an earlier commentary, the current president makes it clear that abortion is their service and doesn’t even try that hard to talk about other services.

A third argument is the fact that there are better health-care options than Planned Parenthood. Just look at the numbers. Planned Parenthood claims to have about 600 clinics nationwide. Meanwhile, there are more than 13,500 federally qualified health-care centers. In fact, rural health clinics in the US outnumber Planned Parenthood locations 20 to 1.

Finally, Planned Parenthood is a progressive political action group much more than it is a nonpartisan health-care organization. Just look at how much money the organization doles out to elect politicians who favor abortion providers. When a state government passes a law that restricts abortion in any way, Planned Parenthood is one of the first groups to file a lawsuit.

If pro-life politicians want to be effective in this message war, they need to remember these four important arguments for defunding Planned Parenthood.

Executives from Facebook and Twitter testified on Capitol Hill two weeks ago. All the big tech companies deny they are engaged in any censorship, but the members of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee provided a number of examples.

The executive from Twitter stressed that his platform “does not use political viewpoints, perspective, or party affiliation” in making decisions about content or rankings. The other executive wanted to “state unequivocally that Facebook does not favor one political viewpoint over another, nor does Facebook suppress conservative speech.”

Senator Marsha Blackburn wanted to know why her pro-life ad was pulled during the 2018 campaign because Twitter deemed it “inflammatory.” It is worth noting that she did receive an apology from the executive who added that they made a “mistake on your ad.”

Senator Ted Cruz pointed to a Susan B. Anthony List ad that was banned. It had a picture of Mother Teresa with her quote: “Abortion is profoundly anti-woman.” At the top of the poster in the committee room was the word: CENSORED.

Chuck Konzelman is the writer and director of the movie “Unplanned.” He told his story of the obstacles he faced in marketing the movie through Google and Twitter. He did give credit to Facebook as the one social media platform where he didn’t have problems.

Senator Cruz also warned that anti-trust laws might eventually be used on the big tech companies if things don’t change. He noted that these big tech companies “are larger and more powerful than Standard Oil was when it was broken up” and “larger and more powerful than AT&T when it was broken up.”

Some Democrat members of the subcommittee believe charges of censorship are baseless but I don’t know how you could say that with all the examples that were cited.

Last year I wrote about how the state of Connecticut’s vote brought the nation one step closer to dismantling the Electoral College. More than a decade ago, states started passing the National Popular Vote compact. Each state agrees to ignore the votes of its citizens and cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote. The compact only goes into effect when enough states holding 270 electoral votes approve the plan.

This attempt to dismantle the Electoral College is a bad idea. Just look at a few of the maps that have been created to illustrate the impact big states and big cities would have on the outcome. The framers from small states feared they would always be outvoted by the large states.

Apparently the National Popular Vote initiatives aren’t moving fast enough, so various leftists are making historically dishonest claims. One CNN segment, for example, suggested that James Madison called the Electoral College “evil.” One op-ed suggests that the Electoral College was implemented to benefit slavery, particularly the state of Virginia and its slaveholders. A professor interviewed on PBS even recited his arguments for the proslavery origins of the Electoral College.

Jarrett Stepman cited historian Allen Guelzo who points out that the only mention of slavery even related to the Electoral College debate at the Constitutional Convention is an obscure and unclear quote from Madison. Historian Sean Wilentz reminds us that the one president most helped by a lack of a national popular vote was John Quincy Adams, who was anti-slavery and from a free state. He even says there may be good reasons to get rid of the Electoral College, but adds, “the myth that the Electoral College began as a slaveholder’s instrument needs debunking.”

Let’s have a debate about the Electoral College, but let’s set aside historically dishonest arguments against it.

Consider this scenario. Your organization (it could be a business or ministry) has as its leader someone who shows what look like early signs of dementia. He has a family history of Alzheimer’s disease and gets key facts confused and has language skills that are starting to deteriorate. It’s not so hypothetical. I had to face it with my own father and later with a leader of a Christian ministry.

What if that leader is the president of the United States? The examples authors and psychologists are citing these days may merely be the result of an exhausted president misspeaking. But as these examples keep adding up, voters might become concerned. Before we get too far into the 2020 election, people around the president should advise him to get a neurological evaluation. Yes, Dr. Ronny Jackson did administer a short test when he was the president’s physician, but it only ruled out full-blown dementia.

Omarosa Newman in her book describes how President Trump does not have the same mental faculties he did years earlier when he was taping The Apprentice. Michael Wolff writes in his book (Fire and Fury) how President Trump did not recognize old friends at Mar-a-Lago. The other day, President Trump told an audience that his father was born in Germany. He was born in the Bronx. Trump’s grandfather was born in Germany.

Listen to how the president puts words together. Professional psychologists point to examples of semantic paraphasia (choosing incorrect words in a sentence) and phonemic paraphasia (where a non-word is used that only has part of the intended word). Perhaps the most telling to me is how the president (like my father) jumps from one idea to another in free association by jamming together a long list of non-sequiturs.

One question that will likely surface in the 2020 election is, does the president have dementia? The best way to answer that question is to get an evaluation.

Today is Good Friday. On this day, believers around the world commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. We all understand that. What most of us don’t understand is why this dark day in which Jesus suffered and died is called “Good Friday.” Why isn’t it called Bad Friday or Dark Friday?

Over the years, people have put forward various theories. Some argue that it is called Good Friday because something good came about because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. While that is certainly true theologically, that is not the linguistic origin of the term Good Friday.

Others have suggested that Good Friday came from a shortening of the words God’s Friday. Although you do see that suggestion in some articles on the Internet, there really isn’t any connection between the words god and good. At best, this is mere linguistic speculation.

More likely that term Good Friday comes from an older meaning of the word good. It used to mean holy. So you can think of the term Good Friday as really meaning Holy Friday. This fits with other languages that refer to this day as Sacred Friday or even Passion Friday.

Today we commemorate when the wrath of God was poured out on Jesus. He was sinless, and thus the perfect sacrifice for our sins. He paid the penalty that we deserved to pay. As the song says: “He paid a debt He did not owe” because “I owed a debt I could not pay.”

Good Friday begins the most momentous weekend in the history of the world. Because of the death of Jesus, we can receive the free gift of eternal life. Because of the resurrection of Jesus, we can know that there is life beyond the grave. That is why this weekend is a cause for great celebration.