What if Christians and Christian institutions that provide so many social services went on strike? That is a question Addison Del Mastro asks in The American Conservative. He reminds us of the book by Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. She poses the question of what would happen if entrepreneurs in America decided to go on strike because of an increasingly overbearing regulatory state. The book documents the dystopia the country falls into.

While I doubt that Christians and Christian groups would ever go on strike, it is a great thought experiment. Addison Del Mastro explains that, “Many of the services Americans take for granted are provided by churches and Christian organizations.”

One example is health care. John Stonestreet, in his Breakpoint commentary, wrote, “No Christianity, No Hospitals: Don’t Take Christian Contributions for Granted.” Catholic, Baptist, Methodist hospitals can be found all over this country. He documented that in at least 30 communities, the Catholic hospital is the ONLY hospital within a 35-mile radius.

Education is another area where Christian involvement has been key. Christians run thousands of private schools that usually meet or exceed the quality of the public schools. The Catholic Church or various Protestant denominations or churches run more than seven in ten of the private schools in America.

Churches also minister to the needy and marginalized in society. There are soup kitchens and outreaches to the poor and homeless. Churches also provide meals for the homebound. They provide marriage counseling as well as psychological counseling. Christian organizations place children in foster care and adoption. Christian groups run pregnancy resource centers.

Christians aren’t going on strike. But if they did, America would be a very different place indeed.

The debate and discussion about transgender issues will continue because of a transgender ideology that has developed that is actually harmful to kids. That is one of the conclusions of the book by Ryan Anderson with the creative title: When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.

The transgender ideology promotes the opportunity for children to change their gender with surgery and drugs. And parents “are told that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones may be the only way to prevent their children from committing suicide.”

Ryan Anderson counters that the best studies of gender dysphoria have found “that between 80 and 95 percent of children who express a discordant gender identity will come to identify with their bodily sex if natural development is allowed to proceed.” He also goes on to document that even children going through “transitioning” treatment still have an extraordinarily high rate of suicide attempts compared to the general population.

He reminds us that we should be tolerant and loving toward children (and adults) who struggle with their gender identity. But we should also be aware of the potential harm when transgender identity is normalized.

Unfortunately, we are living in a world where transgender activists want more than tolerance and kindness. They demand affirmation. We aren’t allowed to question whether using medical treatments to aid in transgender transformation is positive for children.

In his new book, Ryan Anderson shows that the best biology, psychology, and philosophy support an understanding of sex as a bodily reality. As he puts it: “Biology isn’t bigotry.”

I hope the American people will trust the best scientific evidence and not reject it in favor of the transgender ideology.

The next time you go to your bank or write a check, imagine the IRS is looking over your shoulder. That’s how some have described the latest attempt by the Biden Administration to gain even more information about your finances. You would think that your annual tax filing would be invasive enough.

No doubt you have heard about legislation being considered that would allow the IRS to review every account that has at least a $600 balance or had more than $600 of transactions within a year. Unless you are in a very specific situation, that would mean you and your family.

The justification for this invasion into your finances and into your privacy is to close the “tax gap.” That is a phrase that has been used for the last few years to describe what the government believes you should be paying in taxes and what you actually pay in taxes.

Early in his administration, President Obama formed a panel to discuss how to close the “tax gap.” This has led many commentators to criticize what they call the “tax gap myth.” And if the goal is to catch wealthy Americans engaged in tax avoidance, why is the minimum amount set at merely $600 instead of a few orders of magnitude higher?

We also might mention that this is the same IRS that initially denied tax exempt status to Christians Engaged because the biblical principles they listed seemed to align with the Republican party. And don’t think your financial data is secure. Back in June I talked about the fact that the hacked confidential tax records of Jeff Bezos, Mike Bloomberg, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffett were released to the public.

We can hope that common sense would break out in Congress and this provision would not become law. If you have more than $600 in a bank account, you should be as concerned about this as I am.

Imagine dropping your daughter off at a Christian college. You help her set up her dorm room. As you give her a final hug goodbye, you learn that her roommate is a male.

That is the scenario that attorney Julie Marie Blake describes. She, and other ADF attorneys, are representing Missouri’s College of the Ozarks. Their lawsuit is challenging the Biden Administration rule that forces faith-based institutions to abandon their beliefs.

A little history is in order. The Fair Housing Act was implemented more than fifty years ago to prevent landlords from denying housing opportunities based on such characteristics as race or sex. President Biden signed an executive order this year to add sexual orientation and gender identity as new aspects of sex discrimination.

Christian colleges and universities can now be forced to open residential spaces such as dorm rooms, showers, and bathrooms, to members of the opposite sex. A Christian college has only a few choices. Either they could abandon their religious beliefs and comply, or they can refuse and pay massive fines in the six-figure range.

The College of Ozarks complaint fell on deaf ears in the district court, so the case is now before the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals. The case will be heard next month. Many other private religious schools will be watching what happens.

These Christian colleges and universities have a constitutional right to provide separate male and female dorms, showers, and locker rooms. This radical change in definition was not approved by Congress but was changed by President Biden’s executive order. The judges must protect the religious liberties of the College of the Ozarks and other colleges and universities.

Carine Hajjar asks an important question: “Do Universities Still Care about Truth?” I suspect you already know the answer, but her commentary surfaced some interesting facts.

She is recent graduate of Harvard and even served on the editorial board of the Harvard Crimson. Although universities say they value diversity, intellectual diversity is not something they seem to value. She reminds us that only three percent of Harvard University’s faculty reported being “conservative.”

Organizations that work on college campuses have found most faculty and students are “self-censoring” themselves on campus. They have seen what happens to anyone who strays from Leftist orthodoxy.

“College and cancel culture,” she says, “have become disturbingly synonymous.” To illustrate her point, she tells the story of Professor Steven Pinker. In previous commentaries, I’ve talked about some of his books, including Enlightenment Now. He has persuasively argued that the world isn’t getting worse but is improving in significant ways. Apparently, that’s what got him in trouble.

Hundreds of members of the Linguistic Society of America have signed a petition to remove him from the organization. The complaint comes from “an African-American social scientist” who believes that reporting that overt racism is decreasing is “legitimate grounds for punishment.”

Pinker is a big enough name to weather the latest political storm. Of course, he also has tenure. But other educators and students are not as fortunate. As one attorney put it, “if you have to be Steven Pinker to avoid getting canceled, that’s a problem.”

This latest example illustrates what happens to a secular, progressive Ivy league professor. Other faculty members and students don’t stand much of a chance.

What is the significance of YouTube deciding to ban all videos that are critical of the current vaccines? Dr. Michael Brown believes this was a bad decision, even though he explains that he is not an anti-vaxxer. He is more concerned with the issue of free speech and the free exchange of important information and ideas.

He begins by talking about his positive experience with the COVID videos his ministry has posted online. YouTube, he says, has been totally fair with his ministry. This is exactly what freedom of speech is all about.

On the other hand, YouTube banned any videos that claims that commonly used vaccines are ineffective. This was done to cut down on anti-vaccine content. He reminds us that there are videos that freely discuss what foods are or are not healthy, what diets are or any not healthy, what exercise regimes are or are not healthy, and what drugs for different illnesses are or are not healthy. The one limitation is there can be no open discussion about what vaccines are or are not healthy.

That is defined as misinformation. But he asks, “should a video with blatant misinformation about the Bible be permitted on YouTube, even if it will lead many people astray spiritually?” His answer is yes.

He raises questions about other topics that might be considered misinformation, but again argues those videos need not be banned. But if you have a genuine, well-researched concern about vaccines in general or COVID vaccines in particular, your content will be banned.

YouTube has made any debate about these vaccines a special case. You can talk about the health benefits or health concerns of just about any food, diet, exercise regime, or pharmaceutical. But you dare not talk about the current vaccines. If you do, you will be banned.

Senator Joe Manchin sees the irony. “We have 11 million jobs that we haven’t filled, 8 million still unemployed. Something’s not matching up here.” Good, high-paying jobs are going unfilled. The National Federation of Independent Business did a survey of small business owners and found that half of them (50%) reported job openings that could not be filled. That is a 48-year record high.

We all know what happens if you pay people not to work. But the problem is more complex than that. The $300 weekly federal unemployment insurance bonus expired last month. Some economists estimate that might led to another million job gains. But in August there were 5.3 million fewer jobs than when the pandemic began.

Concerns about the virus may be one reason some aren’t looking for work. But it may also be that more Americans got used to not working during the lockdown. In my most recent booklet on A Biblical View on Work, I suggest that the decline of a Christian worldview has also led to a decline of the work ethic.

While it is tempting to say that Americans who aren’t working are merely lazy, they are also rational. An economist at the University of Chicago found that when counting ALL government benefits, a family of four in high welfare benefit states such as New York and Connecticut and with two unemployed parents can receive up to $100,000 in government assistance. That may be an extreme example, but it illustrates why we find unfilled jobs in trucking, manufacturing, and business services. These are high paying jobs, but they must compete with generous government benefits along with COVID-19 concerns.

This year Americans should be working hard, but millions apparently are hardly working.

The marriage rate in America has been in decline for many years. Consider that in the year 2000, that married 25-to-34-year-olds outnumbered their never married peers (55% to 34%). By 2015, however, those percentages were almost reversed (40% to 53%). Young people are not getting married for a variety of reasons.

Many economists argue that men are avoiding marriage because they have lower wages and want to increase their income before asking a woman to marry them. But the latest research shows that even where wages have increased dramatically, we see no appreciable change in marriage rates.

Another theory is that men are fearful of commitment. Obviously, there is some truth to that. But again we can find surveys that show that men plan to get married but are content to postpone marriage. The media age of marriage for American men is now approaching 30.

Sociology professor Mark Regnerus (University of Texas) has published research that explains why men are postponing marriage. It can be summarized in two words: cheap sex. “As compared to the past, many women today expect little in return for sex, in terms of time, attention, commitment or fidelity. Men, in turn, do not feel compelled to supply these goods as they once did.”

He also adds one other explanation: pornography. “Online porn has made sexual experience more widely and easily available too. A laptop never says no, and for many men, virtual women are now genuine competition for real partners.”

When many of us were growing up, we sometimes heard our mothers or grandmothers warn young girls about giving themselves away. They asked: “Why buy a cow when you can get milk for free?” This recent study confirms what they were telling their daughters years ago.