During the Q & A session at a recent seminar an audience member, a mother of four accomplished girls, wondered: ‘How do we help our teenaged children have good friendships?’ Coming from her, the question seemed odd. But the speaker, Coleman Ford, who teaches at Southwestern Theological Seminary, shares that concern. He pulled a phone out of his pocket and said, “The problem is this.” The mother nodded.

Dr. Ford is writing a book he’s calling: Augustine and His Friends. Augustine wrote extensively of his friendships and friendship in general. Dr. Ford told us that, as a friend, Augustine literally ‘took you to himself.’ Augustine didn’t have a smartphone or social media.

In her New York Times column, Tish Harrison Warren writes of a “Loneliness Crisis,” She says, “as the digital world captures more of our imagination and time, the material world recedes and becomes less real to us.” She emphasizes the effect this is having on teens who often hang out online as opposed to getting together in person. She points to studies showing that, compared with the early 2000s, today’s teenagers are less likely to get their driver’s licenses or play sports.

Blogger Samuel James acknowledges the effects of social media and smartphones on mental health. In an article for First Things, he points out that, “The epidemic of loneliness and isolation among the most “connected” generation of Americans gives away the fact that these technologies inhibit relationship rather than cultivate it.” Optimum communication necessitates we hear one another’s voices, see one another’s faces and even endure “awkward silences” that are part of conversations.

Mr. James’ “Rules for Living Faithfully in the Digital Age” include being very intentional about if or when our children get smartphones and examining our own digital habits. Perhaps “call instead of comment” when you see a post about something significant in a friend’s life.

We could ask friends to lunch more often. Love more attentively. This models friendship.

I read nearly every column Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker writes. I interviewed her for radio on her 2008 book, Save the Males: Why Men Matter Why Women Should Care. I loved the book and Kathleen struck me a thoughtful voice for the center-right. I kept on reading her. I still do.

These days I find myself disagreeing with Kathleen more than I agree with her. But I still read her columns because I like how she’s willing to open up her personal life to readers to explain why she thinks the way she does.

That’s what she did in her recent piece about how and why she has shifted her views on abortion and Roe v, Wade. She writes:

“I have been an adult throughout Roe’s 50-year life span and, admittedly
have wobbled to and fro. When Roe became law in 1973, a much younger
me performed a sideways leap and clicked my heals together, such was my glee.”

Eleven years later and with child, Kathleen says:

“…I became someone else and thought anew. It was clear to me that I was
a mere vessel for this other autonomous life growing inside me and my job
was to protect him. Sure, it was my body, but it was his life. Whereupon I
became, for lack of a better term, “pro-life.”

Still, she never supported reversing Roe v. Wade. But it has become less important. Guttmacher Institute says that by 2017 the number and rate of abortions had fallen to its lowest since 1973.

Today, “nearly half a century after Roe”, Kathleen finds the whole debate exhausting and wonders “would it really be so bad if abortion were decided by the states?”

If it is, she writes: “we might see the end of litmus tests for politicians” and maybe we’d have more pro-life Democrats again. And perhaps the Supreme Court confirmation process would no longer be a “search-and-destroy” mission.

OK, Kathleen. I’ll take it.

Parents are increasingly raising concerns that public libraries are actively exposing their kids to sexual activities and reading material. But, when they complain about drag queen story hours and books that can only be described as pornography aimed at kids, smiling librarians assure them their libraries are simply committed to “free inquiry”.

Indeed, Emily Drabinski, the recently-elected president of the American Library Association insisted in a TV interview that “There’s no big library agenda.”

But there is an agenda and Emily Drabinski, a self-proclaimed Marxist lesbian, sees the public library as a resource “to build collective power for the public good.” She received multiple endorsements praising her “accomplishments” which include “queering the landscape of library publishing and scholarship.” In July 2023, she will begin serving as president of the 54,000 member American Library Association which, according to The Federalist’s managing editor, Joy Pullman, “drives the training of U.S. librarians and their use of public funds.”

In a comprehensive article about the ALA’s election of Emily Drabinski, Joy Pullman, documents the endorsements of various ALA members, including April Hathcock who stated, “I so value Emily’s work in intentionally bringing a class, labor, and queer consciousness to her efforts as an anti-racist ally.”

Drabinski’s top-cited work, 2013 article: “Queering the Catalog,” outlines her strategy for what she calls “Queer library politics.” Her lectures expand on this theme. One lecture, delivered last July, was titled “Teaching the Radical Catalog.” In that presentation she showed a slide from the sexuality section of the Library of Congress and said “queerness is the subversion of those kinds of normal family types” �” referring to families headed by a married man and woman.

Her statements tout the fluidity of gender identities and reject the existence of truth. This is classic Marxism. Joy Pullmann points out that “Marxists use sexual chaos as a deliberate strategy of cultural destruction.”

Drabinski also seeks to dismantle racism. Be warned. To her, this requires “dismantling America.”

The United States Supreme Court will soon announce its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to the Mississippi abortion law that prohibits abortion after 15 weeks gestation.

Pro-lifers hope that the justices will take this opportunity to do away with past court precedent under Roe v. Wade, and to return the regulation of abortion to the states.

Pro-abortion activists are seeking ways to work around the restrictions on pre-viability abortions that states are expected to enact if Roe is struck down.

They hope to capitalize on the fact that more than half of abortions that take place in the U.S. are chemical abortions, accomplished when a pregnant woman takes 2 drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone blocks progesterone, making it difficult for the embryo to implant in the uterine wall. Misoprostol causes cramps meant to expel the unborn child from the body. A Covid exemption allows abortionists to dispense these abortion drugs without examining the patient in person. So, there’s no physician ensuring a patient does not take them too far along in pregnancy or at incorrect intervals.

In December, the Biden administration made the exemption permanent policy, encouraging these self-managed “mail order abortions.”

Post-Roe, chemical abortions will likely be prohibited in many states. So abortion proponents are trying a tactic used in countries where abortion is illegal. They manipulate the language, offering women surgery or prescriptions for “menstrual regulation,” or “missed period pills.”

Since September, a European-based organization called Aid Access has been providing the abortion drug to U.S. women who aren’t even pregnant �” just to have on hand in case of an “emergency.” And Plan C, an organization seeking to make abortion pills available over the counter, pitches a high-dose-misoprostol-only drug to “bring back your period.” These “missed period pills” could be provided if a woman only suspects she’s pregnant or to have in her medicine cabinet “to manage her fertility.”

Less stigma? Perhaps. But this will still be abortion.

The White House has announced a sixth extension in the Covid-inspired pause on federal student loan payments – this time through August. The Wall Street Journal calls this “cancelling student debt on the installment plan.” The Journal wonders why, with the rest of the country returning to normal, student borrowers can’t start making their loan payments.

Progressives are pushing the administration to forgive at least $50,000 per borrower. “Could it be teeing up even more sweeping loan forgiveness?” the Journal editorial asks. Just in time for the fall elections.

The renewal of the student loan repayment moratorium is inflationary. Bloomberg’s Matthew Yglesias points out that the economy no longer needs the stimulus derived from slowing down or not collecting student loans.

According to an estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the pause in student loan repayment has cost taxpayers more than $100 billion so far. And it will mostly benefit those who need it least – higher earners with graduate degrees. Graduate students take on much more debt and their loans carry higher interest rates. To some grad students, this level of debt makes sense because they have higher earning potential.

Columnist George Will questions the wisdom of “ever-higher college enrollments.” He points to the proliferation of master’s degrees, a 51-percent increase in the last decade, which he contends has been “enabled by excessive student borrowing.”

George Will points to a study by the Brookings Institution revealing that about a third of student debt is held by the wealthiest 20 percent of households. In a column, Matthew Yglesias writes: “Most people do not go to college and do not incur student loan debt, and those non-debtors have lower incomes on average then the people who do go to college and do have debt.“

A massive student loan forgiveness may buy some votes, but perhaps not those of students who scrimped to pay their loans and parents who saved to pay for college.

The last day of March this year was deemed the International Transgender Day of Visibility. We didn’t need such a designation to help us notice the trans issue. The news is saturated with it.

That day, the White House made an announcement that should have surprised no one. Regarding children who may “want to be transgender” candidate Joe Biden made a promise. He said, “I will flat out just change the law…..[E]liminate executive orders…” Conservatives warned this signaled taxpayer-funded sex changes for kids.

The White House is now making good on that pledge. On March 31st, the President stated: ”Affirming a transgender child’s identity is one of the best things a parent, teacher, or doctor can do to keep children from harm.” The Justice Department sent a letter to all state attorneys general warning them that if they prevent minors from receiving “gender affirming care,” they could be violating civil rights laws. The letter spells out four aspects of this gender-affirming care.

In order they are: social affirmation – hairstyle clothing, name, gender pronouns and bathroom use. All must be allowed according to the child’s preferred gender designation. Then, puberty-blocking hormones are given. Then, hormone therapy – testosterone for children “assigned female at birth” and estrogen “for those assigned male at birth.” And then there are the surgeries which adolescents would receive on a case-by-case basis, the most profound of which are castrations for biological boys and double mastectomies and hysterectomies for biological girls.

Someone aptly named this the “school-to-sterilization-pathway.”

Some states will not comply. Alabama Governor Kay Ivy recently signed a bill criminalizing the use of these medical procedures on children. Arkansas has also outlawed such “treatments” for minors. Texas has designated them child abuse and will prosecute parents who transition their children in this way.

States, attempting to protect children from this godless agenda, now face the full weight of the federal government acting in service of a vile, unconscionable lie.

The worst inflation our country has seen in 40 years is upon us. We all feel it. But inflation hits some communities harder than others. A recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis states that, although we report a national inflation rate – currently 7.9 percent – different communities are impacted differently.

“Covid-related” stimulus was sold, in part, to help lower-income households. Yet the ensuing inflation has hit them the hardest.

Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. She has long insisted that the policies championed by progressives, and “served under the guise of caring about low-income Americans end up hurting those very communities.”

“Higher-income households,” writes Star Parker, “have more flexibility in adjusting behavior than do lower-income households.”

Parents with young families are also disproportionally affected by inflation. Mary Clare Anselem is a writer for The Daily Signal. She’s also the mother of two children in diapers. She says there’s a new term – “momflation” – used to describe “the startling increase in prices” mothers, and families in general, experience as they purchase food and necessities – the basics.

It is a shock. The current generation of young parents have never experienced inflation like this. They’re forced to spend a growing share of their income for all the supplies needed to keep kids clean and fed. Mary Clare Anselem says she’s spending at least $100 (dollars) a month on diapers alone.

“Momflation” affects parents of all political persuasions. An opinion piece in The Hill argues that parents have the power to become “America’s strongest special interest group” and could use it to get Congress to reconsider the child-related new and expanded entitlements contained in President Biden’s Build Back Better proposal.

The Daily Signal’s Ms. Anslem has a better idea. Parents across the nation are successfully coming together to gain control over their children’s education. They could join forces to challenge the administration’s inflationary policies and make “this year’s midterms a momflation-fueled referendum.”

A couple of weeks ago, University of Pennsylvania senior Lia Thomas won an NCAA championship in women’s swimming, setting an Ivy League time record for the 500-yard freestyle. Thomas, a former male swimmer for Penn, has dominated the female competition this year.

Commentator and podcaster Matt Walsh observed Lia’s demeanor at the winner’s podium: Thomas, he writes, did not “make any effort at all to sound or appear womanly.” He was “accepted as a woman because he declared himself to be so.” Parents who complained in a letter about Thomas’ presence in Division 1 women’s swimming said the NCAA dismissed their concerns outright.

Mr. Walsh pointed out that the Left makes little effort to explain, defend, or justify gender ideology.” They just “demand that it is obeyed and expect that to be the end of the conversation.”

Indeed. Senator Marsha Blackburn tried to have a conversation about this issue when, in a hearing conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee, she asked President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson to “provide a definition for the word ‘woman.’” The nominee replied that she could not, and stated “I am not a biologist.”

USA Today’s report on the exchange stated:

“Scientists, gender law scholars and philosophers of biology said
Jackson’s response was commendable, though perhaps misleading.
It’s useful, they say, that Jackson suggested science could help answer
Blackburn’s question, but they note that a competent biologist would
not be able to offer a definitive answer either. Scientists agree there is
no sufficient way to clearly define what makes someone a woman,
and with billions of women on the planet, there is much variation.”

It’s almost comical to watch the media tiptoe around the word woman. When Arizona legislators passed a 15-week abortion ban, one article stated that abortion advocates are warning that the ban “would be harmful to people who can get pregnant.”

People who can get pregnant. Why didn’t Ketanji Jackson think of that?

Workers in the technology industry have long known that working remotely was feasible. But the Covid-19 pandemic made it a daily reality for millions. The Wall Street Journal’s technology writer, Christopher Mims, explains how transformative this is turning out to be. He brings to bear the results of recent surveys by economists from several top universities in an article titled “The New Tech Hubs.”

For decades, tech companies were clustered in what Mr. Mims calls “superstar cities” in the San Francisco, New York, and Seattle areas. But now, “Millions of Americans are moving and companies — especially tech companies — are following them. These firms are bringing investment and more workers to what he calls “rising star cities.” The Brookings Institution reports that the work-from-anywhere crowd is heading to “a diverse array of cities” including Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, and St. Louis.

This trend has been years in the making. The pandemic dramatically accelerated it. A survey just released by Upwork, a platform connecting employers and freelance workers, shows that nearly five million Americans report having moved since 2020 and 18.9 million are planning to move.

Economists from Stanford, MIT Sloan, Princeton and other institutions have concluded from their research that “about half of all U.S. workers currently perform their jobs remotely at least some of the time.”

Companies are increasingly willing to hire workers, with the agreement at the outset, that they will work remotely. Mr. Mims points to research that shows “nearly a quarter of full work days will happen at home after the pandemic ends as opposed to 5% before the pandemic.”

This phenomenon is taking workers and their families away from blue states to redder areas of the country. It brings demographic changes that will affect politics. It provides
opportunities for ministry to individuals and families looking for connection.

Remote workers are not meeting new friends at the office. Believers should be looking for ways to draw them in to Christian community.

Bob Chapek, CEO of the Walt Disney Company had a bad week recently. Unlike his predecessor, Robert Iger, he prefers to stay out of politics. What happened last week shows how difficult that can be in the current woke corporate environment.

Disney’s most famous property is in Florida and Bob Chapek didn’t to get in a public fight with the state’s Governor Ron DeSantis. But it happened.

Florida’s legislators passed a popular bill that prohibits classroom instruction on and gender before 4th grade. Critics call this the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and are pushing the false claim that the law would prevent children with same-sex parents from being allowed to draw pictures of their families or talk about them in class.

The Parental Rights in Education bill is a common-sense pushback against the Left’s indoctrination in schools. One provision requires that schools notify parents and acquire their consent for children to receive health care services offered on campus. Another section prohibits school districts from requiring that teachers keep secrets from parents about health decisions, including matters involving gender identity.

Governor DeSantis said in a video that “companies that have made a fortune off being family-friendly… should understand that parents of young kids do not want this injected into their kid’s kindergarten classroom. They do not want their first-graders to go and be told they can choose an opposite gender.”

By week’s end, Bob Chapek was begging forgiveness from disgruntled Disney employees for not speaking out against the bill. He also announced that Disney would renounce all political giving and pledged to send $5 million to LGBT groups.

Bob Chapek’s original instincts to stay out of this debate were correct and other CEO’s should take notice. As Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins wisely suggests, “Maybe the reality is finally starting to sink in that corporate America is on the wrong side of the political debate by being in the political debate at all.”