Point of View April 29, 2025 – Hour 2 : Tuesday’s Headlines

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, your guest host for Point of View. Welcome back to Point of View. We're heading into the second hour. I'm Liberty McCarter and I'm so happy to be with you today filling in here at Point of View.

[00:00:30] We just had some great interviews, so if you missed the first hour go back to pointofview.net or you can also see the videos on Facebook. I interviewed Hallie Dye, her book on biblical motherhood and that was so encouraging. And then Joe Beckler with Christian Business Men's Connection, just with some real encouraging words and practical tips specifically for men and young men right now. So again, a really great first hour, but let's move on to some news of the day.

[00:00:59] If you know me or you've heard me on Point of View, you know that I like to talk about the pro-life cause and talk about what we need to know with regard to abortion. So there was actually a new study published yesterday from the Ethics and Public Policy Center on the abortion pill. And this is the biggest study of the abortion pill that we know of to date.

[00:01:25] So this analyzes data from all payer insurance claims from a database of insurance claims. So we've got almost 900,000 cases here that they have studied of women who have taken the abortion pill. So and just a little preview that does a lot more, a lot more women, a lot more cases studied in this study than when the FDA first approved the pill. And we'll get into some of that history, too. But why do I bring this up?

[00:01:55] Why is it important to know about this new study, which I'm about to walk you through? Because as of right now, as of January, when I published a new booklet, a biblical view on chemical abortion. So if you are a monthly donor to Point of View, you get these booklets in the mail. But at the time when I wrote this just a few months ago, chemical abortion or the abortion pill, sometimes known as medication abortion,

[00:02:22] accounted for 63 percent of abortions in the U.S. And so after Roe, a lot of states banned or severely restricted abortion, which is great. That was a good victory constitutionally and for the pro-life cause. However, there is still a fight to be fought. So as of right now, 12 states have total bans in the United States on abortion.

[00:02:50] And then seven states ban abortion sometime between six and 18 weeks gestation. Twenty two states ban abortion sometime after eight weeks. But nine states and Washington, D.C. do not have any ban or limit on abortion. But even in the states where there are bans, you still have women who are getting the abortion pill because it is easier than ever to obtain it. And the thing is, it is so dangerous.

[00:03:15] It is so obviously it tragically kills an unborn life, but it is so dangerous for women. And the abortion lobby is lying about it. So let's look at this study. If you want to see it for yourself, we've linked it at pointofview.net. And again, this is from the Ethics and Public Policy Center. It was released yesterday.

[00:03:33] So again, this is the largest known study of the abortion pill based on analysis of data from an all payer insurance claims database that includes 865,727 prescribed mifepristone abortions from 2017 to 2023. So that's the main pill that women take in a chemical abortion.

[00:03:53] So this says that 11% of women experience sepsis infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse event within 45 days following the abortion pill. And so their recommendation is obviously as pro-lifers, we don't want abortion to be legal at all. But at the very least, the FDA needs to reinstate some stronger patient safety protocols that used to be in place.

[00:04:22] And do more investigation into the harm of the abortion pill, which is marketed as safe and effective. And so as I noted in the booklet, our HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has actually expressed an openness to looking at this and studying it. President Trump has even said that, you know, he would be open to a study looking into the safety of the abortion pill.

[00:04:52] And so Kennedy has said that they're open to doing that. I'm not sure if that process has begun, but hopefully a study like this will maybe encourage that a little bit more. And so here's what used to take place before a woman could be prescribed the abortion pill. She needed at least three in-person visits because there are so many ways that it can be dangerous. It's meant to be taken within the first few weeks of pregnancy.

[00:05:20] But if a woman is experiencing an ectopic pregnancy, if she is further along in pregnancy than she realizes, which is very common or has some sort of other underlying issue, the doctor needs to be able to identify that. And that is often what sends women to the hospital. But let's look back at when it was first approved. It was first approved by the FDA, I believe, in 2000. And this was under pressure from President Clinton at the time.

[00:05:45] And so the FDA actually kind of had a loophole in order to approve it. So there was a little used process for certain new drug protocols that have been studied for their safety and effectiveness in treating serious or life-threatening illnesses. So basically, if there is a life-threatening illness that is very serious and there's a new medication and it's been studied a little bit, then the FDA can go ahead and approve it. So how does the abortion pill factor into that?

[00:06:15] Well, in order to get it approved when it had not been studied very much, only very small studies had been done on the safety of the abortion pill, they had to classify pregnancy as a serious or life-threatening illness. And so that kind of just goes and shows you that from the very beginning, there was a lot of lies and twists and misconceptions, even in the process, to have it become available to women.

[00:06:40] And still, it was under this very intense protocol where women had to have in-person visits, follow-up visits to make sure that there wasn't infection, that there wasn't some sort of life-threatening problem. But throughout the time since then, those regulations have been erased. They have been dropped. We saw that in COVID with the regulations dropped more.

[00:07:03] Where it stands today, all you have to do is have one telehealth visit, not even in person, and by a provider, not even necessarily a physician. You can actually become qualified to prescribe abortion pills even when you're not a physician. Women are encouraged to self-administer these from home. Oftentimes, they get them in the mail. And the prescriber does not need to report any adverse events unless he or she knows that a patient has died.

[00:07:34] So think about just the amount, the number of women who have suffered infection, near-death experiences, after taking the abortion pill that don't have to be reported because they didn't die. And then tragically, a lot of women are dying. And one of the narratives that you'll hear in the media is that women are dying because of abortion bans.

[00:07:54] But if you talk to any doctor or OB-GYN who understands the laws, doctors are not prevented from treating a woman who has a life-threatening emergency during pregnancy. They are supposed to treat her. We want her to be treated and her life to be saved. What is actually happening is that people who should not be prescribing these pills are prescribing them to women who should not be taking them. And their lives, unfortunately, are at risk and sometimes lost.

[00:08:24] And so, again, this is just something I wanted to highlight and bring your attention to because the abortion pill is so prevalent and increasingly so in America. And you can find this study and read more about it at pointofview.net. But when we come back, I want to continue to talk about the issue of human dignity and some of the other issues we need to be aware of as Christians in this regard. So stay with us. We'll be back in just a few moments.

[00:08:58] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Rare earth minerals are essential to modern life. They're used in everything from electric vehicles to jet engines to medical equipment to the smartphone you are holding. Despite their name, rare earth minerals are not that rare. In fact, the U.S. has quite a supply of them underground. But the rare minerals need to go through a refining process before they can be used as industrial-grade materials.

[00:09:25] A few decades ago, the U.S. processed a third of the world's refined rare earth mineral supply. But now Communist China does most of the processing. That is why pundits and politicians are alarmed by the decision by Communist China to cut off this country. It is intended to put additional pressure on the Trump administration to end the tariffs on Chinese products. China's decision is also a fitting reminder why President Trump wants to bring mining and manufacturing back to the U.S.

[00:09:52] If Xi Jinping is willing to halt their exports of rare earth minerals over tariffs, what would he do in a war? We saw some of this when the pandemic hit. We were told to buy masks, but most of those masks were made in China and soon became hard to obtain. We were encouraged to keep taking our medications only to discover how many of them were manufactured in China. The only U.S. rare earth mine is located in California and is suspended shipping rare earth concentrate to China.

[00:10:20] In their statement, they said that selling their materials under these tariffs is not commercially rational and not aligned with America's national interest. The U.S. has only one rare earth mine and one rare earth processing facility. Perhaps it is time to make America self-sufficient again instead of being dependent on China. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:47] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Welcome back to Point of View. Liberty McCarter filling in for Kirby Anderson. We were talking about a new study that you can check out at pointofview.net on the abortion pill.

[00:11:12] It is the largest known study of the abortion pill available from the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Really important information, especially as we may have an opportunity with the current administration to reinstate some FDA protocols that would make it, even though we want abortion to be gone completely, at least make it harder to obtain and maybe correct some of those lies and misconceptions that women are told about the safety of the abortion pill.

[00:11:41] But in the same vein, a little bit, is the issue of assisted suicide. And maybe you're thinking, wow, you're just a big ball of sunshine today, Liberty. Well, you know, these are important topics that we need to discuss. I do want to bring it around to a Christian worldview and perspective, and we'll end on a lighter note, I promise. But stick with me. This is another article. This one is from World Magazine. You can find it at pointofview.net. Really a great job.

[00:12:11] In the United Kingdom, they are considering a bill that would legalize assisted suicide. And so this is just the latest in a growing number of Western countries that are reconsidering their laws with regard to assisted suicide. And often those who are in favor of it, it comes from a very personal place for a lot of people.

[00:12:35] Maybe they have had a loved one that they have seen suffer through end-of-life care, and they maybe think it would have been more merciful to let them choose when to exit this life. But again, we have to bring it back to a Christian worldview and really speak the truth in this regard. And there are a lot of concerns and very concerning implications for this. So let's dive into a few of those.

[00:13:03] Again, this really comes down to people saying that you can die with dignity. But it is a way for people to answer the problem of evil and the problem of suffering without a biblical worldview. And there are two reasons in the article that quotes some different advocates who are fighting this. But one of them says there are really two reasons that this movement has grown, and that is a loss of religion.

[00:13:31] So people are trying to answer these questions and tackle these big problems of suffering and evil and sickness and find a way to do that. And when they don't have a grounding in the biblical worldview, then they're going to find solutions like this. But there's also one that I think can potentially be more nefarious, and that's the rise of individual autonomy as the supreme virtue. So what does that mean?

[00:14:01] Well, as Americans, we really need to take an inward look here because we tend to be very individually minded. I'm going to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I can do it. And we kind of take pride in that. At the same time, though, the other side of that coin is what I want really matters. That's the only thing that matters. And so I need to pursue my happiness, my truth, so to speak, in life. And I need to be autonomous.

[00:14:31] I don't. I don't need community. And you wonder why we're seeing such high rates of loneliness. This is part of the reason, because if you think about it at the core, this is one of the preeminent values that people share, maybe even without realizing it. And so where does this lead us? Well, one, often it can lead to people wanting to have control. They want to have control over the end of their life.

[00:15:01] And so what's interesting is that if you look at studies, because assisted suicide is legal in a lot of places. In fact, in the United States, it's legal in nine states. Eight states are currently considering assisted suicide laws. So if you go to if you look up death with dignity, that's an organization. Obviously, you can tell by the title that they're pro assisted suicide. But they actually have a map of different states that are considering legislation that would approve it.

[00:15:27] You should probably check that out and see if your state is one of those so you can speak out against it. But when they we've had it legal in enough places around the world and in the United States now to do enough studies on it to see why do people opt for this? And in contrary to what many people believe that it's, you know, people who are dealing with chronic illnesses at the end of their life, they know that they're about to die. They're having extreme pain. So they decide to opt for assisted suicide.

[00:15:57] Pain is actually not ranked as a reason at all for people to choose assisted suicide. But it's usually for emotional reasons, like the loss of autonomy, impaired quality of life and loss of dignity. And another one, and this is the this is the kicker for me that I think all of us should actually this should sober us up.

[00:16:22] Fear over being a burden in Oregon, which was the first state to legalize assisted suicide in the United States. Fear of being a burden is cited in 46 percent of assisted suicide cases. So nearly half.

[00:16:38] And so if that doesn't immediately strike you as, you know, just being tragic that people are choosing this because they feel they have no other option or they have no other support or maybe it's the right thing to do. Their life isn't valuable. So they might as well just leave. This is not the way that God wants us to take care of one another.

[00:17:03] And so there's this coalition in the UK and in the United States as well of Christians speaking against this, disability advocates speaking against this, and also people in the palliative care industry saying that whenever you do end of life care correctly, most of the time you can ease pain with modern medicine and you can provide that peaceful environment.

[00:17:27] But there is a real holy work in doing that in a biblical way and caring for somebody at the last stages of their life that is different than saying we are going to now end your life. And you can track the cases. Again, this is something that I believe I know point of view is talked about. I believe I've highlighted it in the past, but specifically even with people who have disabilities.

[00:17:51] When you have the option, as many countries do now, where you can choose assisted suicide for a wide range of reasons, including just having a disability. What does that tell the person about their quality of life?

[00:18:07] And oftentimes you have people whose doctors have pushed them towards this because it's less expensive than continuing to provide the medication they need or the equipment that they may need. And so you have people who are literally fighting to stay alive under pressure from the medical system to go ahead and end their lives.

[00:18:30] This article from World points out that in other places in Wales, they've had assisted suicide options since November. And since that time, they have had an increase of relatives saying, can't you hasten my sister or my mother's death? So when you have that option there, then, of course, it's going to be taken advantage of because the goal of life is skewed.

[00:18:59] It is selfish. It is self-centered. It is individualized. And so if somebody isn't producing something for society or they are becoming a burden, then it is a lot easier to just say, well, why? Why should you be alive? And so this is what we have to fight as Christians. And it really comes down, I think, to the same core issue as abortion. OK, and and one of the big things is community and the need to depend on others.

[00:19:28] And this is what God created us to do. He did not create us to be loners. He created us to need him, but to also need other people. And so when you have legalized abortion, when you have legalized assisted assisted suicide, it doesn't actually solve the problem of unexpected pregnancies or chronic illness or mental illness or disability.

[00:19:54] It's not really fixing anything. What it's actually doing is allowing for a breakdown of our responsibilities to one another. So an abortion, when you have a legalized abortion, you have a breakdown of the mom's responsibility to her child. First and foremost, the dad's responsibility to the mom, because it's easy for the father to say, I don't want to provide for the child. So you have the option to get an abortion.

[00:20:21] Why don't you do that? Also society's responsibility to the family. We have there are so many cases of big businesses and corporations saying, we'll pay for you to travel out of state and get an abortion, but we're not going to pay for maternity leave or we're not going to accommodate you. I personally know so many people who have been fired from their jobs because they asked for pregnancy accommodations. So this is happening and having legalized abortion is just isn't helping.

[00:20:50] It's a way out for people to avoid the responsibilities that we should have. And the more communal mindset we should have toward one another and caring for each other and bearing each other's needs in those difficult seasons of life. And that is what God calls us to do as Christians. And that's the same thing that we are seeing with assisted suicide. It's a breakdown of our responsibility to care for others in difficult seasons of their life. We'll have to go to a break.

[00:21:19] We'll finish up this topic and dive into some other news of the day right after this. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority. They say men can be women and women men. People are prosecuted differently or not at all depending on their politics.

[00:21:45] Criminals are more valued and rewarded than law-abiding citizens. It's so overwhelming, so demoralizing. You feel like giving up. But we can't. We shouldn't. We must not. As Winston Churchill said to Britain in the darkest days of World War II, Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

[00:22:12] And that's what we say to you today. This is not a time to give in, but to step up and join Point of View in providing clarity in the chaos. We can't do it alone, but together, with God's help, we will overcome the darkness. Invest in biblical clarity today at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151.

[00:22:38] Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:01] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, your guest host for Point of View. Welcome back to Point of View. I'm Liberty McCarter. In the last half hour, we've been discussing a new study that examines the harms of the abortion pill. And we've also been discussing the fight that the U.K. is in right now, deciding whether or not it is going to legalize assisted suicide.

[00:23:31] So be in prayer for the United Kingdom. Be in prayer for the people who are advocating for life there. And just a few final thoughts. I mean, when you, again, as I was saying before the break, when you allow death of the people considered inconvenient in a society, there really is no end to that.

[00:23:56] Because it is a breakdown of our responsibility to one another, to care for each other, to be there for each other, to step in and bear one another's burdens. We are not just, you know, individual autonomous people. We are made to survive in community. And that means being with each other and walking with each other through the hard parts of life as well. But it also comes down to how we see humans and why, what we think the purpose of life is.

[00:24:24] So if we see humanity as the purpose of life on Earth is to continually progress, progress and you have a lot of people in influential positions right now, especially with the advent of technology like artificial intelligence, who would say that that is the purpose of our existence here is to progress when that's what you think the purpose is, or to just simply find happiness or efficiency or whatever it is.

[00:24:53] And again, you're not going to want to provide for or care for inconvenience, the inconvenience of babies, the inconvenience of children, the inconvenience of the elderly or people who do have special needs that need that additional care. But if you see every person as made in the image of God, here to glorify him and enjoy a relationship with him and to steward this Earth

[00:25:17] and to live in community with one another, then you can't just cut people off from that community. And another thing that I just I wanted to highlight, too, is that we are in an age, many people have called it a culture of death with relation to the abortion issue and also the assisted suicide issue, which, by the way, another thing mentioned in that World Magazine article is that in places where assisted suicide is legal,

[00:25:45] people often argue that general suicide rates will go down. But that's not true. And it really shouldn't surprise us, because if you say, yes, it's OK, if you decide you want to end your life as long as a doctor, you know, is there, then it's fine. Then what's what's preventing people from taking that step on their own? And that's something that's tragic to think about, but it is happening. And so really something that Ian Harbour, who was a guest I had on,

[00:26:15] he was on Point of View and on the Know I podcast, which I host a few months ago. And his main topic he was talking about was deconstruction and this book that he had written on that. But one of the things that we addressed in my podcast interview with him is how Christians have really kind of lost the ability to mourn and lament the things that were meant to mourn and lament. And death is one of those things. Even if you look at things like church services, where instead of funerals, we have celebrations of life.

[00:26:43] And I'm not saying you shouldn't celebrate when somebody who is a Christian is with Jesus eternally. Now, you know, that is a good thing for them. But it's like we're not allowing ourselves to even acknowledge that it's a bad thing because we don't want to deal with it. But we can't appreciate the eternal life that Christ has given us and the eternal hope and the contrast of life in Jesus against life without him. If we don't first acknowledge the darkness, you have to acknowledge that first. The Bible says that death is the enemy.

[00:27:12] And so as we are entering an age of, you know, AI, you have more and more people who are saying out loud, we need to find ways to improve humanity at the same time you're seeing rising increases in rates of abortion and assisted suicide around the world. This is a time where Christians, we have to be able to articulate that Christians, that all human beings are made in the image of God and worthy of value, not because of what they produce or how healthy they are, how advanced they are,

[00:27:41] but simply because they are human beings and we are special in God's image and we need to protect life. So that's my final thought on that. Again, you can read those articles for yourself and consider that food for thought at pointofview.net. But another issue that I think is related to human dignity in life has to do with some immigration things that we're seeing.

[00:28:04] So as we know, the Trump administration is really trying to cut down or completely cut out illegal immigration. And many people can agree that we need order. We need order at the border. We need order in our immigration policy, which has been chaotic and piecemeal and not really functional for a long time. But there's one issue where a lot of Christians, including Christians who support Trump, have been pushing back.

[00:28:30] And that was when earlier this month, the Trump administration announced to several Afghan refugees, they got emails informing them that they were going to have to leave the country in a week. They had seven days. And the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that it was not going to renew their protected status. So specifically Afghans who came to America after the withdrawal of American troops under the Biden administration.

[00:29:00] So they have not been deported yet. So they have not been deported yet. But what many Christians, including Reverend Franklin Graham and many other Christian organizations and nonprofits, came together and wrote a letter to the administration saying if many of these Afghan refugees are here because they have already faced persecution, they have faced torture, things that we can hardly even imagine.

[00:29:30] And if they are and they came here legally. And so if they are sent back, they will surely be tortured and killed. And so as of right now, the status is that Trump officials have said that they are reconsidering whether or not specifically Christians will be deported to Afghanistan. And so this is just one of the things, again, that we need to be in prayer for our leaders.

[00:29:59] Obviously, there are there are a lot of things that need to be fixed. And I think we can all agree that the immigration issue needs some order as well. But sending brothers and sisters in Christ back to a regime under the Taliban that we know has persecuted them and is going to persecute them again when they are here legally does not seem to me like the just thing to do.

[00:30:26] Now, certain Trump officials have said that they can also apply for asylum and that they can start a new legal process. So some can avail themselves of that. Others have kind of been confused with some of the messages that they have received. I'm unsure whether or not they're going to be able to apply for more.

[00:30:47] And so this is something that there ever again, Franklin Graham, who leads Samaritan's Purse, son of Billy Graham, obviously, and kind of in the inside circle with President Trump, at least in the previous administration. He's actually gone to Washington. He's met with Senator Lindsey Graham. I read another article. You can read this at pointofview.net as well.

[00:31:10] But he's spoken with others high up in the department that the deadline has been pushed back in order for cases to be reviewed. He says, we believe this will be resolved. And I appreciate the efforts to try and help Afghan Christians.

[00:31:26] So, again, and another thing, too, is that while certainly we want Christians to not have to go back to persecution in their home countries, there are even several Afghan refugees who came here who were given legal protected status because they had helped U.S. troops in Afghanistan. And they may not be Christians, but if they go back, they will still be persecuted because they helped the U.S.

[00:31:53] And personally, I think that they should have protected status as well as a thank you for helping U.S. troops, which is what they were originally told. So this, again, is one of those issues to pray about, to be aware of, to watch and be in prayer for our leaders, because there are a lot of weighty decisions that are being made. And we are seeing changes fast happening in the Trump administration. There are many changes that people are happy about and excited about.

[00:32:19] There are changes happening where even Trump supporters who have supported him through through both through both of his administration so far, like Reverend Graham, are saying, you know, they're speaking out against it. And that's an important example, too, is to say support when I think you're doing something right. But let's speak up whenever I think that we are stepping in a dangerous zone here.

[00:32:43] And so just to encourage you to continue praying for the United States, praying for wisdom for our leaders and in the direction of the United States, you can actually do that. And we encourage you to do that with us every week because we have a Pray for America email campaign. And so you can go to pointofview.net and actually sign up for emails. And every week there's a dedicated topic where we give us a little breakdown of the news of what's happening, a little suggested prayer.

[00:33:12] It's easy to share on social media so you can get other people praying. We usually have a video recorded by yours truly that is actually praying the prayer so that you can just share that video. We need to be in prayer. That is not a last step or a last resort. It should be the first thing we are doing, including praying for our leaders and making these decisions. We have more to discuss. So stay with us because after this break, we will be back with more on Point of View.

[00:33:55] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Welcome back to the last few minutes of Point of View today. I'm Liberty McCarter, and it's been great to be here with you. Now, I promised you that I would end on a better note. I know we've been discussing some heavy topics, but I did have to get a little bit of an educational topic or education-related topic in.

[00:34:18] So if you've heard me on the show before, you listened to the Know I podcast, then you're probably aware that I'm a second-generation homeschooler. I was homeschooled. I homeschool my kids currently. And before I started homeschooling, I was actually teaching for a couple of years. I was teaching English at a Christian school. And this is probably not a lot of people know this, but pretty soon I'm excited about it. I'm going to be starting a master's program studying classical education.

[00:34:45] So that will take me a while because, like I said, I'm homeschooling my own kids. So I'm going to go slow. But I love talking about education, and I love talking about the importance of reading and thinking. And I think that it applies to culture in so many ways beyond just if you are a teacher or if you're interested in education. And this article that I've posted at pointofview.net really gives us a clear example of that. So I really wanted to share it with you.

[00:35:15] This was from Dr. Jennifer Weber. I found it on Substack, which if you don't know, it's a great place to find all kinds of thoughtful blogs and go straight to the source, straight to the writer that you want to follow. And so the title of this article, and Dr. Weber, by the way, has a Ph.D. in behavior analysis and a background in education. Her article is entitled We Trained a Generation Not to Think. Now We're Paying the Price.

[00:35:44] And so see if this sounds familiar. She said that she actually took some time offline recently because she was tired of seeing people responding to breaking news with outrage instead of analysis, with slogans replacing sources. Speed, emotion, and certainty seem to matter more than comprehension, accuracy, or depth. Well, that does sound familiar.

[00:36:10] And that's one of the reasons why I hope you enjoy listening to Point of View, because we try not to do that. Even with the last topic, which when I saw the headlines about, you know, Afghan Christians being deported back to Afghanistan, it really does, you know, that can be quite an emotional topic. But even with that, I want to be careful and make sure I do my research and not respond immediately with outrage. So we try to be careful about that on Point of View. But today you don't really see a lot of people doing that.

[00:36:36] You don't see people questioning, verifying, tolerating uncertainty. That's a big one. We feel like we have to know. We have to have an opinion and we have to have it right now. And there's even been, you know, peer pressure on social media. You've got to make a statement on X, Y, and Z. And you've got to do it right now. Otherwise, you're on the wrong side of history. We've seen that a lot. And so this isn't just an academic failure, Dr. Weber writes. It's a cognitive crisis.

[00:37:05] And so she says that we've been told this lie that critical thinking is automatic, that if you just expose students to different ideas or the right ideas, that they will learn how to analyze, how to think analytically. But she says that just like any other behavior, thinking is taught. It's formed. And one of the ways that it is formed is learning how to read. So the way you learn how to read can actually impact the way that you learn how to think.

[00:37:34] And when you become an adult, the way that you engage with news, your political adversaries and all the things that we're seeing today. So she notes that phonics was replaced with guessing strategies. So if you've had kids in these programs or maybe you remember this or you've been in teaching at all, we really did. And the educational system kind of moved away from teaching phonics.

[00:37:58] And you were teaching students to rely, to guess, to guess, not verify, to rely on pictures and context, not structure and precision. So this didn't just create poor readers, she says, but people who are thinking poorly because now think about it. Those same students are adults and they're responding to headlines, global conflict and political discourse the same way they were taught to read, she writes, quickly, reactively, emotionally and without analysis.

[00:38:28] And so this is something we've even seen in standardized tests, you know, instead of really reading a book in literature class and engage or an English class and engaging with it, starting from beginning to end. What are the ideas? Students are given an excerpt, a paragraph taught to skim, get the gist so that they can answer the right questions. And this might not be happening everywhere, but it is pretty common. And so, again, that just kind of is what we're doing today.

[00:38:57] We skim. How often do you sit down and really read a lengthy article or multiple articles from different perspectives to try to get at the truth of something? It's so much easier and therefore more tempting to just scroll quickly on social media, doom scroll, see a bunch of negative headlines, make an angry tweet or, you know, form a quick opinion and then think that you've engaged. And so this is why you have a crisis of misinformation.

[00:39:26] And there truly is one. And again, we don't want to respond by then, you know, having misinformation censored when it's really not misinformation, which, of course, we've talked about on Point of View in the past. But if you want, if you really want to tackle misinformation and teach people how to really engage with ideas and to learn how to think through them and not just skim, not just guess and come up with a quick opinion and then move on. And so we can still repair this.

[00:39:56] She says it was predictable, but it's not inevitable. And so what do we do? Well, I think personally, we can just decide that we are going to kind of reform our own habits. And I know that that's hard because as we talked about with other topics related to other things in the show today, we live in a culture of hurry. And so you think I'm going to scroll for 30 minutes while I sit down or five minutes and you see some headlines, you get upset, you get worried.

[00:40:25] But we need to really tell ourselves that we need to slow down and engage and sit with that tension of uncertainty and be OK with not knowing or not knowing yet and being open to learning more.

[00:40:41] And then in the classroom, whether you're a teacher or you're a parent or you're some way involved with kids in any way, any capacity you can call the school board, encourage environments where students are given the time to think and to challenge ideas and to really read and engage with ideas,

[00:41:02] to learn to decode and analyze and verify these skills that they learn when they're learning how to read are actually applicable all across life. And so we can repair this. This is one of the reasons why I love classical education, because this is ingrained in it. But you don't have to go to a classical liberal arts school or even get a classical homeschool curriculum for your kids.

[00:41:26] It just kind of starts with recognizing and then changing our attitude and and changing our own habits personally and then encouraging others to change them as well. Something that I love and this is kind of random, but I thought of it. There's a local coffee shop in my town and they have monthly discussion nights and they they come together. You have coffee on this evening. There's a topic and you are encouraged to engage with your neighbors in a conversation.

[00:41:53] And I think we need more spaces like that in our nation and more time to just really delve in and think critically. And that's part of what we can do as Christians as well. And additionally, applying a biblical worldview to all of that. So it's been great to be with you today. If you want action items, like I said, I wanted to end on a positive note.

[00:42:15] Send a mom a the interview that I did with Hallie Dye earlier and maybe buy her that copy of that book on motherhood because it's so encouraging. Send a young man the interview with Joe Beckler because he had such good encouragement for young men. And sign up for our Pray for America emails, appointedview.net, because all of these issues. Let's start with prayer. Let's take it to the Lord. So, again, I'm Liberty McCarter. I host the Know Why podcast. So I encourage you to check that out. We're on YouTube.

[00:42:43] You can also go to knowwhypodcast.com. And every week I talk about more issues, kind of like we've been discussing on Point of View, specifically geared toward young adults and millennials and Gen Z. And I'd love to have you follow Know Why podcast. But stick around tomorrow because Pennedexter will be hosting Point of View and that's going to be a great show. And I'll be back later in the week on the weekend edition on Friday and I look forward to that. For now, have a great afternoon.

[00:43:10] In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas. London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. London was in many ways the center of the world economically, militarily, and intellectually. Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports.

[00:43:39] Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth. It is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today? Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints commentary at pointofview.net slash signup.

[00:44:07] Every weekday in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time. It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash signup right now. Pointofview.net slash signup. Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.