Point of View October 1, 2026 – Hour 2 : Seminary Debt Relief Program

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson.

[00:00:19] Today, let's see if we can get into some other issues. For just a minute though, I thought I would revisit the comments about this very significant gathering, the so-called AI Summit in the White House, because Gary Bauer reminds us of a couple of issues in his latest end-of-day report,

[00:00:37] because he points out we had all these CEOs from the different artificial intelligence companies, now called Superintelligence, along with the President and the Vice President J.D. Vance, and the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and others, and he was urging them to redouble their commitments to develop this technology, but to do it in a safe way.

[00:00:58] And he also made a very strong emphasis on the fact that it's perfectly acceptable to oppose data centers near your home, but shutting down AI and data centers all over America does nothing but shut down AI and allow Communist China, Russia, Iran, whatever, to take over. And, of course, we're in a race on AI, so that's an important issue.

[00:01:24] And one of the things that Gary Bauer says is the media have not been telling the truth to the American people about what is going on in the data center issue, and that's why I thought I'd mention it up for just a minute, because as we've tried to do, at least give you the facts. If you still disagree, that's fine, but there are some facts that are circulating that are just not true.

[00:01:45] For example, the new data centers are bringing their own power sources so that you don't have price hikes in various communities. They are using recycled water, and as a matter of fact, the argument is that golf courses use twice as much water as data centers.

[00:02:04] And, of course, there's no opposition that I know of to golf centers and golf courses and things like that, but data centers are right between the, if you will, the particular sites of individuals. And then you have the revenues as well that Gary Bauer points out.

[00:02:23] Since he lives in Virginia, I think this is really kind of helpful because he points out that if you want to talk about kind of data center central, that's Loudoun County, Virginia. There is the largest concentration of data centers in the world right there in Loudoun County in Virginia. And, interestingly enough, Loudoun County has cut property tax every year for the past 10 years.

[00:02:48] As a matter of fact, one developer is offering to pay 4,500 households in one Pennsylvania community $10,000 each to pay data centers. Because what they're trying to do is say, we will not only make sure that it doesn't cost you anything, it is going to be such a very significant economic benefit. We want to share some of that with you.

[00:03:13] So, if you are willing to have a data center near you, we will write you a check for $10,000 at each one of the households there, which is a pretty significant dollar amount. Which then Gary Bauer points out, pales in comparison to the $50,000 bonuses that teachers in one Louisiana school district are getting, again, thanks to data centers. So, if you're concerned about AI, and there are some reasons to be concerned.

[00:03:42] We've talked about those before. AI agents that got away and did some things that maybe they shouldn't have done and were not under control. That's true. That is certainly worthy of some concern. But, on the other hand, you have, I think, got to get at least the facts straight. Because, when you go to some of these city council meetings, and I've got a friend that's been going to some just down the road here.

[00:04:07] And the amount of misinformation and deception and just the obnoxiousness of some of these people is really sad. Because, ultimately, we're moving to the 21st century. And one of the ways to do that, and one of the ways to make sure that America.gov and your cell phones and your data and your AI and everything works,

[00:04:29] is to have enough ability to provide the digital power necessary and the digital, if you will, AI chips to actually make that possible. So, nevertheless, that is the case. And I was originally planning to have an individual here from the state of New York to really kind of address what is happening right now in New York City. He had a family emergency so could not join us.

[00:04:55] But I had already posted this very good article, which I entitled Battles in New York City. And John Schell was going to give us some of those, but I'll focus, in the interest of time, on one. And that is where Tom Holman, who's our border czar, just really has been very upset with the New York mayor, Zoran Mamdani, and the New York governor, Kathy Hochul.

[00:05:20] And he was on a program the other day in which he was pointing out how both the governor and the mayor were actually involved in trying to do what they can to fight ICE at every turn.

[00:05:34] And in particular, put together a $7 million legal fund for unaccompanied migrant children and all sorts of restrictions based upon what he called the blatant lie about the fact that we had lost track of those children.

[00:05:52] So I thought I'd read part of what he said because he says now they want to spend millions of dollars of New York City and New York State taxpayer money on defending migrant children because they say we've abandoned them. Well, that got his eye up. He says, no, we didn't abandon them. We've just changed contracts. We have a contract in place now that defends the children at a better rate than what was being done in the past.

[00:06:18] There hasn't been one child at a hearing that hasn't been represented by a lawyer under this new contract. So let me say we're not abandoning these children. The only people abandoning children are you because you say you care about the safety of children. You care about the safety of communities. Well, I've been the border czar and I wrote these numbers down, he says, since I've been border czar. Here's the numbers.

[00:06:42] New York State has denied 14,000 detainers, over 14,000 detainers. Who are they? Well, that's 6,800 illegal aliens with assault convictions, 800 convictions for child crimes. Don't tell me you're trying to protect children. You're releasing predators in the street every day from the state. You've got 770 convictions for rape and other sex crimes.

[00:07:08] And so he said, ultimately, I'm sick of the distortion that is happening here. The idea that we are somehow abandoning the children when all they were merely doing is changing the legal contract to actually allow for these children to be defended in court at a cheaper amount.

[00:07:28] And so, again, when he talks about the fact that in previous administration, we, under the Biden administration, lost track of, you've seen this number before, 300,000 of these children. And so, as a result, the Trump administration has been able to find 151,000 of those children that the Biden administration wasn't even looking for.

[00:07:53] You can see that, if nothing else, there are some reasons to maybe check out some of the facts. Just because the mayor of New York City or the governor of New York says it doesn't necessarily make it true. And this is a piece I would love to have you read if you are concerned about what's going on right now with ICE deportations and especially this issue of unaccompanied children.

[00:08:18] I think it's a great antidote to some of the facts that are either misrepresented by some leaders or simply ignored by a lot of the mainstream press. So it's on our website. You can read it for yourself. And I've only, of course, given you part of the quote. But it gives you a pretty good idea of the reason why Tom Holman borders are pretty upset with some of the individuals in the state of New York and the city of New York. We'll take a break. Come back with more right after this.

[00:09:00] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. You know, I believe it is important for Christians to understand the liberal mind. That is why I've written a booklet on a biblical view on the liberal mind. Once you examine the assumptions of liberals and leftists, you can see how their views are very different from a biblical perspective. If you do not have a proper view of truth in the world, you will probably find yourself dissatisfied with life. That is the conclusion of Michael McKenna at The Washington Times.

[00:09:29] He reminds us that academics have found that Americans who identify as political liberal are less happy. He says the quantity and durability of that data is not really in question. There's a reason for this. He says it appears, and stop me if any of this sounds familiar, that happiness is at least partially about how connected a person is to other humans, particularly through the mechanisms of family, faith, and community.

[00:09:53] Research by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institution found that happiness is directly related to greater family satisfaction and higher levels of religious attendance. Another study concluded that liberals have become less happy over the last few decades. Now, you may be thinking, well, that is sad for liberals, but what difference does it make? Well, Michael McKenna connects the dots.

[00:10:15] He has found that personal attitudes and beliefs tend to bleed into the body politic and ultimately find their way into government policies that affect us all. I think that explains why liberals, and especially leftists, have been in the process of deconstructing so much of American society. We've seen such revolutionary fervor before in places like France in 1789 and Russia in 1917. That is why we should pay attention to liberal dissatisfaction in society. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:49] 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. Once again, while we're talking about this whole issue of ICE and deportation and the rest, I mentioned this the other day, but I thought it would be worth getting into once again

[00:11:14] because I am amazed that we can make some of these statements and announce some things on Point of View, and then I look almost in vain to see if anybody's covering it in the mainstream media, or even sometimes even in the conservative media. Not yet, but you may have heard me the other day mention that there is a caravan of migrants, or future illegal immigrants, whatever phrase you want to use, that has left Honduras about a week ago.

[00:11:42] They're headed towards the United States. Now, you think about this for just a minute. There has really been no caravan like this since Trump has been in office. There were many of those during the time in which Biden was in office. And, of course, you have had Homeland Security say that they are monitoring the caravan and even been communicating, as I understand, with some of the law enforcement agencies in Mexico.

[00:12:08] And they've even warned those migrants that the border is closed, you're not coming in, and anyone who attempts to enter the United States illegally will be apprehended and deported. Okay. You might say, why are they bothering to do this? Well, you've got to start thinking like a liberal. And I'm going in just a few minutes to talk about my commentary here, talking about the biblical view of the leftist liberal mind

[00:12:34] and how some of this liberal dissatisfaction maybe explains some of the policies we're seeing. But we'll get to that in just a minute. And so it does seem to me that what's being planned right now is some of these globalist organizations, NGOs, and others, are really organizing this caravan to really cause a confrontation. And that confrontation could be one to remind people of the fact that there are people that want to come in here.

[00:13:01] And so, thus, you need to actually elect Democrats so that that can happen. And thus, of course, you cannot have Republicans in there who support Donald Trump. And so that could be the case. And, of course, you will know that there are going to be at least some elements of this caravan that are not just going to try to walk into this country. They're going to look for some kind of confrontation. And so, as a result, they're not just going to be walking into this country.

[00:13:31] This confrontation probably, in some ways, may turn violent. And if that is the case, just think again of how the media will cover that in a way that will be helpful, maybe for some of the individuals running for Congress and detrimental to some of the people that have been serving there for some time. And so, as one individual pointed out, you know, Shakespeare said, all the world's a stage. And in a sense, that is really the case.

[00:14:00] We are finding more and more of these things being implemented, in part so that you get the visual images of individuals coming here to this country, just wanting a better life for themselves. And I understand why some of them indeed want to come here. But there is also the emphasis here that this is going to be used for political ends.

[00:14:26] And so, even though you may not be hearing much in the media right at the moment about this caravan heading towards the United States, I think you'll be hearing about it only too soon. And I think part of it is part of political theater. Speaking of that, one of the other things that I just had to at least smile at is that if you are looking for endorsements during this midterm election, the Democrats the other day were able to capture a major endorsement.

[00:14:55] And it came from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC. Yeah, those are the ones that we have been fighting with in this war with Iran. They are the ones that have gone into the streets and in many cases slaughtered some of the civilians. And yet, interestingly enough, the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, has actually been pleading with the American people to vote against Republican candidates this November.

[00:15:26] Now, again, in some respects, that makes some sense. After all, if you want to stop Donald Trump and if you are convinced that we need to have actions at the border that would then actually make it difficult for Donald Trump to be effective over the next two years because you have a Democratic House and Senate, or, in some respects, you elect Democrats who, once again, would want to impede anything he would want to do

[00:15:54] and thus bring about all sorts of investigations, call for impeachment and the rest, you can see why individuals that are with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard would want to call for individuals in this country to go out and vote for the Democrats. Now, you would think that given that endorsement, you would probably have, I don't know, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, maybe Nancy Pelosi,

[00:16:23] even Abdul El-Sayed saying, okay, we will completely reject this particular endorsement, but if you're waiting for that, I think you're going to have to wait for a long, long time. As a matter of fact, there is probably a good reason why they would not want to do so because if you have not paid attention within, especially the Democratic Party in certain areas of the country, those individuals who are Muslim

[00:16:51] are a very significant voting bloc, and as a result, they're probably going to be even less likely to actually reject this endorsement. Yet, of course, if this was an endorsement that came from, I don't know, South Africa for Donald Trump or even one that came recently from the president of Hungary for Trump, well, then, of course, you've got to repudiate that. But I just thought, again, it would be worth a mention that whether you look at what's happening

[00:17:20] in the south of the border with this caravan or even the endorsement from the IRGC of Democrats, it's going to be an interesting set of midterm elections. And so, again, I hope you'll join us on our Friday weekend edition. Richard Lim will be with us. Claire Ath will be with us. Alyssa Sonnenberg will be with us. And we'll get into some of these issues in a little bit more detail. Just before I take a break, though, my commentary today is entitled

[00:17:50] Liberal Dissatisfaction. Now, I think it's really important for us to understand the liberal mind. Now, I know that some of you listening to this program would count yourself as liberals, but most are not. And I put together a booklet a while back which had the title A Biblical View on the Liberal Mind because, in some respects, once you look at the assumptions that liberals or leftists make, you can see how those are very different from a biblical perspective. But there's another part of that.

[00:18:19] Michael McKenna, writing in the Washington Times, also talks about the fact that there is a real dissatisfaction among the leftists, which is understandable. And he even says, look, it appears, and stop me if this sounds familiar, that happiness is at least partially of how connected a person is to other humans, particularly through the mechanisms of family, faith, and community, what we talk about so often here on Point of View. And it's interesting because research at the Institute for Family Studies,

[00:18:49] also at the Wheatley Institute, found that happiness is oftentimes directly related to greater family satisfaction and also, here's the other one, higher levels of religious attendance. There are some leftists that are religious, certainly some even run for office, but that's pretty much the exception. And so, in result, the study concluded that liberals and leftists tend to be less happy. And so, now, you might be thinking, as I say in my commentary,

[00:19:19] well, that's sad for them. What difference does it make? It makes a lot of difference. Because that's where Michael McKenna comes back and connects the dots. He says he has found that personal attitudes and beliefs tend to bleed into the body politic and ultimately find their way into government policies that affect all of us. If you're dissatisfied with the world, you want to bring about a very significant transformation. You want to bring about a very significant change.

[00:19:48] And if you think about this, that has really been the story of history. You can think of, for example, France in 1789, of course, the French Revolution. You can think of Russia in 1917, the Russian Revolution. And in many cases, these were people with revolutionary fervor that were dissatisfied with life. And if you don't think that this connects up to our democratic socialists of America,

[00:20:17] all you need to do is go back and read one of our past issues of Outlook or even my booklet on a biblical point of view on socialism. And you will see that that really does make a very definite connection. If you're pretty much satisfied with life, then you're probably not going to bring about remarkable and revolutionary change. But if you are, again, dissatisfied with life and are convinced, ultimately, that there are major changes

[00:20:45] that need to be made and those need to take place immediately, you can see why you see some of these leftist politics that we have been talking about so often. We come back from the break, though. We want to spend some time, if we can, talking about what we can do to encourage those individuals who go to seminary and are going to be your future pastors, but in many cases, often find themselves unable to be able to address all the financial issues. And I thought it would be

[00:21:15] a great opportunity to hear from Dr. David Watson, president of Asbury Theological Seminary, and what they're doing to help seminary students. We'll come back and talk about that right after this. The Bible tells us not to worry, and yet there is a lot of worrying stuff in our world today. Thankfully, the Bible doesn't stop

[00:21:43] at telling us not to worry. God gives us a next step. He says we need to pray. But sometimes, even knowing what to pray can be difficult, and that is why Point of View has relaunched our Pray for America movement, a series of weekly emails to guide you in prayer for our nation. Each week, you'll receive a brief update about a current issue affecting Americans, along with a written prayer

[00:22:13] that you can easily share with others. We'll also include a short free resource for you in each email, so you can learn more about the issue at hand. Will you commit to pray for America? Go to pointofview.net, click on the Pray for America banner at the top of the page to subscribe. Again, that's pointofview.net, click on the Pray for America banner.

[00:22:42] Let's pray together for God to make a difference in America. Point of View will continue after this. You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:12] And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. What can we do to encourage our future pastors? Of course, many of them are going to Bible schools and seminaries. As a matter of fact, next week, I'll be teaching at a Bible school, and I've taught in the past as a visiting lecturer at a number of seminaries, and yet I've come to realize that there are some very significant financial hurdles. In the old days, it was very easy for many of us who were in graduate school, or again,

[00:23:41] even as I was teaching in those seminaries, for those who were younger to go out and to get a job, and it could be something as simple as being a night watchman or a guard, could be cleaning pools, could be a number of things. But as the cost of living went higher, and the ability to pay for that did not keep pace, we found more and more of our seminary graduates actually graduate with significant debt load,

[00:24:09] and so they either have to go out and do a ministry, which is maybe a bivocational ministry, where they will be working to just keep bread on the table so that then they can do ministry, and there, I think, are some real needs to address that issue, and that's why when I heard about this, I thought it would be important for you to know about a seminary debt relief program, and to help us understand that, we bring to the microphone Dr. David Watson. Now, he's the president

[00:24:38] of Asbury Theological Seminary, but for our listeners up there in Ohio, he used to be at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, and for many years has been involved in a variety of different tasks as vice president, professor of New Testament, even vice president of academic affairs, but we now have a link to asburyseminary.edu if you would like to find out a little bit more, but Dr. Watson, welcome to Point of View. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Let's begin,

[00:25:07] talk about the program. Well, first of all, let's talk about the need. Do you agree with me? Because I remember a time when, certainly during the 1970s and 80s, and that makes me an old guy, I can remember where you could, I have a family, and you could work part-time, and between your wife working and you working, or even if you're a single guy, you working, you could pretty much graduate from seminary without a significant debt load. Those days seem to be pretty much in the past. What are your thoughts?

[00:25:38] I think, in many cases, that's correct. I went to seminary in the 1990s. I did take out some student loans, and it took a while to pay those off. What we find, however, is that sometimes students take out loans that they don't really need. They take out more money than they actually need for school, and so that creates unnecessary debt that we would want to discourage anyway. Yes, I understand that, but some of them find themselves in debt,

[00:26:07] and here's the other issue, because some of them are going to be pastors. Some have been to seminary, and they want to be missionaries, and again, we've had individuals who head up mission organizations, and I know that there's a real hesitancy of wanting to put somebody out there on the mission field if they've got the kind of debt load that you had, or especially the kind of debt load I had going to a number of graduate schools, and so you have at least come up with a sort of a debt relief program. Can you explain that?

[00:26:38] Well, what we've been doing is we've been working for about a little over 10 years to build up our scholarshipping capacity so that we don't want students to have to take out loans to come to Asbury. We're not quite where we want to be yet. On average, we can scholarship around 65% of master's tuition, and about, for the doctor of ministry degree, it's about 50%.

[00:27:06] For our PhD students, it's normally 100% of tuition. So we're not quite where we want to be yet, especially on the master's side, but we're getting there. We've been working at this for a long time to provide students with funded scholarships, not tuition discounts, but funded scholarships so that they don't have to take on debt as they go through seminary. Again, I think this is just a great idea. One of the things I might just encourage

[00:27:35] individuals as an application point is to think about supporting a Bible school, a seminary for that regard, and of course we've had people here from Dallas Theological Seminary, Dallas Bible, Baptist University, Biola, just to mention a few, Southern Evangelical Seminary. I mean, I can go through a list of individuals that have been professors at those seminaries, and in some respects when you give to those student scholarships, you're really, in a sense, preparing the next generation,

[00:28:05] and I think that is something that we should be doing within the body of Christ to really have trained and prepared individuals, not only to minister in this country, but again, as I pointed out, some of these individuals end up being missionaries or end up being faculty members in other countries where they have to raise financial support to do so, but it's a lot more difficult if they have to raise additional financial support just to be able to pay off their loans while they're ministering

[00:28:35] in Asia or Africa or South America. Absolutely. I mean, in the United States, people, ministers coming right out of seminary usually don't make very much money. ministers outside the United States often make next to nothing, and so it's so important that we have donors who will contribute to these student scholarships, and we are so grateful for the generosity of the people who have already contributed. Yes.

[00:29:05] Let's see if we can talk about that for just a minute. Of course, you've been at a couple of seminaries now, so you've looked at this. It does seem to me that we are seeing an interest in some of these younger men in particular, the so-called Gen Z going to church. I think we're going to also maybe see an interest in some of those young men to go into a Bible college or a seminary. I don't know how much of that's due to the so-called Charlie Kirk effect and how much of it is due to a real desire

[00:29:34] to minister and a real interest, but certainly when we talk about revivals, we've mentioned Asbury Seminary more than once, and it does seem to me that there is a real opportunity for individuals to go to a seminary and be educated and thus be able to use their gifts in a way that really will advance the kingdom and even bring about one of those revivals a lot of people have been praying about. Yes, absolutely.

[00:30:03] I think the church is the most important institution in the world, and the seminary serves the church and its ministry of education. And so, you know, there is this kind of resurgence of young men going to church, and it's very encouraging, and I think that churches have a responsibility to help to foster a culture of call within them so that when we see our best and brightest, we're not always

[00:30:33] just sitting them off to med school or to law school or something like that, but really asking them, have you considered that God might be calling you into full-time Christian service? Have you considered that God may be calling you into ministry? If the church is the most important institution in the world, we want our people to be really prepared to lead the church. Those who are given stewardship over the church need to come ready to do so, and seminary can be

[00:31:03] a key means of doing that. Let me, if I can, just before we take a break, we'll come back and get into some other issues. I mentioned that, of course, they can come to Asbury Seminary or wherever they might come, let's say Kentucky, but the good news is is that some of these individuals say, I really need to stay in my job. I want to eventually be a full-time minister, but is it possible to take online courses? And that's been a remarkable revolution in seminary education. What have you found?

[00:31:33] I think that that is certainly true. Online, most schools now have some form of online education. At Asbury, we have online education. We have hybrids that are on our main campus in Baltimore, Kentucky as well. And then we have some extension sites in places like Memphis, Tulsa, Houston, Tampa, Orlando. And so students can come and do some face-to-face work there

[00:32:02] and couple that with hybrids and online courses to complete their degrees. Let's take a break. When we come back, we'll come back and spend just a few more minutes again with Dr. David Watson, president of Asbury Theological Seminary. We'll talk a little bit about what is available there, but you can go to the website, asburyseminary.edu. Of course, we have a link on our website. And of course, you can see that they have a Master of Divinity, a Master of Arts, and a doctorate program

[00:32:31] representing 75-plus denominations, 130 countries. Quite a number of women in seminary now, which is, again, something that we have seen over the years and how they've been preparing leaders. And so I think if you are thinking about this or you know a young person that might be thinking about this, there is a great deal of information we've posted here today for you to follow. And whether you end up at this seminary or another, I just hope that we can really challenge some of you

[00:33:00] that are younger who have a real desire to serve the Lord in the church, maybe in the mission field, maybe in higher education, whatever it might be. There are some great ways where you can be educated and equipped. And the good news is is that you may not necessarily even have to leave your home right away. You could take some of those online courses and really, in a sense, hit the ground running. So I want you to know that there's some great ways you can check that out.

[00:33:30] And I really want to challenge this next generation to go out there and see what God might do through your dedication to follow Him. Let's take a break. We'll come back with more right after this. You're listening to

[00:34:00] Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. And for a few more minutes, and again, we have Dr. David Watson, president of Asbury Theological Seminary, with us. Been talking about the Seminary Debt Relief Program, but for just a minute, let's get into some of the different paths that you have there. One of the pathways is in the Master of Divinity, and there is a great opportunity. But even there, I think it might be helpful, Dr. Watson, to point out that there are different pathways within that. In other words,

[00:34:30] you can have everything from biblical studies, which is what most people think about in terms of a Master of Divinity, but there's Christian leadership, Christian planning, there is chaplaincy, there is spiritual formation, theological studies, and so that's the first issue. And also, you might speak to the timing, because I know that there's a fast track, and then there's full-time and part-time. If somebody is thinking about a seminary education, especially at Asbury, there are many more opportunities

[00:35:00] than I think many people might even understand or appreciate. Right. The Master of Divinity degree, thank you for that. The Master of Divinity degree is probably the fullest preparatory degree we have for ministry. It's a 96-hour degree program, and as you point out, it can lead into a number of different career pathways. It takes about four years to complete, and that's on the fast track.

[00:35:30] But we also believe that this provides the best preparation that we can offer for ministry. You can do a full-time Master of Divinity degree in five years or part-time in seven years. And as I was saying earlier, there are different ways to get these classes. You can come to our campus in Wilmore, Kentucky. We have a lot of student housing there. You can also take courses at one of our extension sites

[00:35:59] or do online courses as well. And this, again, also mentioned that you have a Master of Arts program, and that one would be one where, again, some things have to do with leadership, counseling, spiritual care, intercultural studies. If you were maybe going to be involved in a cross-cultural ministry in this country or overseas, pastoral counseling, so there are ways where you say, well, I really don't think I'm a pastor. I don't think I'm going to be a minister in terms of at the pulpit, but I might be a minister

[00:36:29] in a church or I might be a minister within a mission organization. That's another opportunity, isn't it? Well, it sure is. And we do have a number of different Master of Arts degrees as you indicated there. And one of the things that we're finding more and more is that, especially as we're seeing more non-denominational churches come up and fewer students out of denominations, a lot of these churches don't require

[00:36:58] a Master of Divinity degree for ordination. So, while I think that the Master of Divinity degree does give you the fullest education you can receive in preparation for ministry, some Christian groups will say, well, we'll ordain you with Master of Arts degree or Master of Theological Studies or something like that. Well, again, when we think of Asbury, sometimes we mention it because you had this Asbury revival and that was,

[00:37:28] it's hard to believe it was almost three years ago now, but taking place back in February. Just an opportunity to see that in some respects the Holy Spirit can be poured out and there are many that have seen the movie The Jesus Revolution and say, well, maybe this could be what happens to our particular generation. So, whether we talk about Generation Y, the Millennials or Generation Z, even tomorrow we're going to have a number of our roundtable guests that fit into

[00:37:57] those categories, that is, I think, the next generation and we need to do all we can to educate them and prepare them and that's exactly what you're involved in at Asbury Seminary, isn't it? Well, it sure is. The Asbury Revival started across the street at Asbury University and actually my son was a student at Asbury University when the revival happened. My wife and I both went there at different times and got to experience that. It was a very sweet,

[00:38:28] very sweet spirit that was there. God was ministering to these young people. It was really a way that he was pouring out his love on them and just, you know, I think a lot of these students had never experienced the father's love before and it was really beautiful to see them experience that. Generation Z is the least Christian generation of adults and it is also

[00:38:57] the most spiritually open generation of adults and this presents us with a tremendous opportunity to share the gospel with these young folks. They are spiritually hungry but we have to live, you know, we have to walk our walk with integrity. We have to practice what we preach. We have to live truly Christian lives because one of the great values of that generation is authenticity. That's true. If they see us

[00:39:27] living authentically then they may be more inclined to join with us and following Jesus. Well, thank you for living that life and focusing on that and again, people, young people that are just thinking about going to college could check out of course Asbury College but also of course we've been encouraging some of you to think about graduate school and there's some great opportunities at places like Asbury Seminary and other seminaries around the country. So Dr. David Watson, thank you for being with us today here on Point of View and thank you for

[00:39:56] this debt relief program. I think that's the kind of thing that other schools need to be considering as well and appreciate you joining us today here on Point of View. Thank you for having me. Just before we run out of time let me just mention that tomorrow we're going to have some of those younger individuals. Richard Lim will be with us. Claire Ath will be with us. Alyssa Sonnenberg will be with us. We'll be talking first of all about the economy because right now this is a big issue in the midterms. The so-called affordability. Very good piece

[00:40:26] that came out from the Wall Street Journal Affordability Democrats. Again, I think the implication of that is if you think that Democrats are going to increase and help with affordability you might want to think about that again. We'll also be talking about the economy seems to be accelerating. Those are two pieces that come from the Wall Street Journal. But we'll also have Claire and she has written a piece called Midterms and Maha Mom so we'll talk about that as well as there's a very good piece that we're going to be talking about. Laura Hollis

[00:40:55] You Must Vote and it's entitled Yes, You Must Vote and she's addressing the issue that okay, sometimes you don't agree with either candidate but one candidate may be a lot better than the other and so don't let the perfection or the perfect get in the way of the reasonable and so I think there are some very important principles there. Also, we'll be talking about the fact that Terry Jeffrey who's been on the program with us before talks about democratic leaders

[00:41:25] versus biology which brings me to one other maybe positive announcement. You know, Title IX was passed in 1972 and that was to protect women and girls from discrimination in educational programs really provided tremendous opportunities in athletics but as you well know under the Biden administration they redefined the word sex to mean gender and so as a result we've seen men in girls sports. Well, the good news is when Donald Trump returned to office

[00:41:53] he issued first of all an executive order instructing federal agencies to recognize only biological sex and more recently the Department of Education has also issued new regulations repealing some of those radical rewrites of Title IX and restoring the law back into its original purpose. So I thought I would just at least announce that we do have now a restoration of the accurate

[00:42:23] and certainly most reasonable interpretation of Title IX and just one more piece that we'll probably get talking about tomorrow with our three guests around the round table. But that's all we have for today. We've covered quite a lot of topics. If we went through some of it too quickly you can certainly go to the website and listen to it again or watch it again. If you'd like to find some of the articles we've posted quite a number of articles to address some of those issues

[00:42:51] from the AI Day at the White House to the Flock cameras so all of it available at the website pointofview.net. As always I want to thank Megan for her help engineering the program. Derek thank you for producing the program and thank you for listening to us. We'll see you back here tomorrow right here on Point of View. It almost seems like we live in a different world from many people in positions of authority.

[00:43:20] They say men can be women and women men. People are prosecuted differently or not at all depending on their politics. 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

[00:43:49] never, never, never never yield to force never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. 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

[00:44:19] 1-800-347-5151 pointofview.net and 800-347-5151 Point of View is produced by Point of View Ministries.