“Oh please, no more!” she cried. “You said I could go home, and now you’re saying I can’t. You’re a liar!”

At times it can seem like wickedness is gaining the upper hand. The increasing wickedness is primarily driven by an abounding disregard of God’s Word, a blatant disregard of truth. Those participating in and contributing to the increasing wickedness (wrongdoing) that we are being affected by throughout our society is cloaked in what they depict in their minds as “right-doing.” They believe their actions are advancing compassion, justice and mercy. However, this is faulty thinking. James 3:16-17 tells us such thinking or “wisdom” will create “…disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (ESV).

Blankets and quilts are nice, but for cozy wonderfulness on a chilly winter night, give me a comforter every time. A comforter is an old word, but it refers to a particular piece of bedding. Big and puffy, comforters have soft fabric on both sides of a fluffy interior. In addition to warmth, comforters provide…well…comfort.

I had lunch with some dear friends today—Christian women physicians who have been my friends for almost 20 years. We talked about medicine—the woes of the current healthcare system. And we said we couldn’t imagine how things would continue, given the problems our healthcare system faces. We talked about parenting—the challenges of raising daughters. And we said we couldn’t imagine how kids could process social media and technology in a healthy way. We talked about our churches—the deep divisions between the maskers and non-maskers over the last couple of years. And we said we couldn’t imagine how the wounds could be healed. We talked about politics—the uncompromising partisan viewpoints on both sides of the aisle. And we said we couldn’t imagine how people could learn to work together given the depth of the divide.

Swiftly on the heels of his 2021 study showing sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) “strongly reduces suicidality” and that restrictions on SOCE may “deprive sexual minorities of an important resource for reducing suicidality, putting them at substantially increased suicide risk,”[1],[2] Sociologist Paul Sullins’ new peer-reviewed analysis revealed, as per its title, an “Absence of Behavioral Harm Following Non-efficacious Sexual Orientation Change Efforts: A Retrospective Study of United States Sexual Minority Adults, 2016–2018.”[3]

No matter where you stand, it should be evident that a large swath of humanity confidently clings to tenets that are demonstrably untrue. Moreover, these beliefs are not borne exclusively of facts, experience and logic but a deadly array of confounding factors. The vast complexity of most subjects, misinformation, disinformation and information overload preclude anyone from total mastery of an issue. The solution is biblical, and it’s called intellectual humility.

Fairy tales and science usually don’t coincide; fairy tales are the stuff of myth and fancy, science of objective fact. Yet the continued push for fetal tissue research is extensively constructed of flimsy fairy tales, with proponents willfully ignoring objective fact in hopes of gaining some taxpayer dollars. The falsehoods about fetal tissue research have been repeatedly debunked by factual evidence, but fetal tissue research advocates continue to apply the Illusory Truth Effect: repeat something often enough, even if false, and people will begin to believe it. Unwilling to let a good crisis go to waste, fetal tissue proponents have even tried to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming that fetal tissue is essential for study of SARS-CoV-2 infections, making humanized “lung-only mice” using fetal tissue from abortion. Sadly, the unphysiological and anatomically inappropriate mouse model highlights the lengths to which some scientists will go to justify unethical practices. And while the Biden administration in 2021 removed sound ethical reviews and prohibitions on taxpayer-funded fetal tissue research, clinging to this antiquated research holds back modern, productive science. Here is just a small sampling of the scientifically and ethically superior methods and models that should be receiving attention.

Apparently, Medscape does a yearly survey on physician burnout, and the one that just came out asked 13,000 physicians from 29 specialties about their personal experience with stress and signs of burnout. Being in the midst of a global pandemic, it won’t surprise anyone that burnout rates are rising.

Five of we Americans were in London a few weeks ago at the invitation of the International Federation for Therapeutic & Counseling Choice (IFTCC) and Christian Concern to—along with colleagues from the United Kingdom, Norway and Australia (some by video presence)—to hold a one-day conference one block from Parliament challenging the proposed UK “conversion” therapy ban. I wrote the following at the request of Christian Concern and IFTCC, reprinted here with their permission.