Wearing Pink Doesn’t Help the Link
2021 | Week of October 18 | Radio Transcript #1434 I went to a public high school football game this past Friday. What caught my attention wasn’t the game itself or the marching band, which is really what I went for, but rather an entire student section dressed in pink. Since the school colors are […]
Making Communities Great
2021 | Week of October 11 | Radio Transcript #1433 What does it take to make a community great? That’s the question we’ve been asking ourselves as we plan and deliver grassroots training sessions to help people do that. Answering that question requires some basic but critical understanding. First and foremost is that God has […]
Who’s the Primary Stakeholder?
2021 | Week of October 4 | Radio Transcript #1432 This just might be the modern-day equivalent of the “shot heard ‘round the world.” “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions….I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” That […]
Codifying Abortion
2021 | Week of September 27 | Radio Transcript #1431 Hammurabi. I hadn’t thought of this ancient Mesopotamian Babylonian King in a long time. I always enjoyed teaching about him in history of the world courses, but his name hadn’t come to mind in probably years—until last week. After all, how often does someone living […]
Bumper Stickers, Vanity Plates, Hearings & Worldview
2021 | Week of September 20 | Radio Transcript #1430 When it comes to bumper stickers and vanity plates, Madison rarely disappoints. Take for instance the car I saw when I was leaving the capitol recently. It was in the legislators’ parking area; so I knew it belonged to an elected official. This car sported […]
Are We Doomed?
2021 | Week of September 14 | Radio Transcript #1429 “A nation that forgets its past has no future,” once said the esteemed British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. Others have noted that the one thing we fail to learn from history is to learn from history and those who forget history are doomed to […]
Good News Is on the Road!
2021 | Week of September 6 | Radio Transcript #1428 In a day when the news is often bad, frightening, maddening, disappointing and more, I offer some good news. Last week, Choose Life Wisconsin distributed $31,000 to 11 pregnancy care centers across Wisconsin. Those centers are located in De Pere, Fond du Lac, Hayward, La […]
Digital Devices: Controlling or Controlled?
2021 | Week of August 30 | Radio Transcript #1427 Report after report says anxiety and stress, including depression, are becoming major problems for Americans, especially younger Americans. I was in a discussion recently with a nurse who was looking at college applications and noted how many of the incoming students are indicating they were […]
Parents: Guardians of Their Communities
2021 | Week of August 23 | Radio Transcript #1426 I well remember the years in the early 2000s when I served two terms on the Watertown Unified School District Board of Education. Rarely did parents show up for school board regular meetings, let alone school board committee meetings. Only twice in over five years, […]
Where (or Why) Have All the Children Gone?
2021 | Week of August 16 | Radio Transcript #1425 I haven’t seen it in a headline yet, but it should be a headline—maybe even THE headline about Wisconsin’s census data. But I suspect most people will completely lose this data point in all the hype about redrawing political districts. Let me make this clear. […]
Lifesaving or Life-taking: Worldview Matters
2021 | Week of August 9 | Radio Transcript #1424 The headline is horrific: “University may be subject of investigation after it’s caught using body parts of babies born alive.” The university is the University of Pittsburgh. Undercover operations have revealed that Planned Parenthood and the University of Pittsburgh have been delivering babies alive during […]
Marriage & Parenting: It’s Not About Your Happiness
2021 | Week of August 2 | Radio Transcript #1423 (re-aired from week of Sept. 23, 2019) “Daddy is leaving. In order for daddy to be a good daddy, he needs to be happy. Daddy’s not happy right now. You want daddy to be happy, don’t you?” “I know your dad and I just got […]
The Case To Overturn Roe?
2021 | Week of July 26 | Radio Transcript #1422 In May the US Supreme Court agreed to take up a case that some maintain could overturn the infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that gave us abortion on demand in all fifty states. The case comes out of Mississippi which has just one abortion […]
What’s Wrong with Equality?
2021 | Week of July 19 | Radio Transcript #1421 (re-aired from week of February 15, 2021) The Equality Act. What could possibly be wrong with a law that is all about equality? This question demands a response. We begin with Mary, a single mom, who has hit on hard times. She is now homeless […]
Selling Out WI Citizens on a Bad Bet
2021 | Week of July 12 | Radio Transcript #1420 Earlier this month Governor Tony Evers and the Oneida tribal officials signed an agreement authorizing for the first time in our state, betting on professional sporting events. The sports gambling would be available at the tribe’s casino in Green Bay, but the agreement also allows […]
Lies Ensnare; Truth Frees
2021 | Week of July 5 | Radio Transcript #1419 (Re-aired from week of Nov. 30, 2020) In general human beings don’t like being lied to. But because unregenerate, unsaved people are, according to Scripture, of their father Satan, who is the father of lies, lying happens all the time. Certainly and sadly, Christians aren’t […]
When Autonomy Meets Reality
2021 | Week of June 28 | Radio Transcript #1418 Reality declares that the opening statement of the inerrant, unchanging, eternal Word of God is “In the beginning God…” It’s not “In the beginning, I” or “In the beginning me.” Functionally, however, many people operate today as if this rewrite of Scripture is reality, is […]
Fighting CRT: The Tin Man, Scarecrow & Lion
2021 | Week of June 21 | Radio Transcript #1417 In the book and film, The Wizard of Oz, we meet a tin man without a heart, a scarecrow without a brain and a lion without courage. Author Frank Baum was onto something in these characters. About a month ago I addressed some basic ideas […]
Fatherhood & the Heart of God
2021 | Week of June 14 | Radio Transcript #1416 Fatherhood. It’s a concept we don’t hear about all that frequently, at least positively, in our society. And yet it is a paramount theme in Scripture: God the Father, God’s instructions for fathers, admonitions for children to obey their fathers, the joys and pains of […]
Knowledge Can Be Powerful
2021 | Week of June 7 | Radio Transcript #1415 This is Julaine Appling for Wisconsin Family Council reminding you the prophet Hosea said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” Wait! You didn’t miss this week’s commentary. It’s just really important that before I get into the meat of this commentary that I […]
Vaccinations, Constitutions, Rule of Law
2021 | Week of May 31 | Radio Transcript #1414 How do six bills dealing exclusively with the COVID-19 vaccination issue land in a state legislative committee on the Constitution and Ethics? Good question. Each of these bills is about the rule of law. And the rule of law in this country and this state […]
Saving a Daughter
2021 | Week of May 24 | Radio Transcript #1413 The following story isn’t about us. It’s really about how God used us to help parents and their daughter. A couple of weeks ago we got a call from a concerned mother with a young daughter in the Kettle Moraine school district. As the story […]
Time To Roll Up Our Sleeves
2021 | Week of May 17 | Radio Transcript #1412 It is time to roll up our sleeves! I’ve been saying that all across the state since February. It’s way more than just the title of a presentation I’ve now done fifteen times in fifteen different Wisconsin communities. It’s a declaration that the time has […]
Critical Race Theory & A Point of Action
2021 | Week of May 10 | Radio Transcript #1411 Critical race theory. That phrase is being bandied about across the country. While the phrase is new, the ideas behind the words aren’t. Christopher Rufo, founder and director of Battlefront6, a public policy research center, in a speech given earlier this year at Hillsdale College, […]
Honorable Motherhood
2021 | Week of May 3 | Radio Transcript #1410 The late Phyllis Schlafly was one of my heroes. This diminutive in stature but giant in character woman fought battle after battle for our nation’s best natural resource—our nuclear mom-and-dad married families. During her lifetime, Mrs. Schlafly was given nearly every conservative award, honor and […]
National Day of Prayer – May God Shed His Grace on America
2021 | Week of April 26 | Radio Transcript #1409 For biblical Christians, what is more powerful than prayer lifted up to the Creator God? What is more necessary than God’s grace? What is more ennobling than the prayer that beseeches that God’s grace be shed abroad in the hearts of mankind and that our […]
Organized, Motivated, Mobilized
2021 | Week of April 19 | Radio Transcript #1408 Oh, the difference some organization, motivation and mobilization can make! For at least the last decade in our state, liberal progressives have made significant inroads into school boards, city councils, town and village boards and county boards across our state. Usually just didn’t see it […]
A Tale of Three Governors
2021 | Week of April 12 | Radio Transcript #1407 Charles Dickens wrote a timeless work entitled A Tale of Two Cities. What follows is most likely not a timeless tale, but rather a very timely tale of two governors—with a sequel involving a third governor. Last month, Governor Kristi Noem, a Republican governor from […]
Church Makes a Difference
2021 | Week of April 5 | Radio Transcript #1406 A sobering recent Gallup poll found that church membership is declining pretty significantly in the United States, with fewer than 50 percent of Americans now saying they are members of a local church. That’s an historic low.[1] Of course, that’s an aggregate number. If you […]
Local Government: You & Your Vote Can Make a Difference
2021 | Week of March 29 | Radio Transcript #1405 A friend of mine ran for county board here in Wisconsin a couple of years ago. He lost by fewer than 10 votes in a county with over 100,000 eligible voters. Another friend went to the polls in our spring election a few years back […]
Building Up or Tearing Down?
2021 | Week of March 22 | Radio Transcript #1404 In a recent conversation with a Wisconsin youth pastor, one of our team members asked what kinds of questions teens are asking today. This youth pastor said, “They are questioning whether God is real—and if He is real, is He really a good God and […]
Liberty Guarding the Ballot Box
2021 | Week of March 15 | Radio Transcript #1403 Elections are a sore point right now for many in our state and in other states across the country—and I get that. After this past fall’s election, the temptation is very real to just throw in the towel, wave the white flag, walk away in […]
Divorce Today, Remarry Tomorrow
2021 | Week of March 8 | Radio Transcript #1402 Doug and Sally have decided their ten-year marriage isn’t working, and they want out. They just aren’t happy anymore; the love they once felt is gone—and working it out just isn’t going to happen. They agree to divorce—as amicably as possible—and take the legal steps […]
Beloit Casino—A Bad Idea
2021 | Week of March 1 | Radio Transcript #1401 A 1996 survey revealed that less than 1% of Wisconsin citizens, or about 32,425 residents were problem gamblers and that the annual social costs related to those problem gamblers was over $300 million, or $9,469 per problem gambler in general and over $10,000 per casino […]
Leaving a Legacy
2021 | Week of February 22 | Radio Transcript #1400 At least two notable Americans died this month—but, oh, the difference in the impact they had on our nation and the legacy they left. Larry Flynt died on February 10 at age 78. Flynt made millions on pornography. He saw himself—and others often agreed—as a […]
What’s Wrong with Equality?
2021 | Week of February 15 | Radio Transcript #1399 The Equality Act. What could possibly be wrong with a law that is all about equality? This question demands a response. We begin with Mary, a single mom, who has hit on hard times. She is now homeless and is looking to the local shelter […]
Be Prepared, Not Suprised
2021 | Week of February 8 | Radio Transcript #1398 You, yes, you, have an opportunity to be a difference-maker next Tuesday! Are you prepared to do that? Are you ready to vote knowledgeably, responsibly and prayerfully? Next Tuesday, February 16, Wisconsin has its spring non-partisan primary election. This election narrows the field of candidates […]
Vaccines & Our Rights
2021 | Week of February 1 | Radio Transcript #1397 Universal vaccine talk sounds like something out of George Orwell’s 1984. Calling the development of the COVID-19 vaccine Operation Warp Speed doesn’t help, in my opinion. It’s all surreal, but it’s the reality in which we live as we continue to deal with this virus. […]
We’re All About Choice–School Choice, That Is
2021 | Week of January 25 | Radio Transcript #1396 School choice. It used to be there was no choice—at least no real choice for the vast majority of Americans—regarding where their children would attend school. The local public school was pretty much it—unless you were very wealthy and could afford elite, private schools. With […]
Life—In the Beginning God
2021 | Week of January 18 | Radio Transcript #1395 On January 22, 1973, seven of nine US Supreme Court justices, in a show of raw judicial activism, determined that nationwide a woman deciding to kill her unborn baby was her constitutional right based on a perceived right to privacy provided in the 14th Amendment […]
