Last week, Standard & Poor?s announced that it might need to downgrade the US government?s AAA bond rating for the first time in history, because of the dim prospects for serious debt reduction. This panicked investors, in the short term, who believe that Treasuries are the last safe haven in an uncertain world.

Last week, Iran and Egypt?s new government signaled they were moving quickly to thaw decades of frosty relations. Iran said it appointed an ambassador to Egypt for the first time since the two sides froze diplomatic relations more than three decades ago. Both the US and Israel are deeply concerned that such moves indicate that Egypt is reordering its foreign policy, which could further empower Iran and its regional clients Hamas and Hezbollah.

With the advent of modern technology, humanity has sought increasing control with the goal being manipulation of nearly everything for the good of the human race. Since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, several historical developments have produced an openness in Western Civilization toward seeking to control and manipulate humans.

The four academic degrees that I have earned are in history and historical theology. Therefore, the historical perspective is quite important to me. In this Perspective, I seek to give an important historical perspective to the origin and development of 19th-century theological liberalism. When I am finished, I will make application to what is occurring within certain parts of current American evangelicalism.

Planned Parenthood is one of the most dangerous organizations in America right now. Its view of human life growing the womb is reprehensible. Basically, for Planned Parenthood, the baby has no value until it exists outside of the mother?s womb. It values the rights of the woman more highly than the rights of the child in the womb. It stands against everything I hold dear as a Christian. Planned Parenthood annually receives about $363,200,000 in various government grants and contracts. [$100 million of that amount comes from the federal government; the rest comes from various state funds.] Congress recently debated ending all funding of Planned Parenthood because no matter how one examines the issue, the government is indirectly funding abortions that Planned Parenthood performs.

Social networks have provided one of the several sources of energy for the pro-democracy movements in the Middle East. Information technology is changing the global balance of power. ?The Facebook Generation? helped significantly to bring down Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. One of the heroes of this same revolution is the young Google executive, Wael Ghonim.

The economist, Robert Samuelson, has an interesting take on Social Security: He calls it ?welfare.? Here is why: First, it taxes one group to support another group, meaning it is pay-as-you-go and not a contributory scheme where people?s own savings pay their later benefits. Second, Congress can constantly alter benefits, reflecting changing needs, economic conditions and politics. Let?s think about this provocative thesis.

The debate over the 2011 federal budget is presumably over. After taking the nation to the brink, even possibly facing a possible shutdown of the federal government, the congressional leaders cut the budget and finally passed the 2011 budget, which runs through 30 September. As I approach this Perspective on the 2012 federal budget, I find the words of the economist, Robert Samuelson, refreshing and brutally honest…

I am not a medical doctor nor do I understand all the complexities of health insurance, but I have spent time in a hospital as both a patient and as someone who visits hospitals to comfort friends and those whom I care about. I also believe that there are several common sense principles that we are not following as a nation.

Jefferson was a child of the European Enlightenment and was certainly one of its more passionate advocates. Jefferson adopted the antisupernaturalism of the Enlightenment and used that bias when he reached his conclusions about Jesus. He revered Jesus as ?the first of human Sages? and regarded His ethical system articulated in the Sermon on the Mount as superior to all others. Lincoln was born into a Baptist family and his early life was surrounded by Baptist leanings. However, what evidence there is about his faith indicates that he was deistic in his thinking…