Joel McDurmon is once again talking with Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance about their DVD lecture series titled “Resisting the Green Dragon. In this segment, they give a brief overview of the topics covered in the the DVD. This product makes an excellent homeschool, Sunday school, or small group study resource. Audio Version: Part [...]
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In this special edition of Vantage Point, Joel McDurmon interviews Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance on the topic of environmentalism and Christianity. The Cornwall Alliance has produced “Resisting the Green Dragon”—a series of lectures by nine leading evangelical scholars, exposing the anti-christian worldview, theology and ethics; the poor science and economics; and the often [...]
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What is the proper relationship between praying and doing? That is, after praying is the petitioner required to do anything about what she is praying for? If a person prays for employment, does he have to look for work? When you pray to play the piano well, do you still have to practice? Praying that [...]
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…cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring for to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground… [...]
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1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. 2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. 3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. 4. When half of the people get [...]
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The world is in a mess, and Christians know it. Too many of us believe that we have not been called to change the world. What if centuries ago Christians had taken a similar position? What would the world be like today? John Newton (1725-1807) was an infamous slave trader. The church knows him best as the author of such well-known hymns as “Amazing Grace” and “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken.” Even while Newton was a Christian, he was also a captain of a slave ship. “Newton penned the beloved hymn ‘How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds in a Believer’s Ear’ during the leisure time afforded by a voyage from Africa to the West Indies.”1 Keep in mind the often repeated claim that Christians are not called to change the world. Following this line of logic, Newton could have remained a slave trader and a good Christian.
In time, however, Newton confessed “shame” for “the misery and mischief to which [he had], formerly, been [an] accessory.” He eventually denounced his former occupation with the publication of Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade (1788), “a stinging attack upon slavery that makes scenes from Alex Haley’s Roots seem mild by comparison.”2 Newton believed, prior to his denunciation of the slave trade, that he could be a good Christian and do nothing to fix social evils. “By 1788 Newton considered it ‘criminal’ to remain silent and not inveigh with evangelical fervor against the entire slave system. This conviction did not arise automatically upon his conversion, but from ethical deliberations that [William] Wilberforce set in motion.”3
England’s abolition movement was almost entirely led by the evangelical wing of the church. At the pleading of Lady Middleton and Bishop Porteus, James Ramsay wrote a long Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies (1784). Ramsay was “convinced that men will not respond to lessons of eternal redemption from those who enslave them on earth, or about heaven when kept in hell. . . . He proposed steps to total Emancipation, and suggested that free labour would yield more profit to plantation owners.”4
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American Vision received a phone call from an NPR station yesterday (3.3.2009) asking me to appear on one of their shows to answer the charge by the Southern Poverty Law Center that our organization is a “hate group.” (For the record, I don’t do interviews with media outlets that are subsidized by tax dollars.) The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has listed American Vision as a “hate group” under the “other” category on their website because we are “anti-gay.’ I guess the majority of people in California who voted to outlaw homosexual marriage are also “haters.” Of course they are. Read what homosexuals say about them!
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Sunday, February 1, 2009, was the 60th anniversary of the National Day of Liberty. Officials chose the particular date of February 1 because it was on that day that President Lincoln (besides his many flaws) signed the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawing slavery. The commemorative day was conceived of and first informally celebrated by a former slave, Major Richard R. Wright, who wished for a yearly commemoration of the event. A year after his death, Truman signed a bill (July 1948) proclaiming the observation on Feb. 1.
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TEA-Party Hypocrisy: How Much Socialism Is Acceptable?
Obama Begins Covert Attack on Second Amendment
Tyranny: the "Official Language" of Misguided Conservatives
Five Truths that Republicans Hate
Five Reasons My Generation is Not Getting Married…and what can be done about it
Muslim Students Want to Take Over Christian College
TEA-Party Hypocrisy: How Much Socialism Is Acceptable?
Obama Begins Covert Attack on Second Amendment
Tyranny: the "Official Language" of Misguided Conservatives
Five Truths that Republicans Hate
Five Reasons My Generation is Not Getting Married…and what can be done about it
Muslim Students Want to Take Over Christian College