In a sermon this past Sunday, we heard about Zacchaeus, who climbed a tree to see Jesus as He passed by. Our pastor, uncharacteristically, even sang the first few lines of ‘Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man.’ Zacchaeus was a wee little man And a wee little man was he He climbed up in a sycamore tree For the Lord he wanted to see Zacchaeus may have been a “wee little man,” but he was complicit in bein [...]

Americans revere the Bible—but, by and large, don’t read it. And because they don’t read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates. This lack of Bible-reading explains why Americans know so little about the Bible that is the basis of the faith of most of them. For example, eight in ten Americans say they are Christians, but only four in ten know that Jesus, according to the Bible, deli [...]

It was Saul Alinsky in Rules for Radicals who wrote, “Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing—but this will only swing people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.”[1] It could be argued that, because we have limited our application of the Bibl [...]

California just implemented a law requiring many businesses to pay employees at least $20 per hour. First, like so much government regulation, this is theft. Only governments (and the mafia) can force people to pay more money for work they don’t do. Second, it’s a job killer for young people seeking work experience. If you listen to Democrats, most Americans are working at jobs for minimum wage. I [...]

Note: This is the sixth and final article on worldview concepts that Christians have failed to overcome. (First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth) George Will called 1968 “perhaps the worst year in American History” and called the sixties “the most dangerous decade in America’s life as a nation.”[1] This is not surprising because of the continued escalation of the Vietnam War, the draft, and the assas [...]

Hermeneutics is often defined as the science and art of interpreting what people write (mostly) and speak. R.C. Sproul writes: “The purpose of hermeneutics is to establish guidelines and rules for interpretation. It is a well-developed science that can become technical and complex. Any written document is subject to misinterpretation and thus we have developed rules to safeguard us from such misun [...]

Futurists just can’t bring themselves to believe what Jesus actually said and meant about His “this generation” coming, that it was “about to” take place, before all those who first heard His words died (Matthew 16:27-28). Jesus told His apostles that they would not finish going through the cities before He came (10:23). The use of “about to” in Matthew 16:27 coincides with 10:23, 23:36, and 24:34 [...]

How do we determine how documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution should be interpreted? Let’s check with those who were there when they were written and the circumstances for their construction. Such a methodology comes to mind with a book I read as a child, We Were There at the Driving of the Golden Spike (1960).Eyewitness accounts are the starting point (e.g., Luke 1:1 [...]

I love the monthly news magazine World. You can thank David Chilton for contributing to its existence. He used his influence to help launch World with editor Joel Belz and wrote a monthly column for the publication for years. You should subscribe. You can do it here. Gary North wrote the following in his article “David Chilton Made the Case for Long-Run Christian Optimism.” “From the very beginnin [...]

In the Foreword to Tony Campolo’s book Red Letter Christians, Jim Wallis tells a story about a secular Jewish country-music songwriter and disk jockey who told him that a new social movement was being birthed as a result of Wallis’ God’s Politics and other “social conscience” books. Here’s how Wallis tells it: “I love your stuff and have been following your book tour.” Then he told me he believed [...]

In January of 1993, the Covenant Eschatology Symposium was held in Mt. Dora, Florida. It was hosted by R.C. Sproul. I would like to thank Ed Stevens for providing materials about the Conference and for being a guest on an upcoming episode of American Vision’s podcast, which will be posted soon at AmericanVision.org. We also discussed David Chilton’s move to full preterism. Those in attendance disc [...]

Recently, I received an email from a woman who asked whether I could direct her to sources that refute Gnosticism. She wrote that a friend of hers “claims to be on an extraordinarily intense spiritual ‘pilgrimage’ of ‘really pressing in to know God intimately’—but this guy has in effect divorced himself from the material world and from all relationships (including his wife and 10 children) which h [...]

Some (too many) Christians advocate a form of factual neutrality, under which some subjects—science, geography, politics, mathematics—can be taught without regard to religion, since “facts speak for themselves.” This is most evident in education, where a self-conscious sacred-secular divide is maintained and supported by Christians. Ninety percent of Christian parents send their children to govern [...]

According to a radio editorial some years ago, “a man’s religion and the strength of his conviction are his own personal matter” and therefore “religion should not interfere with politics.”[1] Regrettably, many churches during Hitler’s rise to power accepted the argument that religion and morality should be separated from politics based on the neutrality claim. “Religion was a private matter,” his [...]

What are some of the worldview concepts that Christians have failed to beat, and what steps must be taken to beat them and offer alternatives? 1. Failure to Identify and Challenge an Opponent’s Presuppositions and Their Intended or Unintended Consequences. “What’s it going to cost?” is the first thing a savvy shopper asks when purchasing an item, not only in the purchase price of a car or a house, [...]

Please consider a year-end donation to American Vision to keep us going strong in 2026! The late Otto Scott, a former journalist, editor, historian, and author of ten books and numerous articles, was attracted to the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life because they didn’t agree on every point. Scott recounts how he became a Christian after reading the gospels and their differences: Well, my wife was Ch [...]

Listen to Gary’s year-end podcast for 2025 Please consider a year-end donation to American Vision to keep us going strong in 2026! In 2023, the infamous Three Questions Letter controversy became a significant factor in my life and American Vision’s ministry work. I refused to answer questions because they did not include attached Scripture passages. Because of my refusal, Andrew Sandlin post [...]

On Christmas Eve of 2024, outdoorsman Bear Grylls stated on his X account that Mary was a “Palestinian” and that she and Joseph were “refugees” when they traveled to Bethlehem. Today, we are “celebrating the birth of a Middle Eastern refugee” who “changed the course of the world forever.” I suppose this means that any Middle Eastern refugee can change our world today. (Source) Every Christmas, Lef [...]

Many people get bent out of shape when they see ‘Xmas’ or ‘X-Mas.’ (Don’t get me started on “ ‘Christmas’ Trees”). Critics think it’s a way of removing Jesus Christ from Christmas. Removing Christ from Christmas happens in many direct ways, but X-Mas is not one of them. “Every year you see the signs and the bumper stickers saying, ‘Put Christ back into Christmas’ as a response to this substitution [...]

Every Christmas, there is the inevitable talk about a “war on Christmas.” Not all opposition comes from secularists, atheists, and Muslims (see here and here). Some Christians believe the Bible does not set aside the birth of Jesus as a special calendar day to honor His birth because such a celebration violates the “regulative principle of worship.” Acknowledging the birth of Jesus is biblical. Ch [...]