Mother’s Day is May 9th this year. I thought I’d give it a headstart with one of my favorite films. I Remember Mama is based on the memoir Mama’s Bank Account written by Kathryn Forbes. The setting is pre-WWI San Francisco. The irony of the setting should not be missed. Modern-day San Francisco is the philosophical center of familial redefinition incorporating everything from Heather Has Two Mommi [...]

When my oldest son was about four, we were at the check-out line at a Blockbuster video store when he noticed a display promoting a new video release of The Godfather. “Dad, are these movies about God?” he asked. A reasonable question for a four-year-old given the title and his always curious nature. Knowing that he would not care to hear a long retelling of the plot, I summed up the storyline by [...]

The racial divide in the United States is wider than it has ever been. The vast majority of Americans are not racists. They sympathize with Black Americans who have been treated unjustly. The history of Black suppression is real. It’s been a slow road to make right past injustices. Unfortunately, the Black Lives Matter movement has hijacked much of the goodwill that has been growing in the past fe [...]

Science Fiction has been defined as “Any story that argues the case for a changed world that has not yet come into being….”[1] A “changed world” means a temporary suspension of belief in what we know to be true to allow for the possibility of extraordinary occurrences that cannot happen in terms of our present operating worldview. Good science fiction blurs the distinction between the world [...]

It must not be forgotten that under the Puritans in Massachusetts there was no religious freedom. They persecuted those who did not believe their way. Many of those calling for a return to “Christian America” have forgotten what this so-called “Christian” state was like. Ironically, some of them are Baptists, who have forgotten that Roger Williams—a Baptist preacher and signer of the Declaration o [...]

Criticisms of theonomy are in vogue once again. I see this as a good turn of events. It shows an interest in social ethics and attempts to offer a viable methodology. I’ve noticed, however, that the criticisms of theonomy are not new. They’ve been dealt with in numerous publications since the 1970s. It’s rather remarkable that anyone would publish a critique of theonomy without first reading the m [...]

This is Part Six of a six-part series titled “THE BIBLE, THE CONSTITUTION, AND THE JURISDICTIONAL SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.” If you would like a full illustrated transcript of this series, send an email to Support@AmericanVision.org “Getting to Know Your Church-State Jurisdictions” is Part One in this series, “The Biblical Model of Church and State” is Part Two, Part Three is “Can Secularism [...]

This is Part Five of a Six-Part series titled “THE BIBLE, THE CONSTITUTION, AND THE JURISDICTIONAL SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.” If you would like a full illustrated transcript of this series, send an email to Support@AmericanVision.org “Getting to Know Your Church-State Jurisdictions” is Part One in this series, “The Biblical Model of Church and State” is Part Two, Part Three is “Can Secularis [...]

“Getting to Know Your Church-State Jurisdictions” is Part One in this series, “The Biblical Model of Church and State” is Part Two, and Part Three is “Can Secularism Account for Morality in Government?” To understand the relationship between Church and State we need to go to the source, and that source is not the United States Constitution. Modern-day social theory is based on an evolutionary mode [...]

“Getting to Know Your Church-State Jurisdictions” is Part One of this series and “The Biblical Model of Church and State” is Part Two. This third installment asks, What is civil government’s basis for morality? Stanley Fish, writing in the New York Times,[1] describes the way various philosophical traditions understand the “role of religion and public life.” He begins by pointing out that under “C [...]

For a discussion of jurisdictions, see Part 1 of this series “Getting to Know Your Church-State Jurisdictions.” One way to keep Christians out of the public arena, especially in the realm of politics, is to claim that there is a separation between Church and State which when interpreted and applied by courts and organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separat [...]

I was listening to an interview with Ken Starr on his new book Religious Liberty in Crisis: Exercising Your Faith in an Age of Uncertainty. I have not read the book, but I did agree with Starr’s assessment that most Americans lack a basic knowledge of the First Amendment. Most likely Mr. Starr does not deal with the First Amendment and how it relates to civil government in terms of biblical law. [...]

Police in Canada erected a metal fencing around GraceLife Church in Edmonton “that’s led by a pastor who was jailed for holding worship services that violated provincial lockdown rules.” The church was ordered to be “shut it down until it ‘can demonstrate the ability to comply’ with the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. To show their disdain for the worshippers, additional fencing was erected around [...]

Some years ago, Dr. Gary North and Ken Gentry wrote articles for a monthly newsletter titled Dispensationalism in Transition. So much about dispensationalism has changed over the years that C.I. Scofield most likely would not recognize it. The Scofield Reference Bible that first appeared in 1909 and was revised by the author in 1917, has gone through several revisions since then. “In 1967, Oxford [...]

The first two laws of economics (notice the use of nomos—law—in the word “economics”) is “You shall not steal” and “Let’s make a deal.” You can only deal with what you own. Civil governments believe they can subvert these laws (and others) for the good of the people and the nation. It can’t be done. Every attempt to subvert God’s economic laws results in poverty at one end and unlimited control at [...]

My article “Does the Bible Require Jesus to be Buried for 72 Hours?” garnered some attention. It got people to think, and hopefully helped them deal with an objection that is often raised by skeptics. When I became a Christian, I was always interested in apologetics. My initial curiosity in the topic came by way of people who claimed there were contradictions in the Bible. Studying to find a solut [...]

The beginning of the twentieth century brought with it the hope for unchallenged optimism. H. G. Wells, the author of numerous popular science fiction thrillers, described a period of “evolutionary idealism, faith in progress, and complete optimism.”[i] He proposed that world leaders should create “a common world religion” that was not linked to Christianity or any other th [...]

What happens to the children of parents who espoused the Christian faith? Franky Schaeffer has repudiated his father’s work and much of his own work he did with and for his father. Josh Harris has denounced the faith of his father, Greg Harris. Jonathan Merritt is promoting same sex everything. His father is James G. Merritt, the Senior Pastor of Cross Pointe Church in Georgia. Ronald Reagan, Jr. [...]

I’ve been reading Dan Kimball’s book How (Not) To Read the Bible. It’s a well-constructed book with lots of illustrations that helps to make sense of the “antiwomen, anti-science, pro-violence, pro-slavery and other crazy-sounding parts of Scripture” that skeptics bring up in attempts to discredit the Bible. Some Christians won’t like all of Kimball’s explanations, especially when it comes to the [...]

People often ask me what they can do to reclaim our nation. Many things can be done but the one action that would make a monumental difference would be for Christians and conservatives to remove their children from government schools. It would devastate the power base of the messianic State, take power away from the powerful teacher unions that pour millions of dollars into the Democrat Party, and [...]