Gary discusses the providential history of his life after high school and college. The War of the Worlds depicts a clash between very alien societies—one planetary world hell-bent on destroying another. The fictionalized Martian attack was relentless. Cobra-like periscopes emitted pulverizing beams of energy that ravaged the countryside. The sleek and deceptively beautiful Martian flying machines [...]
My wife will tell anyone that my mind works in mysterious ways. It seems to ramble around until it finds disparate bits of information and makes odd connections that mystify her. “How did you get that from that?,” she often asks. To be honest, I don’t really know. The latest is from the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) that stars John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Lee Marvin, Vera Miles, Edmon [...]
A recent film was a spectacular box-office failure for several reasons, and speaks volumes about public support for the gay ideology. In 2006, Larry David wrote this in the New York Times: “Somebody had to write this, and it might as well be me. I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain, nor do I have any intention of seeing it.” He writes this as something of an apology. Like it is expected that all good [...]
When I became a Christian in 1973, last days madness was all the rage. Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth was becoming a mega-bestseller. Lindsey had implied rather strongly that something called the “rapture” would take place before the 1948-1988 generation passed away. You can read his comments in the hardback edition on pages 53 and 54. I don’t know if he ever revised LGPE. I was new to [...]
Guest article by Charles Jacobi A few weeks ago, I responded to a Christianity Today columnist who, using C.S. Lewis, argued household discipleship takes precedence over “participating in culture wars.” The columnist’s point was that Christian parents shouldn’t run for school board: public education is an “open system” influenced by its local environment, thus, Christians should forgo the politica [...]
Once Christians adopt a quietist and radical separationist perspective on Christ and culture, the other tyrannical shoe will drop. In time, churches in Nazi German were “confined as far as possible to the performance of narrowly religious functions, and even within this narrow sphere [they] were subjected to as many hindrances as the Nazis dared to impose.” This assessment is from a 1945 report pu [...]
A Christian posted on Facebook that she was eager to leave this world because it’s not home. Actually, it is her home. Similar to her dual citizenship (Phil 3:20), she has two homes, one in this world and one in the next. Until God calls us to our heavenly home, we are responsible for our earthly home that God made possible for us to have. Christians are often caught between “This World Is Not My [...]
Gary discusses a new book by Eric Metaxas that makes the point that the social and political climate in America today resembles early 20th century Germany. “I will protect the German people, Hitler shouted. You take care of the church. You pastors should worry about getting people to heaven and leave this world to me.”[1] Adolf Hitler’s angry response was directed at Martin Niemöller, [...]
Each October, Christopher Columbus is hammered for his voyages of exploitation of native peoples. For example, Seattle, Washington, has designated the formerly Columbus Day as “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” as if Indigenous People were free from conquest, slavery, and brutality. Like Martin Luther King, Jr. Day hasn’t done a thing for black people, Indigenous Peoples’ Day won’t do a thing for the desce [...]
Gary discusses what it means to be a patriot and a Christian, and while the two are not mutually exclusive, they are also not the same thing. Biblical elements often dominated when it came to establishing a moral foundation for the fledgling nation and suspicions of centralized political power. For example, the first legislative act of Pennsylvania, passed at Chester December 7, 1682, announced th [...]
“Just preach the gospel.” How many times have you heard pastors and critics of social and political action scold Christians concerned about the moral direction the church is taking for mixing the gospel with politics? The gospel is more than a life insurance program or a “Get Out of Hell Free” card. It is to transform everything we think about and act on. There is no neutrality or areas that are o [...]
Gary discusses climate change end-times “prophets” who sound just like religious end-times authors. Climate Armageddon is the new secular apocalypticism. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was nuclear destruction. That was always a possibility because the United States and the former Soviet Union had real nuclear weapons. Students were to “Duck and Cover” in case of a nuclear attack. Like this [...]
“The publishers did not see that my purpose was to write a moral lesson of the punishment that befell a mortal man who dared to emulate God.” — Mary Shelly’s character in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). October is horror film month because of Halloween (“Hallow,” not “Hollow”). The genre has come a long way. The older horror films often blend elements of legitimate science with the occult, alche [...]
Gary responds to an article about political commentator Joe Scarborough calling the “pro-life” movement a “heresy.” Tom Ehrich, an Episcopal minister and writer living in Durham, North Carolina, claims that the religious debate on the subject of abortion “is one best captured in shades of gray rather than . . . in black and white.”[1] Ehrich asks where God stands on the iss [...]
Guest article by Jason Mattera [see original post here] Remember the part of Jesus’ parable where, after seeing the beaten and half-dead traveler on the ground, the Good Samaritan rushes to find the nearest Roman official, urging him to impose an obligatory progressive income tax on the locals to bankroll the battered man’s recovery at the nearby inn? Me either. Must be in the other red-letter edi [...]
Gary discusses art and worldview with Pastor Doug Giles and his several series of art to help change Christians’ perception of biblical persons and events. Interest in the occult emerges when the prevailing Christian worldview fails to impact people’s lives in concrete, life-transforming ways. When the Christian message becomes defeatist, retreatist, and exclusively otherworldly, the door is [...]
Gary concludes his interview with Chris Arnzen about abortion, racism, transgenderism, and so much more. The Bible shows that apologetics and worldviews in general deal with fundamental assumptions that guide reason and give meaning to facts. For example, the first verse of the Bible states without equivocation or defense, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). The ne [...]
It’s not surprising that most Americans don’t know the definitions of various governmental systems. “A professor found that a vast majority of his university students were unable to tell the U.S. Constitution from the Russian constitution…. Many students respond confessing how they have never read the U.S. Constitution and how they appreciate the foresight of the founding fathers to implement mini [...]
This is Part One of Gary’s recent interview by Chris Arnzen on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Defending the Christian worldview against unbelieving thought takes an understanding that every worldview has a centralized guiding principle that serves as its foundational operational assumption about the nature of reality. By going after the head, as Jael did to Sisera (Judges 4–5), as an unnamed woma [...]
Gary discusses several recent books and articles based on the topic of Christian Nationalism and “dominionism.” Question: Is it possible that the Bible teaches that the gospel will have worldwide success, that nations will be discipled, and that we will see the Word of the Lord cover the earth as the waters cover the sea before Jesus returns in glory to rapture His saints? (Isa. 11:9). [...]
