The response to Monday’s article was a hit! We received nearly 140 replies from homeschool students and parents from all over the country, and they keep coming in. It’s also been picked up by other web sites and homeschool organizations and distributed widely. I am amazed at the wonderful accomplishments of so many young people and the dedication of their parents. The e-mailer who made the “cleani [...]

When I heard about the 17 students at Gloucester High School who are expecting babies, it reminded me of the movie Village of the Damned, based on the novel The Midwich Cuckoos, written by English author John Wyndham and published in 1957. The title of the novel refers to the way brood parasite cuckoo birds place their eggs in the nests of other birds that do not notice the “invasion.” Even after [...]

How should Christians respond to reform efforts under political regimes where they have no rights, no freedom of religion, speech, press, or assembly? For the most part, prior to the fall of most of Eastern Europe’s Communist governments and the former Soviet Union, Christians behind the iron curtain had little say in the way their nation operated. This was true of nearly all citizens. Christians [...]

As you know, American Vision rarely asks for donations. And when we do, all of the donations we receive go 100% to ministry projects and not to staff salaries. Like most Americans, however, many of you are cutting back over concerns about our slowing economy and the upcoming presidential election. We’re not. Now is the time to recapture ground that has been lost to liberals. There’s no better time [...]

A report has shown that 25% of teenage girls have a sexually transmitted disease. Surprised? We shouldn’t be. After it was learned that Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, had been going to prostitutes for the past six or ten years, Alan Dershowitz, his former professor at Harvard, came to the governor’s defense. “I feel terrible for Eliot and his family,” Dershowitz said. “But I feel [...]

Conservative Christians are the target of the claim that religion and politics do not mix. But there is almost no criticism of mixing religion and politics by liberal and left-leaning political groups. Alan Colmes, who sits in the liberal chair across from Sean Hannity on FOX’s Hannity and Colmes, follows liberal religion talking points when he claims that Jesus “believed the rich should give to t [...]

How can there be civil discourse with someone who believes he has “heard it from on high” and enacts laws based on the certainty of belief in a highest authority? “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it!” It’s the idea of absolutism mixed with the compulsion of civil government that is troublesome to many people. What few people seem to realize is that there are all types of non-religious [...]

All the God-talk in politics is upsetting some people. The media are picking up on this uneasy feeling among the electorate and are fanning the flames of a growing hostility in order to disenfranchise Christian conservative votes. Mitt Romney was so pressured by those questioning his Mormon faith that he addressed the issue similar to the way JFK did in September of 1960. It hasn’t helped that rad [...]

The ostrich with his head in the sand is the usual picture we get of cultural indifference. This image assumes the ostrich knows there’s a problem and by hiding his eyes, the problem will go away. I believe a more accurate illustration is based on an old Chinese proverb that goes like this: “If you want to know what water is, don’t ask a fish.” Never having experienced another environment, a fish [...]

The debate between evolutionists and creationists has become so specialized that the average person with basic knowledge of biology cannot follow the argumentation. How many educated Americans know anything about pseudogenes,[1] Haldane’s Dilemma,[2] transposons,[3] abiogenesis,[4] junk DNA,[5] RNA,[6] exons,[7] introns,[8] pharyngeal slits,[9] and other terms too numerous to list here? Even knowi [...]

When people are pushed to live consistently with their worldview assumptions, all kinds of revelations come to light. Toni Vernelli was sterilized at age 27 to “reduce her carbon footprint” and “protect the planet.”[1] If pressed, I wonder if Vernelli would decry antibiotics to keep people from dying from disease and peace talks to avert war. While I am saddened that she will never experience the [...]

“The Founders of the United States . . . understood that religious freedom was necessary to the ultimate health of the new country. They (perhaps especially Madison) believed in a ‘free market’ for religious ideas, thinking that in such an atmosphere the best religion would prevail without government aid.”[1] “When I heard there were apprehensions that the pope of Rome could be the President of th [...]

Three articles dealing with two less than small Christian colleges caught my attention. The first article was written by Hanna Rosin and highlights Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia.[1] Rosin is the author of the book God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America. God’s Harvard is Patrick Henry College. Of course, anyone familiar with American history surely knows t [...]

The first rule of economics is TANSTAAFL: There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.[1] While something might appear to be free (e.g., education, healthcare, etc.), there is always a cost to someone. Ignore this law, and all economic hell breaks loose. Of course, politicians believe they can ignore and even break any law because they consider themselves to be gods. They believe they can create eco [...]

Kay Haugaard has taught creative writing since 1970. As with most of her classes, students read and discuss Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery.”[1] Jackson’s lottery isn’t about winning millions of dollars by picking the right Lotto numbers; it’s about human sacrifice that a small town accepts and takes Part 1n with no questions asked. Of course, the premise is absurd. Or is it? As the yea [...]

A mini-storage facility uses edgy ads to get the attention of customers. The latest billboard not only advertises its storage facilities but promotes its pro-abortion agenda. The ad causing controversy carries a picture of a coat hanger along with the following copy: “Your closet space is shrinking as fast as her right to choose.” Since New York is overwhelmingly liberal and pro-abortion, only a m [...]

With some variations, those who hold to a biblical economic model share many fundamental principles with advocates of a free market, or, as I hope to demonstrate, free marketers share many fundamental economic principles with advocates of a biblical worldview. John W. Robbins writes, in his critique of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, “That the structure of knowledge that she erected, in which m [...]

On Saturday, August 4, 2007, the House of Representatives passed a $16 billion increase in taxes on oil companies. Actually, this is a lie. Oil companies, like every company in America, see taxes as the cost of doing business. Any tax increase will be passed onto consumers. If the voting public supports this increase, then they have only voted for a tax increase on themselves. The profits oil comp [...]

Cal Thomas, before he was a regular commentator for FOX News Watch and a syndicated print columnist, was the vice president of the Moral Majority from 1980 to 1985.1 While Thomas is still a conservative Christian, he has for some time called on Christians to modify their interest in politics. His first contribution to evangelical disengagement from politics was a book he co-authored with Ed Dobson [...]

Crazy for God is Frank (Franky) Schaeffer’s tell-all book about his life with his parents Francis and Edith Schaeffer and how he “helped found the religious right and ruin America.” It’s an angry book, and an immature memoir. By the time someone is a grandfather, memories of sex, drugs, rock and roll, and idiosyncratic parents should be a distant memory. I sure hope my sons are more kind if they e [...]