Gary is interviewed by Rick Welch of The Burros of Berea podcast about old Christmas movies. Most evangelicals tend to think in “words.” This is certainly understandable because of the Protestant focus on the Bible as the sole authority (sola Scriptura) and the Lutheran concept of the “priesthood of all believers.” When this is applied to storytelling and film, this primary focus on word over imag [...]
Movie remakes can be hazardous. Few can compete with the originals. Several come to mind: Goodbye Mr. Chips, Mighty Joe Young, The Time Machine, Psycho, 12 Angry Men, Cheaper by the Dozen, and Miracle on 34th Street. There are exceptions: The Man Who Knew Too Much, Ben Hur, Tombstone (a remake of My Darling Clementine), and Ocean’s Eleven. In other cases, both the original and the remake are good: [...]
American Vision rarely asks for financial support. Donations go directly to projects while my salary comes from product sales. I can assure you that American Vision runs a very lean operation. I am the only employee. Any financial aid you can give at this time would be very much appreciated to keep American Vision operating at an optimal level. You can donate monthly or with a one-time gift either [...]
Gary discusses some of the common objections to how Christianity has influenced American civil government and sets the historical record straight. The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States… provides a treasure trove of information about the Christian foundations and essence of our history, civil government, and constitutional order. It provides long-obs [...]
Gary discusses an article by Daniel Hummel about how concordances made Dispensationalism—and a “scientific” approach to Bible reading—possible. Having a basic knowledge of Greek to study the New Testament is helpful and can go a long way to help with interpretation issues in terms of how a passage literally reads. The Greek alphabet can be learned in a few hours since it close to our E [...]
A sign at an elementary school caught my attention. It read, “Bless America.” The question that came to mind was, “Who or what are they calling on to bless America?” Even with the unabashed call for God to bless America, there is no specific God in mind. Is it Aristotle’s “Unmoved Mover”? How about Jefferson’s absentee landlord god? What are children told about Thanksgiving in our nation’s governm [...]
Christianity Today reported, “Tony Campolo, a progressive Christian leader who courted controversy challenging evangelicals to see caring for the poor as an integral part of proclaiming the gospel, died on Tuesday. He was 89.” All Christians should be advocates for “the least of these,” although I would not choose the word “caring.” It strikes me as a bit paternalistic. Without a proper understand [...]
In his book 1968 The Population Bomb, Paul R. Ehrlich made numerous predictions about the future of our planet based on his understanding of population growth and projected food supplies. Ehrlich’s work was not new. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), a British political economist and mathematician, proposed that population growth would outstrip any increase in food supplies in his day. Malthus the [...]
Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope: Episode 14 Gary discusses the history of failed “end times” and “last days” predictions. When we study the history of prophetic speculation, we soon realize that we’ve heard all of this before. For nearly 2000 years uninformed but assured Christians have predicted, in words similar to those of Hal Lindsey, that “they were the [...]
Gary continues his interview with Gordon Van Wechel with Alchemy Precious Metals about the worldwide demand for precious metals and how countries like China and India are influencing prices. The debasement of Isaiah’s day (Isaiah 1:22-26) was kids’ stuff compared to today. That was because of the limits of deception. Pour too much dross into the molten metal, and it will no longer look like silver [...]
It seemed appropriate to re-run this article, which points to the podcast on a Christian response to Halloween. Why do Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and Diwali all fall around the same time of year? Is this because paganism is so consistent and ubiquitous around the world, or is the answer much simpler? Christians seldom think in historical terms and assume that since Halloween has pagan origins [...]
When you hear Leftists accuse conservatives of something you can bet that they are the ones who are doing it. Their accusations are a cover for their own beliefs and actions. In the parable of the speck and the log in the New Testament, Jesus warned against what is described today as “projection,” a defense mechanism in which an individual recognizes their unacceptable traits or impulses in someon [...]
The racial divide in the United States is wider than it has ever been. Most 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 right past injustices. Unfortunately, the Black Lives Matter movement has hijacked much of the goodwill that has been growing in the past few decades and turned [...]
We’ve been taught that fascism is a foreign-born ideology that spawned the political aspirations of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler. Fascism has had a long history in America and has been resurrected by people who believe that power guided by good intentions can do no harm. They are ignorant of history and human nature. We don’t have to go abroad to find examples of fascism. The political philos [...]
Political liberals, like Kamala Harris for instance, are more than willing to use every means necessary to get their message out, even breaking tax laws they supported. When, in 1800, President John Adams received a letter from Germany, proposing to send over to this country “a company of schoolmasters, painters, poets, etc., all of them disciples of Thomas Paine,” he made prompt and emphatic repl [...]
[Those who reject special revelation] are like the Irishman who preferred the moon to the sun, because the sun shines in the day-time when there is no need of it, while the moon shines in the night time; so these moralists, shining by the borrowed, reflected light of Christianity, think they have no need of the sun, from whose radiance they get their pale moonlight.[1] I’ve watched a series of sho [...]
There was hardly a peep out of Monday being Columbus Day. The malcontents are happy enough to get the day off with pay. A new revelation (which is an old claim) is that “Spanish researchers have claimed that DNA and other analyses indicate that Christopher Columbus likely came from a Jewish family in Spain.” This should give some of the same people more reasons to hate him. The usual dissenters co [...]
Gary points out that making mental connections between things that interest you is a helpful way to learn and remember new things. The brain is a magnificent creation. A typical adult’s brain contains fifteen billion to one hundred billion neurons. If we accept the lower estimate, this means that you and I can remember two-to-the-ten-billionth-power bits of information. How big is this number? It [...]
Gary interacts with a recent clip from Charlie Kirk where a questioner asks Kirk about “common law” and America’s founding. When modern-day critics of America’s Christian heritage argue that America was founded by deists on Enlightenment principles and call into evidence Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson and for good measure James Madison, John Adams, and [...]
There’s confusion today regarding the last days and the role Israel is said to play. I hope the following will clear up some of the mischaracterizations of Israel and the last days. Are we to believe that after 2000 years a single last-days generation of Jews living in Israel will be slaughtered during soon to occur Great Tribulation based on a reading of Zechariah 13:7-9? “It will come about in a [...]
