When our first president under the Constitution was sworn in on April 30, 1789, it was in New York City. Back then it was our capital city. Today it is often called the cultural capital of the country. George Washington took the oath of office in the common way it was done in his Anglican Church, by saying, “So help me, God.” He took the oath with his hand on an open Bible. [...]
There is no Church-Israel distinction in the Bible because the Greek word ekklēsia is not an invention of the New Testament writers. Ekklēsia is a common word that is used to describe an assembly or congregation. It is used this way in the Greek translation of the Old Testament—the Septuagint (LXX)—and the Greek New Testament. This common word is used by Jesus in Matthew’s gospel (the most Jewish [...]
When dispensationalists can’t answer critiques of their position, they resort to poisoning the well by claiming that non-dispensationalists reject the Jews by adopting a theological system called Replacement Theology. I see it happen in almost any discussion with a misinformed dispensationalist who repeats what he or she has heard from some well-known dispensationalist author. For the dispensation [...]
Jeffrey O’Connell and Michael Ruse of Florida State University have written Social Darwinism published by Cambridge University Press in 2021. The book is described as follows: It begins by discussing the meaning of the term [Social Darwinism], moving then to its origins, paying particular attention to whether it is Charles Darwin or Herbert Spencer who is the true father of the idea. It gives an e [...]
Green energy and the New Green Deal are big Democrat talking points. The Left wants to spend trillions of dollars to Go Green. Like nearly everything bureaucrats and elected officials propose, it’s about power and money. The Green New Deal will turn out to be like war profiteering. When there’s talk about bringing our troops home, Democrats and Republicans fight the initiative because some of thei [...]
Critical race theory is the new Common Core. “Critical race theory is a practice. It’s an approach to grappling with a history of White supremacy that rejects the belief that what’s in the past is in the past, and that the laws and systems that grow from that past are detached from it,” said Kimberlé Crenshaw, a founding critical race theorist and a law professor who teaches at UCLA and Columbia U [...]
When and where will “cancel culture” stop? Wokeness is never satisfied. It’s never enough. Here’s a surprising late entry to the cancel culture sweepstakes. Charles Darwin is under attack. That’s right. St. Charles Darwin is about to get canceled if the folks at Sheffield University get their way. British naturalist Charles Darwin has become the latest historical scientist to run afoul of the “dec [...]
If there are riots now in America, what will it be like 20 years from now if the New York Times gets its way? The New York Times sponsored the 1619 Project, which postulates that America’s real beginnings as a nation are when the first African slaves were brought to Jamestown in 1619. Many historians note that this is a distortion of our nation’s roots. Worse, it makes young people turn against th [...]
There have been some comments recently about the Interpretive Maximalism of James B. Jordan. This has been an ongoing discussion for nearly 30 years. An article by Pastor Uri Brito from 2015 posted on Facebook brought the topic to my attention again: “James B. Jordan and Interpretive Maximalism.” Since I’ve known Jim since the mid-1970s and have benefitted from his works over the years, I thought [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The following movie review from a 2005 issue of Biblical Worldview Magazine is quite relevant to our own day and time of “burn it down” revolutionaries. G.K. Chesterton, ever the prophet and eminently quotable, made the point about good always needing to be vigilant in the fight against evil with his “old white post” analogy: Chesterton addressed this perennial fight for go [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Sam Waldron who teaches at Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary has been writing on the topic of postmillennialism. In his “DatPostmil? #4: Does the Growth of the Kingdom Require Postmillennialism?” he discusses some of the parables of Jesus. While he agrees with the growth imagery of the parables, he dismisses “postmillennial implications of these passages,” in particular “the Parable of the Whe [...]
