After an initial court victory, a high school math teacher lost his battle to keep his “God” banners displayed in his classroom. A federal appeals court ruled on September 13, 2011 that Bradley Johnson’s First Amendment rights were not violated when he was asked by the school district to take down a series of religious banners. Mr. Johnson had banners hanging in his classroom at Westview High Scho [...]

Social Security is in the news as presidential candidates jockey for political position. What you don’t know about Social Security may surprise you. Gary DeMar takes a look at the socialist history of this government pyramid scheme in this edition of Vantage Point! [...]

“Three Christian crosses that stood on state property next to a scenic overlook in north San Diego County for decades were removed by California Department of Transportation workers earlier this week.” Do you see the irony? The County of San Diego, that is, the County of Saint James? We keep hearing how some of the Republican candidates are Dominionists, that is, they want to impose their religion [...]

Two news items about religion and civil government caught my attention over the weekend. First, in a 2–1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., has ruled in favor of two county residents who complained that they were offended at hearing “in Jesus’ name” in a public prayer. The federal decision upholds a lower court ruling. “Legislative prayer must strive to be nondenomin [...]

Anders Behring Breivik, the radical responsible for the recent murders in Norway, will be tried for his crimes. His lawyer is constructing an insanity defense, but is Breivik insane? In this edition of Vantage Point, Gary compares Breivik’s actions and the atrocities of the French Revolution, showing that left wing revolutionaries are very similar. [...]

Many Americans are unaware of the Christian history of the Mount Rushmore carvings. At its inception, the massive monument was to include an explicitly Christian inscription to ensure future generations would understand the reason for its existence. Watch this episode of Vantage Point to find out more of this fascinating history! [...]

[caption id=“attachment_4836” align=“alignleft” width=“220” caption=“William Blackstone”][/caption] When Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas appealed to Natural Law theory in some of his legal opinions and writings, there were those on the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings in September 1991 who took exception. The most voc [...]

When I was a student at Reformed Theological Seminary (1974-1979), I was taught that certain cultural applications flowed from a consistent application of Calvinism. Calvinism is synonymous with a comprehensive biblical world-and-life view. It’s not just about TULIP (Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, Perseverance of the saints). Simply put, we were tol [...]

After the defeat of Hitler’s Third Reich, war crime tribunals were set up in Nuremberg, Germany. The purpose, of course, was to judge those who had participated in the grossest of atrocities, the planned extermination of the Jewish race. John Warwick Montgomery explains the problem the tribunal faced: When the Charter of the Tribunal, which had been drawn up by the victors, was used by the prosecu [...]

Atheist Michael Newdow has been pestering the courts to rule that the phrase “under God,” found in the Pledge of Allegiance, and “In God We Trust,” imprinted and stamped on our currency, are unconstitutional. In 2010, even the usually liberal San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Newdow’s legal challenges that the references to God are unconstitutional and infringe on his [...]

Before Harold Camping, there were Chuck Smith and Hal Lindsey. Lindsey is the author of widely and wildly popular The Late Great Planet Earth (1970). Smith has been the pastor of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, since 1965. He is a popular and well-respected Bible teacher. What many people don’t know or remember is that he set some very specific dates of his own in the 1970s. I wonder wha [...]

Commissioners from Forsyth County in North Carolina appeared before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to appeal a District Court’s decision to bar commissioners from opening public meetings with prayers prayed in Jesus’ name. The ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State argued (naturally) that sectarian prayers to any deity violate the First Amendment. The Fir [...]

[caption id=“attachment_4285” align=“alignleft” width=“300” caption=““Defeat of the Turks at the Gates of Vienna””][/caption] Joel Richardson believes the Bible teaches “that the biblical Antichrist is one and the same as the Quran’s Muslim Mahdi.” ((“Get ready for an Islamic Antichrist, warns new book,” World Net Daily (August 3, 2009)) [...]

Christopher Columbus might have remained a footnote in history, if Washington Irving, the author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle,” had not published a three volume biography about him. Although Irving established Columbus’ rightful place in history, he also told a few fibs, the biggest one being that Columbus wanted to prove the earth was round. A [...]

What does it mean to “throw the elephant”? A person responds to an argument by dumping loads of seemingly relevant information on it, calls it a “refutation,” and declares himself the winner, all the while hoping his opponent won’t notice how faulty much of the information is. The internet has made throwing the elephant a favorite tactic of anti-Christian bigots. It used to be that a response requ [...]

My interests are many and varied. I enjoy Track and Field, Olympic Weight Lifting, the Golden and Silver Age comic book eras. For years I have been trying to complete my set of The Fantastic Four series. The first issue appeared in November 1961 and sold for ten cents. In 2010 I achieved my goal by acquiring the first five issues, the only ones I had not been able to locate at a decent price and i [...]

“I have been amused by observing the manner in which speculators have been taken in when they have left the old ship of the gospel to become prophets. The beast of the Revelation was reported to be Napoleon I, and then the creature suddenly reappeared in his nephew, Napoleon III. By-and-by, the deadly wound was healed, and the Prince Imperial wore the dreadful honours of the prophetic book; but th [...]

D.W. Griffith directed the 1915 epic-making silent film masterpiece The Birth of a Nation, based on the play by Thomas Dixon called The Clansman. The purpose of the film was to rewrite the history of the South and the Civil War. The title The Clansman was changed to The Birth of a Nation to give the film broader appeal. President Woodrow Wilson, a former classmate of Dixon’s, praised the Ku [...]

Hoover Dam was named after President Herbert Hoover who was instrumental in its construction. This marvel of engineering began in 1931 and was completed two years ahead of schedule in 1936. Hardhats made of two baseball caps dipped in tar and allowed to harden were used for the first time. A surveyor was one of the first people to die in the dam’s construction. The son of the surveyor was th [...]

If you’re looking for a sweet, peaceful tale to help you drift off to slumberland, don’t choose one of the stories from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The stories collected by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 1800s often paint a cruel life as many generations of central Europeans knew it. In collecting and writing down the Germanic folktales, the brothers were attempting to preserve a part o [...]