The Church of the Woke

The Church of the Woke

During these days of COVID-19, when many churches remain closed by government mandate to keep the virus from spreading, a new religion has arisen in the country…and it’s all based on a myth. Citizens Free Press (7/25/20) posts a video in Portland, Oregon, where you can see worshipers of the “Church of the Woke,” participating in an outdoor religious service. This consists of hundreds, perhaps thou [...]

How Black Americans Can Save Our Nation

How Black Americans Can Save Our Nation

What we are seeing happening in and to our nation is nothing new. The ideologies driving the revolution have been around for a long time. The universities are filled with ideological radicals aligned more with Marx and Marcuse than Burke and Kirk. Their radical ideas have trickled down to the high school level where multiple generations have been polluted with dangerous and counter-productive idea [...]

Is Politics Outside the Scope of the Christian Worldview?

Is Politics Outside the Scope of the Christian Worldview?

There’s a scene at the end of the film The Martian where Mark Watney (played by Matt Damon) lays out what is inevitable in space travel. It’s a lesson that can and should be applied to every area of life: At some point, everything’s gonna go south on you… Everything’s going to go south and you’re going to say, this is it. This is how I end. Now you can either a [...]

Should Pastors Address the Subject of Politics?

For decades pastors have been timid about preaching politics from the pulpit. The Old Testament prophets would have been stunned by such timidity. A good many modern-day churches believe that they have some very good biblical reasons for not touching on the subject of politics from the pulpit. Many believe they are prohibited from doing so because it will jeopardize their tax-exempt status. It won [...]

How Far the Democrats Have Fallen (And the Republicans Aren’t Far Behind)

Who said the following? “I am a Christian, I am a Protestant, I am a Baptist … [and] my own personal religious faith . . . has developed out of my own personal experience in life as well…. [T]he tradition of which I’m a part recognizes the importance of personal communication with the deity, along with the lessons that come from Scripture.” ((From Kenneth Woodward, “Finding God,” New [...]

Romans 13 and the Persecution-Seeking Christian

Whenever we ponder Christianity and government, you can almost wager some well-meaning believer will argue that we can’t expect rulers to be just because Paul actually had the Roman Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar in mind when he penned Romans 13. Like many of his predecessors in the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Nero was a bit of a beast. He had his own mother killed. The Roman historian Tacitus had this [...]

Is the Christian Right Driving Liberals Away From Religion?

Michele Margolis is a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity. She writes, “some people on the left are falling away from religion because they see it as so wrapped up with Republican politics.” As someone who identifies with the Religious Right, I could just a [...]

The Bible Has Some Very Unsavory Political Figures that Would Upset a Lot of Christian Voters

Consider the following scenario: There are two people running for political office. You have inside knowledge of what these candidates will do in the future. The first candidate will expand the military, implement confiscatory taxes, enrich some of his trusted political allies with property stolen from the people. The second candidate will commit adultery, be an accomplice to murder, be identified [...]

Hodge v. Horton: Two-Kingdom Schizophrenia

Michael Horton, the J. Gresham Machen Professor of Theology and Apologetics at Westminster Seminary (California) since 1998, Editor-in-Chief of Modern Reformation magazine, and President and host of the syndicated radio broadcast, The White Horse Inn, describes Reconstructionists as “zealous postmillennialists” who “are in danger of turning law into gospel” and “confusing salvation and earthly uto [...]

Should the Church ‘Only Preach the Gospel’?

Ed Dingess at Reformed Reasons responded to my article “Jesus Has Not Called Us to be Doormats” with “Gary DeMar: A Response to Christian Doormats.” I’ll extend him the courtesy of linking to his article even though he does not link to mine or even give the title of my article. Strange. It would also have been nice if he had been consistent with the spelling of my name. It’s DeMar, not Demar [...]

Are Christians Being 'Too Political’?

Is it any wonder that Christians are losing their hard-fought freedoms? Christian radio network K-LOVE found itself under fire after it initially refused to run promo spots on its stations for the newly released pro-life film, “Unplanned.” Please tell me what’s not political? Everything is political. That’s the point. The reasons Christians should be involved in politics is [...]

Jesus Has Not Called Us to be Doormats

Can the gospel and social activism co-exist? Should Christians involve themselves in the world by participating in politics, pursue advanced degrees in education, medicine, science, and law, produce films on a wide range of subjects, seek a career in journalism, and develop non-governmental programs for long-term social reform based on a well thought out biblical worldview? Or should Christians sp [...]

Stop using the Bible as an excuse to avoid politics

Does the Bible forbid Christians from being involved in politics? It would be a hard case to prove since there are numerous books of the Bible that are filled with politics—from Joshua, Judges, and 1 and 2 Samuel to 1 and 2 Kings and the Old Testament Prophets. King David is confronted by Nathan the Prophet (2 Sam. 12), Solomon is shown violating nearly every biblical admonition regarding kings th [...]

"Rapture" thinking and political paralysis

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is coming under fire for a speech he gave in 2015 while serving as a Congressman: Dangerous Christian extremist: Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is caught on video promoting the Rapture. Social media is on fire after a 2015 video has been rediscovered showing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo discussing the Rapture. In the video Pompeo expresses his opposition to [...]

More fake news on Bible prophecy and the "rapture"

According to a recent popular video on the rapture, “Evangelist Greg Laurie has suggested that a massive Jesus revival in America could lead to Christians being snatched from Earth, removing the U.S. from the End Times conflict.” But why couldn’t a massive Jesus revival in America instead lead to Christians changing America? In his interview with PureFlix, Laurie “recalled that one of the earmarks [...]

Should preachers address politics from the pulpit?

Several posts on Facebook are asking this question: Should pastors address politics from the pulpit? I don’t understand why this question keeps getting asked. If the Bible addresses politics (or anything else), then pastors must address politics and anything else the Bible addresses. It’s that simple. Joel McDurmon, President of American Vision, writes: [I]f it is true that pastors may not weigh i [...]

Are Christians "confusing the Gospel with Christian nationalism"?

Many Christians refuse to get involved in politics for any number of reasons. Here are some of them: Jesus didn’t get involved in politics. God’s kingdom is not of this world. We’re to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. We’re living in the last days. We’re just to preach the gospel. Politics is not mentioned in the Great Commission. The Christian’s citizenship is in heaven. There’s a s [...]

Soft-Selling Communism and Stalinism in the 'Trumbo' Film

My wife and I sat down the Saturday before the Academy Awards to watch the 2015 film Trumbo. Dalton Trumbo is played by Bryan Cranston who did a marvelous job, certainly worthy of the Academy Award nomination he received for Best Actor. It’s loosely based on the Hollywood screenwriter, author, and self-admitted Communist Dalton Trumbo (1905-1976) who was cited for Contempt of Congress for which he [...]

Why Bother if the End is Near?

People have been trying to identify a particular antichrist for centuries. Christopher Hill’s book on the subject just deals with antichrist in seventeenth-century England. (There were many more through the centuries and in other countries.) The candidates included Protestants, the Pope, radical sects, bishops, the Crown, the “‘Establishment’ generally,” the universities, and “the Turk,” an early [...]

We Should be More Concerned About Deflated Freedoms than Deflated Footballs

Deflated footballs are in the news. In fact, the story is so popular that all the major networks led with the story even though almost nobody in the United States will be financially affected by the outcome. No one will lose any freedom, be forced to pay a tax, or have a pile of new regulations stacked on them. “On Thursday night, the ‘big three’ of ABC, CBS, and NBC each covered the news that the [...]