Let's Abolish Christmas

The Christmas season brings out the best and worst in people; it also brings out the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). In fact, Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the FFRF, states, “The state shouldn’t have a Christmas anything. It’s not supposed to observe religious holidays.”[1] I wonder if she really believes this. I be [...]

Is Christmas a Celebration of Losing?

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-122308.jpg" ““Article”) When error comes, it always rides in on the wings of truth.[1] Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), Premier of the former Soviet Union, described a time in the Communist republic’s history when a wave of petty theft was sweeping through the government-owned plants. To curtai [...]

Is Christmas About a Homeless Couple?

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-122208.jpg" ““Article”) Every Christmas season we will hear the inevitable revisionist version of the Christmas story. Jesse Jackson was the first to turn Joseph and Mary into a “homeless couple” when he claimed that Christmas “is not about Santa Claus and ‘Jingle Bells’ and [...]

One-World Government Biblical?

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-121808-a.jpg" ““Article”) Some readers get upset any time I point out how modern-day prophecy writers misrepresent the Bible. My critics don’t seem to mind that Hal Lindsey has been wrong over the years in an area of study that has made his reputation and so much of Christendom has embraced as “gos [...]

World's Largest (Legal) Ponzi Scheme

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-121608-b.jpg" ““Article”) Bernard Madoff, former Nasdaq Stock Market chairman and founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, was arrested and charged with securities fraud in what federal prosecutors called a “Ponzi scheme” that could involve losses of more than $50 billion. Some of th [...]

Where is Gort When You Need Him?

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-121508.jpg" ““Article”) “The 1950s were not all ‘Happy Days.’ The war was over but the aftershock was still very present. Post-WWII paranoia spawned from the fear of the new atomic age.” Movie remakes can be hazardous. Few can compete with the originals. Several come to mind: Goodbye Mr. Chips, Mig [...]

Atheists Need You to be Ignorant

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-120908.jpg" ““Article”) One way to change worldview perceptions is to keep people ignorant. The public schools have done a great job in shifting worldview thinking from theism to humanism right under the noses of parents who extol the virtues of America’s government education system. Consider how t [...]

Day of Fasting and Prayer

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-120908-b.jpg" ““Article”) Efforts to erase God from America’s collective memory will have to include a number of official documents signed by some of our founding fathers, including John Hancock and James Madison. On March 16, 1776, “by order of Congress” a “day of Humiliation, Fasting and Prayer” [...]

Debating Another Dispensationalist

For 20 years I have been debating the topic of eschatology. It started with Dave Hunt (four debates) after the publication of my book The Reduction of Christianity (co-authored with Peter J. Leithart) and has included debates with Thomas Ice (nine debates), Paige Patterson, Robert L. Thomas, Ed Hindson, John Sweigart, Michael Wechsler, and countless radio shows where callers would rapid-fire quest [...]

John MacArthur's Defense of Dispensationalism

In 1988, John MacArthur wrote The Gospel According to Jesus, a controversial book in certain circles because he relied heavily on the views of Calvinistic writers to deal with the lordship salvation controversy. My respect for MacArthur grew because he was not afraid to take on those in his own dispensational camp who were teaching “defective theology” about discipleship. The book got [...]

Get a Horse and Sterilize Yourself

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-120208-b.jpg" ““Article”) 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 Vernel [...]

How Eschatology Impacts Apologetics

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-120208.jpg" ““Article”) On January 21, 2009, James White of Alpha & Omega Ministries will be debating Bart Ehrman, the James A. Gray Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, on the following question: “Can the New Testa [...]

What Einstein and Hitler Had in Common

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-112508-b.jpg" ““Article”) American Vision gets a great deal of mail. Much of it is unsolicited. Most of it is interesting and helpful. A few pieces are downright goofy. Consider the catalog from Global Vision Worldwide that I recently rediscovered. The people at Global Vision: Advance reverence for [...]

No One is Neutral and Facts Don't Speak for Themselves

A story is told that during the days of the Cold War a two-car automobile race took place between the United States and the former Soviet Union. An American newspaper reporter described the result of the race this way: “American car beats out Soviet competitor.” The Russian newspaper reported the same automotive contest from a slightly different perspective: “Soviet car finishes second; American c [...]

The World is Not Controlled by the Devil

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-111908-b.jpg" ““Article”) When error comes, it always rides in on the wings of truth.[1] Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), Premier of the former Soviet Union, described a time in the Communist republic’s history when a wave of petty theft was sweeping through the government-owned plants. To curtail th [...]

It Takes More than a Theory (Part 2)

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-111808.jpg" ““Article”) Calvinism was set off from Christianity in gen­eral precisely be­cause it has always advocated a comprehensive bib­lical worldview. Quot­ing Francis R. Beattie, Calvinism was de­scribed as “the richest systematic expression of revealed truth yet made, . . . the richest produ [...]

It Takes More Than a Theory (Part 1)

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-111708.jpg" ““Article”) As a student at Reformed Theological Seminary in the 1970s, 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 not just the doctrine of predestinatio [...]

Has the Ghost of Antonio Gramsci Returned?

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-111408-b.jpg" ““Article”) Under the Marxists, education had to be centralized in order to reshape the minds of the young so that they could more easily conform to the new social and political ideology. The State would become the educator, the new parent. While in a Christian context, schools act in [...]

The Election & Claims The End is Near!

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-111308-b.jpg" ““Article”) With America’s self-conscious move toward unfettered socialism and fascism, some Christians will undoubtedly rev up the prophecy presses and inform the world that the end is near-again! History is a sober teacher of such foolishness. In 1927, Oswald J. Smith wrote Is [...]

Religious Toleration & the End of Morality

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-111108-a.jpg" ““Article”) Nearly every social commentator appeals to the conservative Christian community to be tolerant of other religious traditions. After all, we live in a religiously pluralistic society. The assumption is that religion is a benign choice, little different from picking one car [...]