Former fundamentalist preacher Dan Barker and his wife Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-presidents of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, believe America is becoming a theocracy. “[Religion is] the source of the greatest violence in the world,” Gaylor said. “More people have been killed in the world for religion over any other reason.”[1] Actually, atheism has been responsible for more than 100 million d [...]
I watched “The Lost Tomb of Jesus” from beginning to tortuous end. The first obvious conclusion any critical thinking viewer comes away with is that the tomb that held the ossuaries was not hidden away to conceal anything. The entrance was constructed in such a way that it invited visitors. If the tomb actually held the bones of Jesus, then why did His immediate disciples preach in His name and di [...]
James Cameron is best known for movie blockbusters like Terminator and Titanic. But lately he’s been putting his influence behind taking pot shots at the Bible. He first went after the Exodus miracles. The 90-minute documentary “The Exodus Decoded”[1] that was shown on the History Channel sank without a trace. While the TV special actually supports much of the biblical record regarding the Exodus [...]
I received an email from a “library specialist” who responded to the following statement made by me: “Theocracy is an inescapable concept. The rejection of one theocratic government leads to the choice of another theocratic government.” She offered the following objection: The above statement is not true. There are other forms of dictatorship or autocracy that have nothing to do with God or with b [...]
Liberal U.S. Senator Charles Schumer says the Republican Party is “controlled by two interest groups that don’t represent America”: theocrats and economic royalists. “I respect faith,” Schumer says. “I’m a person of faith myself… I’ve been in too many inner-city black churches, working-class Catholic parishes, rural Methodist congregations, little Jewish synagogues to not know that faith is a gift [...]
Once again, the religious vote is being courted by presidential wannabes. Beware of politicians and their religious rhetoric. Jimmy Carter ran as a “born-again Christian” in 1976. It was the first time in a national election that evangelicals were recognized as an identifiable voting block that could impact an election. The media did not know how to evaluate Carter’s religious rhetoric. Kenneth Br [...]
For the past few days, I’ve been in Orlando, Florida, attending the National Religious Broadcasters convention. The last time I attended was about 15 years ago. Most of my time has been spent meeting with other ministries that share a similar vision with American Vision. I’ve been able to reconnect with people I haven’t seen for awhile, and I’ve made some new friends. Many of the old guard broadca [...]
The 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown is being “acknowledged” this year. I don’t say celebrated, because some groups are taking the politically correct route in denouncing the settlement. One line of argument being used against the colony is that the settlers wiped out native populations through infectious diseases. It is true. Disease did take its toll. But can the settlers be blam [...]
The other side finds a way to get its people involved, to raise money. Our side is thinking about something else. —James Dobson Druid Hills Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, Georgia, is dealing with the issue of homosexual clergy. The Evangelical Lutheran Church must come to a conclusion on whether practicing homosexual pastor Bradley E. Schmeling of St. John’s Lutheran Church should be relieved of [...]
I like free books. So I was excited when I opened a package that contained a book that I had not ordered. Apparently, I’m on someone’s list of notables, because Alfred A. Knopf thought I should have a copy of Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation. And since I had received an unsolicited copy, surely there were others who were equally blessed with a free copy. I can’t believe that anyone at Knop [...]
On Friday, February 2, 2007, ABC’s “20/20” broadcast a show on the sex-cult “The Family of Love,” known today simply as “The Family.” Prior to its new designation, it was known as The Children of God (COG), a cult founded by David (Moses David) Berg, who used sex as an intoxicant to keep the cult together. Berg once said: “I practice what I preach! And I preach sex, boys and girls. [...]
The “great prophetic disappointment” of 1988 and the fizzle of the Left Behind franchise doesn’t mean formerly “rapture-ready” Christians have abandoned a belief in the return of Christ, but it has led to a fundamental reassessment of the interpretive methodology that has been used to make repeated dogmatic arguments for an imminent end-time event. Many Bible-believing Christians who cut their tee [...]
The Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins demonstrates that there has been a large appetite for end-time books, even after a long history of failed predictions made with certainty—from Oswald J. Smith (1889–1986) who in 1926 predicted that Mussolini was the dreaded antichrist**[1]** to Edgar Whisenant who was emphatic that the rapture would take place in 1988. Then it was 1989.[2] Twe [...]
While talk of the end times has been going on for more than two millennia, it was only in the 1970s that prophecy hit the top of the charts. “The single best-selling nonfiction book of the 1970s was not The Joy of Sex or even The Joy of Cooking, but Hal Lindsey’s apocalyptic pronouncement, The Late Great Planet Earth.”[1] It was named by the New York Times as the “no. 1 non-fiction bestseller of t [...]
I got another one of those nasty emails—all accusation but no substance. These types of emails generally come from people who have little regard for the history of biblical interpretation, use a system-approach to Bible interpretation instead of allowing the Bible to speak for itself, and believe they have been charged with protecting their idea of the Holy Grail doctrine. Here’s the latest instal [...]
Michael Ruse, Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University, devotes a chapter to the subject of eschatology in his book The Evolution-Creation Struggle.[1] He believes that the interpretive methodology of dispensational premillennialism is inexorably linked to the way its advocates defend their position on creation. Ruse isn’t the first to point this out. I’ve been making the same claim for [...]
Bible prophecy always seems to be in the news. Wars and natural disasters make it a perennial topic of discussion. While talk of the end times has been going on for more than two millennia, it was only with the publication of Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth in 1970 that the topic entered best-seller status. Estimates put sales of the non-fiction book at more than 30 million copies worldwide. [...]
“AN ULTRA-radical Muslim group banned in many countries will promote support for an Islamic superstate in a seminar in Australia this month. Christian critics claim that the seminar, to be conducted by the group Hizb ut-Tahrir, will be a recruiting ground for extremists. Hizb ut-Tahrir believes that the caliphate—a part of the world under Muslim rule that, at its peak, ran from Spain to Iran and b [...]
I received an email about some prophecy “expert” who knows who the antichrist and false prophet are. He says the current leader of Syria is the antichrist and the false prophet is the president of Iran. How many times have you heard so-called prophets pontificating how they know who the antichrist is? Friends, this has been tried before. To rehearse the history would be redundant and e [...]
The opening line of the “Marines’ Hymn”—“From the Halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli”—commemorates the Mexican War (1846–1848) and the war with Tripoli when Marines took Part 1n the capture of Derna on April 27, 1805. There is a new war going on, a war over history. Keith Ellison (D. Minn.), the first Muslim Congressman, told the Detroit Free Press that he used Thomas Jefferson’s two-vol [...]
