Walter Cronkite wants to Speak and be Trusted Again

“We ought to be increasing our taxes. We who have it ought to be paying a lot more, but should insist on efficiency in expenditure.”—Walter Cronkite The 89-year-old Walter Cronkite regrets having retired as the anchorman of CBS News. He wants to be America’s “most trusted man” again. Cronkite is a socialist. Of course, you knew that, but let’s let “Uncle Walter” tell you himself. The September-Oct [...]

"I know it's true because I saw it on TV"

Many people believe that facts are neutral, that they speak for themselves.[2] These same people are under the impression that newscasters and journalists simply “report the news” devoid of biases, preconceived assumptions, or political agendas. This is hardly the case as James Davison Hunter points out in his book Culture Wars: In the very act of selecting the stories to cover, the books to publi [...]

A Little Venting

Open and Closed Minds Why are Conservatives the only ones who are supposed to have an “open mind” on an issue like abortion? Sen. Richard Durbin, a liberal Democrat, claimed that Judge Alito has a “mind that sadly is closed in some instances.” Since Alito seems to have ruled on the Conservative side of the abortion issue in past court decisions, Sen. Durbin is concerned that he won’t have an “open [...]

The Myth of Religious Neutrality

I received an email from one of the authors of the Mother Jones issue that attacked Christian involvement in politics and social issues (December 2005). Throughout this author’s article he continually misrepresented me and others. I’ve answered these objections previously in articles and books and I did not feel it was necessary to do again. It gets tiresome after awhile. Mother Jones (MJ) has an [...]

Taking God's Name in Vain

Pat Robertson has gone on record claiming that God punished Ariel Sharon with a massive stroke for “dividing God’s land.” How does Robertson know this? He doesn’t. Attaching God’s name to a claim does not make it so. Robertson violated the third commandment (Ex. 20:7) by using God’s name “in vain” to give authority to an unsubstantiated assertion. Pat Boone, yes, that Pat Boone, gets it right when [...]

Are Embedded Microchips the Mark of the Beast?

In an attempt to make the Bible conform to the latest advances in technology, modern-day prophecy writers look for anything that will support their view of the end-times, even if it means reading things into the Bible that aren’t there. For example Peter and Paul Lalonde misrepresent what Revelation 13:16–18 says about the mark of the beast. In an advertisement for their This Week in Bible Prophec [...]

Pay No Attention to that Man on the Tape

While cleaning up my office, I came across a cassette tape of a sermon preached by Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel on December 31, 1979. He told his very accepting audience that the rapture would take place in 1981. Russia was about to invade Israel. The former Soviet Republic had gone into Afghanistan. This was the prelude to a full-force invasion of the Middle East, Smith told his audience. Today, [...]

Taking Lessons from Joe Camel

Legendary actress Laurette Taylor (1884–1946) described acting as “the physical representation of a mental picture and the projection of an emotional concept.” As I mentioned in my article “Brokeback Morality,” the movie Brokeback Mountain is a Hollywood propaganda film designed to desensitize the American people so more will accept homosexuality as normative. The actors and setting of the story w [...]

The Real End of the World

When Christians hear the phrase the “end of the world,” they assume it’s a reference to a great end-time prophetic event like Armageddon, the Second Coming of Christ, or the inauguration of the New Heavens and New Earth. Actually, the phrase “end of the world,” as in the end of the physical world, is not found in the Bible. There is Psalm 19:4, but in context “end of the world” is a geographical d [...]

One Unintelligent and One Intelligent Court Decision

A judge and his court have spoken. Intelligent Design is not science. Science classes cannot mention God as the Creator of life. U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III made the following ruling in the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board case regarding teaching Intelligent Design as a competing theory to Darwinism: “Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs’ scientific experts testified that the theory of [...]

Can Pagans Perform Miracles?

We saw in yesterday’s article that modern-day illusionists are trying to demonstrate that Jesus could have been a very good magician and not a worker of miracles sent by God. Of course, the miracles Jesus performed hardly qualify as parlor or stage magic. But what about “miracles” performed by those outside the Christian worldview? Are they really miracles or just tricks performed by well-practice [...]

Miracles or Magic?

The miracles of the Bible are under attack from an unusual discipline. Usually biblical miracles are called into question by liberal theologians and atheistic materialists. Now, the entertainment field is getting into the act. Illusionists Barry Jones and Stuart McLeod will attempt to see if eight New Testament miracles can be duplicated by non-miraculous means. British television will air the Chr [...]

Let the Evolutionists Win

I think we should let the evolutionists have their way. They oppose any mention of creation in government schools, even rejecting the notion of Intelligent Design. They see the Scopes Trial of 1925 as the turning point for the upsurge in evolutionary legitimacy. While John Scopes was convicted for teaching evolution contrary to state law and had to pay a $100 fine, public opinion and educational m [...]

Brokeback Morality

Can we ever sing “Home on the Range”[1] again without the lyrics being spoiled by images of the latest in homosexual propaganda, Brokeback Mountain, a story about two cowboys in love—with each another? As expected, Hollywood is gushing over the latest finger in the eye of the movie-going public. There have been homosexual-themed movies before (Philadelphia and Boys Don’t Cry). Tom Hanks and Hillar [...]

Maker of Heaven and Earth

The opening line of the Apostles’ Creed tells us that God is the “Maker of Heaven and Earth,” of a creation that Scripture describes as being “very good” (Gen. 1:31) even in its fallen state and condition: “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude” (1 Tim. 4:4). The Bible makes a distinction between God and the world. God did not make t [...]

Evolutionists: Put Up or Shut Up!

Patricia Princehouse of the Department of Biology at Case Western Reserve University has issued a challenge to any and all Intelligent Design advocates to debate “the ‘science’ of ID” in “Cleveland the first week in January” 2006. She writes that “calls go out every day [for ID advocates] to present scientific data at scientific conferences” and then claims that “the designists are always busy tha [...]

The Persecution of the Christian Churches

Worldviews are comprehensive. No cultural stone is left unthrown in the battle against competing ideologies. Secularists who write their screeds against Christians who engage in politics have history on their side, and it’s not a very good history. Under Nazism, churches were “confined as far as possible to the performance of narrowly religious functions, and even within this narrow sphere were su [...]

The Secular Agenda to Silence the Church

The controversy over the role that religion plays in politics is an old one. Jesus was accused of subverting the political order by “misleading [the] nation and forbidding [people] to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King” (Luke 23:2). Christians were accused of promoting the idea that there was “another king, Jesus” (Acts 17:7). The designation of Jesus as “Lord” had s [...]

Are Christmas Trees Pagan?

One group of Christians is trying to keep the name “Christmas tree” while a small minority of Christians is saying good riddance to the very idea of Christmas trees because they are of pagan origin. Who’s right? Some time ago, my wife was asked by a national ministry to create a quilted backdrop of a large sweeping rainbow for its presentation booth that was used at various conventions around the [...]

Back to the Garden (without the Gardener)

The editors and writers at Mother Jones claim that they are “religiously neutral,” even religiously indifferent. Their special edition attack on conservative Christians in the December 2005 issue should be viewed as a wake-up call to the church. The goal of the anti-Christian Left is to rally anti-Christians everywhere to put down the effectiveness of the gospel in the world even though it their o [...]