A lawyer asked me to respond to some arguments raised by another lawyer who claimed Jesus did away with the death penalty in the NT. The objections against the death penalty are in bold. My commentary follows**:** In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said you have heard it said an eye for an eye, but I say to you turn the other cheek, etc. Therefore Jesus repudiates capital punishment, and it is the [...]
The United Church of Christ is about to sanction homosexual marriages, if the president of the errant denomination gets his way. The Rev. John H. Thomas, addressing about 200 UCC delegates, made an emotional appeal that called for “full civil and religious equality for same-sex couples.” The article reports that many “of the people in attendance wept during Thomas’ speech.”[1] I went to the UCC we [...]
“Shots rang out across the city Saturday night and Sunday morning—from the Far North Side to the Far South Side—with preliminary reports of nearly two dozen people shot. The overnight tally—which is unofficial—included two shootings on the same corner, a fatal shooting near the Taste of Chicago and several on the West Side, where detectives were swamped. ‘We’re just spinning up here,’ one de [...]
Will America suffer the same fate as Europe and the rise of what Karen Armstrong calls “secular fundamentalism”? We seem to be headed in similar direction with the secularization of our schools and courts. Christianity in America, like Christianity in Europe, is under attack. We see it every day. Judges are being scrutinized for their religious beliefs, especially on abortion and homosexuality, an [...]
American Vision must be doing something right. We have been targeted by a number of anti-Christian groups because of our stance on homosexuality. We find ourselves in the company of Focus on the Family, American Family Association, Alliance Defense Fund, Coral Ridge Ministries, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council, Family Research Institute, and other pro-family groups. The Souther [...]
Dick Durbin, a Democrat Senator from Illinois, has compared the prisoner-of-war conditions at Guantanamo to Pol Pot’s murder of about 1.5 million Cambodians, Adolf Hitler’s genocidal madness that left 9 million dead throughout Europe, and Stalin’s Gulag where about 20 million met their death in order to bring about a more equitable society. These were not enemy combatants hell-bent on destroying A [...]
Ed Hindson, writing in the May 2005 issue of the National Liberty Journal on the topic of “The New Last Days Scoffers, states that “The basic assumptions of preterism rest on passages that refer to Christ coming “quickly” (Revelation 1:1), or ‘this generation will not pass’ (Matthew 24:34). [Preterists] insist these must be related to and limited to the first century. By contrast, premillennialist [...]
Ed Buckner, the Southern director of the Council for Secular Humanism, writing in the Marietta Daily Journal, attempts to use the Bible to prove that a pre-born baby is not a human being.[1] This is a rather curious way for an atheist to argue his case. If he makes his point, he has to claim that the Bible is authoritative for his case to be valid. If the Bible is valid on the issue of personhood, [...]
It seems that Jesus is alive and well at the Air Force Academy. For some people’s tastes He’s too alive. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen writes that there is “a culture of militant Christianity, of intimidation and outright bigotry” at the Academy. One former chaplain called it a “‘systematic and pervasive effort’ at religious proselytizing in which both students and faculty participated.” [...]
There are some Christians who take themselves out of the battle over worldviews by using the Bible to make their case. They believe the Bible teaches that Christians should stay above the fray of social involvement. I’ve dealt with many of the arguments for this position in Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths.[1]A pastor in Auburn, Alabama, takes an approach that secularists have used to silence the chur [...]
Those who demand that people with religious views should keep their beliefs personal and private are inconsistent in the way they apply the principle. I’ve noted on various occasions how the anti-slavery and civil rights movements grew out of Christian political involvement. The self-righteous left praised ministers and congregations who led the way to overturn unjust segregation laws. But now tha [...]
I received the following in an email message from someone who does not like the idea that laws have a religious foundation: Scott: “What 2 people do in their bedroom is not my business or yours.” Dear Scott, I don’t know anybody who wants the state to invade the bedroom in all cases. (Rape, incest, and even murder take place in bedrooms, so obviously there are some exceptions.) As long as ho [...]
I know you’re as shocked as I am that the Pentagon confirmed for the first time that a U.S. soldier deliberately kicked a Guantanamo prisoner’s copy of the Koran—the Muslim “holy book”— in violation of the military’s rules for handling the “sacred” text. Personally, I can’t believe that many Americans are concerned about this. The usual suspects in the media are stoking the flames in o [...]
Dr. Hindson’s article “The New Last Days Scoffers” takes aim at a number of preterist arguments, most of which do not stand if the time texts are properly understood. He states that “the basic assumptions of preterism rest on passages that refer to Christ coming ‘quickly’ (Revelation 1:1), or ‘this generation will not pass’ (Matthew 24:34). They insist these must be related to and limited to the f [...]
Dr. Hindson raised the issue of “antisemitism” in his article “The New Last Days Scoffers” that was published in the May 2005 issue of the National Liberty Journal. Without offering any proof or cogent arguments to defend his charge, Dr. Hindson claimed that preterist theology “certainly leans” to antisemitism. In my previous article in this series, I explained how dispensational theology and its [...]
If you ever find yourself in trouble when you’re in a debate, there is a sure-fire way of diverting attention from the inadequacies of your arguments and the strengths of your opponent’s arguments. If the debate is political, call your opponent a Nazi or a fascist. If the debate deals with anything where race might be a factor even though it isn’t, call your opponent a “racist.” It works every tim [...]
Today we remember those who have fought and died in wars to defend America. Most Christians would generally agree that fighting a defensive war is morally justified. Some Christians take issue with America’s war with Great Britain in what has been described as the “Revolutionary War.” America’s “revolutionary war” was neither anarchistic nor revolutionary in the modern sense. The [...]
The point of departure for Dr. Hindson’s article, found in the May 2005 edition of the National Liberty Journal, is 2 Peter 3:3–4: “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues as it was from the beginning of creation.’” He c [...]
A Response to Ed Hindson’s “The New Last Days Scoffers” Jerry Falwell’s National Liberty Journal, a publication of Liberty University, published two articles in its May 2005 issue on the topic of preterism. Preterists teach that the majority of NT prophecies have already been fulfilled in events leading up to and including the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Ed Hindson, Assistant to the Chanc [...]
Representatives of the American Psychiatric Association, the nation’s top psychiatric group, approved a statement on May 22, 2005, urging legal recognition of gay marriage. These guys are nuts. Tom Minogue, who is on the medical faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a practicing psychiatrist and an APA member, sees some “disturbing trends” in psychiatry. Everything is [...]
