Barry W. Lynn is an ordained United Church of Christ Minister and an attorney. Since 1992, Mr. Lynn has been the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He has been a constant vocal critic of conservative Christians bringing their understanding of the Bible on moral issues into the realm of politics. American Vision invited Mr. Lynn to debate Herb Titus at its 20 [...]
Halloween (it’s hallo, as in “hallowed be Thy name,” not hollow) brings out talk about departed spirits and the afterlife. With all the preoccupation about materialism and evolution, there is still the need for spiritual things because we are made that way. People looking for a way to fill the spiritual vacuum left by atheistic materialism want to do it on their own terms, even if what they advoca [...]
Two new prophecy books have been published that recycle some old arguments related to an end-time battle that includes Russia, but with an Islamic twist: Grant R. Jeffrey’s The Next World War: What Prophecy Reveals About Extreme Islam and the West and Joel C. Rosenberg’s, Epicenter: Why the Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future and today’s Islamic nations. They look to the b [...]
Heather MacDonald, writing in USA Today, argues that “conservative principles . . . are best grounded in reason and evidence, not revelation.”[1] She goes on to state that “conservatives atheists and agnostics vigorously support the two-parent family because the life chances of children raised by both their biological parents are demonstrably superior to children raised by single mothers. Moreover [...]
In the 1950s, the John C. Winston Company, later to become part of Holt, Rinehart and Winston, published “Adventures in Science Fiction,” a series of juvenile hardcover novels that made up a collection of thirty six books. Some of the world’s greatest science fiction writers got their start with the series: Arthur C. Clarke, best known for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ben Bova, Lester Del Rey, Donald Wo [...]
One of the arguments used by dispensationalists against a first-century fulfillment of the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24) is their claim that only a worldwide tribulation can give meaning to prophetic events. For example, Larry Spargimino argues that “preterists feel scripturally justified in concluding that nothing more than a first-century disaster upon Jerusalem is needed to satisfy the requiremen [...]
On October 15, 2006 Antonin Scalia participated in a one-hour televised debate with American Civil Liberties Union president Nadine Strossen.[1] Scalia defended a number of his opinions and stated that neither homosexual rights nor abortion can be found in the Constitution. “On controversial issues on stuff like homosexual rights, abortion, we debate with each other and persuade each other and vot [...]
There is a battle raging today over the role religion plays in public and political life. To hear secularists tell it, religion is the problem and reason is the solution. Fundamentalists of all types are being singled out as the inhibitors of progress and the instigators of terror. Christian fundamentalists are no different from Islamic fundamentalists, according to liberal politicians, scholars, [...]
Reason is all the rage today, as Sam Harris tries to demonstrate in The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason . If people were only reasonable, he and others argue, all would be right with the world. Harris does not tell us whose version of reason we are to follow. The reason of the French Revolutionaries who didn’t meet a head that didn’t need lopped off or the reason of the St [...]
Americans can choose where they want to send their children to school. They can even educate them at home, something that is not allowed in some countries.[1] When Jerusalem was plundered by Nebuchadnezzar and his army, certain young men were brought to Babylon “to enter the king’s personal service,” that is, to further the kingdom of Babylon (Dan. 1:5). This was partly accomplished through educat [...]
Laura Mallory is a concerned mother of three. She wants the Harry Potter books removed from the library of J.C. Magill Elementary School in the Gwinnett County, Georgia, public school system where her children attend because she says the books, which have world-wide sales of more than 300 million, glorify witchcraft. Mallory first took her complaint to the county school board in September 2005. In [...]
My wife and I spent yesterday going through the Ft. Myers, Florida, laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison. Edison had 1093 patents to his credit. The patents that have done more to change our world are the electric light, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera, the three necessary ingredients that went into creating the film industry. It’s a shame that Christians did not see the worldview potent [...]
Muslims are killing other Muslims, blowing up planes, trains, and nightclubs, threatening to wipe Israel off the map, warning the Pope that if he comes to Turkey he will be killed, and promising to take over the world and force everyone to bow before Allah in a convert-or-die evangelistic thrust. So when I saw a full-page advertisement in the September 20, 2006 issue of USA Today warning America a [...]
As expected, I received an email defending VeggieTales as a way to introduce very young children to the Bible. As I pointed out in yesterday’s article, bringing Bible stories down to the level of children so they can understand them is a good thing, but the stories must be faithful to what the Bible actually says. It’s the retelling of Bible stories by VeggieTellers that drives me out of my gourd. [...]
If you like your roast beef with gravy If you talk to your pork chop If you smile when you see baloney And hang out at the butcher’s shop . . . (Have we got a show for you!) MeatyTales, MeatyTales, MeatyTales, MeatyTales, MeatyTales, MeatyTales, MeatyTales, MeatyTales . . . Bacon . . . Fillet Mignon . . . Turn the grill on . . . MeatyTales! Barbeque . . . [...]
Richard Brookhiser has written a new book that asks the question, “What Would the Founders Do?”[1] Of course, in answering this question, it matters what founders we ask. This is especially true when the issue of religion comes up. There is a diversity opinion among leading founders like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.[2] But these men are better described as second and third [...]
John Lennon had the right idea, but he didn’t account for the fact that at least one person wanted him dead. I’m all for peace until somebody wants to kill me. In the “On Religion” section of USA Today, Oliver “Buzz” Thomas appeals to the Bible to declare that Christians should work for peace in the world.[1] I couldn’t agree more. Christian leaders should call for an international summit to estab [...]
The latest environmental prediction is that planet earth has about ten good years left. “ I think we have a very brief window of opportunity to deal with climate change … no longer than a decade, at the most, ” says James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Just last year we were told that 2006 was going to be another overly active hurricane season based on globa [...]
Homosexuals have commandeered the entertainment business. It seems that every movie or TV program has a token homosexual featured in unnecessary story-line roles so viewers will grow numb to the idea that their behavior is what’s at issue. How many times have you watched Home and Garden Television (HGTV) to see a show featuring homosexual “couples” and their new homes or renovation projects? It’s [...]
The September 11, 2006 issue of Newsweek carried a news item in the “Beliefwatch” section on the candidacy of Katherine Harris and the topic of the “separation of church and state.”[1] The article begins by stating “that Katherine Harris recently told a religious journal that separation of church and state was ‘a lie,’ . . . that the idea of separation of church and state was concocted by 20th-cen [...]
