A great deal of ink has been spilled over whether the Bible should be interpreted literally. But before interpretive methods can be settled, there must a discussion of literal translations. Too often debates over interpretation can be settled by noting what the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek actually say. For example, Matthew 24:14 is most often translated “all the world.” The casual Bible reader will [...]
An emailer to American Vision made the following comment in response to a guest column written by David New, Esq.[1] Perhaps the author is not familiar with the First Amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. . .”, or Article 4, Section 3, “. . . no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” [...]
American Vision recently received an email response to “Where is God in the Constitution?: Part 1,” an article that was written by guest columnist David New and appears on our website. The emailer writes that he is “dismayed to see the propaganda displayed” in the article where the “author launches into a tirade against secularists.” He goes on to write that it is “laughable” to suggest “that it i [...]
John C. Danforth, an Episcopal minister and former Republican Senator from Missouri, has weighed in on Christian political involvement in social issues. His first broadside came by way of an article he had published in June 2005 with the title “Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers.”[1] More about this article below. Most recently, after a speech he had given to students at the Bill Clinton School o [...]
Will America suffer the same fate as Europe and the rise of what Karen Armstrong calls “secular fundamentalism”? We seem to be headed in a 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. [...]
“Theists often assert that popular belief in a creator is instrumental towards providing the moral, ethical and other foundations necessary for a healthy, cohesive society.” Gregory S. Paul, writing in the Journal of Religion and Society (2005), takes issue with this claim. He argues that a religious nation like the United States is actually worse off morally than the newer secular nations of Euro [...]
Liberal pundit Al Franken suggested to David Letterman that “[Lewis ‘Scooter’] Libby and Karl Rove are going to be executed” because they supposedly outed a CIA agent, a treasonous offense. Franken qualified his statement somewhat, possibly after considering the implications of what he had just said: “Yeah. And I don’t know how I feel about it because I’m basically against the death penalty, but t [...]
The men and women of “Monster Garage” turn ordinary vehicles into extraordinary monster vehicles. The show’s driving force is Jesse James, who’s great-great-grandfather was the outlaw’s cousin. All who work on the show are very talented. I would guess that many of them had difficulty sitting still in school and keeping their mind on their work. (How many times have yo [...]
Leonard Pitts, Jr., a syndicated columnist for Tribune Media Services and a Pulitzer Prize winner, writes in a recent column, “It is the overwhelming consensus of the mainstream scientific community that Darwin had it right. So pretending there is another side to the question makes about as much sense as pretending there is another side to the Klan.”[1] His KKK analogy is an outrage, but being a l [...]
Noah Feldman, author of Divided By God: America’s Church-State Problem—And What we Should Do About It, makes some valid points in his article “God, government and you” that appeared in USA Today on October 17, 2005. He writes, “The Framers believed to a man in the importance of the liberty of conscience, and they barred a national established religion in order to protect that value.” Feldman admit [...]
Two news stories I read yesterday (October 17, 2005) struck me as indications that the morally relativistic worldview of modern-day liberalism, materialism, and naturalism is headed for a crack up. The first story was a report that appeared on Matt Drudge’s site about Madonna who now believes that modern culture is corrupt. She describes it as “the beast.” “The material world. The physical world. [...]
It is easy to understand why the human rights idea came into popularity in Christendom. It is simply that men living in Christendom enjoyed that “blessed liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free” to such an extent and over so many centuries that they found it easy to take for granted. Liberty, instead of being recognized as the gift of Christ and the reward of Christian justice, was [...]
Non-dispensationalists like me would say that all the promises made to Israel have been fulfilled, and the redemption of Israel according to those promises made it possible for Gentiles to be grafted into an already existing Jewish assembly of believers that the Bible calls the Church. Soon after Jesus’ ascension, the gospel is preached to “Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men, from every nation u [...]
WorldNetDaily published my article “Why Pat Robertson is Wrong” yesterday.[1] It dealt with Robertson’s claim that today’s earthquakes are signs of the soon coming of Christ. As usual, I received my share of hate mail. Words like “stupid,” “lukewarm,” and “heretical” were thrown about with careless ease. The nastiest letters I get usually come from people who believe we are living in the last days [...]
Now that we’ve gotten some preliminaries out of the way, what is the truth behind the charge that non-dispensationalists believe in “replacement theology,” that the Church replaces ethnic Israel and her promises and that God is through with Israel forever? As I will show, the Gospels and Acts demonstrate that the first New Covenant believers were Jews who were defined as the Church by Jesus and St [...]
The dispensationalists begin with the claim that God’s redemptive program to Israel failed at Jesus’ first coming. Because of this failure, so the argument goes, God turned His attention to a new redemptive people called “the Church” and a new redemptive era called the “Church Age.” Like the pre-trib rapture doctrine, there is no verse that actually describes such a distinction. Nowhere do we find [...]
“Please unsubscribe me from all mail from American Vision. Your replacement theology viewpoint is not in accordance with Scripture.” -from an email received at AV Replacement theology has become dispensationalism’s latest prophetic boogeyman. If you want to end a debate over eschatology, just charge your opponent with holding to replacement theology. What is “replacement theology,” sometimes [...]
The following article was written in 1996 in response to an article that former President Jimmy Carter wrote on the topic of “Judge Not” as it relates to homosexuality and abortion. I decided to revive it for two reasons. First, it’s been reported that Carter’s son Jack may run for the Senate in Nevada. He is described as a “social liberal with conservative Southern roots.”[1] That’s exactly what [...]
Many who are arguing for “under God” to remain in the Pledge of Allegiance are doing so by declaring that the phrase has no particular religious meaning for our nation today. This was the view of Solicitor General Theodore Olson when the Pledge issue first came before the Supreme Court in 2004. “Olson argued that the phrase is viewed as an ‘acknowledgment’ of religion’s role in the lives of Americ [...]
“I will never purchase a book published by Tyndale again. If they are going to publish that trash by Hannegraff [sic] I have no more time for them.” This emailer was responding to American Vision’s offer of the latest novel by Hank Hanegraaff that takes a preterist perspective on Bible prophecy. While the Left Behind series, also published by Tyndale, places the NT prophetic texts in our future, H [...]
