A number of critics of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have criticized the Pentagon’s “use of deception and disinformation against enemies, real or imagined, abroad.” The question is, In a time of war, should governments always tell the truth to the enemy? The architects of the D-Day invasion, for example, used deception to mislead the Nazis. Was this wrong? Is wearing camouflage, a form of decep [...]
Prominent dispensationalist and end-time advocate Jan Markell had this to say about the latest conflict in the Middle East: “God hasn’t abandoned Israel. He does have an end-times plan for her. It involves some harshness, but it also involves salvation as a nation — though that comes later, during the time of the tribulation.” Every time there’s a dust up in the Middle East prophecy pundits tell u [...]
WorldNetDaily published an article that I wrote, titled “Why Pat Robertson is Wrong” back in 2005. ((World Net Daily http://www.wnd.com/2005/10/32788/.)) 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 lette [...]
Because American Vision is a worldview ministry, we address issues that are broader in scope than most ministries. As a result, we take issue with a number of topics that many Christians hold dear. My discussion of eschatology gets the attention of many who first land on American Vision’s site. Some of them are shocked that I hold a position on prophecy that is not in the mainstream. Of course, th [...]
“Compassion and humanity are virtues peculiar to the righteous and to the worshipers of God. Philosophy teaches us nothing of them.” — Lactantius (c. 240–c. 320), Divinae institutiones Literature is often a signpost for where we are in our worldview thinking. It’s not that everybody who reads the latest popular novel holds to what an author is expressing, but popular literature can tell us somethi [...]
I had an interesting conservation with a long-time friend who told me about a symposium that took place in the former Soviet Union. Three people were invited — a well known academic, a representative from a prominent libertarian think tank, and a writer from a former Eastern bloc nation who now lives in the United States with his family. The libertarian is a self-professed homosexual. He did not l [...]
People ask me what keeps me going. Why do I continue to write on subjects that so many people resist? For the simple reason that I see progress. When I first did radio interviews on Bible prophecy in the late 1980s, I was bombarded by some pretty nasty callers. I was called a heretic. Some called to ask if I was a Christian. As time went on, the nasty callers faded, and I started to get calls from [...]
I was raised Roman Catholic. My religious upbringing included Catholic school through the fifth grade and service as an altar boy through my teen years. My first dose of a foreign language was Latin, a necessary prerequisite if you wanted to be an altar boy. There is much I appreciate about my Catholic training. I was taught the cardinal doctrines of the faith as expressed in the Apostles’ C [...]
An atheist organization has sued the Indiana state government over its marriage statute. The atheists are arguing that the law forbids them from having their own non-religious official perform a marriage ceremony. This is where I start asking a few questions. Here’s the first one: Where in the atheistic evolutionary worldview is marriage necessary or even an ethical norm? Marriage is a creation or [...]
More pastors are speaking out on the relationship between the Bible and politics. Unfortunately, some of them are creating a false dichotomy between the gospel and everything else, including politics. The gospel is the first step not the final step in regeneration. That’s why it’s called the “new birth.” The writer of Hebrews calls on his readers to leave behind “the elementary teaching about the [...]
When Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas appealed to Natural Law theory in some of his legal opinions and writings, there were those on the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearings in September 1991 that took exception. The most vocal critic was former Senator and now Vice President Joseph Biden. It was that debate more than 20 years ago that helps us to understand how politic [...]
The Obama administration is arguing that Tyndale House Publishers, a Christian publisher of Bibles and ministry material, is not religious enough to qualify for an exemption to the contraception mandate — which includes drugs many Christian groups say are abortifacients. The First Amendment does not make a distinction between for-profit and non-profit religious groups: “Congress shall make no law [...]
Start with nothing . . . absolutely nothing. No air. No matter . . . not even an atom. No energy. No space. No thought. No time. Just a long dead silence. This is the evolutionist’s reality before the dawn of something becoming everything. At some infinitesimal moment in time all the stuff that makes up our world came into being. Like the Millennium Falcon coming out of light speed, the cosmos app [...]
Maybe you’ve seen the headline: “Michigan Professor Strips Naked in Class, Shouts ‘There Is No F–king God’” While on a speaking tour in the North East part of the United States and Canada last week, I presented a talk on the ethical implications of atheistic evolution. I pointed out that while atheists are not by definition immoral, they cannot account for morality or immorality given the op [...]
In 2000, John MacArthur wrote a book with the title Why Government Can’t Save You. ((John MacArthur, Why Government Can’t Save You: An Alternative to Political Activism (Nashville, TN: Word Publishing, 2000).)) When this book first appeared, I wrote that I didn’t know any Christians who believed government can or should save us. The subtitle led the reader to believe that getting involved politica [...]
Dr. Karen L. King, a professor at Harvard Divinity School, has released what she claims may be a 4th century papyrus that depicts Jesus as being. Here’s how the “discovery” is being reported: “A small fragment of faded papyrus contains a suggestion that Jesus may have been married. “The fragment, with just eight lines of text on the front and six lines on the back, is from a fourth-century dialogu [...]
As we reflect on the anniversary of 9/11, I think it important for us to reflect on the contrast between how the genuine Christian faith is advanced with how the religion of Islam is advanced. Robert Spencer is one of our nation’s most articulate and spot-on critics of Islamic extremism. He is the author of The Truth About Muhammad, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), as w [...]
You may have heard Mark Alan Siegel, chairman of Florida’s Palm Beach County Democratic Party, tell an interviewer the following about what he thinks about Christians and their relationship with Jews: “The Christians just want us to be there so we can be slaughtered and converted and bring on the second coming of Jesus Christ. “The worst possible allies for the Jewish state are the fundament [...]
The Declaration of Independence was written in the long shadow of Magna Carta, a thirteenth-century document that maintained that even the king was bound by law, not only the law of the commonwealth but God’s law. King John reluctantly bound himself to the charter’s provisions by attaching his seal. To ensure that the king would abide by his word, “the leaders of the nobility held the [...]
Can you recite the name all 44 of the American Presidents? Could your children tell you highlights of what each one did while in office? When the average person is trying to recite the names of the American Presidents, they usually get lost shortly after Jefferson, leaving a big gap in their understanding of history, then they remember Lincoln, followed by another big gap, picking back up on one o [...]
