Hermeneutics, the science and skill of interpretation, is most often applied to the Bible. But hermeneutics can be applied to any written document. For example, the Constitution is a piece of literature that requires interpretive skill to determine its meaning. I was reminded of this when I read a letter to the editor that appeared in The Wall Street Journal.[1] The writer equates the constitution [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009apr07.jpg" ““Article”) In the Foreword to Tony Campolo’s book Red Letter Christians, Jim Wallis tells a story about a secular Jewish country-music songwriter and disk jockey who told him that a new social movement was being birthed as a result of Wallis’ God’s Politics and other “social-conscie [...]
I’m reminded of Jim Croce’s song “Don’t Mess with Big Jim” when asked to mediate disputes with fellow Christians and their ministries: “You don’t pull on Superman’s cape/You don’t spit into the wind/You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don’t mess around with Jim.” The Bible was ahead of the song’s wisdom when it warned not to take a dog by the ears when it’s fighting with anoth [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009apr06.jpg" ““Article”) Anyone with a Bible, and anyone who has been to church around “Easter,”1 knows the sequence of events surrounding the crucifixion. So why hasn’t there been an upturn in attacks against Jews during Lent? The answer is simple: Because Christians do not see today’s Jews as r [...]
Like anyone else, I believe healthcare is important. The question is, What’s the best way to pay for it? Many believe we should have a government-funded system. There is no such thing. The only way governments can fund anything is by printing money or taking it from people who produce it. Printing money, called “fiat money” because it’s created out of nothing, is a god-like act, and governments ar [...]
The March 8, 2008 issue of New Scientist magazine published articles on “dark matter” and “dark energy.”[1] We’re told that 22 percent of the cosmos “seems to be made of invisible dark matter, whose extra gravity helps to bind stars together in galaxies, and galaxies together in clusters.” Seems quite scientific, doesn’t it, although it does sound a [...]
Two months ago I received an email from Robin Phillips who works as a researcher and political journalist for the UK pressure group Christian Voice and is a regular contributor to the Kuyper Foundation’s quarterly Journal Christianity and Society. He asked me if I had written anything on the ultra-leftist and anti-Christian Southern Poverty Law Center. The January 2005 issue of American Vision&rsq [...]
The battle for America is being fought on two fronts: In the courts and the universities. If these two institutions remain in the hands of liberals, reversing anti-Christian trends will take decades longer. The universities feed the law schools, the law schools corrupt the minds of impressionable law students, and the courts maintain the status quo. Our colonial founders understood that the garden [...]
This eerie classic sci-fi drama is based on a Jack Finney story that first appeared in Colliers Magazine in 1954. The short story met with such success that it was rendered into a novel the following year under the title The Body Snatchers, which is on TCM tonight at 9:30 PM (3/31). In 1956, the novel was turned into a film that has gained a cult following. Some see Invasion of the Body Snatchers [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009mar31.jpg" ““Article”) On Saturday, my wife and I went to see Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage, which is a strange mix of UFOlogy, panspermia, the destruction of Earth by fire (2 Pet. 3:10), the Edenic Tree of Life, and determinism vs. randomness. Cage’s character, John Koestler, is giving a lect [...]
From time to time, I’m going to open up my email box to readers. It’s too bad that I’m not a comedian. There is some great material here. The first one is from a King-James-only advocate. I asked him what a person should do if he or she does not understand English. Is a translation of the KJV as good as the English version? What Bible did people have before 1611? [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009mar30.jpg" ““Article”) Recently I have received a number of emails from atheists. This isn’t unusual since American Vision publishes a number of books refuting common atheist arguments, and I’ve written a few articles on the subject as well. American Vision has published four books refuting thr [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009mar25.jpg" ““Article”) For a few months now I have been working with a group of producers in the development of the film Collision: Is Christianity Good for the World (Christopher Hitchens vs. Douglas Wilson). This is one of the most unique debate presentations I have ever seen. While I have pa [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009mar24.jpg" ““Article”) There is no doubt that Francis A. Schaeffer broadened the appeal for biblical world-and-life view Christianity with his popular writing style and activist philosophy. Schaeffer’s popularity was extensive enough that he was recognized by the secular media as the “Guru of F [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009mar23.jpg" ““Article”) “Calvinism is back,” so says David Van Biema in the March 22, 2009 issue of Time magazine. Calvinism is listed as one of “10 ideas changing the world Right now.” It’s third on the list. When most people hear the word “Calvinism,” they bite down only on the gristle of pred [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-031709.jpg" ““Article”) The world is in a mess, and Christians know it. Too many of us believe that we have not been called to change the world. What if centuries ago Christians had taken a similar position? What would the world be like today? John Newton (1725–1807) was an infamous slave trader. T [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-031609.jpg" ““Article”) You may have read that “the latest American Religious Identification Survey shows that the number of those who believe in no religion at all has almost doubled in the last 18 years, rising from 8 percent to 15 percent since 1990.”1 Then there’s the article that appeared on t [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-031009.jpg" ““Article”) Worldview conferences are springing up all over. This is a good thing. We’ve moved from Immanuel Kant’s philosophically formulated _Weltanschauung_1 to James Orr’s “view of the world”2 to Abraham Kuyper’s “life-system” to the Dutch Reformed “World-and-Life-View” to simply Wo [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-030909.jpg" ““Article”) R.C. Sproul writes that “God’s existence is the chief element in constructing any worldview. To deny this chief premise is to set one’s sails for the island of nihilism. This is the darkest continent of the darkened mind—the ultimate paradise of the fool.”1 Arguing with peop [...]
![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-030409.jpg" ““Article”) American Vision received a phone call from an NPR station yesterday (3.3.2009) asking me to appear on one of their shows to answer the charge by the Southern Poverty Law Center that our organization is a “hate group.” (For the record, I don’t do interviews with media outlets [...]
