It seems the only way to get a religious book published by a secular press these days is to write some outrageous things about what the Bible claims to teach and how conservative Christians are evil, stupid, misguided, and just downright hateful. The most recent example is Pastor Oliver “Buzz” Thomas who has written 10 Things Your Minister Wants to Tell You (But Can’t Because He Needs the Job). In [...]
When Pastor Todd DuBord of Lake Almanor Community Church in Northern California listened to the tour guide at the Supreme Court building describe the friezes, he was in shock. I’ll let him tell it: When she began to speak about the history and architecture of the four marble friezes, which circle the top of the walls on the inside chamber of the Court, I listened intently. The first shock ca [...]
And Tango Makes Three is an illustrated children’s book about two male penguins that raise a baby penguin. It’s based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City’s Central Park Zoo that “adopt” a fertilized egg and raise the chick as their own. Some concerned parents see the book as a homosexual propaganda piece and want it removed from the library’s regular shelves. A parent would have [...]
Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, believes people who follow God pose a more significant threat to the modern world than terrorists do: “The great conflict of the 21st century,” Reich wrote in The American Prospect, “will not be between the West and terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic, not a belief. The true battle will be between modern civ [...]
The Perceived war between religion and science has been going on for some time but is mostly a nineteenth-century phenomenon. Much of the history behind this battle is mythological, and centers on a misstatement of the Copernican Revolution. This is most evident in the works of John William Draper (History of the Conflict between Religion and Science) and Andrew Dickson White (History of the Warfa [...]
In response to an article I had written some time ago, I received the following email: I am 46 years old and I was raised as a Christian and never doubted that the Bible was the true word of God. . . . Please read the following passage and tell me how the statement could possibly be true if the writers of the Bible knew the Earth was round: “The tree grew, and was strong, and the height thereof re [...]
Barry W. Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, a lawyer, and the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. In his latest book Piety and Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom, Mr. Lynn levels a left-wing attack on biblical ethics. Consider his discussion of the Sixth Commandment: The Sixth Commandment states, “You shall not kil [...]
. . . Because they weren’t conservatives. Consider Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. I believe that conservative voters were indifferent to his campaign rhetoric because of his support for Arlen Specter in a primary race that he had with Pat Toomey in 2004. Toomey narrowly lost to the liberal Republican Senator Specter. Here’s how one post-election commentator sized up Specter’s narrow win over the o [...]
“The Thing’s shifty scientist, Carrington, helps to keep the ‘super-carrot’ alive, hiding it from the military men who want to destroy it; according to him, ‘There are no enemies in science… only phenomena to study’, and he is awed by the creature’s evolutionary perfection: ‘No pain or pleasure as we know it. No emotions. No heart. Our superior. . . in every way’, although the compliment isn’t ret [...]
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 [...]
