Tag: www.chalcedon.edu

‘The Lost Tomb’ Should Stay Lost

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The Lost Tomb of Jesus was 2007’s entry in the media’s annual Easter-time festival of Christianity-bashing. I reviewed the film for Chalcedon.

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/lost-tomb-of-jesus-the-agenda

It’s a long review, but it took time to refute so many errors–not honest mistakes, but an agenda-driven attack on the divinity of Jesus Christ by a Zionist film-maker, a Hollywood big shot, and a so-called “theologian” who’s a heretic. Other than that, it was swell.

I didn’t watch whatever Christian-bash they resorted to this year. I was too busy celebrating Our Lord’s resurrection from the dead.

Education’s Galley Slaves

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I reviewed this book for Chalcedon back in 2006: The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids. The horror of it is more palpable today than it was back then.

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/a-review-of-the-overachievers-the-secret-lives-of-driven-kids

By then it was already easy enough to see that a college education, for most, wasn’t anywhere near worth what you had to pay for it. But the kids in this book are the elite, the cream of the crop, Advanced Placement, they are the idols that their parents worship. They are also slaves chained to the oars, with no hope of escape.

It’s horrible.

Now it’s 12 years later. The nudity of the college emperor is even more glaring  than it was.

We have only just begun to imagine that instead of allowing “college” to devour whole generations of our offspring, we just might free ourselves from bondage to it: we just might be able to build it down instead of up.

The sooner, the better!

Q&A with Martin Selbrede: ‘A New Martyrdom Issue?’

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Chalcedon’s ministry takes questions from listeners all over the world, to be answered on our own website (www.chalcedon.edu), on Facebook, and on Youtube by our vice president (and my mentor) Martin Selbrede. You might want to advance this video to 7:00 before you start listening to the questions, and Martin’s answers.

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/videos/q-a-with-martin-selbrede-43-july-29-2018

The first question is a hot one.

With governments insisting that we all go along with discarding “Male and female created He them” and adopt “the new truth” that “gender is a spectrum,” and start calling males females and females male because this is what these misguided persons demand of us, “Could this become a new martyrdom issue?” After all, people have lost their jobs for refusing to do this, and in some jurisdictions, using “the wrong pronoun” can get you tossed into prison.

Do we grin and bear it, or do we draw the line at this?

Martin summons Biblical arguments to explain why we must draw the line before we get pushed back any farther. “The Kingdom of God becomes a ghetto,” he warns, if Christians fail to exert a godly influence on society.

The Q&A is about an hour long, and there are three more questions answered after this one.

Plenty of food for thought!

Children and Paganism

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Here’s a book review I did back in 2008–Not My Child: Contemporary Paganism and the New Spirituality by Mission America’s Linda Harvey.

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/a-review-of-not-my-child-contemporary-paganism-and-the-new-spirituality

The main thing that’s changed, over the eight years since this was published, is the near-frantic promotion of “transgender” by our pop culture bigwigs, so-called “educators,” and liberal politicians. They push it like their lives depend on it.

Why? What’s to gain by it? Search me.

St. Paul told us to arm ourselves against “spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12). Ms. Harvey’s book stresses the point that spiritual wickedness, perpetrated by God’s enemies both natural and supernatural, is real.

As someone who covers the news every day, I’m convinced that’s true.

I’ve Reviewed Bernie Sanders’ Book

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I read this twaddle so you don’t have to, I guess. I’m also trying to sound the alarm: socialism is a nation-wrecker and an immoral system of government, and our Democrat Party has shifted into high gear to bring us socialism.

Here’s my review of Bernie Sanders’ book, on the Chalcedon website.

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/book-review-guide-to-political-revolution-by-bernie-sanders

I have nightmares about these people winning the next two elections and turning America into Venezuela North. I would rather just have nightmares about monsters and such: much less horrifying.

Please, please! When the next election comes around, get out there no matter what and vote against these people.

The Future of Christian Education

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Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Chalcedon founder R.J. Rushdoony campaigned tirelessly for Christian education, homeschooling, and Christian schools. He traveled all over the country, testifying as an expert witness in many homeschooling trials. When he started, Christian homeschooling was forbidden in many districts. Today, it has spread from coast to coast.

Chalcedon continues its work for Christian education, with our own homeschooling mentor, Andrea Schwartz, at the helm. For example:

https://chalcedon.edu/blog/the-future-of-christian-education-and-why-it-matters

It’s hard work, traveling to conferences, networking with homeschooling parents all over America, blogging and writing about it, spreading the word and walking the walk. We’re proud of Andrea’s unceasing efforts for the cause.

‘The Green Ember’: A Fantasy Fit for Kids to Read

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Every now and then, in my search for suitable reading matter for children, I turn up gold–like, for instance, The Green Ember, by S.D. Smith.

https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/review-of-the-green-ember-novel

It’s a heroic fantasy featuring rabbits with swords, instead of people. And it’s about faith, hope, family, and self-sacrifice. This puts it miles apart from most of the Young Adult fiction that’s out there; and it’s written well enough for adults to enjoy it, too.

We do need more of this, much more. People of all ages consume huge amounts of “entertainment,” mostly without realizing that this is a passive but very effective form of self-education. We need to consume and digest more faith, more hope, more charity.

More Green Ember, less Spirit Animals.

Lest We Forget ‘Whose Right It Is’

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“And crown Him Lord of all…”

We rightly celebrate our nation’s birth, every 4th of July. But there is a greater power to be celebrated, every day–more righteous, more just, far wiser, and far mightier than any nation ever born: Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, “whose right it is” to rule His Father’s whole creation.

This essay by R.J. Rushdoony was published in 2002 in Chalcedon’s magazine.

https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/incarnation-and-history-he-whose-right-it-is

What–theology on a national holiday?

You bet!

Chalcedon: ‘The Impact of Our Work’

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My books are somewhere on that table

This heartening essay by Mark Rushdoony, Chalcedon’s president, comes from the new front page on our website, http://www.chalcedon.edu/.

https://chalcedon.edu/blog/the-impact-of-our-work

It’s true: we don’t always get to see the impact of our work. Sometimes a seed we plant doesn’t sprout for twenty or thirty years. My Bell Mountain books, for instance, would not have been written but for certain conversations and exchanges of letters that R.J. Rushdoony had, some forty years ago.

It can be hard to keep on working when we don’t see the results; so we have to walk by faith, and not by sight. My books are on those display tables Mark talks about: and only God knows what fruit they might bear in future generations.

Here’s That ‘Curtain’ Article

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Hooray! The Chalcedon website (www.chalcedon.edu/) has a brand-new front page to display new articles and video. From now on, that’s where all the new stuff will be; and that’ll make it easy to find.

And published there today is my article on Agatha Christie’s Curtain, written months ago and now available here.

https://chalcedon.edu/resources/articles/can-a-mystery-novel-tell-us-whats-gone-wrong-with-british-christianity

Can a mystery novel tell us what’s gone wrong with British Christianity–and probably our own, too?

Read it and see!