Parchment & Pen Blog

There is an amusing scene in the 1990 film Back to the Future III in which time-traveler Marty McFly, exploring his home town in the year 2015, encounters a holographic projection of a shark as part of the marquee at a theater showing Jaws 19. At first taken by surprise, Marty recovers and comments, “The [...]

 I received in the mail last night a new book by Dr. Wayne Grudem, research professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary. Politics – According to the Bible is Grudem’s latest offering, published by Zondervan. It’s a thick book—weighing in at more than 600 pages. What I find fascinating in this book is that [...]

  When is civil disobedience something that we, as Christians, both approve of and participate in? Ever? In the end George and Colson tells us that we must be ready to draw a “line in the sand” as Christians. Obviously the “line” is the line of civil disobedience. This can come in many forms. Indeed, [...]

Andy Schlafly is political conservative advocate Phyllis Schlafly’s son. He’s a graduate of Princeton University (major in electrical engineering), and Harvard Law School. Schlafly is founder of the website Conservapedia.com, which boast more than 100 million page views, offers a full-blown conservative viewpoint on politics. Conservapedia.com is sponsoring a new Bible translation called the Conservative [...]

Fear is a powerful motivator and detractor.  Fear can distort our perception of reality and cause us to see situations, circumstances, people in a completely different light.  Fear will cause us to project an undesirable outcome upon those situations and imagine endless detrimental possibilities. So often in Scripture, we are told not to fear.  Jesus [...]

More than one Christian friend has suggested to me, in all seriousness, that President Obama is the Antichrist. I haven’t taken such suggestions too seriously, but recently a video has shown up on Youtube that seems to claim that Jesus identified Obama as the Antichrist. Some Christians have been startled by this (and the video [...]

We had some friends over the other night. After some small talk, we got into some serious discussions on several issues. One of them was civil disobedience. One of the guests said, “When do you think it’s right for Christians to engage in civil disobedience?” He clarified his question by noting that under the present [...]

Part 1 Part 2 What do you all think about the interview?

Editor’s note: Dan originally posted this essay on Feb 19, but had second thoughts on how he had worded some things. In the Feb 18 issue of the New York Post, there is a cartoon depicting two policemen standing over a rabid chimp that one of them had just riddled with bullets. As it lay [...]

Was it God’s will for Barack Obama to become the president? I tell all. Don’t miss this . . .

Was it God’s will for Obama to win the election? Enjoy . . .

I have learned something over the last few months. You have all heard the saying that the two things you don’t talk about in mixed company are religion and politics. I have found that religion is much easier to talk about than politics. People are much more tolerant about religion because my decisions and beliefs [...]