Featured Ministry – The Apologetics Group, A Ministry of Eric Holmberg

Many years ago when God first called me out of the darkness (with me very confused as to why he did that…) I saw a film in my church that changed the way I looked at the effects of music on my spiritual life forever. That film was Hell’s Bells, and it opened my eyes to the spiritual war going on that was right in front of me that I’d been totally unaware of. It revolutionized the way I looked at music and made me much more acutely aware of how music effected my life and the lives of my family.

The Apologetics Group, or TAG, once known to many as Reel to Real Ministries, was created by current CEO Eric Holmberg in 2003. Both TAG and Reel to Real have produced presentations such as Amazing Grace – The History and Theology of Calvinism, The Real Jesus: A Defense of the Historicity & Divinity of Christ, God’s Law and Society, and many more great ministry tools.

Eric’s nearly 30 dedicated years of ministry has produced relevant media which has touched many thousands of lives worldwide. He has worked with some of the Reformed world’s greatest theologians, such as the likes of Dr. George Grant, R.C. Sproul, Dr. Stephen Mansfield, Dr. Ted Baehr… and the list goes on.

Anyone who has ever been to one of Eric’s seminars has had the opportunity to experience Eric’s unique and discerning view of media and popular culture from a Christian worldview. Indeed, if you didn’t leave the seminar changed in some way then perhaps you weren’t really paying close attention…

The focus of Eric’s ministry is educating the Christian (and anyone else who has ears to hear) about the world around them – culture, media, church history, doctrinal issues, the abortion industry, etc. Any of the various DVDs produced by TAG can be utilized in such educational settings as a home school, Sunday school, small groups, and as evangelical presentations or outreaches in a church or on a local high school or college campus.

For more information about The Apologetics Group or Eric Holmberg, check out their official website – The Apologetics Group.

Please note: Eric Holmberg and The Apologetics Group (a subsidiary of Reel to Real Ministries) is located in Tennessee and is not affiliated with the website nicenecouncil.com or it’s DBA parent company, Apologetics Group, Inc., which is located in Virginia.

Hope this clears up any confusion.

Oh, No, Yoko! Your Lawsuit Has Been “Expelled”…

EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed film NEWS

News Watch
“Imagine” She’s Ticked: Yoko Ono Loses NY Lawsuit

New York Lawyer
June, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) – Yoko Ono has lost her Manhattan legal battle to block the use of John Lennon’s song “Imagine” in a film challenging the theory of evolution.

Lennon’s widow had sued the makers of “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” saying they used parts of the song without her permission.

In a decision Monday, federal Judge Sidney Stein says the filmmakers are protected under the “fair use” doctrine. That permits small parts of a copyrighted work to be used without an author’s permission under certain circumstances.

The movie opened on U.S. screens in April; it’s set for release in Canada on Friday and on DVD in October.

It presents a sympathetic view of intelligent design, the theory that the universe is too complex to be explained by evolution alone.

Ono’s attorney did not immediately return a call for comment.

More Arrogance From The “Scientific” Establishment

Here’s an interesting quote.

“It’s (EXPELLED) going to appeal strongly to the religious, the paranoid, the conspiracy theorists, and the ignorant –– which means they’re going to draw in about 90% of the American market.”
-Atheist blogger and fabulist PZ Myers, on a film he (had) not yet seen.

So, P.Z. Myers, one of the country’s alleged leaders in science, thinks that 90% of you are “religious” (like it’s supposed to be an insult to be religious…), paranoid, a conspiracy theorist, or ignorant.

P.Z. Meyers thinks 90% of us are stupid, and he thinks he is smarter than 90% of you.

How very tolerant of him. Certainly the epitome of religious neutrality.

This only illustrates how arrogant the people who have been deciding what is in your child’s science curriculum can be. And he’s not the only one who feels this way. You only have to go to the main page of the NCSE (National Center for Science Education) to see the fervor with which the NCSE not only try to defend their stance on Darwinian evolutionary theory, but how they fairly froth at the mouth to discredit any other position to the point of excluding any debate on the subject. Period. One would think they had actually proven that life had come from nothing and that there was, in fact, no God. This they have not proven – not even close.

Whether they like it or not, the monopoly on scientific commentary is now being opened up to some pretty serious competition (although they would beg to differ), which in my opinion only causes quality to go up. It will perhaps open up areas of research that have been cut off due to the prejudicial scientific funding process and rules, and it will force scientists who manipulate data to fit their philosophical (humanistic) worldview to be more honest in their assessments and perhaps make their headlines less propagandistic in nature.

The “scientific bigwigs” must learn that just because they keep repeating the same thing over and over again, it doesn’t make it true.

The Great and Powerful Evolutionists – Expelled, The Movie.

By The Reformed Faith Weblog Administrator

While many detractors believe this movie is an attempt to prove Intelligent Design, in reality it is mainly about academic freedom and the monopoly that humanist/evolutionist philosophers have had for so many years and will do anything to maintain. I mean, if you were getting (all the billions of dollars in) scientific grant money given out every year to research facilities and that money was gotten with the assumption you must continue maintaining that Darwinian Evolution is the only way life could have “evolved” on earth (or else look like a theorist – GASP! The Horror!), wouldn’t you defend your job, even if it meant lying or trying to “scientifically discredit” a film that threatened your monopoly before the film was ever even released into the theater?

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last few years… (how long has it been since they’ve “proven beyond a shadow of a doubt” that Richard Dawkins uncle was actually a monkey?)… the state of our culture is reflective of the humanistic belief that morals are an invention of man, and not instituted by a sovereign and almighty God… and so everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

Ben Stein obviously is a firm believer that our schools system should be teaching children HOW to think instead of WHAT to think. In Expelled, Ben simply pulls back the curtain to show the world that the wizard is simply a desperate old codger who stands to lose the satisfaction of having a fearful and trembling public stand in awe of him – the public that he has been duping for so many years as he shouts imperiously, “I AM THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OZ!”

I submit that the “first cause” of the demise of the evolutionary monopoly is… this great and powerful film. Way to go, Ben!

Related articles and links of interest:

Expelled The Movie Comes Out Friday, April 18th, 2008!

Expelled, The Playground – View Trailers and other fascinating phenomena.

R.C. Sproul Interviews Ben Stein

‘Expelled’ Producers Deny Deceiving Scientists to Appear in Film

Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed… Watch the NEW Super Trailer

If this doesn’t intrigue you to go see Ben Stein’s new movie, Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed, out this Friday, April 18th, I don’t know what will… the new (and very funny) super trailer is available to watch HERE AT THE EXPELLED PLAYGROUND. Be sure to check out the other great features… I especially love the Darwinian Sock Hop…

Expell Those Myths About “Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed”

Before it has even been released into theaters, gossip and myths abound about the new (and soon to be blockbuster) film Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed. This is understandable, since it truly takes on the monopolistic and unyieldingly closed-minded Darwinian evolutionist camp to task, exposing their true agenda… saving their own hind parts.

One of my previous posts, Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed – Supertrailer, received a couple of comments from someone posing (I think) as an expert on the subject. These guys must be really SCOURING the internet to try and refute the films findings and make people lose interest in the film before the fact, but they appear to use very few of those… facts, I mean. The furor within this scientific sect and the hostility they have shown toward this film is just one more incident in a long list of incidents surrounding their attempt to protect their status quo… It only exposes and magnifies their desperation in my humble estimation.

Check out this excerpt from a recent article from Breakpoint, Chuck Colson’s web ministry.

Myths about Expelled
Don’t Believe Everything You Hear
By Chuck Colson
April 11, 2008

If you have heard of the new documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, opening April 18, chances are you have heard all kinds of distortions and myths about it. So let me set the record straight about some of the most common myths.

Myth #1: Darwinists interviewed for this film were tricked into participating.

Not so…

Feel free to go over there and read the rest of the article and be sure to check out the references and their links at the bottom of the article yourself. Go ahead… I’ll wait.

Other Reformed Faith Posts of Note on this subject:
Atheism’s Aggressive Political Agenda
The Threat of Creation

Charlton Heston’s Faith: Was He A Christian? (Plus – Heston’s Harvard Speech, 1999)

I noticed that my dashboard showed a lot of search terms like, “was Charlton Heston a Christian”, and actually so far today ALL the search terms have had some variation of this question… “It’s a good question,” I told myself. So, not really knowing if he was or not, I decided to do a search of my own.

Aside from the astounding fact that he stayed married to his wife, Lydia, for 64 years (a miraculous feat in and of itself in a place like Hollywood) I found many very interesting items about this great man that you may not know…

Such as apparently George Clooney thought it was perfectly okay to mock Heston’s revelation that he had Alzheimer’s disease.

Michael Moore (that fine, upstanding individual), who’s propaganda film (or should I say docu-dramamine) “Bowling for Columbine” featured an interview with Heston that attempted to challenge his stance on the Second Amendment… remember, Mr. Heston was already suffering from Alzheimer’s – but he seemed pretty lucid to me. Mr. Moore apparently is a card carrying member if the NRA. (I guess I should run right out and join NARAL…) **

Unlike some candidates running for president this election cycle, Mr. Heston actually DID march with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr…

Charlton Heston At 1963 March On Washington (Public Domain: (NARA/USIA) Photo File Under Creative Commons License)

He also openly organized boycotts of Hollywood eateries that refused to serve blacks. Here is an interesting post. A very generous obituary from an activist blog that I normally wouldn’t frequent:
A Peaceniks view of Charlton Heston’s Activism.

And of course, there is this now-famous speech he made at Harvard in 1999…

Winning the Cultural War
Charlton Heston’s Speech to the Harvard Law School Forum
Feb 16, 1999
I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. “My Daddy,” he said, “pretends to be people.” There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo.

If you want the ceiling repainted I’ll do my best. There always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here. I’m never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I’m the guy.

As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: If my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to reconnect you with your own sense of liberty of your own freedom of thought … your own compass for what is right.

Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, “We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.” Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that’s about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart. I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you … the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is…

Read the rest of the speech HERE.

Was Charlton Heston a Christian? I don’t know. But if he was as humble about his own activism and it’s impact on society as I estimate that he was, perhaps he also chose to keep the extent of his religious affections (or lack thereof) under his hunting hat.

We will miss him.

(Here is a link to the AP story about Heston’s funeral written by Bob Thomas, who apparently was informed by family members that Heston was indeed a devoutly religious man.

Another unique look at Heston can be found at Pilgrim’s Planet.

This information was added to this post on April 13th, 2008.)

Be sure to visit the Reformed Faith Weblog Home Page for devotionals, news and commentary.

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** NOTE: The Bowling for Columbine interview may require you to sign in to verify that you are over 18 years of age.**

Charlton Heston Dies at 84 (1924 – 2008)

Charlton Heston died Saturday, April 5, 2008 at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife, Lydia, by his side. He was 84 years old.

“I’ve played three presidents, three saints and two geniuses – and that’s probably enough for any man.” Charlton Heston

He and his wife had been married for 64 years. Heston let it be known in 2002 that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.

Best known for his role as Moses in “The Ten Commandments”, Heston also served for five years as the president of the NRA, stepping down after five years in that position in April of 2003, stating,

“It’s been quite a ride. I loved every minute of it.”

Also in 2003, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

R.C. Sproul Interviews Ben Stein about “Expelled”: Is Free Speech Dead In Science Class?

Freedom of Speech implies freedom of inquiry… academic freedom has been enjoyed since the foundation of this nation. This is the basis of our whole education system, isn’t it?

Ben Stein poses that this phenomenon no longer exists in the American scientific community… hear this great conversation between theologian R.C. Sproul (Ligonier Ministries) and actor/commentator Ben Stein here:

R.C. Sproul Interviews Ben Stein

Is free speech taking it’s last breaths? Stay tuned… Or, you can read this related article:
Atheism’s Agressive Political Agenda

Be sure to visit the Reformed Faith Weblog Home Page for devotionals, news and commentary.

Dawkins Crashes Screening of “Expelled”… Eyewitness report!

In an interesting turn of events, Richard Dawkins was reportedly a screening-crasher at a recent screening of Expelled – No Intelligence Allowed. You can read the post here: Dawkins Crashes Screening of “Expelled”… Eyewitness report!

So, is it really true that every party needs a pooper?