(Editor's Note: In our New & Views column we quote from many different sources. Please understand that this does not necessarily mean that we approve of all of the publications from which we quote. Many of these items are taken from Calvary Contender.)

Ted Turner Nonsense - Media mogul Ted Turner, with much fanfare, is giving $1 billion to the UN. He won the 1990 Humanist of the Year award. He says "heaven is going to be perfect, and I don't really want to be there." He says Christianity has been unsuccessful after trying for "two thousand years to solve the world's problems, so why don't we start over." He complains that "there is no amendment procedure to the Ten Commandments." (12/13 World). He recommends a new ten commandments, with the first one beginning, "Love and respect the planet," and the third one stating, "Promise to have no more than two children or no more than one's nation suggests." His eighth and tenth both give glory to the UN.

No Gospel in Amy Grant Songs - Amy Grant's latest album has thrown the CCM industry into a first-rate crisis. She has won five Grammys and 22 Dove awards, named Artist of the Year four times, and her 14 albums have sold over 20 million copies (12/8 C.Today). She pioneered the crossover trend to secular music in the mid-1980s. Even Billboard magazine in bewilderment noted: "It's hard to explain to someone that all of a sudden this artist that has been on Christian charts for years now doesn't belong..." A notice with her latest album alerts radio stations: "As far as the lyrical content is concerned, there's no evangelical bent, no mention of God. If the music you play has to have either of those two elements, you might not want to play it."

Disgraceful Charismatic Music - The music review section of the Dec. Charisma had this item: "God's Property (GP) from Kirk Franklin's Nu Nation has taken gospel music to new dimensions. With a hip-hop beat and dance-club appeal, its lead single, "Stomp," featuring Franklin and R&B rapper Salt, has sent the album soaring through secular and gospel music charts alike... GP's radical gospel approach is a force to reckon with...."

Preparing Children for New World Order - Former U.S. Congressman Peter Hoagland says (12/97 Frontline): "Fundamental, Bible-believing people do not have the right to indoctrinate their children in their religious beliefs because we, the State, are preparing them for the year 2000, when America will be part of a one-world order global society and their children will not fit in."

Hispanic Catholics Gain Clout - The Nov. 13 Dallas Morn. News said there are about 20 million Hispanic Catholics in the U.S. - about 30 percent of the total number of U.S. Catholics. Studies suggest that Hispanics will constitute the majority of U.S. Catholics within 25 years. It is easy to see why many Catholics and liberal Democrats want our southern border open for increased immigration.

Abortions on the Rise - Newly released federal figures show the number of surgical abortions in the U.S. fell to 1.21 million in 1995, down from a peak of 1.4 million in 1990 (12/13 World). But the decline may not last. Some state figures suggest the number of children being aborted is on the way up again. Per private researchers, about half of U.S. women now abort at least one of their chil dren.

Women's Aglow Is Charismatic/Ecumenical - Women's Aglow (now Aglow International) is the female equivalent to Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship. Per an 11/22 Dallas Morn. News article: "Aglow members were influenced powerfully by feminism, which little by little convinced them they did not always have to submit to their husbands... ." Aglow pres. Jane Hansen (1995) called for a message of "mutual submission." The 11/85 Foundation quoted her (from 11/85 Charisma): "It has been our joy to walk hand in hand with our Catholic sisters around the world...."

Psychiatrists Implant False Memories - A Wisconsin woman whose psychiatrist diagnosed her with 126 personalities - including Satan, a duck, and an angel who talked to God - says she still has nightmares from the therapy which included implanting false memories through hypnosis (11/30 H.Times). She was left suicidal and haunted by the false memories. She accepted a $2.4 million settlement.

Communism's Murders - Communism has claimed 85 million to 100 million lives on four continents since 1917 (12/3 H. Times). Our "most favored nation" trading friend, Red China, tops the list with as many as 72 million victims. In the Soviet Union, an estimated 20 million perished in purges, famines, mass deportation and the labor camps of the Gulag. Suffering was intense in Cambodia where Pol Pot used mass deportations, famine and forced labor to kill 1.3 to 2.3 million of his countrymen. [Note: We have seen higher estimates than all those above.]

Missionaries Needed - Mormons have 55,000 full-time missionaries, and the Jehovah's Witnesses have the equivalent of 270,000. The combined total for the Christian church is only 180,000 (11/97 Watchman Mini-Expositor).

Campolo's Imagination - Tony Campolo says he could envision a scenario where God - tired of the mess human beings created in this world - would send beings from another planet to help people learn to love one another.

Catholics, Evangelicals Agree on Salvation - A loose-knit group of Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians, having met for prayer and discussion for the past three years, have adopted "A Gift of Salvation" six-page statement affirming agreement that justification by faith in Jesus Christ alone constitutes salvation. Signers of this ecumenical "ECT II" statement include: Charles Colson, Bill Bright, J.I. Packer, Max Lucado, and RC priests/theologians such as Richard John Neuhaus, Avery Dulles, and Peter Kreeft. (The original Colson-Neuhaus ECT, Evangelicals and Catholics Together, was adopted March 29, 1994.) This unofficial, confusing, misleading, and deceptive document leaves unresolved many other such problems as the papacy, Scripture vs. tradi tion, Mariolatry, purgatory, indulgences, relics and the Mass.

George Assesses New `Gift of Salvation' - Dr. Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School (at SBC-supported Samford University, Birmingham) and a senior editor of Christianity Today, assesses the new ECT "Gift of Salvation" statement adopted by Catholic and evangelical theologians Oct. 7 (12/8 CT). He says that for all their differences, "Bible-believing evangelicals stand much closer to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger than to Bishop John Spong!" This is like comparing the contents of two cans of garbage. He goes on to say that "All who believe in Jesus, Catholics and evangelicals alike, are comrades in a common struggle, not a struggle against one another, but against the Prince of Evil... In a culture of death, we bear witness together to the Lord of life...."

Land Says the Only True Ecumenism Is for All Christians to Become Baptists - Richard Land, president of the SBC's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, initially agreed to sign the ecumenical "Gift of Salvation" agreement, but reversed course Nov. 13 and removed his signature. He concluded that readers will misunderstand the document and possibly feel it is contradictory (11/25 Ind. Bapt.). He is right on both counts, but we are disappointed that he could sign it and the ECT in the first place. Land said (11/24 Chr. News) the only acceptable institutional expression of unity "is for all Christians to all ultimately come to an understanding that they are saved by personal faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross and they are obedient to him by being immersed according to the ordinance of baptism - an act of obedience and testimony to the fact that they have accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and thus become members of a New Testament church. In other words, the successful conclusion of true ecumenism would be that all Christians would become Baptists."

Falwell Unites with Ecumenicals Against Moral Evil - Ever since Moral Majority, Dr. Jerry Falwell has routinely joined in ministry with Catholics and ecumenicals of every stripe to fight moral evils. The "fight" part is commendable; unscriptural fellowship with those linked to false-gospel representations is wrong. Falwell's 1998 Super Conference on "Prayer, Fasting and Personal Revival" is set for Oct. 4-7. "Dr. John Maxwell and other anointed [charismatics' favorite misused term] pastors and leaders" will speak. Maxwell often speaks in Falwell and Schuller pulpits. Falwell writes (12/97 NLJ): "This nation is in a moral free fall. Pres. Clinton recently became the only U.S. president ever to address a gay and lesbian national convention, thus lending enormous support to moral perversion. Same sex marriages will be approved shortly. Homosexuals are about to become a bona fide minority. About 70% of black children and 30% of white children born in America this year will be born out of wedlock. Violence, teen pregnancy, illegal drug usage, abortions... and now infanticide (partial-birth abortions)... are all out of control in our nation...."

PK to Eradicate Denominationalism, Racism - At the recent "Stand in the Gap" Promise Keepers event: "Catholics stood next to Baptists and Messianic Jews stood with Seventh-day Adventists. The denominational myths and barriers evaporated and men who expressed a personal faith in Jesus learned they had more fellow believers than they had ever imagined. Now they return to their communities with the realization that the guys who go to the church down the street aren't really so different after all...." (11/10 Chr. News). McCartney wants racism in the church to be eradicated by the year 2000 (12/97 Charisma).On Jan. 1, 2000, PK is asking pastors and their men to gather on their state capitol steps and verify by roll call that each church teaches and preaches against racism and does not speak against other denominations.

Towns Promotes Ecumenical Group - In the 12/97 Nat'l Liberty Journal, Liberty University V-P/Dean Dr. Elmer Towns discusses the 12/95 founding of Mission America by chairman Paul Cedar, and co-chairmen Billy Graham and Bill Bright. Sterling Huston (BGEA) heads an MA ecumenical task force with a strategy plan called Celebrate Jesus 2000. Its "Partnership" component states: "No one denomination or group can achieve the goal of praying for and sharing Christ with every person. However, together with the blessing of God, we can achieve that goal." To disobey biblical separation commands to achieve a good goal does not have the "blessing of God."

Anglicana Church Tolerates Error - The 11/97 Burning Bush reports: "The Anglican Church [England] as a whole has tolerated error for a very long time... .[It] has embraced the error of the Mass even though one of the thirty-nine articles denounces it as a `blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit'. It has permitted ungodly men, men who have no knowledge or experience of the rebirth to minister. It has defended homosexuals among the clergy despite the Bible's condemnation of such practices. It has tolerated men who have denied the Virgin Birth, the resurrection and ascension of Christ...."

McCartney's New Book - The Dec. 13 World says: "PK founder Bill McCartney has written a disturbing book - disturbing for what it leaves out." Sold Out, supposedly an autobiography about the ups and downs of his marriage, omits any mention of his adulterous affair, or that his daughter got pregnant twice out of wedlock by two different members of his football team. He did mention though that his wife four years ago was bulimic and suicidal and that he had been an alcoholic. He said he suspects that [legitimate] criticism of PK being an ecumenical movement, etc., is rooted in deep-seated cultural resistance to PK's [racial] reconciliation message.

ABC Lifts Gay Ban-A ban on ordaining homosexual men and lesbians was lifted by American Baptist Churches of Metro Chicago last March (Spr. '97 Record), leaving such ordinations up to the local sponsoring congregation.

Profanity: Losing its Power to Shock - Prime-time TV language is saltier than ever. The main reason is the increasing competition from other media such as cable-TV. "NYPD Blue" detectives repeatedly toss gutter-al epithets at suspects. There are now no absolutes in terms of language barriers. But someone said: "We've pretty much used up all of the shocking language we could imagine." And, because so many bad words are used in everyday conversation, they've lost the impact they once had (12/25 Hunts. Times). This sounds much like the "not at all ashamed, neither could they blush" of Jeremiah 6:15.

Tony Robbins, New Age Guru - Success guru Tony Robbins is a high school graduate with no formal training, license or degree, but earns up to $60,000 a day conducting corporate seminars and $12 million a year from tape sales. His clients have included Bill and Hillary Clinton (10/5 Parade). As a best-selling author and king of motivational speakers, he makes walking on hot coals a personal-growth sign (7/14/96 Denver Post). He participated in Gorbachev's Fall 1995 "State of the World Forum: Toward a New Civilization," which was loaded with New World Order or New Age speakers such as Robert Muller, Carl Sagan, Nelson Mandela, and Deepak Chopra. His books teach New Age techniques such as human potential, visualization and imaging. He says: "people can succeed if they imagine something vividly enough just as easily as if they had the actual experienc es." (Awaken the Giant Within). Firewalking, imported from India, is popular in the U.S., France, Spain, Indonesia, and other places. It is explained as a benign physical feat or, more seriously, a dangerous demonic-hypnotic trance activity. Searching for personal power can lead to humanism, New Age mysticism, and satanism.

Healing Services Supplement Medicine - Healing services to supplement modern medicine are becoming popular. Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish groups are experimenting with prayer, laying on of hands and anointing to soothe pains (1/3 HT). Most HMO executives believe relaxation and meditation techniques (New Age?) should be part of medical training (12/17 Houston Chron.).

New Age `Christ,' New World Order - British futurist Benjamin Creme recently said that Maitreya, World Teacher for the coming age, would appear on a global satellite hookup within months. He claims this is the same expected spiritual leader known by various names in all the world's religions (1/3 HT). Dr. Cathy Burns' new 116-page book, A New World Order is Coming: Who Will Rule?, discusses Creme, New Age, UN, Antichrist, redistribution of food/wealth, and world government in general. Order it from: Sharing, 212 E. 7th St., Mt. Carmel, PA 17851, $7 postpaid.

Campus Binge Drinking - The Jan. Journal of Studies on Alcohol shows that nearly three of every four fraternity leaders are big-time booze-bingers who average 14 drinks per week. And over half of sorority leaders binge drink - "just" six drinks a week, but that's more than the student average. Binge drinking is taking five or more drinks in a row in one sitting. The 12/3 Kansas Christian says Super Bowl Sunday is the number two drinking holiday proceeded only by New Year's Eve and followed by Halloween.

Wrong to Evangelize Mormons? - Jimmy Carter said Southern Baptists are wrong to believe Mormon doctrine is non-Christian (12/15 CC). Mormonism expert John L. Smith (12/97 Utah Evangel) says: "One wonders, if it's wrong for Baptists to share their message with Mormons... would it not be equally wrong for a Mormon to attempt to win a Christian? If a Christian witnesses to a Mormon he is called `anti-Mormon.' Would it not also be appropriate to call a Mormon who attempts to convert a Christian an 'anti-Christian'?" Dr. Cathy Burns has a new 132-page book Mormonism, Masonry, and Godhood that covers key Mormon doctrines and gives a close look at founder Joseph Smith and angels. Get it from her at: Sharing, 212 E. 7th St., Mt. Carmel, PA 17851, $8 postpaid.

Carters Concerned over God's `Harshness' - Former president Jimmy Carter says: "There are some elements in the Old Testament that in particular cause my wife concern." (12/21 H. Times) He said: "There are some elements of harshness and massive destruction where every person in a village is killed, all the cattle are killed, carrying out the orders of God. They cause us concern...." Liberal Bible-doubters serve a non-existent, ecumenical god of love, and reject the God of the Bible who is a God of love indeed, but is also a Holy God of wrath and judgment. (See Rom. 11:22, Dt. 28:63, and Josh. 24:20, Ez. 33:11, e.g.) Carter is a So. Baptist Sunday School teacher. How can conservative SBs tolerate unbelief, and the pro-abortion and pro-homosexuality stances of our SB president and v-p?

L'Engle a New Ager - An ecumenical video series titled Questions of Faith portrays God as a cloud, a black woman, or the cosmos. In it, fiction writer Madeleine L'Engle warns that we must not "visualize" God as Moses did. "The cosmos is God's body," she explains. (12/97 National Liberty Journal). Others interpret her "questionings" as deviation from orthodoxy. Yet, Chuck Colson has encouraged Christians to read her works in spite of the fact that her writings are "laced with occultism and New Age imagery." (10/93 Flashpoint). And Wheaton College reportedly has had her for a lecture, and she refers to Wheaton as her second home. (See 6/1/95 CC).

Towns Speaks Well of `Occultist' Cho - Dr. Elmer Towns, co-founder (with Dr. Jerry Falwell) and dean of Liberty University's School of Religion, discusses his Praying the Lord's Prayer for Spiritual Breakthrough book in the 1/98 Nat'l Liberty Journal. He says his book was actually born in a breakfast meeting in Korea with Dr. David "Paul" Yonggi Cho over 15 years ago. Towns says: "Pastor Cho leads the world's largest church (attendance over 700,000 weekly). At that breakfast meeting, I asked him, `How would you advise me to become a more godly man and to get power with God?' Dr. Cho respects me as a Baptist and I have great respect for him as a Pentecostal. I have even preached for him in a prayer meeting to over 12,000 people." Towns said Cho begins his devotions each day by praying the Lord's Prayer several times, then spends over two hours a day praying. He said: "Perhaps American pastors would have a church growing like this church... if they spent the time in prayer like he does." But Christian News editor Herman Otten (9/19/94 CN) called Cho "a charismatic and occultist who rejects historic Christianity." And Metropolitan Tabernacle (Spurgeon's old church) pastor Dr. Peter Masters, in Dr. Robert L. Sumner's April 1, 1989 Biblical Evangelist paper, suggested Cho's teachings were a marriage of Christianity and the occult.

Falwell Says Moon Didn't Bail Him Out - A Washington Post story in late Nov. said a Sun Myung Moon-related business recently bailed out Jerry Falwell's Liberty University (12/15 Chr. News). But Falwell's 1/98 National Liberty Journal said Liberty University has never solicited or received funds, directly or indirectly, from Moon's Unification Church, though Falwell said he would accept unrestricted gifts from Unificationists, the American Atheist Society, or even Bill Clinton, if received.

Moon to Close Unification Church? - Korean "messiah" Sun Myung Moon and his wife arranged the marriages of 3.6 million couples in a Nov. 29 ceremony at a Washington stadium. Moon has many business ventures, doles out lavish funds to clergy (and others), has been divorced, and claims he is the "third Adam," following in the footsteps of Adam and Jesus to rid the world of sin (12/15 Chr. News). In a surprise move, Moon, in a front-page report in the 11/24 Wash. Post (competitor to the Unification-owned Wash. Times) claimed he is shutting down his Unification Church (Watchman Expositor). He has become frustrated with America, saying "the period of religion is passing away." Post writers attribute his announcement to his advanced age, the lack of a clear succession, failure of recruiting efforts in the U.S., etc. Some critics see it as a maneuver to remake his church's image into a non-denominational parachurch entity.

Michael Horton's Sacramental Gospel - Michael Horton is vice-president of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, and a research fellow at Yale Divinity School. He is a graduate of Biola, Westminster, and Oxford. He is ordained by the Christian Reformed Church. He is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation, and the May/June MR gives a confusing 50-page account of "HOW DO WE RECEIVE CHRIST: God's Sacraments or Ours?" Writers discuss Baptism, the Lord's Supper, Infant Baptism, etc. Rick Miesel in a 16-page paper on Horton's teachings (BDM, P.O. Box 679, Bedford, IN 47421, $2) says he teaches a false sacramental gospel, has exhibited a fondness for the psychological gospel and those who teach it, and he supports ecumenical efforts with Rome.

Pinnock's Dangerous Beliefs - The following is taken from a penetrating new book The Evangelical Left (Baker Books) by new-evangelical Western (and Truett) Seminary professor Millard Erickson. Theologian Clark Pinnock says general revelation is a means by which God saves, and approvingly quotes liberal Dale Moody who questions what kind of God would make enough known about himself to make persons guilty, but not to save them. Pinnock, granting that Buddhism is not Christianity, asks: "But how does one come away after encountering Buddhism and deny that it is in touch with God... ?" He teaches annihilationism and says the traditional doctrine of hell is not biblically and theologically sound. He says the teaching that God would create persons, only to send them to an endless torture, "makes God into a bloodthirsty monster who maintains an everlasting Auschwitz for victims whom he does not even allow to die." He says such a God "is more nearly like Satan than like God." (See 2/1/95 CC for more on Pinnock.)

Fuller's Slide from Inerrancy - When dean-elect Daniel Fuller son of Fuller Seminary founder Chas. E. Fuller returned from Switzerland (1962) from studying under neo-orthodox theologian Karl Barth he suggested that the Bible was free from error when referring to revelational or doctrinal matters pertaining to salvation, but that it was not inerrant in matters of science and history. Faculty members William LaSor and George Ladd sided with Fuller on this. The selection of David Hubbard as Fuller's new president (1963) began an even stronger trend to the left. Fuller Seminary's slide into apostasy is further chronicled in a new book by (new-evangelical) Millard Erickson, entitled The Evangelical Left.

SBC Conservatives Are Inconsistent - Fund. Digest editor Dr. Don Jasmin says: "The conservatives within the SBC framework are totally inconsistent. While they are in the process of gradually separating theologically from the SBC liberals, they continue to unite ecumenically with the same crowd. While they bash each other in convention meetings, the same SBC liberals and SBC conservatives can be found side by side at the ecumenical Promise Keepers rallies hugging each other, promoting unity, and cavorting together with RC priests and preachers from NCC-WCC apostate denominations."

Pensacola/Brownsville `Revival' Update - The Pensacola News Journal claims that revival leaders at the Brownsville Assembly of God are amassing personal fortunes. It accused revival leader Steve Hill of lying about his past, and accused Pastor John Kilpatrick of recent luxurious purchases. Church leaders make multiple claims of miraculous healings, but the paper could not verify a single one (12/22 CN). Meanwhile, a reconciliation of sorts was recently reached with chief critic CRI's Hank Hanegraaff in a meeting with Brownsville leaders.

A Song & a Sword - Assuredly, believers are in a battle today against the forces of compromise, sin and evil. Dr. Don Jasmin asks (12/97 Fund. Digest): "Can a Fundamentalist be strong and still be sweet? Is it possible to be Scripturally militant and be spiritually merry at the same time? Can the child of God maintain the song of the Lord in his heart while marching with the sword of the Lord in his hand? Speaking of the Christian soldier's activity, Psalm 149:6 says `Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand.'"

SBC Luncheon at UN - Bob Reccord, pres. of the SBC's No. American Mission Board (NAMB - formerly Home Mission Board) hosted a NAMB-sponsored luncheon at the United Nations Dec. 12, marking the beginning of So. Baptists' 25th year of ministry at the UN (12/23 IB).