(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.)
PK Gets $4 Million, Recalls Staff - Promise Keepers in Feb. announced the lay off of its entire staff of 345 effective March 31. But early last month, employees were told to report to work April 16. About 270 showed up, the others had taken jobs elsewhere (5/2 World). Donors sent over $4 million during March in response to the crisis.
Clinton, Communion at Catholic Church - Under a cloud of sexual scandal, President Clinton took "Holy Communion" from the Rev. Mohlomi Makobane during Mass at a Catholic church in South Africa, Mar. 29 (4/13 Chr. News), arousing the ire of Catholics around the world. The appointed "uncomfortable" Scripture passage for the day was John 8:1-11 (the woman taken in adultery).
Mormons to Build 30 New Temples - Mormons recently announced the construction of 30 new temples around the world, to bring them geographically closer to members of the fast-growing church (4/13 Chr. News). They currently have 51. The new temples will be much smaller.
New Evangelicals Endorse Alpha Course - We recently warned that the philosophy of the Alpha Course is New Age and that it leads to experiences rooted in the occult (3/1 CC). It promotes humanism, ecumenism, and Charismaticism (tongues-speaking, Toronto Blessing, etc.). We now see a full page ad for it in the 4/27 Christianity Today, with endorsements by Leighton Ford, Luis Palau, J.I.Packer, and Alister McGrath. This course was developed at the Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London, but is now also sweeping the U.S. The CRN Journal (Spr.'98, from England) said that in May and Sept. Alpha Course leaders are set on integrating it into every denomination and church group in the UK. It added: "We must do what we can to wake people up to the massively over-hyped and spiritually deceptive Alpha Course with its wholly inadequate view of Christian conversion and experience."
NAE, Jewish, Catholic Leaders Visit China - NAE's Pentecostal leader Don Argue, RC Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, and Rabbi Arthur Schneier visited China in Feb. to discuss religious freedom with top officials (5/98 Moody). Argue said: "We observed for the registered church there is freedom within the parameters of `normal religious activity' as defined by the government. But for the `unregistered' churches which includes most evangelicals - those same freedoms do not exist. Those outside the official sphere are subject to pressure, harassment, even detention or imprisonment for their beliefs, although treatment by local officials varies widely from place to place." Many house church pastors were arrested recently (5/98 Charisma). Yet Red China receives MFN trade status.
National Day of Prayer, but to Which God? - The National Day of Prayer was May 7 this year. Again, the chairman was Shirley (Mrs. James) Dobson, co-chair was Vonette (Mrs. Bill) Bright, and the liaisons were D. James Kennedy, a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi. Charles Colson and E.V. Hill were on the National Advisory Committee. Organizers of the Colorado Springs event (Dobson Headquarters city) said it's an ecumenical event, and "We would certainly welcome people of all faiths there." A local Huntsville NDP service included Catholic, Jewish, mainline liberal denomination, and Southern Baptist congregations. The Christian's God, the Triune God of the Bible, is the only God that exists (Isa. 44:8). He is a jealous God (Ex. 34:14) who will not share his glory with other gods (Isa. 42:8), e.g., the gods of cultists and "other faiths."
Gospel-free, Golden-rule Christianity -A most striking feature of post-modern America, the virtual evaporation of Christian conviction, bodes badly for true churches. Hartford Seminary sociologist Nancy Ammerman says we are seeing the rise of a new form of Christianity in America - Golden Rule Christianity - helping others, doing good deeds (5/2 World). This is what's left after you remove the gospel. Sin and redemption are out. GRC is inoffensive and makes few demands on its adherents. The larger culture is now a "theology-free zone" where Christian convictions may be tolerated if they are little more than pretty buildings and religious entertainment.
Bad Faith? - Four of every five sick children in the U.S. who died after their parents put their trust in faith healing could probably have survived if medical treatment had been sought (5/2 World). In a recent study of child deaths in faith-healing families (1975-1995), 81 percent were due to conditions that had a survival rate exceeding 90 percent with treatment. God certainly can and does heal, but oftentimes he may will to do so through a medical doctor.
Homosexual Tourism - Travel agencies, airlines, and even chambers of commerce are fighting for the "pink dollar" - the vacation business of homosexuals. Key West, Fla. has gained a reputation as a homosexual hot spot (5/2 World). The Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce says homosexuals spend a lot more money than inebriated college students. The London Tourism Board targets homosexuals with an ad campaign in San Francisco. Christians are responding to all this with their own pocketbook power.
IFCA Bent Toward New Evangelicalism - Many times in recent years we have documented the sad fact that the flow of the Independent Fundamental Churches of America is in a new-evangelical direction. Its 69th annual convention is set for Quentin Road Bible Church, Lake Zurich, Ill., June 22-26. Speakers include: Alex Montoya, IFCA Exec. Committee member who teaches at John MacArthur's Master's Seminary; and Al Platt, pres. -emeritus, CAM Int'l (see 8/15/87 CC). The Women's Convention speaker is Joy Rice Martin, who has various ecumenical speakers at her Joyful Woman Jubilees. The IFCA Youth Convention is at the notoriously new-evangelical Trinity Internat'l University,
Deerfield, IL. The IFCA has had many links to MacArthur and his church and schools in recent years. It runs full page ads in its Voice promoting his schools and Study Bible. MacArthur's church hosted the IFCA's 1990 national convention. His dangerous/confusing teachings on salvation and certain doctrines of Christ, and his pulpit-sharing with ecumenicals, deeply concern fundamentalists.
News Notes - The Roman Catholic Church has a long and brutal history of persecuting those who don't firmly believe in its doctrines (4/13 USN & WR letter). *** Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput has endorsed Roman Catholic participation in Promise Keepers provided it reinforces men's Catholic faith (Challenger). *** Jeffrey Gros, a "Roman Catholic theologian" formerly "served as director of the Faith and Order Commission of the National Council of Churches" (Mar-Apr Fund. Digest). *** CBA Denver Seminary pres. Clyde McDowell calls Billy Graham and Bill Bright "great leaders" (4/15 letter). *** Moody Bible Institute refused to carry Dr. James Dobson's program featuring Adrian Rogers's sermon on immorality in government due to its tone, etc. (4/25 World).
MacArthur, Jeremiah Join with Swindoll, Smith in Greg Laurie Seminar - The May-June Moody has a full-page ad for a Greg Laurie Leader's Training Seminar in Anaheim, Calif., Aug. 26-29, featuring Chuck Swindoll, Chuck Smith, David Jeremiah, and John MacArthur. Laurie, pastor of the large Harvest Christian Fellowship church in Riverside, CA, is a Promise Keepers and Billy Graham Training Center speaker. This event, held concurrently with a Laurie Harvest Crusade, is not dubbed a debate but, as Rick Miesel puts it, it's five men speaking on the same platform in supposed agreement. Miesel further opines that "perhaps MacArthur has abandoned his hypocrisy on the psychology issue and now openly wishes to identify with it and its infamous teachers?" MacArthur and Jeremiah by thus identifying with ecumenicals and mainline New Evangelicals, again prove they are not worthy of support by fundamentalists. Smith's Calvary Chapel is credited with giving birth to the Jesus People movement and CCM/rock music about three decades ago, and, more recently, to Wimber's Vineyard movement.
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