Americans Secretly Killed By Stalin's Police.--An AP dispatch from Moscow, printed in the LAJ 11-9-97, tells the sad story of murder. Hundreds of American leftist dupes moved to Russia in the 1920s and 1930s to help Josef Stalin build the new worker's paradise. Many of these perished without a trace, and their fate has been unknown. Now the answer is emerging from the moldy files of the secret police files. They were executed for wearing American clothes, asking the U.S. Embassy for help or talking of life at home. How sad that these foolish artists, factory workers, teachers and engineers believed the Communist lies, and perished in the worker's paradise. Many will believe a lie, rather than the truth.--ELB
Founder of Promise Keeper's Did Not Keep His Promise.--The reporter for TVs 20/20 interviewed Bill McCartney and his wife. (The broadcast was on 11/14/97). It was revealed by McCartney that he had not always been faithful to his wife. While he was coaching at the University of Colorado, he founded Promise Keepers in 1990. In 1993, just before a big bowl game, he told his wife of his adultery some twenty years before. This almost destroyed his wife, causing her to vomit every day for seven months. She considered taking her life, and they confessed that in 1997, they are still putting their marriage back together again. This is just another example of a cruel confession that almost destroyed a marriage. A very unwise thing to say the least. All of this has been published in a book by the McCartneys. We don't expect that this will heart the Promise Keepers movement. We oppose PK because it is an unscriptural movement, and McCartney's confession doesn't change our opposition one way or another.--ELB
Is Separation Still Important?--Rev. John E. Ashbrook has a new 4 page pamphlet with this title in the 8/97 Ohio Baptist Fellowship Visitor. He said: "The cutting edge of separation was removed from the Voice magazine and the [Independent Fundamental Churches of America] moved from fundamental to new evangelical in a short period of time. Silence will always lead to the weaker position, not the stronger one." He said of the appeal of new evangelicalism: "The original new evangelicals were fundamentalists who thought they were adding some improvements to their position." He called new evangelicalism the easy, intellectual, and glamorous road, and warned: "If fundamentalists of the past were tempted to lapse into the easier road of new evangelicalism we would be fools to think that the temptation no longer exists." Ashbrook said separation is the biblical doctrine which produced the fundamental church and said "every fundamental school should include a one-semester course in biblical sepparation..." Get this feature article from: OBF, 3865 No. High St., Columbus, OH 43214, 10/$3.50.
Witness, Lee--Witness Lee died last June. He worked with Watchman Nee in China before moving to the U.S. in 1962. He led the Local Church movement. Nee's later writings were "deeply mystical" and had doctrinal errors (11/1/94 CC), and Lee took them further into heresy. Ads for Nee's books have recently appeared in Christianity Today. Lee said each city should have only one church.
Alcohol Is Also Bad--Over 400,000 deaths each year are attributed to smoking. (A forthcoming book says obesity claims 300,000 premature deaths a year!) But the same arguments used against the tobacco industry can be used against the liquor industry. While the number of alcohol related deaths in the U.S. each year is placed at 108,000 (7/7 USN&WR), it kills in their prime, often in car crashes. It deprives people of more years of life than smoking does. Almost 14 million adults abused or were dependent on alcohol in 1992. Thirty percent of suicides, 50 percent of homicides, and 30 percent of accidental deaths are related to alcohol abuse. Two-thirds of violent crimes are committed by perpetrators using alcohol and many babies are afflicted with fetal alcohol syndrome.
The New Age Movement--There are as many as 3,500 "new" religious groups in the U.S. today (4/17 USN & WR). The New Age Movement is an ecumenical movement of epic proportion sweeping our world today. It offers a menu of spiritual choices which can be combined like making soup. Pastor William Bischoff in the 6/16 Christian News said: "New Age thinking has permeated every area of society. Because it is so broad and diverse, it may seem difficult to pinpoint its basic philosophy; but such is not the case. The NAM is the embodiment of Eastern mysticism and has its origin in ancient Hinduism and the mystery religions of the Orient...New Age groups believe in the inter-connectedness of all things. All is one, and God is all. Therefore...God [is] in us. Man's great need is to discover the deity within [through] positive thinking, meditation, visualization or drugs...." For Christians, the New Age world view is the same old ancient, occult cosmology used by Satan in the Garden of Eden to tempt Eve.
Fee-For-Service Counseling--"Imagine what it would be like if pastors...were to charge fees for ministering God's grace to [members] just like the fee-for-service biblical counselors. There would be fee-for-service worship services, fee-for-service Bible class and Sunday school, fee for service hospital visitations, fee for-service prayer, fee-for-service funerals, baptisms, marriages, etc. Before or after providing each service, the provider would ask, "Will you pay by cash, check or credit card?" Martin and Deidre Bobgan pose the above scenario, and say: "We say categorically that any biblical counseling ministry that charges a price is unbiblical." (July/Aug. PsychoHeresy Awareness Letter. They cite Lk. 10:7, 1 Tim. 5:18, and I Cor. 9:11, but also cite I Cor. 9:18 and I Pet. 5:2.
Hong Kong Christian Leaders Muzzled?-- Christian leaders living in Hong Kong hold opposing views on how to deal with Chinese ministries in the future. Many who were formerly critical of the Communist Chinese government reportedly have been silenced by mission leaders (7/97 Bapt. Bulletin). References to parse cation and the house church movement in China have disappeared, replaced with more neutral subjects in missions literature.
Homosexual News--Increasingly, gay/lesbian couples are becoming foster parents for thousands of children left stranded from parental abuse, abandonment or neglect- 3100 in San Francisco alone (6/30 C. News). *** Atty. Gen. Janet Reno has endorsed legislation favoring homosexuals, and received an award from a gay group in June. (7/7 CN).
SBC Chief Tom Elliff Pans Pres. Clinton-- Southern Baptist Convention President Tom Elliff in his June 17 presidential address at the SBC annual meeting in Dallas listed seven areas where Southern Baptists are "winning the battle, but must finish the war." On Sanctity of Life he said SB's have clearly affirmed their belief that life is a gift from God and their opposition to abortion. But as long as any person of any rank would claim affiliation with Southern Baptists while having such a cavalier disregard for the sanctity of life that partial birth abortion remains as an option...there are still battles to be fought," he said {7/8 Indiana Bapt.). This, an obvious reference to President Clinton's stance permitting partial birth abortions, brought a standing ovation.
Grahams Side With Red China--At a time when our nation is flooded with various goods produced by slave labor in Communist China, America's Revered evangelist Billy Graham and his son Ned recently supported most favored nation trading status for a nation which practices infanticide and brutally persecutes Christians (7/19 World). The debate in Congress put the Grahams against Gary Bauer, James Dobson, and Ralph Reed who all opposed MEN status for the "evil empire." Graham said it is afar better for us to keep China as a friend than to treat it as an adversary. This seems closely akin to the rationale King Jehoshaphat used to "justify" his disastrous alliance with wicked King Ahab (2 Chron. 18). Jehu's warning (2 Chron. 19:2) still stands.
Is 'The Most Important Agenda' for ELCA?--Ecumenical proposals are being voted on this summer among some liberal denominations. Rev. Frank Sean, ecumenical officer for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), frets about the potential impact a Lutheran-Reformed full-communion agreement would have on other ecumenical relationships (7/7 Christian News). He said: "I'm in the camp that says our relationship with the Roman Catholic Church has to be the most important agenda for us." He added: "We're the ones who parted company in the 16th century, and we're the ones that must get back together again."