Chapter 7 from the book "The Religion Racket." There is a fierce competition among the different churches and denominations for new members. All these efforts to secure new members come loosely under the title of evangelism. This evangelism takes many forms. One of the most popular is called proselyting. This is the effort put forth to win an individual over from another church or religion. It is generally done privately because publicly it is denounced. It is not officially in the church program but unofficially it occupies a prominent place. Proselyting is practiced in many different ways.

Anywhere a pastor finds a member of his denomination not attending church he strongly emphasizes that the individual should attend his church ... no matter how far he has to travel. After all, if you are a member of a denomination, you should attend a church of that denomination. However, if a pastor finds a member of another denomination who lives closer to his church he will emphasize the convenience of attending a church that is close ... even if it is another denomination. This matter of convenience is a strong argument and results in a lot of folks changing their religion.

To be able to get across to an individual of another religion the advantages of your religion and the disadvantages of his without giving an impression of proselyting is a fine art that is developed by most church workers.

Successful church workers are at a premium and the competition for them is really rugged. Generally, the church that offers the most prominent position will win these members. The idea is to emphasize the great need there is in the church for the talent possessed by the sought after church member. After all, he wouldn't even be missed in the church he now attends and is so desperately needed by the church that is trying to entice him away. Small churches are very successful in raiding larger churches with this type of evangelism.

To keep up a successful program of proselyting it is necessary to keep the members of all the other local churches informed as to the mistakes and shortcomings of their individual churches. They have a right to know how bad their church is, and when they get the information it might prompt them to want to change churches. This necessitates each pastor keeping informed about any church trouble or fights that occur in all the other churches, because this presents a fine opportunity for evangelism. The group that loses in a church fight is nearly always ready to leave and join another church. The pastor must be careful to court both groups so that no matter who loses he will be looked upon as a friend to whom they can turn.

A church that is going to evangelize successfully must give great emphasis to their "extras." These are the denominational decoys that are set out to attract new members. Generally, it is best to find out what you have that the other churches in the area lack and then go all out in pushing it.

Well staffed and well equipped nurseries where parents can leave their children are a big extra that most churches find necessary to have. After all, who wants to go to church with children? Air conditioning is a fine extra and so are cushioned pews. Free transportation is always good. Big parking lots are a must. The church with the shortest services has a big edge over all other churches. This is a big extra. A successful church must never have services that lap over in prime television time. A youth program with fun and games is always attractive. All these "extras" must be highly advertised along with the guest stars, gospel celebrities, and singing groups who might be appearing.

Evangelism also means the effort that is put forth to win over the unchurched. People not in church are generally harder to enlist. They are not trained in the interpretation of what is really meant by the language that is used in churches. To the unchurched there is no apparent difference between themselves and those in the church ... so why bother? What's to be gained?

The unchurched listens as everyone praises a Bible that no one is reading and he gets confused. Church people all around him say they love to go to church and yet use every foolish excuse not to attend, and he begins to wonder. He can't understand that prayer is supposed to be the greatest privilege of man, yet he never hears anyone around him praying. He gets confused at the effort that is put forth in seeking out highly trained preachers to whom no one pays any attention.

When the unchurched does go to church he finds it full of people who don't want to be there and are glad when it's over, so they can go do something they are not supposed to enjoy. The only time he ever hears his church going friends talk about their church is when they are criticizing and belittling. To say the least, the unchurched are a little confused by this and he is difficult to win. The evangelistic effort generally centers on convincing him that he ought to accept religion even if it does seem to be a phony.

All churches are supposed to be evangelistic. Their commission is to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Most of the church members carry out at least part of this commission every weekend ... they go into all the world. They go to the parks, the beaches, the mountains, camping, boating, etc. Some churches become so evangelistic in the summer that they have to shut down ... everybody's gone!

This competition between churches in seeking out new members can make the problem of picking a church to join quite complicated. Most people seem to find it necessary to do a great deal of seeking, or as it might be called, shopping around, before they decide on a church. There are so many things that must be checked. In driving by a church in the summer time for instance, one can easily see if all the windows are closed. If they are, the building is sure to be air-conditioned. This, of course, is a must.

It is better not to join a church that is in a building program or any other kind of expansion, as this always means they will be needing money. The average church member has no desire to be caught up in this kind of thing. It is far better to find a church that someone has paid for and that is already finished.

The first time a family attends church it must be noticed how the people dress. One must never join a church where the people do not dress as well or dress better than you.

Another thing of extreme importance that must always be checked out before a church is joined is the matter of sin. It is embarrassing to join a church and then find out they condemn the sin you are practicing.

It is always good to check the social standing of the church in the neighborhood. Does it have prestige? Is it where the "right" people attend? Is it accepted by the better class of the neighborhood?

If there is a baby in the family, the church nursery is of vital importance. This is where all those "church diseases" are transmitted. Does it have a registered nurse in attendance? Does it have those little lights that disinfect? They are nice.

Big roomy parking lots are important. One must be able to arrive late and get away early. Cushioned pews are not an absolute necessity, but they are nice. A family will always want to check on the average length of the church services. It is such an annoying thing when services do not stay within a regular time limit. It can disrupt all the other really important plans for the day.

One must always check to be sure the church provides the preferred type of musical entertainment. This is important to the rock and roll enthusiast. It is always good, if there are teen agers in the family, to check out the young peoples' program. Do they have regularly scheduled dances? Do they have a good recreation program? Do they show good movies? Do they have parties?

One must be very careful about the pastor of a church. Of course he must be well educated, well dressed, experienced and a good mixer. He must be a young thirty- five. (Preachers find it necessary to be a young thirty- five all their life. This is a little difficult.) This is the age when he is supposedly able to still appeal to the young people and also reach the older folks.

It must be determined before one joins a church that the preacher is not one who is going to be expecting a lot out of anyone who belongs to his church. Some preachers expect their members really to get involved in the things of religion, and this can be a real drag. The preacher must not be a crusader, that is, one of those fellows who is always taking a stand on some issue and calling upon everyone else to do likewise. This can be embarrassing.

A lot of folks find it good not to join a church close to their home. If they live a good distance from the church they feel they can't be expected to participate in too many different activities at the church. Usually it is preferred that a church not be too zealous. After all, who wants their children growing up to be religious fanatics and going off to Africa as a missionary?

If a family has an eligible daughter it is well to check to see if there are any eligible young men. Church is a fine place to do a little match making. If you have a boy, of course, you check out the girls.

Of course, some folks never join a church. Every Sunday they just visit a church. They are sort of perpetual visitors. This has its advantages as it enables one to reap all the benefits of church going without having to pay any of the cost or assume any of the responsibilities. Like a parasite ... a parish parasite.

New members always receive a lot of attention and everyone goes out of his way to please and greet them. A lot of folks like this so much they stay new members. Every time newness wears off they join another church and they are new again. They just tramp from one church to another, that's it ... church tramps!

Of course, what the church believes, what it teaches, and spirituality are important, but the average church-goer feels these things can be fitted in if everything else checks out.

Q. Is Islam more pure than Christianity?
A. The West is often accused of being more decadent and immoral than Islam. What do Islamic teachings say about fidelity to one's wife and family? Prophets and kings of the Old Testament practiced polygamy. But not one of them claimed that God gave him a Holy Scripture or inspiration to allow His followers to marry more than one woman. These individual acts were against God's will.

Mohammed, the prophet of Islam, legalized polygamy by writing "Allah's" own words, which allowed his men to marry up to four women and have sex with endless numbers of slave girls. Mohammed himself was married to 14 women, in addition to those who gave themselves to him.

In the Koran, Mohammed writes Allah's moral code: "...marry other women who seem good to you: two, three or four of them. But if you fear that you cannot maintain equality among them, marry only one or any slave girls you may own. This will make it easier for you to avoid injustice" (Sura 4:3).

Mohammed also initiated what is known as the marriage of enjoyment, the marriage of pleasure, or the temporary contractual marriage.

In the marriage of pleasure, a man can "marry" a woman for one-quarter of an hour or more for the sole purpose of having sex with her. Al Baydawi, one of the most famous commentators in Islam, endorses this. He wrote in his book The Interpretation of the Baydawi, "The purpose of the contractual marriage is the mere pleasure of intercourse with a woman, and her own enjoyment in what she has given" (page 108). Ibn Mas'ud, one of Mohammed's followers, said: "We used to participate in holy battles led by Allah's Apostle and we had no wives with us. At that time he allowed us to marry women with a temporary contract and recited to us this verse (from the Koran), `Oh you who believe, make not unlawful the good things which Allah has made lawful for you'" (Sura 5:87).

In Sahih Muslim, one of the authentic commentaries for Muslims, we find a detailed description of some moral scandals that Mohammed approved. It recounts that Mohammed used to bring women to his followers or send a heralder to proclaim that it is permissible to sign contractual marriages (Vol. 3, page 555). On page 556 of the same book, it is written: "They used to meet a woman who belonged to one of the tribes and attempted to seduce her by offering her either a dress or some dates or flour. They spent three days with the harlot." This marriage is not bound to any of the rules set in Islam for a normal marriage. In this 15-minute marriage, the man does not write a contract of marriage or divorce after he enjoys her. The only thing the man has to do is to give the woman something, like money or food. Mohammed told his followers they can give the woman a dress.

Dr. Musa al Musawi, a Muslim Scholar with a Ph.D. in Islamic law from the University of Tehran, mentions in his book The Shiites and The Reformation: "This marriage is carried out without a witness. The period of this marriage could be a quarter of an hour, or a day, or any period of time. In it, it is permissible for a man to have collectively an unaccountable number of women at the same time" (page 109).

In April 2001, Egyptian authorities arrested one of the leaders of an Islamic group in Cairo. He had married 95 women in a few years. They arrested him, because they found that he was illegally married to five women at the same time, instead of the legal four. He had not broken Islamic law by rotating through 95 women but had kept five at one time. Like a zealous fisherman, he was one over the limit. He didn't throw her back in time.

The official Christian church has historically experienced the same corruption that engulfs Islam today. During the Renaissance, the Roman papacy was often near bankruptcy. One way it gathered additional funds was to collect fines each year, a "sin tax," from its clergy for the concubines they kept (A History of the Christian Church, Scribner, pp. 419, 420).
Religious individuals who are not concerned with a personal relationship with Christ live according to the flesh, whether they are called a Christian, Muslim or whatever. Jesus condemned such religions as "full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness" (Matthew 23:27).

Purity comes from the inside out, not from the outside in.

There is no robe, no outward purification, no diet, no prayer rug, and no cross hung around our neck that has the power to create a new heart and make us a new creature. Only Christ can do this (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Koran legalizes unlimited lust for its author's followers. Galatians chapter five describes the bitter end of lust and the sweet fruit of the Spirit. Jesus freed the woman at the well from such a life. He did not create a law to perpetuate her license or to legalize sin for Himself and His all-male group of disciples.

--The Voice of the Martyrs

(I have chosen to rerun this article since there are many new readers who often ask what my position is on the Bible issue. Critics have zeroed in on the King James Bible, desiring to show its "translation errors," knowing that many of us are not only "users" of this Bible, but believers in its accurate translation. This article describes our cry for a reliable Bible in English, and denounces defending a non-existent Bible of which only a few books were ever seen by a mere handful of souls in the first century. I would reiterate that there is no reason to defend a Bible that no longer exists, but rather to defend the one preserved by God's Spirit, the author who does and will lead us into all truth. The article has been slightly edited.)

We saw in a previous article that when some say they read "the Bible," they do not clarify just what Bible they read. When they say that the Bible needs to be defended with all our might, they do not necessarily clarify which Bible that is. The conclusion is fostered that they are contending for a Bible that in actuality does not exist. This is the outcome of taking the "generic" route of indecision by many "scholars," pastors, and Bible colleges of today.

To this group, all Bibles are "the Bible." Many in this category have never seen any kind of Greek or Hebrew text at all, but only read notes in their English Bibles that imply that the "originals" are the only reliable Bible. Others of them have studied the Greek and Hebrew language Bibles and still have no single Bible, either in Greek, Hebrew, English, or in any other language. They believe there cannot exist one true Bible that is totally accurate since the "original" books of the Bible have long since perished.

They can fuss and fume about the "originals" all they will, but they still do not have one. It is really a sad state of affairs for them. They not only beat the air, they defend it.

This group is on a constant hunt for truth. They look everywhere and in all documents called, "Bible," since they are not sure exactly where to find "the Bible." Their search is never ending. Dr. R.V. Paulson's little book on the subject depicts this problem in its title: "Eeny Meeny Miny Mo: To Which Translation Shall I Go?" Even when a "good Bible" would be found, it cannot be accurate. It must be "generic."

The suppositions are ever expanding, but never ending. Knowledge and new findings never bring the "Generic Only" group to a solid truth that the document they hold in their hand is really something in which they can honestly say, "Thus saith the Lord." While some want to say that, in honesty they cannot. Therefore their mighty defense of "the Bible," is only tongue in cheek and their "Bible" is only the nonexistent "Generic" one. Their students will say, "our teachers truly defend "the Bible." They do not!

This kind of treatment of the "Bible" unfortunately forces this group into another untenable position that destroys all confidence in any Bible. If they have never seen "the only reliable Bible," then they must do the best they can with a second, third or five thousandth best ("inaccurate") copy of their "original language Bible" (whatever that might be) or some or all English translations (whatever they may be). The best they can do is hope that some scholar who has studied the "originals" that no longer exist, will be able to give them some morsel of truth out of the "real Bible" which does not exist either in their estimation. THERE IS NO SOLUTION FOR THIS GROUP. They are ever floundering and never finding. For them, there can be no totally accurate Bible. It is sad.

Harold Lindsell wrote "Battle for The Bible" in 1976. That was twenty six years ago. His "battle" was with fundamentalists, but more specifically he feared for his neo evangelical friends who were departing from an inerrant Bible. This of course, is one of the goals of neo evangelicalism. In his claim that the Bible is "inerrant," page 18, it is not any specific Bible that can be classified as such in his works, but just "the Bible." It is the Generic Bible that he addresses. His claim is that this Bible "does not contain error of any kind" (p.18). And, who can refute it, since it does not really exist?

Lindsell goes on to leave the reader confused, as many do that write about the Generic Bible. He states: "Inspiration may be defined as the inward work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and minds of chosen men who then wrote the Scriptures so that God got written what He wanted. The Bible in all of its parts constitutes the written Word of God to man. This Word is free from all error in its original autographs . . ." (p. 30).

He does approach the difficulty that the autographs, or first manuscripts of the Bible are lost and therefore certain questions need to be addressed. In this study, he says: "He (God) has preserved the Scriptures for us so that they have remained unadulterated, by which we mean free from error" (p.36).

And, as I look at that, I think, "what a magnificent statement for preservation!" Then he destroys the entire conclusion by saying: " ...there have been copyists' mistakes made by those who diligently sought to reproduce the books of the Bible by hand. But a copyist's mistake is something entirely different from an error in Scripture" (p. 36).

Choose what you will: error, or no error in the Bible? He identifies these "mistakes" as misspelling and misplacing of a word, which he concludes is "a far cry from error" (p.36). It does not seem that he has jumped over the cliff by this particular illustration, but comes close to the edge, if not beyond, when he speaks of a "reconstruction of the text" (p.37) that we can consider to be the Word of God.

In this "autograph" thing, he does make a helpful statement: "It must be remembered, too, that those who scoff at the inerrancy of the autographs because they cannot be produced for examination have no better case arguing for the errancy of texts they cannot produce either" (p. 37).

His concern is that more institutions are beginning to espouse that the Bible is not inerrant (p. 20). His concern is well-founded. His claim is that this is most discernible within the neo evangelical ranks in which he himself stands, (p. 20) and, as that is probably true, there are also many Fundamentalists today who are going down the same path.

He finds a great problem in not believing in inerrancy, but finds no difficulty in defending the salvation of those who believe the Bible has errors: "Belief in an infallible Scripture is not necessary to salvation" (p.20). "In any event it is important to note at the outset, particularly when persons and institutions are mentioned, that what I say should not be interpreted as a judgment that these people are outside the company of the redeemed or that the institutions are apostate" (p. 20).

Lindsell finds that there is an ethical problem when institutions hold to a doctrinal statement that includes an infallible Bible, and those who are on staff do not (p. 23). Of course if the "infallible Bible" is the Generic Bible, the problem is solved, and this would be the position of most staff members in such a condition, and even for the schools where they teach.

Some of the problems he finds in accepting a fallible or faulty Bible are myriad. He writes that it will, "lead to disaster," (p. 25), and of course he is correct: "There will be a tremendous breach in doctrine that will continue to increase" (p. 24). "There will be schism" (p. 25). "It will terminate in apostasy" (p. 25).

So, as one that finds erosion taking place because of a faulty Bible, he finds himself on a course of making a defense of a Generic Bible that does not exist, in order to defend his friend and his own Bible, whatever that may be, and whatever doctrines his Generic Bible might teach. Knowing that a "fallible" Bible will lead to apostasy, he can reach out for a Generic Bible that does not exist, and it will save everyone from apostasy. It is a strange and bewildering position, but many hold to it to such an extent that when a man has found "the Bible" in the TR and Masoretic Text and King James Bible, it is that man who becomes the heretic in the eyes of those who are still searching and never finding.

This Generic thing is like a drowning man grasping at objects to keep him afloat. In his mind, he knows that only certain ones will actually be buoyant, but since his friends have "older" iron objects to which they cling; he throws out the rope that is either not within his own grasp or within reach of those who are drowning, all to no avail. Others who are clinging to hopes of non existent objects find there is nothing to hold them up in the ocean of a turbulent world.

Friend, a Generic Bible does not exist (unless you consider the Amplified where error and truth are all mixed together so as to not miss any variant). Where are we to go? This is where we have found that the Word is preserved by the Holy Spirit. It still has power. In English, we believe the preserved words of God are found in the King James Bible. We commend it to you for your reading and consideration for life. We understand that our approach is not "generic," but God never meant it to be "Thus saith the Lord..."