VOL. XI  NO. 22    NEWS & VIEWS, NOTES & QUOTES, TO WARN & INFORM   December 15, 1994

WE DON’T NEED THE NEA—Government has many functions, but subsidizing art is not one of them. The National Endowment for the Arts has become a political agency promoting homosexuality, blasphemy, obscenity, and a host of liberal causes. The NEA funds gory gay film festivals. The issue is not censorship but sponsorship, whether taxpayer funds should be used to create or exhibit homoerot-ic/sadomasochistic/blasphemous art offensive to most taxpayers. Foundations wouldn’t fund much of this junk, and it wouldn’t even exist unless the federal government financed it. So, who needs it?

GOVERNMENT SPONSORED CATHOLICISM—A Canadian appeals court ruled July 6 that an education policy of granting public funding to Roman Catholic schools while denying similar funds to Jewish and Protestant schools is not a violation of the Canadian Constitution. (10/94 CWR). Dr. Frank McClelland, pastor of the Toronto Free Presbyterian Church, in an Open Letter to Premier Bob Rae rightly complained that "Ontario discriminates unfairly in favour of the Roman Catholic Church." (7-8/94 Can. Revivalist). Proposed mandatory religious-instruction classes in Nicaragua and Ecua-dor have some evangelicals concerned that the state is promoting Catholicism (10/14 C.Today). A new law in Bolivia requires the teaching of Roman Catholicism in both public and private schools.

FOCUS ON MORMONISM—Mormonism is based on fairy tales. It teaches that God is an exalted man, and that Jesus is the spirit-brother of Lucifer. Last June Howard Hunter, 86, replaced Ezra Taft Benson (who died at 94) as president/prophet. Mormons boast of a superior morality, but in 1988 Utah’s divorce rate topped California’s. Yuppie Massachusetts’ divorce rate is 2.8 per thousand, and Utah’s is 5.1 per thousand. Mormon feminist Janice Allred authored an essay called "Toward a Mormon Theology of God the Mother" where she contends there is a "heavenly mother" who is God’s partner. Her local church board has put her on probation and told her to keep such ideas quiet. Question for Mormons: "If Mormon families will live together forever, where will the in-laws be?"

ECUMENICAL DIALOGUE WITH WITCHES—Last year the Salem Religious Leaders Association officially welcomed a high priest witch to its ranks. An Episcopal priest said nobody in the interfaith clergy group could think of any compelling reason to exclude the witch (10/1/93 CC) .Now the 10/1 London Daily Telegr. says: "Liberal Anglican and Catholic clergy will today address a meeting of pagans and witches in an attempt to establish ‘common ground.’" This ecumenical brew is poison!

SOAP SUMMIT SLEAZE—Surgeon general Joycelyn Elders and Jane Fonda teamed at an Oct. soap opera summit called to discuss how reproductive rights and sexuality are portrayed in daytime dramas. They urged TV industry executives to push population control goals. Elders asked writers not to decrease sexual content of shows, but to make contraceptive use seem essential (11/11 Wash. Watch).

HIGH LEVEL HYPOCRISY—President Clinton has said he wants abortions to be "safe, legal, but rare." But he seems to have a pro-abortion policy. His administration has granted over $13.2 million of taxpayer money (and promised $75 million more in the next five years) to groups such as Interna-tional Planned Parenthood for promoting abortion and "safe-sex" ideology in other countries. V-P Al Gore and Tim Wirth led a delegation of 45 to the UN population conference in Cairo in Sept. to promote abortion, feminist theology, and condom distribution in less developed nations (10/94 Dob-son ltr). About 98 percent of these U.S. attendees were abortion and Planned Parenthood advocates.

MISSIONARY PROBLEMS IN ZIMBABWE, HONG KONG—Hong Kong reverts to Communist China’s control in 1997. Chinese security agents are already attending Hong Kong church meetings routinely to gather in-telligence about who’s in charge and what is being promoted. Some preachers are frightened into not speaking about sensitive themes. Zimbabwe will allow some humanitarian or development spec-ialists, but won’t allow any more foreigners whose main job will be to teach or preach the gospel.

GLOBAL COOLING—A local NASA scientist says the 41 computer models of how the climate should be-have over the next 50 years all predict global warming. But when applied to weather conditions for the past 15 years, the results don’t agree with the climate today (11/30 H.Times). Two other local researchers say other weather-affecting factors are canceling the anticipated global warm-ing potential of the Greenhouse Effect--that studies over the past three years show carbon diox-ide atmospheric growth has almost stopped globally, yet fossil fuel burning has risen (12/5 HT). They attribute this to a cooler earth, due to the Mt. Pinatubo volcano and El Nino extracting more carbon dioxide from the air. Ozone hole, global warming? They advise waiting another decade to see.

SWAGGART’S EMPIRE FALLING—Charismatic Evangel-ist Jimmy Swaggart blamed "demon spirits" for his disgraceful encounters with prostitutes in 1988 and 1991. Enrollment at his World Evangel-ism College in Baton Rouge, LA peaked at nearly 1,500 in the 1980s. It is now down to 75 stu-dents (12/94 Charisma) .Highway signs directing travelers to the school have been removed. It no longer qualifies for state-paid-for signs.

HISTORIC CHURCH LEAVES GARBC—GARBC patriarch Dr. Robert T. Ketcham became pastor of Central Baptist Church of Gary, IN in l932,the year the GARBC was organized. The church withdrew from the old Northern Baptist Convention in 1935 because of doctrinal errors embraced by the liberal NBC (American Baptist Churches). Dr. Clay Nuttall now pastors this historic church, and last month led it in a vote to leave the GARBC. The motion passed by the congregation read "That we as a people reaffirm the Bibli-cal ,Historical, Fundamental, Separatist, Baptist, doctrinal standard of this church, which has been held for its 85 years of existence. The Bible is our final authority in all matters of faith and practice so that no human document shall for any reason supersede the Bible...Our fellowship will be with those churches and groups which hold a similar Biblical standard. In doing so we regretfully find it necessary to withdraw from the Indiana Fellow-ship of Regular Baptist Churches and the Gen-eral Association of Regular Baptist Churches."

FEMINIST ‘RE-IMAGINING’ LESS RADICAL THIS YEAR—The pagan goddess worship, pro-lesbian stance, and blatant blasphemy of the 1993 "Re-Imagin-ing" conference in Minneapolis may have all been present at the 1994 conference, but in a less "in your face" fashion. Rita Nakashima Brock was the keynote speaker at the 1994 gath-ering of about 475 (last year,2,000) who met to "re-imagine" God as female. She questioned the atonement of Christ. Like last year, parti-cipants sang the Sophia blessing. A recurring theme was that "God--called by many names, in-cluding Sophia or Bakerwoman or Creator--comes to people in images that fit their lives."(11/ 26/94 World). No longer is God to be worshipped as a transcendent authority figure; that is ta-boo masculinity. The 1993 "Re-Imagining" caused a furor in some denominations. The 11/14 Chr. Today asks: "What other word besides heresy is appropriate where the Incarnation and Trinity were dismissed, where orthodoxy was derided, where Scripture was repeatedly contradicted, and where a goddess named Sophia was actively promoted?" Presbyterians forced Mary Ann Lundy, who arranged Presbyterian funding for "Re-Imagining," to resign her top post but she has been nominated to a top post (deputy general secretary) with the World Council of Churches.

REGENT’S PRES. DEFENDS INVITING RC BISHOP—The 12/94 Charisma says Roman Catholic bishop Wal-ter Sullivan created an uproar at Pat Robert-son’s Regent University in early Oct., after he celebrated Mass for Regent’s Catholic lawyers and law students. At an informal forum after the service, Sullivan said homosexuals are gen-etically predisposed to their sexual orienta-tion and must endure their sinful tendencies. Some students complained to Regent Pres. Terry Lindvall, but he defended the school’s decision.

SPURGEON ON FELLOWSHIP—"Where there can be no real spiritual communion there should be no pretense of fellowship. Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin."

SBC MISSIONS LEADER A CHARISMATIC?—When Jerry Rankin succeeded Keith Parks as president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Foreign Mis-sion Board in June 1993,some SBC conservatives were fearful of his charismatic leanings--amid reports that he was open to charismatic prac-tices such as tongues-speaking (7/15/93 CC). The fact that the 7/94 Charisma said Rankin was to join charismatic evangelists Reinhard Bonnke and Brother Andrew as speakers at Pat Robertson’s Regent University missions confer-ence last October won’t help allay those fears.

MIDNIGHT CALL’S FROESE: CATHOLICISM NOT A CULT—We have on many occasions shown that Seventh-Day Adventism and Roman Catholicism are cults. Now, in answering a question from a reader in the 12/94 Midnight Call, editor Dr. Arno Froese says; "According to my knowledge, the SDA be-lieves that man is sinful, he cannot save him-self, and salvation can only be obtained through faith in the shed blood of Christ. That is a good foundation whereupon also the Catholic Church is built. However, what these religions do with this foundation is another story. But if they have a foundation, they are not a cult. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, etc., do not have a foundation, thus we consider them a cult." No, Dr. Froese, Romanism and Seventh-Day Adventism are not based on "good foundations" but on a false gospel, not the gospel of Christ.

MACHEN AN ANOMALY—J. Gresham Machen left Prin-ceton and began Westminster Seminary in Phila-delphia in 1929 and founded the Orthodox Pres-byterian Church in 1936. Two of his famous quotes serve to indict the ecumenical evangel-ism of Billy Graham and Luis Palau in our day: "There can be no true evangelism which makes common cause with the enemies of the Cross of Christ.", and, "The worst sin today is to say that you agree with the Christian faith and believe the Bible, but then make common cause with those who deny the basic facts of Chris-tianity." The first critical biography of Ma-chen (by D. G. Hart) is reviewed in the 10/22 World and the 11/14 Christianity Today. We are told that Machen was a bundle of "anomalies": a conservative intellectual who opposed moder-nism for social reasons as much as religious ones; an unlikely ally of secular modernists such as Walter Lippmann and H.L. Mencken; and a libertarian anti-prohibitionist who voted for Al Smith. He was said to be largely indifferent to the debates over evolution and inerrancy.

KING’S COLLEGE TO CLOSE—The King’s College, founded by radio evangelist Percy Crawford and long led by Robert A. Cook, has been ordered by the state of New York to close on Dec. 30 due to financial problems and an insufficient num-ber of qualified faculty (11/14 CT). Alumni and church support started declining over a decade ago when a small group of disgruntled teachers started leading King’s down a liberal path (12/13/93 CT). More recently, a few faculty sought to present a pro-choice position on abortion and acceptance of homosexuality as an evangelical lifestyle. New President F.K. Radandt who came in 1985 could not solve the inherited problems.

SCHULLER: AT A THEATER NEAR YOU—Robert Schuller, whose "Hour of Power" is seen by 10 million viewers worldwide, recently announced plans to show this weekly telecast in movie theaters over the world. Crystal Cathedral church officials will transfer the show from videotape to 35mm film. Schuller built his ecumenical minis-try from a drive-in preaching service in 1955.

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