VOL. XV  NO. 1  NEWS & VIEWS, NOTES & QUOTES, TO WARN & INFORM   January 1, 1998

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 children.

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).

NEW TV NETWORK—A new Pax Net TV network that will specialize in "clean family fare" is slated to start up Aug. 31 (12/13 World). The Fla. owner is buying syndication rights to Touched by an Angel and other "safe" programs.

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. tradition, 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."

ANGLICAN 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... "

SANDY COVE 1998 SPEAKERS—Sandy Cove's (North East, MD) 1998 Bible Conference speakers include: Drs. Joe Stowell (MBI pres.), Bruce Wilkinson, Tony Evans (PK speaker), Woodrow Kroll (Back to the Bible), Danny Lovett (Liberty Sem. dean), George Sweeting, Bob Hicks, Knute Larson, John Ankerberg, and Gary Ezzo. Ezzo is a "psychoheresy" teacher (12/97 BDM Letter) and was, until recently, with Dr. John MacArthur. MacArthur is listed as a fall Shepherd's Conference speaker at Sandy Cove. We assume Bob Hicks is the Robert Hicks whose blasphemous Masculine Journey book was endorsed and distributed at a 1993 Promise Keepers rally. Some of the above men (plus Tony Campolo and ABWE's Wendell Kempton) were also scheduled for Sandy Cove in 1996.

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.

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