STAR WARS' NEW AGE THEOLOGY—The original Star Trek was mainly a sci-fi space opera, embodying 60s liberalism, but had occasional tributes to Christianity (5/29 World). The new Star Wars film delves deeply into an eclectic theology, "serving up a syncretistic sampling of Christian themes (good vs. evil and ultimate redemption), ancient Eastern philosophy (the all-is-one pantheism of the Force), and New Age human potentiality…)." (5/29 HT). Its producer, George Lucas, says that all religions are true, though we cannot know who or what God is.

DELLA REESE'S NEW BOOK DANGEROUS—Della Reese, star of CBS's Touched by an Angel, has a new book titled God Inside of Me which, according to a 5/29 World reviewer, is "confusing," "bears little resemblance to the transcendent God of the Bible.", and: "The characters here may be going to Sunday school, but they are learning New Age lessons." Reese rejects the concept of sin.

ARMY RECRUITS WITCHES—The U.S. Army has recognized white witchcraft as a religion and has appointed chaplains to oversee pagan ceremonies on at least five bases (5/24 Chr. News). The Pentagon believes that at least 100 witches are attending covens at Ft. Hood.

CULTISTS, CHRISTIANS MARCH FOR 'JESUS'—The 5/13 Alabama Baptist said: "March for Jesus is a national and international ecumenical event that unites Christians for the purpose of worshiping Jesus." It is "to unite those taking greater steps toward love." This year's Birmingham event began at Cathedral of the Cross and ended at Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church. The local event, sad to say, began at West Huntsville Baptist Church. David Cloud (5/27 e-mail) said Mormons were invited to participate in the Salt Lake City MFJ. He listed some "false christs" that were invited to this year's MFJ: 1. The Wafer Jesus…worshiped in the Roman Catholic mass. 2. The Mormon Jesus…a polygamist. 3. The Modernist Jesus…not born of a virgin. 4. The Unitarian Jesus who was not God. 5. The Universalist Jesus who will not send anyone to Hell. 6. The Prosperity Jesus who was wealthy. 7. The Laughing Jesus who "slays" people with his spirit and causes them to laugh uncontrollably and to stagger like [drunks]. 8. The Self-esteem Jesus who never called man a sinner and came merely to build up his self image. 9. The Revolutionary Jesus…founder of Liberation Theology.

PRINCETON APPOINTS ANIMAL RIGHTS RADICAL—Princeton University whose faculty once included J. Gresham Machen and Jonathan Edwards has appointed animal rights radical Peter Singer to a chair in bioethics. He says the disabled and unwanted should be killed (see 9/1 CC). To Singer, a newborn has no greater right to life than pigs, cows, and dogs (5/99 Bapt. Banner). Today most educational institutions in the U.S. are anti-Christian.

GOV. VENTURA IS POOR ROLE MODEL—Minn. Governor Jesse Ventura (real name is James Janos) is a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod church member. In his new "profane" book he brags about losing his virginity at 16, visiting prostitutes, and admits he used marijuana and steroids (5/24 Chr. News). He was recently the only governor to refuse to declare a day of Prayer, but he declared a "Rolling Stones Day." He promises to veto any anti-abortion legislation (5/31 CN). He opposes capital punishment and supports much of the gay rights agenda.

PCUSA AWARD TO LESBIAN EVANGELIST—The Presbyterian Church (USA) named lesbian evangelist Jane Spahr as a recipient of its Women of Faith award this year. This divorced mother of two was the first openly homosexual person to serve a PCUSA church (4/1/92 CC). She served with a group dedicated to the ordination of homosexual Presbyterians as church officers (5/15 World). The other two women to receive the award were lesbian Yale prof. Letty Russell, and a retired Princeton professor.

WHY NO OUTRAGE OVER DRUNK DRIVERS?—Drunk driving kills over 16,000 people a year and injures over a million (3/8 USN&WR). Yet the target of liberals' selective outrage today is tobacco and guns. They hardly complain about liquor. Ted Kennedy, using astounding logic, recently told the Senate: "Without guns, families in Littleton, CO would not be grieving and 15 people would be alive today." Applying that logic, without a car and alcohol, a young lady at Chappaquiddick might be alive today since he might not have run off the bridge, and might not have left the scene with her drowning in his car.

PORN A VICTIMLESS CRIME?—Pornography is a $10 billion a year industry and the third largest source of revenue for organized crime. It exploits/abuses women and children and addicts men (6/99 NLJ). An astonishing 86 percent of convicted rapists admitted to regular use of porn.

MARILYN MANSON was ordained in the Church of Satan (6/99 NLJ). He wrote in the foreword to the book Satan Speaks that Church of Satan's late founder, Anton LaVey, "was the most righteous man I've ever known."

SBC PRESIDENT SPEAKS AT CEDARVILLE—The 6/99 Baptist Bulletin stated: "Paige Patterson, president of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and the Southern Baptist Convention, gave a chapel message on God's perfect justice and spoke to the board of trustees on April 7. His chapel message on April 8 addressed the roles of women in the church." What meaneth this? Is it just another link in a litany of new-evangelical speakers Cedarville has had for several years? Or was it an exploratory session with the board, portending a possible affiliation of a sort with the SBC, maybe like Dr. Falwell enjoys—especially since the GARBC is to consider (at its June 26-30 meeting) dropping the approval system for agencies and schools such as Cedarville. It could be none or all of the above. Patterson is a scholar and longtime defender of inerrancy, but certainly no separatist. In 1984 he seemed to be willing to settle for an "equity" arrangement with moderates/liberals in the SBC where half of the seminary professors might tell students the Bible has errors and the other half tell them it does not.

THE NEW EVANGELICALISM-NEUTRALISM—The May 31 Christian News had an article with this title by Prof. Theodore Schubkegel (Faith Evang. Luth. Sem.) in which he referred to New Evangelicalism as a "deadly evil" but hard to define. He said: "The basic question…is how to handle error and false teaching in the church. The old method…is to rebuke the man who is in error and correct him. If he persists in his false teaching, we separate him from us, or ourselves from him, until he repents and turns from the error of his way. This is the Biblical way…." He added [we condense and adapt]: "But the New Evangelicals discard this policy of separation and put in its place the policy of infiltration which leads to toleration of error….which leads to accommodation ….which leads to cooperation….The next step is contamination by error….where we do not rebuke him for his error but work side by side with him as though we approved of him. The final step is capitulation to error, surrendering the truth which is then supplanted by the error." It becomes more important to show love to the errorist than to be concerned about his false doctrine.

SIGNERS OF ECT ASKED TO REPENT–On the 5^th anniversary of the signing of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together accord, Ex-Catholics For Christ (see May-June Proclaiming The Gospel & 9/1/97 CC) in its recent conference called on "evangelical" ECT I and ECT II signers to repent. A statement read: "…The ECT documents are deceitful at best, destructively heretical at worst. They have led multitudes of Christians to believe that there is agreement between the Church of Rome, with its false gospel and the Gospel in which evangelicals have put their trust. [These] documents have introduced much confusion with regard to the simple Gospel message. [They] have done immeasurable harm by hindering the worldwide proclamation of the gospel, especially for evangelical missionaries in Catholic countries. And finally, foundationally, and most critically, the ECT documents deny the biblical Gospel of salvation…." Proclaiming the Gospel (P.O. Box 940871, Plano, TX 75094) has 3 new free-on-request Catholic evangelism tracts.

IFCA'S NEW LEADER—The IFCA executive committee has recommended Rev. Leslie Lofquist to succeed Dr. Richard Gregory as IFCA, Int'l Exec. Dir. A confirmation vote was scheduled for the Annual Meeting in Eugene, OR in late June. Elwood McQuaid, Dave Hunt, and Thomas Ice were among scheduled speakers at this year's 70th Annual Convention (see 3/15 CC). Lofquist's educational background includes Grand Rapids School of Bible/Music, Grace College, and Grace Theol. Seminary.

IS YOUR CHURCH A MEMBER OF THE WCC?—The World Council of Churches is a radical, apostate, liberal, ecumenical, and notoriously evil organization of 339 churches, which includes most of the mainline Protestant denominations of our day. The list includes: American Baptist Churches in the USA, United Methodist Church, Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), Disciples of Christ, United Church of Christ, United Church of Canada, and the Anglican Church of Canada. If you are a member of any of these, or other NCC/WCC churches, God's command is clear that you are to separate (2Cor. 6:14-17, Rev. 18:3) from this ungodly alliance. [A full WCC membership listing is available from: FEA, P.O. Box 6278, Los Osos, CA, 93412. A first-hand report of the WCC's recent 8th Assembly in Zimbabwe is available from: ACCC, P.O. Box 5455, Bethlehem, PA 18015.]

ASBURY BOARD MEMBER SEEKS TO RENEW WCC—Asbury College board member Jan Crouse attended the recent World Council of Churches Jubilee Assembly in Zimbabwe as vice chair for the Proclaim Liberty project to call the WCC away from syncretism and back to biblical orthodoxy (5/24 C. Today). She attended the 1998 Re-Imagining conference and said the center of these radical feminists' ideology is to take over churches. Another women's group she directs serves as a rallying point "to bring mainline Catholic, Orthodox, and evangelical women together around a model for biblical womanhood that both 'traditionalists" and 'egalitarians' can affirm."

GRAHAM: FROM SEPARATION TO ECUMENICISM—In a June 1 Huntsville Times article, Southern Baptist evangelist Dr. Billy Graham looks back over a half-century and sees dramatic change. When he started out "we would have no contact with Roman Catholics, and they didn't have any with us, or even the Lutherans…." Now all denominations join his meetings, and follow-up classes for converts are often held in Catholic parishes. Bible Believers News Service has a "Special Insiders Report" flyer on the Indiana June Crusade. It also lists symptoms of New Evangelicalism. Write BBNS, c/o Landmark Baptist Church, 702 Hastings Dr., Harrisburg, PA 17109.

JOHN JACOB'S POWER TEAM IN SBC FORUMS—John Jacobs' Power Team started over 20 years ago when he was a student at Oral Roberts University. They bend steel bars, break concrete blocks, and do other muscle-flexing stunts (6/20/98 Houston Chron.). They do anti-drug, self-esteem, evangelistic assemblies. They are featured on the charismatic TBN, and in Southern Baptist churches. They are listed in the 5/27 Ala. Baptist to perform at the Aug. 6-7 Youth Evangelism Conference (So. Baptist) in Birmingham, with New Orleans Seminary (SBC) Pres. Dr. Chuck Kelley as keynote speaker, and CCM groups.

REGENDERING THE NIV—Per the 6/5 World: Two years ago, the International Bible Society and Zondervan blundered by quietly trying to regender (drop words like "man" and "he") their best-selling New International Version. When World blew the whistle on this "stealth" plan, IBS and Zondervan disavowed their plans. Now, the IBS board says it will "explore its options." It may now go with two versions: a regendered NIV, that won't be called that, and also continue with the regular NIV.

COLSON SBC PASTORS' SPEAKER—Jerry Falwell was on the SBC program to give a benedictory prayer. Larry Burkett, president of Christian Financial Concepts, was to speak at the SBC Pastors' Conference. The 5/99 Bapt. Banner said, concerning another Pastor's Conference speaker: "Charles Colson [pro-Catholic], founder of Prison Fellowship will bring the concluding message…."

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