International Director:
Jay Rogers

America's Campus Newspaper

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

ATTENTION HIGH SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY STUDENTS!

The articles on this web site may be freely reprinted (unless otherwise indicated).
We encourage you to reprint these articles in whole or part in your campus newspaper, website, or blog and reference them in your research papers. All we ask is to be given the following credit line with our address:

Reprinted by permission from: The Forerunner International, P.O. Box 362173, Melbourne FL 32936-2173

If you use the articles at your website, please also include a link back to the original URL address.

• Apologetics
• Articles by Bob and Rose Weiner
• Arts and Media
• Black America
• China
• Education
• Government
• History
• Homosexual Politics
• Islam
• Latin America
• Literature
• National Events
• Occult and New Age
• Pornography Battle
• Pro-family
• Pro-life Activism
• Reconstruction
• Reformation
• Restoration
• Revival and Spiritual Awakening
• Rock Music
• Russia, Ukraine and former USSR
• Science
• Sports
• Tenth Anniversary Issue
• World Events
• Youth Culture

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If you enjoyed reading any of the articles at this web site, email us at: The Forerunner and send us your comments!

If you are a university student, you will want to check out the Asbury Revival DVD!

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HISTORY OF THE FORERUNNER

The Forerunner newspaper was founded by Bob and Rose Weiner and J. Lee Grady of Maranatha Campus Ministries in 1981. Despite a small beginning with a staff of a few individuals, this publication would eventually reach millions of young people with the message of Truth. The vision was to boldly penetrate the minds and hearts of students with biblical truth by invading the most strategic strongholds of atheistic humanism – the university campuses of America.

The Forerunner was a lonely voice in a vast wilderness of student apathy and pessimism during those first few months, but the news of a growing conservative movement began to flourish by late 1982. By 1983, thirty-five conservative newspapers had been started on major secular campuses. The number more than doubled by 1985. Even at the U.C. Berkeley campus, which has long carried the reputation of being the most liberal of academic institutions in the U.S., students were following that trend. One survey proved that twice as many Berkeley students considered themselves conservative as did those in 1971.

Today there are hundreds of conservative and Christian newspapers on otherwise liberal university campuses!

All during this time, The Forerunner was addressing issues that were at the center of campus debate. We presented biblical alternatives to Marxism, feminism and pro-abortion propaganda. We challenged the student audience to re-evaluate the liberal bias that they are continuously subjected to in the classroom. We were determined to bring American students face to face with the realities of the Word of God as it applies to modern life and controversial social issues.

In 1991, The Forerunner International was founded by Jay Rogers and versions of The Forerunner were published to nations such as South Africa, Russia, Ukraine, China and Latin America. Throughout the 1990s, over half a million copies of the foreign language editions were printed and distributed. In 1995, the on-line version debuted. The traffic to the website has steadily increased and we currently have more than one million unique visitors each year.

This publication went out like seed on what was originally dry and rocky soil. But over the past 27 years, God has obviously been watering and plowing the ground to make it fertile for a spiritual harvest. The spiritual climate of America’s youth is obviously changing: the stolid pessimism of the past is gradually being replaced by a spiritual reawakening to biblical principles and more students than ever before are openly professing a commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

The vision for the present includes video production. We are currently working to increase the number of articles available in Russian and Spanish; and we have begun on-line editions in Portuguese and Urdu. Far from being a static record of the articles published in the past, we continually updating the site.

If you are a student or Christian with a vision to get these articles into the languages of the world, we are always looking for volunteers to be staff editors for the on-line foreign language versions of The Forerunner.

The battle for the hearts and minds of young people in the nations of the world is far from being over. Therefore, we encourage you to make free use of these articles from The Forerunner.

NOTE: Most of the articles on this page appeared in The Forerunner during the time when I was the managing editor (1989-1994).

Jay Rogers
Director, Media House International

1988 Election

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

Democratic Candidates
California Senator Richardson Report
Democrats Pro-life Letter
Republican Convention Address by Dr. Pat Robertson
Lloyd Bentsen's Record
National 40 Days of Prayer
Dukakis' Official Witch?
The Dukakis Platform 1988
Dukakis: A Card Carrying ACLU Member
Dukakis & Willie Horton
Michael Dukakis: A Profile
Dan Quayle for Vice President in 1988
George Bush / Dan Quayle 1988 Platform
Massachusetts State House
Changing America
Supreme Court & Bush-Quayle
Reagan Administration Accomplishments 1981-1989
Dan Quayle profile
Reagan's Last Speech on Foreign Policy at University of Virginia
Bush Inauguration Speech
Prayer in Bush Administration

1992 Election

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

Election 1992: A Series on the Presidential Candidates
Third Parties and First Principles: Howard Phillips takes a long shot
Pat Buchanan Takes Aim at the White House
Jerry Brown - Is there a method behind his madness?
The Democratic Fallout: It's down to Clinton vs. Brown
Bill Clinton - A Question of Character
Sizing Up Ross Perot
George Bush on the issues
Bill Clinton on the Issues
November 1992 Election: Don't Waste Your Vote!
Ross Perot's Last Stand
The Clinton Mandate?
President Bill Clinton quote
Can Clinton Keep His Promises?

Youth Culture

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• Generation X: What Makes Them Different?
• Invading America's High Schools with the Gospel
• Jesus Movement - 20 years later
• Risk Free From AIDS?
• The 1990s: Decade of a New Generation
• The Animal
• The Prophetic Generation
• The Return of the 1960s Revolution
• Torch for Gospel
• Virginity in Vogue
• Youth of Destiny!
• YWAM Leader Warns of AIDS Threat to Teens

World Events

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• Aid Floods into Romania after Fall of Ceausescu
• Aid to Vietnam
• Apartheid Being Dismantled
• Australia - Prayer at Capital
• Australia and New Zealand Report
• Baguio City, Philippines experiences revival
• Baltic States Cry for Freedom
• Billy Graham Draws Record Breaking Crowds in London
• Breaking Up the Eastern Bloc
• Christian Leader of Uganda Pledges to Restore Justice
• Christian Unity Triumphs Over Ethnic Hostility in former Yugoslavia
• Churches in Latin America, India and China experience explosive growth
• Crisis in Iraq could lead to conflict with Islam
• East & West Germany Move Toward Reunification
• Eastern Europe Opening
• First Church Building Opened in Communist North Korea
• Go Ye!
• Green Party in Germany
• Holy Spirit Moves throughout the World
• Hope for South Africa!
• Hungary's Church
• Indonesian Evangelist Predicts Global Awakening
• Indonesian Muslim's testimony
• Iranian Church Growing
• Jaanus Karner - Estonia
• Jaanus Karner - Prophecy
• Jaanus Karner's testimony
• Kenya Outreach
• Nagaland Revival
• New Zealand Revival
• North Korea Evangelization
• Peace Talks Will Spread Christianity in Islamic World
• Philippines 1988
• Post-Marxist countries experience spiritual awakening
• Pro-democracy Movements Sweep AFRICA
• Rate of Conversions Climbing among Muslims in Kenya
• Reflections After Desert Storm
• Report from the Church in North Korea
• Reports of Revival from Saudi Arabia
• Satanic Fury: The Force Behind Islam
• Singaporean student testimony
• South African Student Testimony
• Soviet Soldiers in Afghanistan
• Spain: Five Hundred Years and Religious Freedom
• Testimony from Uganda
• Testimony of prophetic minister from Singapore
• The Baltic States: United for Independence?
• The Collapse of Communism
• The Fallen Star of Islam
• The Humiliation Factor: The Restoration of Iraq and Kuwait
• The Triumph of Faith and Freedom Over Communism
• Three Brave Nations: Baltic States
• Twilight of Scandinavian Socialism
• Uganda's First Lady: AIDS a Moral Problem
• Unleashing the Force of Freedom: George Bush Addresses Europe
• Vineyard Conference in England

Tenth Anniversary Issue

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

The Tenth Anniversary Issue of The Forerunner chronicles, year by year, some of the most significant articles that appeared from May 1981 to May 1991. Under the leadership of Bob and Rose Weiner and Lee Grady, The Forerunner provided remarkable insight into world events and was a prophetic voice to our nation’s youth. The Tenth Anniversary Issue also marked the beginning of the Russian language Forerunner, which was founded by Jay Rogers in Moscow, Russia in April 1991.

• 1980 - Beginnings - Washington For Jesus
• 1981 - The Principle Approach
• 1982 - Reaching the World at our Doorstep
• 1982 - Understanding Our Mandate For Dominion
• 1983 - The 1980s: Decade for ASIA!
• 1984 - Ronald Reagan: "America is Hungry for a Spiritual Revival"
• 1986 - Beginning of "On Campus" edition
• 1988 - A New Biblical Generation
• 1988 - Randall Terry - A 20th Century Hero
• 1988 - The Year That Shook The World!
• 1989 - America's #1 Social Issue
• 1989 - Behind The Freedom Revolution
• 1989 - Inside China's Underground
• 1989 - Judgment Begins in the Church
• 1989 - The Coming Transformation of the USSR
• 1989 - The World Democracy Movement
• 1990 - Breaking Up the Eastern Bloc
• 1990 - The Decade of a New Generation
• 1991 - In the Aftermath of War
• 1991 - The Fallen Star of Islam
• A Note on this Special Tenth Anniversary Issue
• A Walk Through Red Square
• Called to Soviet Asia
• CYI Conference Held in Moscow
• Russian language Forerunner begins!
• The Forerunner to begin in Soviet Union

Sports

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• A "New Breed" of Athlete is catching America's attention
• An interview with Barry Sanders
• Bill Gunter Miami University
• Champion Water Skier
• Dave Dravecky's Comeback
• Kurt Barber, USC - Outside linebacker
• Magic Johnson Talks to Youth: "Save sex until you're married"
• Magic's New Tune On "Safe Sex"
• Marathon Miracle
• NBA Champion A.C. Green
• Olympics - Carl Lewis
• One-On-One With A.C. Green - Have you answered the call?
• Paul Wylie: A Champion for Christ
• Pio Goudinets - University of Southern California Linebacker
• REBOUND!
• Roller Derby Teen
• Superbowl Surprise 1988!
• Suzanne Eagye at U. Hawaii
• U. Texas basketball star Clarissa Davis
• U. Texas' Wimbish Picked for Olympic Trials
• William & Mary's Harry Mehre

Science

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

“I Wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions.”

- Proverbs 8:12

• A Note on Stephen Jay Gould
• Abortion and Creation
• Abortion and Evolution
• Another Look at Dinosaurs
• Author Ruth Nourse on "Special Science Issue"
• Case for Creation: Accountability to God
• Creation Column: Evolutionary Improbabilities
• Creation Scientists Visit Soviet Union
• Creation: A Reflection of the Creator
• Creationism explains human diversity
• Darwin's Final Recantation
• Darwinism: Fact or Faith?
• Does Creation Science Have the Answers?
• Evolution and Thermodynamics
• Evolved From a Lesser Animal?
• Fossils and the Geologic Column
• Geologist displeased with Creationist articles
• How Did We Get the Races?
• Is Evolution more Scientific than Creation?
• Large fossil graveyard discovered in Central Florida
• Lucy Fails Test As Missing Link
• Macro vs. Micro Evolution
• Medical Professional Care
• Philosophical Origins of Evolution
• Recommended Books on Origins
• Scientist is appalled with recent articles
• The Age of the Earth
• The Debate Over Foundations
• The Design of the Universe - Who Holds the Patent?
• THE FINGERPRINTS OF GOD: The Origin of Man
• THE FINGERPRINTS OF GOD: The Origin of the Universe
• The Missing Link?

Russia, Ukraine and former USSR

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

A History of the Downfall of Communism and the Beginning of Freedom for the Gospel in the former USSR

These articles are arranged in chronological order of their original appearance in The Forerunner. Be sure to check out Predvestnik – the Russian language Forerunner!

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• Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World
• Mikhail Gorbachev - TIME Magazine's Man of the Year
• Report from Russia's Churches
• Delegation to Soviets: Release Christian dissident prisoners
• Russian Christians Celebrate 1000th Birthday
• President Reagan's Speech at Moscow State University
• Billy Graham Visits USSR
• Soviet Magazine to Serialize New Testament
• Russian Quotes from Two Centuries
• Toymaker's Dream Tours USSR
• Soviet Television News Crew Visits Evangelical Church
• Bibles and Christian Literature in Soviet Union
• USSR to make Christian Coin
• Landmark Year for Bible Deliveries to USSR
• Communist Youth Drop in Membership
• Foreign Radio Without Interference Allowed in USSR
• Russian Radio
• Free Elections in Soviet Union
• Seven Years of Prayer Key to Opening Soviet Union
• Christian Students To Study in USSR
• Christian Novel Popular in USSR
• Christian Book on Child-Rearing Sold in USSR
• Fast-Paced Changes in USSR
• Wall Street Journal Says Gorbachev May Be A Christian
• The Coming Transformation of the USSR
• Ukraine Launches Autonomy Movement
• Soviet Atheism Facing Crisis
• Thousands of Christian Books at Moscow Book Fair
• Latin American Evangelist Luis Palau Preaches in Soviet Union
• Is the Soviet Union Gog and Magog?
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Warning to the West
• The Downfall of Communism
• Soviet Union Proposes Drastic Measures Toward Perestroika
• Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship in USSR
• Sweeping Changes Are in Store for the USSR
• Prison Fellowship Invited to the Soviet Union
• Historic Soviet Congress
• A Report on the beginnings of Christian Youth International
• Mikhail Gorbachev - A Modern Cyrus?
• Called to Soviet Asia
• A Providential History of Russia
• Predvestnik: The Voice of a New Generation
• Mikhail Gorbachev: Can Perestroika Produce Democratic Freedom?
• An Analysis of the Soviet Awakening
• America Tries to Make Sense of Soviet Politics
• Christian Youth International July 1991 Conference
• White House Predicts Revival of Christianity in Russia
• Reforms Suggested for Soviet Schools
• The One-Way Mirror
• Mikhail Gorbachev quote
• Big changes in store for Ukraine
• Russian Forerunner almost shut down by coup attempt
• Nikita Khrushchev quote
• Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Triumphant Return
• More Letters on Russian Forerunner
• The Moscow 1991 Revolution: An Eyewitness Account
• Christian Youth International Begins
• A Special Report From Ukraine: Russian Forerunner in Kiev
• Letters to Predvestnik
• Yeltsin - A Christian?
• Moscow CYI conference and Kiev outreach held in March 1992
• NJ church to support Russian Forerunner
• Christian Youth International: Phenomenal Church growth in C.I.S.
• Communism on trial in Moscow
• Russian language Forerunner available in U.S.
• Report from Ukraine: Predvestnik's 4th press run
• Subscriptions to Russian Forerunner
• What is Christian Youth International?
• Special Report on a Recent Trip to Russia and Ukraine
• Trends: Rubles to Dollars - What is your money worth in the former USSR?
• End of ministry in former USSR? ... or just the beginning?
• Events of September 1993 in the Russian Federation
• Cult group disbands after leader predicts end of world in Kiev
• Failure of Russian Legislators: A Special Report

Rock Music

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• Hell's Bells - part 1
• Hell's Bells - part 2
• Hell's Bells - part 3
• Hell's Bells - part 4
• Hell's Bells - part 5
• Over The Edge: A Brief History of Rock and Roll
• Over the Edge: Is All Rock Music Bad?
• Over the Edge: The Power of Music
• Prince Former Guitarist Finds You Can't Fool God
• Rock's Underground
• The Force Behind Rock

Revival and Spiritual Awakening

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

“O Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years!
In the midst of the years make it known;
In wrath remember mercy” – Habakkuk 3:2.

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REVIVAL HISTORY

• Jonathan Edwards: Concerts of Prayer
• Revival - Edwards and Wesley
• Revival - Wesley and Whitefield
• The Almost Christian - By John Wesley
• John Wesley - The Highway of Holiness
• Campus Revivals of the Past
• Heirs of a Haystack
• Revival and Young People
• Revival - Amherst College
• Revival - Yale College
• Revival - Charles G. Finney
• What is a Revival? - by Charles G. Finney
• War Cry! - The Salvation Army
• Scottish Revival
• A Revival Account Asbury 2006
• A Revival Account Asbury 1970
• Concerts of Prayer
• Tom Wolfe expects religious awakening
• Ronald Reagan: "America is in the midst of a spiritual revival"
• Washington for Jesus 1988
• Billy Graham's Largest North American Audience
• The Most Hopeful Sign of Our Times
• A Glimpse of World Missions Today
• World Evangelization: Are we reaching closure?
• Rushing Wind - from No Compromise: The Life Story of Keith Green
• Jesus Commands Us to Go!
• Missions Book List
• The 18th Century Awakening: What we can learn from it
• Mario Murillo quote on Revival
• University Campuses to be focus of Spiritual Awakening in '90s
• Looking for Revival? Check College Campuses
• Jesus Film

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REVIVAL THEOLOGY

• Will We Get the Message?
• What is true Revival?
• Perfect Love and Revival
• The Path of Revival - Part One
• The Path of Revival - Part Two
• 1958 Revival Classic Predicted Liberation of the Communist Bloc
• What is Revival and Spiritual Awakening?
• Who Will Rule the Earth?
• The Strategic Imperative for Unity
• The Untold Progress of the Gospel
• Fire From Heaven
• Fallow Ground
• Love blows the trumpet of HOLINESS!
• The Cross of Jesus Christ
• The Victorious Overcoming Church
• What is Revival?
• A Revival Account: Asbury 1970 (DVD)

Restoration

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• The Nature of the Apostolic Ministry
• The Characteristics of a Prophet
• The Characteristics of an Apostle
• Servant To All
• The Deeper Significance of Pentecost
• Early Church
• The Feast of Tabernacles
• The Golden Age
• Being Jewish and Knowing Jesus
• Make Way! - The Blueprint for March For Jesus
• March for Jesus 1992
• Operation: Second Exodus
• Not For Prophets Only
• The Coming Reformation of Righteousness
• Reader disagrees with Gene Edwards' article
• Three Tabernacles
• Restoration of the Church
• God's Perestroika

Reformation

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• The Battle for World Dominion
• A Call for Action
• The Blessings of a Christian Society
• Bridging the Intellectual Void
• Marching to Victory!
• The Power of Hope
• Reformation Bible Institute Correspondence School
• A Call For A Renewed Reformation Zeal
• Rivalry Over Great Principles Reaching Impasse
• The Ruling Power of Ideas
• What is a Worldview?
• The World's Greatest Thinkers Were Christians!
• Puritan Storm Rising!
• John Calvin on Justification By Faith Alone
• Models for Reformation: John Knox (1505-1572)
• Models for Reformation: Covenantal Lawsuits - Church of Scotland (1500s)
• Models for Reformation: Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector (1599-1658)
• Models for Reformation: Puritan America (1620-1776)
• Models for Refomation: William Bradford, Plymouth Colony (1590–1657)
• Models for Reformation: John Winthrop, Massachusetts (1588-1649)
• Models for Reformation: Cotton Mather (1663-1728)
• Models for Reformation: William Booth, The Salvation Army (1829-1912)
• Models for Reformation: Wesley to Wilberforce On Slavery (1791)
• Models for Reformation: The Christian Abolitionists (1800s)
• Models for Reformation: The Women's Suffrage Movement (1800s)
• Models for Reformation: Charles G. Finney (1792-1875)
• Models for Reformation: Martin Niemöller, The Resistance (1892-1984)
• Applying Models for Reformation: The United States in the 21st Century
• Christian Committees of Correspondence: The Second American Revolution
• Christian Committees of Correspondence: Countering the Political Doldrums
• Randall Terry, Christian Defense Coalition
• The Gospel and Social Reform
• Shiloh Christian Fellowship
• Reformation of the Nations

Reconstruction

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

Select Articles by Leading Christian Reconstructionists

“And those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; You will raise up the age old foundations; And you will be called the repairer of the breach, The restorer of the streets in which to dwell” (Isaiah 58:12, NASB).

• Behaviorism
• Marxism
• Feminism
• Eastern Mysticism
• Compassion: Missing Ingredient in American Christianity
• Four Spheres of Government
• War of the Testaments
• 666, Anyone? (Pick a Date! Any Date!)
• A Confession of Victory
• God's Law is Supreme
• The Idol Of Reputation: Are You Nicer Than Jesus?
• The Three "R's" of Christianity: The Power to Transform Culture
• Van Tillian Presuppositional Theonomic Ethics
• Francis Schaeffer quote
• If I were to subvert a culture ...
• A Model for Reformation
• The Attitude of the Godly Towards God's Enemies
• Honest Money
• Paradigm Shift: Ecclesiology and Eschatology
• Imprecatory Prayer: Enforcing the Covenant of God
• The Risk-Free Life
• Christian Reconstruction: A Call for Reformation and Revival
• Peril on Oak's Mountain
• Earthly Victory

Pro-life Activism

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

A History of Operation Rescue

“Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death;
don’t stand back and watch them die” (Proverbs 24:11, TLB).

Operation Rescue articles are listed in the order they appeared in The Forerunner.

• Rescue Mission at Cherry Hill Abortion Clinic
• Operation Rescue in New York City
• Operation Rescue in Philadelphia
• Operation Rescue & Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s
• Who Are Operation Rescue's Activists?
• Randall Terry Interview
• Humble Hero in Atlanta's Rescue
• Notes From The Underground
• Pro-Life Leader Joan Andrews Released from Prison
• Atlanta: Operation Rescue
• Randall Terry: Reformer of the Year 1988
• Operation Rescue in New Zealand
• First All-Black Rescue in Michigan
• Violence on Pro-lifers: Operation Rescue Testimonies
• Why I Went to Jail for Life: Brookline Operation Rescue Story
• Hartford Connecticut Operation Rescue Testimony
• Police Attack Pro-Lifers in West Hartford Connecticut
• Saving Superman: Operation Rescue Testimony
• Third trimester abortions the reason for pro-life demonstrations in Wichita
• What REALLY Happened in Wichita, Kansas
• Cities of Refuge: An Interview with Keith Tucci
• Cities of Refuge: VICTORY!
• Abortion Clinic Buffer Zone Ruled Unconstitutional
• Clearing the Media Smokescreens
• Pro-life Activism

Pro-Life News and Features

• Maryland Governor Becomes Pro-Life Convert?
• Hospital bans elective abortions
• Canadian Pro-Life Movement
• Norm Stone - Abortion Walk
• Jerry Brown - Is he pro-life now?
• Marxism and Abortion
• Abortion major issue in 1988 election
• Attorney General's pro-life case will be heard by Supreme Court
• Pro-life Leader Appointed to Federal Post
• Parental Consent Laws Now Required
• George Will calls Roe v.Wade "bad"
• Justice Department Urges Overturn of Roe vs. Wade
• Roe "Arbitrary" says Blackmun
• Women Injured by Abortion Bring Action Suits Against Clinics
• Removing the Media's Smokescreens
• Former abortionists become pro-life
• Test Your Abortion I.Q.
• Webster Case Reaction Varied
• European Pro-life Forces Fueled by Webster Decision
• Abortion Debate Promises to Divide America
• Victory for Pro-life in Pennsylvania
• Supreme Court On A Collision Course with Roe vs. Wade
• Safe, Legal Abortion?
• Abortion or Infanticide?
• Pro-life Victories!
• Freedom of Choice?
• Abortion and the News Media - Part I
• Abortion and the News Media - Part II
• Learning Before Birth
• Poll reveals most Americans don't know facts on Roe vs. Wade
• Life's Edge: A Special Report on Baby David
• Third Trimester Abortion Exposed by NY Press
• Selling Lies: Deception & the Abortion Industry
• Most Americans Oppose Most Abortions, Wirthlin Poll Finds
• Debater Admits: Abortion is Murder
• Life Without Roe: Making Predictions About Illegal Abortions
• Who Really Speaks for Women?
• The Forerunners of the Women's Movement Were Pro-life
• Confessions of a Convert
• Kevorkian Let Victim Die Amidst Protests
• Clearing the Media Smokescreens
• What Would You Choose?
• Supreme Court Upholds Webster Case
• MIT study discounts safety of French abortion pill
• Stop the AFL-CIO from supporting abortion
• Second Thoughts
• Norma McCorvey: "Jane Roe" of Roe v. Wade
• "Public Views" on abortion depend on questions asked
• Reader Questions Pro-Life Argument
• Pro-Choice Rationale & Pro-Slavery Rationale
• Researchers: Post-Abortion Syndrome a Growing Health Problem
• Point - Counterpoint on Abortion
• Medical Ethics
• Hollywood film carries strong pro-life message.
• A Higher Moral Code
• The Elections of 1856 and 1992
• Defending the Right to Life
• Sick of Death: Testimony of Bernard Nathanson
• America Unites for Life!
• American Medical Association's Statement Condemns Abortion

Pro-family

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• The Battle for the Family
• Advertisers Drop Trash TV
• TV Sponsors Drop Programs
• Divorce Rates Higher for Live-in Couples
• Vice President Quayle and the Murphy Brown Speech
• Focus on the Family Quote
• Remarks by William Bennet
• Domino's Pizza Donates to Pro-Life Ministries

Pornography Battle

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• AT&T moves to eliminate dial-a-porn
• Boycott of Top Pornography Sponsors
• Community protest against pornography is growing
• Dealer Drops Porn
• Dial-A-Porn Stopped
• FCC Rules Indecent Programming O.K. After Midnight
• Holiday Inn bans pornographic movies
• Holiday Inns stop showing prnography
• Kansas City Campaign
• Mass Murder and Pornography on the University of Florida Campus
• Playboy Clubs Close Down
• Playboy's profits are falling
• President Reagan Pushes Anti-pornography package
• Supreme Court Pornography Dilemma
• The Documented Effects of Pornography

Occult and New Age

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• A Thirst for Truth
• Environmentalism: The Newest Religion
• Narcissism
• New Age and Euthanasia
• New Age Psychology
• Resolving Questions About the New Age
• The New Age: Hope for World Peace?
• Tracing the Sources of the New Age
• What Is The New Age

National Events

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• Reaching Youth with Evangelism Teams
• The Great Escaping Scoop - or - How to Evade the Story of the Century
• Communist Party opts out of 1988 presidential race
• Bill Bennet says Bible should be taught in schools
• Poll: 1960s Generation More Religious than National Average
• Cocaine use falls
• Robertson and the Reagan Gap
• Largest Drug Shipment in U.S. History Found by Fed Agents
• Belief in Astrology on Decline
• Dr. Ruth Westheimer's Startling Remarks
• Humanist Loses Battle
• In God We Trust on our currency
• Major Networks Losing Control of Audiences
• National Council of Churches in Financial Straits
• What we learned from Ted Bundy
• Medical Professionals say prayer helps
• Gambling and the State Lotteries
• Gallup Poll on TV
• School Prayer Bill to be Introduced
• Supreme Court Minority Favors Review of Church-State Relations
• Churches Respond with Compassion to Hurricane Victims
• Gallup Book Review - The People's Religion: American Faith in the 90s
• Pollster Says Silber May Win in Massachusetts
• What will the David Souter appointment mean?
• Lee Atwater Makes a Change
• What Will The Clarence Thomas Appointment Mean?
• L.A. Prays for Peace
• A Meeting with President Bush
• National Day of Prayer
• Are You Ready To Be a Hero?
• Can We Make a Deal for Peace?
• What is the significance of Clinton's "New Covenant"

Literature

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• BU President John Silber Takes Aim at America
• Columbus & Cortez, Conquerors for Christ
• Hijacking of American Education: Part 1 - War of the Poets
• Hijacking of American Education: Part 2 - Longfellow vs. Poe
• Hijacking of American Education: Part 3 - Sarah Margaret Fuller
• Hijacking of American Education: Part 4 - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Hijacking of American Education: Part 5 - Flapjack Turning at Harvard
• Hijacking of American Education: Part 6 - The American "Enlightenment"
• Hijacking of American Education: Part 7 - Darwin's Theory of Evolution
• Hijacking of American Education: Part 8 - History as Truth
• Megatrends authors predict spiritual awakening for the 1990s
• No Reply - By Leo Tolstoy
• South African Forerunner Premieres
• The Forerunner International
• The Mandate: The Chinese Forerunner
• The New Millennium - By Pat Robertson
• The Story of Liberty
• The War of the Words
• Twenty-six lead soldiers
• Why do we need the printed word?

Latin America

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• Breaking the Power of the Narcotics Trade
• State of the Sandanista Regime in Nicaragua
• Evangelical Churches Gain Stature in Cuba
• Christian Churches Growing in Mexico
• Honduran student testimony
• Cuba's Church
• Religious Awakening in Castro's Cuba
• Local Leaders Say Major Revival Is Occurring in Cuba
• Revival Surges in Argentina
• Nicaraguan Christian School Government
• Mexico City Student Testimony
• Evangelism in Colombia
• The Progress of the Gospel on Venezuela's University Campuses
• Friends of Latin America
• California Doctor Makes History in Cuba
• Colombian Pastor Resists Threats from Drug Dealers
• Noriega Linked to Drugs and the Occult
• Growing Revival in Peru Leads to Change in Government
• Tufts Graduate Shares Christian Principles with Bolivian Government
• Inter-American Congress of Christian Parliamentarians to meet in '92
• Defending Liberty in Bolivia
• Guatemalans Elect Evangelical President
• Castro: Marxism's Last Holdout
• Mexico Partially Restores Religious Freedom
• America's Christian History: A Latin American Perspective
• Latin America On Fire
• The Reformation of Latin America
• Tribal Members Visit Earth Summit
• Guerilla Members Abandon Violent Front
• Missions Report: Bruce Olson's and Colombia's Motilone Indians
• Rutherford Institute resists persecution of Christians in Mexico
• The Christian Revolution in Latin America
• Champions for Christ in Central America
• Church and State in the New Paraguayan Constitution
• Latin American Evangelicals: Impact and Future in Latin American Culture
• Argentine Legislators to Consider Religious Liberty Law
• Church and State in Latin American Constitutions

Islam

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

A Response to Islam
Islam: Beliefs and Practices
What Is Islam?
What Muslims Believe

Homosexual Politics

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• Are People Born Homosexual?
• Culture of Androgeny
• Exposing the Myths
• In the Media Spotlight: Furor over homosexuality continues at Harvard
• Liberation from Homosexuality
• Student journal triggers campus wide debate on homosexuality
• The Hidden Agenda of Homosexual Politics

History

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• A Model of Christian Charity - Modern Text
• A Model of Christian Charity - Original Text
• America's Christian Leaders: Anne Hutchinson
• America's Christian Rulers: John Quincy Adams
• America's Christian Rulers: John Winthrop
• Anne Hutchinson's Role Debated
• Columbus' Christian Character and Divine Mission
• Finney Visits Boston
• History of Black America
• History vs. Hypocrisy: Our Founders Critique Today's Party Platforms
• In Search of Columbus
• Life of the Apostle Paul
• Mr. Jefferson Goes to Congress
• New book is antidote to Columbus bashing
• Phillis Wheatley: Precursor of American Abolitionism
• Prophetic Voices Concerning America
• Republicans and Whigs
• The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
• The Discovery of America
• The Fire That Was Kindled in Bohemia
• The Man Who Preached After He Was Dead
• The Mighty Scourge of War: Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
• The North End Story
• The Power of a Christian Nation: Liberty Begins Internally
• The Progress of the Gospel in England
• The Quincentenary and Spanish Missions
• The Spirit of Massachusetts is the Spirit of America
• The True Nature of History
• Two Views of History
• Was Abraham Lincoln a Christian?
• Was America founded as a Christian nation?
• Westward Progress of the Gospel
• Whatever Happened to Western Civilization?
• Who was Thomas Jefferson?
• William Wilberforce quote
• Your Opinion of Columbus Reveals Your Worldview

Government

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

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1992 Presidential Election

1988 Presidential Election

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More Government Articles

• Why I Oppose Marxism
• Big Government
• War on Drugs
• Downfall of Communism
• Margaret Thatcher Speech
• Communism's Poor Rewards
• D.C. Prayer Groups
• What About Capital Punishment?
• New Crime Responses Proposed
• Should Church and State be Separated?
• The False Separation of Church and State
• Supreme Court to Reexamine View of Church-State Relations
• An American's Rights and Responsibilities Under the Constitution
• The Bill Of Rights: Facing A Crisis On Its Bicentennial Anniversary
• Separation of Church and State: Has it gone too far?
• C. Everett Koop, M.D. quote
• Redeeming the Republic
• Democracy: The Mandate of Heaven
• America's Heritage: Are we a Christian Nation?
• Two Views of Government
• The Leader America Needs
• Why Has the Appeal of Communism Endured for So Many?
• Making a Difference in the U.S. Military
• Messiah Complex
• In Search of Democracy
• A Christian Agenda for Environmental Protection
• Christ and Civil Government: An Exposition of Psalm 2

Education

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• A Brief History of Christian Influence in U.S. Colleges
• A World Split Apart by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• Accuracy in Academia - Freedom of Speech Violations
• America's Best Colleges
• Are You Funding Marxist Revolution with Your Tuition?
• Banning Prayer in Public Schools Has Led to America's Demise
• British Education: Keeping The Faith
• BU President John Silber Announces Gubernatorial Bid
• Classroom Bias
• Court Upholds Rutherford Institute Case
• Four Centuries of Faith at Harvard
• How Christians Started the Ivy League
• Moral Education
• Nationwide Textbook Undermines Family Values
• Parent sued by teacher for calling classes "occultic"
• Sex Education
• Siberia is "Land of Opportunity" Says 6th Grade Textbook
• Steps Toward Academic Excellence
• Steps Toward Self Education
• Teach kids abstinence!
• Teachers in China
• Teaching the Virtues
• Test Your C.L.Q.*
• The Marxist Assault on the Curriculum
• The World's Greatest Thinkers
• Unchanging Values in a Changing Society
• Valedictorian Suing School Officials for Censoring Speech
• Value Free Education "Bankrupt" says educator
• What Happened When the Praying Stopped
• What's wrong with the politically correct curriculum?

China

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• Report from China's Church
• China Reforms in religious legislation
• China's Spiritual Awakening - True Testimonies
• Evangelist Graham Talks with Chinese Leaders During Recent Visit
• Jesus Fever in China
• Billy Graham in China
• Billy Graham's Visit to China: A Retrospective
• Professor Tells of Spiritual Hunger in China
• What the Bush Election Means for China Missions
• Bibles Sold in Chinese Bookstores
• China Church Growth
• Teachers in China
• Hundreds of Chinese Youth Attending Church
• Tiananmen Square Massacre
• The Pro-Democracy Revolution in China:
• Congress of Chinese Students in USA
• Chinese Church Resurges After Beijing Massacre
• Spiritual Hunger Sparks Revival
• China's Students Flocking to Christianity
• Pro-Life Victory in China
• Youth Revival in the People's Republic of China
• China's History in Providential Perspective
• The Largest Remaining Communist Nation
• China: The Hidden Miracle
• The Mandate For China: A Great Task Awaits the Church

Black America

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• A New Era for Black Leadership
• Affirmative action ineffectual says Washington Post columnist
• Black America: Your Destiny Awaits You!
• Black History Month
• Evangelism on Black History Week
• Louis Farrakhan
• Martin Luther King
• The New Segregation
• UF Law Professor Combats Racism

Arts and Media

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• ABC-TV raises time-worn allegations
• An Insight Into Hollywood Standards
• Batman, Ghostbusters, Star Trek, Indiana Jones
• Bette Davis Hyman story
• But Is It Art?
• Dick Tracy
• Don't Touch That Dial
• Is There A Resurgence of Values in Hollywood?
• Jewish Journalist Speaks Out
• Last Temptation of Christ: A Financial Loss
• Life After Television
• Ludwig van Beethoven
• Media Bias in America
• Review: "Shelter From The Storm" by PowerSource
• Short Meditations on the Bible and Peanuts
• Telling It Like It Is(n't)!
• The Fiber Optics Revolution: How it will change your life
• The Nature of Conspiracies
• The Winans: Time to Make a Change
• TIME on "The Last Temptation of Christ"
• Unholy Hollywood

Apologetics

By Jay Rogers
Published May 2008

• "Did Adam Have a Navel?"
• "Heaven? Come On!"
• Archaeology Confirms The Bible's Reliability
• Born Again?
• English Judge Said Resurrection Was a Fact
• Got a Problem With the Bible?
• Have You Felt Like Giving Up Lately?
• How an Atheist Professor Swayed C.S. Lewis to Become a Christian
• How Archaeology Proved the Bible's Accuracy
• How Did We Get the Bible?
• Jesus Christ Was Not a "Coincidence"
• Judgment Day
• Just Love Jesus
• Scientific Accuracy of the Bible
• Sharing Christ on a One-to-One Basis
• Siberian student Murad Abdul-Ali testifies
• The Anvil that Has Worn Out Many Hammers
• The Bible - Is It Authentic?
• The Bible - Reliable Enough for "the Father of Modern Navigation"
• The Book That Changed History
• The Book That Has Survived Its Enemies
• The Book that Refused to Be Written
• The Incomparable Christ!
• The Influence of the World's Greatest Book
• The Real Jesus
• These are the Facts
• Two Men Who Tried to Disprove Christianity
• Ukrainian student Alexander Bolotnikov testifies
• What About All the "Contradictions" in the Bible?
• Whatever Happened to Sin?
• Who Is This Jesus Christ Anyway?
• Who was the greatest?
• Why Christianity is Unique Among Religions

Articles by Bob and Rose Weiner

By Bob and Rose Weiner
Published May 2008

• The Conquering Power of Christianity - Part I
• The Conquering Power of Christianity - Part II
• Can We Change the Weather?
• Reclaiming the Power of the Gospel - Part I
• Reclaiming the Power of the Gospel - Part II
• Are You Prepared for the Coming Revival? - Part I
• Are You Prepared for the Coming Revival? - Part II
• True Prophets
• America's Moment of Decision
• The Day America Stopped Praying
• A Tribute to Ronald Reagan
• The Call of God on Black America
• America, You're Too Young To Die
• Earthquake
• The Power of Forgiveness
• Old vs. New Covenant
• Look upon Him ... And Live!
• The Conquering Power of Liberty
• Are You a Part of a Generation of Destiny?
• Rediscovering New World Thinking
• The Cross is a Radical Thing
• Are You Ready for the Coming World Awakening?
• America: Defending Our Freedom
• A Triumph of Leadership
• Economic Boom Is On!
• In the Aftermath of War
• The Irresistable Power of Historic Christianity
• What's Wrong With Education
• Not My Will, But YOUR WILL Be Done
• The United States Constitution and the Natural Law
• A Force in the Earth: The Triumphant Power of Christianity
• The Day America Stopped Praying
• God delights in using broken things
• Removing the Veil
• What went wrong in Los Angeles?
• Where Have All the Heroes Gone?
• Bill Clinton's America: What will it be like?
• A Strategy for Action in the 1990s
• The Power of the Pen

Why Christianity is Unique Among Religions

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Some people think that Christianity is simply a certain set of beliefs and values, like any other world religion. But to those critics and scholars who have set out to study it, all have come away with the conclusion that Christianity is unique because it is based upon a historical event: namely, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Dr. J.N.D. Anderson, professor of oriental law and the director of the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London, concluded his research on the resurrection by saying:

“It seems to me inescapable that anyone who chanced to read the pages of the New Testament for the first time would come away with one overwhelming impression, that there is a faith firmly rooted in certain allegedly historical events, a faith which would be false and misleading if those events had not actually taken place, but which – if they did take place – is unique in its relevance and exclusive in its demands on our allegiance.”

Even Dr. David Friedrick Strauss, an unbelieving skeptic who has severely criticized anything supernatural in the Gospels, was forced to acknowledge the fact that the resurrection is “the touchstone, not of the life of Jesus only, but of Christianity itself.” It “touches Christianity to the quick” and is “decisive for the whole view of Christianity.”

In other words, the entire Christian faith rests upon the validity of one supernatural, historical event which was witnessed by approximately 500 people in the first century A.D.: the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. No other system of religious belief draws its authenticity from such an event.

What About All the "Contradictions" in the Bible?

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

There’s a typical argument heard on campus, particularly in the religion department: “You can’t trust the Bible because its full of inconsistencies and contradictions.” Religion professors and skeptics of Christianity capitalize on the fact that there are thousands of various readings of both the Old and New Testaments … leaving Christian faith with little to stand on.

But is this true? Ezra Abbot, a member of the American Revision Committee, wrote about the various readings in his Critical Essays: “The number of ‘various readings’ frightens some innocent people, and figures largely in the writings of the more ignorant disbelievers in Christianity. ‘One hundred and fifty-thousand various readings!’ Must not these render the text of the New Testament wholly uncertain, and thus destroy the foundation of our faith?

“The true state of the case is something like this. Of the 150,000 various readings, more or less, of the text of the Greek New Testament, we may dismiss nineteen-twentieths from consideration at once, as being obviously of such a character, or supported by so little authority, that no critic would regard them as having any claim to reception. This leaves, we will say, 7,500.

“But of these, again, it will appear on examination that 19 out of 20 are of no sort of consequence as affecting the sense; they relate to questions of orthography, or grammatical construction, or the order of words, or such other matters as have been mentioned above, in speaking of unimportant variations.

“They concern only the form of expression, not the essential meaning. This reduces the number to perhaps 400, which involve a difference of meaning, often very slight, or the omission or addition of a few words, sufficient to render them objects of some curiosity or interest, while a few exceptional cases among them may relatively be called important. But our critical helps are now so abundant that in a very large majority of these questions of reading we are able to determine the true text with a good degree of confidence. In the text of all ancient writings, there are passages in which the text cannot be settled with certainty; and the same is true of the interpretation.”

Biblical scholar Philip Schaff concludes that only 400 of the 150,000 various readings caused doubt about the textual meaning, and only 50 of these were of great significance. Not one of the variations, Schaff says, “altered an article of faith or a precept of duty which is not abundantly sustained by other and undoubted passages, or by the whole tenor of Scripture teaching.”

That textual errors do not endanger doctrine is emphatically stated by Sir Frederick Kenyon: “No fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith rests on a disputed reading.”

Kenyon also points out that the Bible has the most reliable manuscripts in the world when compared with any other ancient book. “Scholars are satisfied that they possess substantially the true text of the principal Greek and Roman writers whose works have come down to us, of Sophocles, of Thucydides, of Cicero, of Virgil; yet our knowledge of their writing depends on a mere handful of manuscripts, whereas the manuscripts of the New Testament are counted by hundreds, and even thousands.”

Taken from Evidence That Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell, © 1972 by Campus Crusade for Christ, San Bernardino, CA pages 43-45.

These are the Facts

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Love

God made you and loves you more than you could ever imagine. He also knows everything about you: your past, your problems, and your feelings. He wants to change your life.

Everything God does is out of love. This love is not based on feelings, but always chooses for your highest good.

“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Selfishness

Sin is really selfishness, living for self only, a “me-first” attitude. Sin denies God the right to be God in your life. Because of this, you feel lonely, guilty, and afraid.

Hate

God hates sin because it cost so much. He never planned sin or unhappiness, and that is why He feels so much heartache over you. It is destroying His universe, it is destroying you, and it cost God His only Son, Jesus Christ. Because He is just, He cannot allow sin to go unpunished. Otherwise, the entire universe would collapse. You see, a law without penalty simply becomes advice. There must be a penalty as important as the law it is designed to protect.

Consequences

As a sinner, you deserve to be punished. Deep down inside you know that. By rights, you should pay the penalty for your sin. If you are really honest, you will admit that you knew what was right but you didn’t do it. You have no excuses. “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”

Escape

But, in His great love and wisdom God found a way to forgive you and still be just, if you are willing to meet His conditions, not your own. The Lord Jesus offered His own perfect life as a sacrificial substitute for the penalty of your sin. You can choose one of two things: pay the penalty of sin yourself, or resolve to turn your back on the past and give your life to God.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life …”

Rethink

Stop running away from the voice of God. You must be totally honest with yourself and God. Stop making excuses. Admit it from your heart, “I am all wrong.” If necessary write down everything that has prevented you from serving Him as you should.

Repent

Turn your back on your old way of life. Be willing to give up any habit, plan or friend you have been living your life for instead of God.

Renounce

Give up all rights to your life. You must be willing to let God be your boss from now on. A true Christian has nothing of his own. All his time. talents, money, possessions, friends, career, and future must be surrendered for his King’s service.

God knows best and will never ask you to do anything you will regret in the end.

Replan

Be ready to make many changes in your life. The very moment you make this heart choice for God, the old you will die and a new person inside you will begin to live. Wherever you need to confess wrong, or restore or repay something to someone, the Lord Jesus will give you the courage and the words to say. Becoming a Christian implies the willingness to right all known wrong.

Receive

… the Lord Jesus Christ by faith to rule in your heart as king. This is a choice of your will made intelligently and carefully. Trust, surrender, believe from your heart, be totally honest with Him. Receive Christ into your life as Lord and master and live for Him from this moment on.

Ready

There is no time like now. God has done all He can for you. The next move must be yours. Are you willing to trust His love? Or will you choose a future without Christ and without hope? Would you be very honest with Him right now? Tell Him in your own words something like this:

A true prayer for conversion

I freely admit that I am a sinner. I’ve sinned against my God, against my neighbors and against my own soul. I’ve sinned in the world, in my business and pleasures. I’ve done many things I should not have done and left undone things I should have done.

I will not cover my sins. They are more than I can count and grievous beyond the possibility of calculation. They have dishonored my Heavenly Father; treated the sacrifice of Jesus with contempt; exercised a bad influence upon the members of my own family as well as upon those who have known me in the world. I deserve the everlasting displeasure of God, and I see that if I die in my sins, I shall fall into the damnation of Hell.

O Lord, have mercy upon me!

Not only do I see that I’ve sinned against God, but I am truly sorry for what I’ve done. I honestly hate my evil ways, and I deeply regret the damage that has been done for having followed them. I am grieved on account of my sins – not only because they have led me to the brink of Hell, but because they have been committed against my Heavenly Father who has continually loved and cared for me.

If I could undo the past, I’d gladly do so; but I can’t! The sins I’ve committed are written down against me in the book of God’s remembrance. No prayers I can offer, no tears I can shed, no mourning I can do, nor good works I can perform will remove that terrible record. My only hope is in the forgiving mercy of Jesus Christ who has said, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

I am sorry because of my sins, and I freely confess and acknowledge them before God. I have no excuse to make for them. It may be true that much of the evil of which I am guilty was done in ignorance, but I am sorry for this, too.

I was often ignorant of the evil influence which my conduct and example were exercising on others. But this ignorance is no real excuse, because I might have known better. I didn’t know God, nor my duty to Him, nor the greatness of the love of my Savior in dying for me. I should have read the Bible and listened to those who would have taught me. I should have thought about my soul and should have cried to God for help. But I didn’t, and consequently my mouth is closed before Him, helpless to make a single, valid excuse. I here and now confess myself before God to be a guilty sinner, without excuse, deserving only His condemnation.

I’ve sinned in the presence of my family, friends and the people around me. Not only do I make this confession in private, but I am perfectly willing to confess my sinfulness and the sorrow caused by it, to the extent I have the opportunity, before the Lord’s people, my own family and the world. Not having been ashamed to sin in the presence of others, I’m willing to acknowledge it in their presence. I also realize that because of the nature of certain sins I should confess them to God alone.

I have seen myself to be a sinner and have confessed my sins before God and others. With God’s help I now renounce and turn away from every one of my past sins. Whatever pleasure sin may have brought me in the past and whatever earthly gain temptation may promise me in the future, I have and now, in the strength of God, put sin away from my life, never to go back again.

Feeling how shamefully I’ve rebelled against my Heavenly Father (in despising His love, in breaking His commandments and influencing others to do the same), I submit myself to Him here on my knees right now. Lord, I humbly pray that you will have mercy upon me, a miserable sinner; and I ask you for Christ’s sake to forgive all my sins, to receive me into your arms; and to make me, unworthy though I am, a member of your family.

I promise you, Heavenly Father, in your strength and with all my heart as you forgive me and receive me into your favor, that I determine from now on to be your faithful servant, spending the rest of my days doing what I can for your glory, for the extension of your kingdom and for the salvation of those around me.

I believe that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, in His great mercy and love, having died for me in my place, bore my sins in His own body on the cross.

Believing this, I here and now welcome you, Jesus, into my heart as my Savior from hell, from sin, from the power of the devil and from my ownself-righteousness.

Your Word says that if I come to you, you will in no wise cast me out; and I come to you with all my heart just now, as a helpless, guilty sinner, seeking salvation and trusting only in your blood.

I am sure you will not reject me. Rather, I believe at this very moment you are taking me into your family. Thank you for forgiving me and for your precious blood that washes all my sins away. You were wounded for my transgression; you were bruised for my iniquities; the punishment I should have received was laid upon you; and by your sufferings I am healed.

I am forgiven! Praise the Lord! Thank you, Jesus, for salvation!

© 1983 Agape Force. Portions of this tract are used by permission from “These Are the Facts,” by Winkie Pratney. Other portions are adapted from “How to Be Saved,” by William Booth.

The Bible - Reliable Enough for "the Father of Modern Navigation"

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Skeptics of the Bible’s validity should be interested to note how it was involved in the history of ocean navigation. Thousands of years before scientists knew anything about ocean currents, a scripture was penned in the Psalms which stated, “… whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas” (Psalm 8:8).

Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806-1873), known today as “the father of navigation,” made the discovery in 1860 that the ocean was a circulating system. He recorded in his journals that he first came upon this theory while reading the scriptures. He went on to draw accurate maps of ocean currents which are still used today.

Taking into account that the Bible is a historically, geographically, and scientifically accurate book – as opposed to some storybook – should lead every rational thinker to make an intelligent decision about the message that the book conveys.

Who was the greatest?

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

At the end of his life, the great Napolean Bonaparte was exiled after a long and illustrious career. On one occasion, while he was being interviewed, he was asked, “Who was the greatest general of all time?” Without hesitating, he said, “Jesus of Nazareth.”

Surprised by this, the interviewer then asked, “But why not Caesar? Why not Napolean?”

The little general then replied, “Because when I call my armies, they do not hear me. My armies are dead. But this Jesus of Nazareth – after two thousand years, from beyond the grave, in generation after generation – He calls His army and His army marches on!”

Have You Felt Like Giving Up Lately?

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By David Wilkerson

In one way or another, we are all hurting. Everyone is in the same boat. Even the laughing, happy-go-lucky crowd is hurting. They try to hide their hurt by drinking and joking, but it won’t go away.

Who hurts? The parents of a son or daughter who is missing or who has rejected their love. Millions of parents have been deeply wounded by children who have rejected their counsel. These loving parents grieve over the deception and delinquency of children who were once tender and good.

The victims of divorce are hurting. The abandoned wife whose husband rejected her for another woman is hurting. The husband who lost the love of a wife is hurting. The children who lost their security are hurting.

Others suffer illness: cancer, heart problems, and a myriad of other human diseases. To be told by a doctor, “You have cancer; you may die!” has to be terrifying. Yet many reading this message have experienced such pain and agony.

A loving friendship breaks up. A boyfriend or girlfriend walks away trampling on what was once a beautiful relationship. All that is left is a broken, wounded heart.

And what about the unemployed? The despondent ones whose dreams have collapsed? The shut-ins? The prisoners? The homosexuals? The alcoholics?

It is true! In one way or another we are all hurting. Every person on this earth carries his own burden of pain and hurt.

There Is No Physical Cure

When you are deeply hurt, no person on this earth can shut out the innermost fears and agonies. The best of friends cannot really understand the battle you are going through or the wounds inflicted on you.

Only God can shut out the waves of depression and feelings of loneliness and failure which come over you. Faith in God’s love alone can salvage the hurt mind. The bruised and broken heart that suffers in silence can be healed only by a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, and nothing short of divine intervention really works.

God has to step in and take over. He has to intercept our lives at the breaking point, stretch forth His loving arms, and bring that hurting body and mind under His protection and care. God must come forth as a caring Father and demonstrate that He is there, making things turn out for good. He must, by His own power, dispel the storm clouds, chase away the despair and gloom, wipe away the tears, and replace the sorrow with peace of mind.

Your hurt is so debilitating that it makes you feel that there is something terribly wrong with you. You even question your sanity at times. From somewhere deep inside you, a voice whispers, “Maybe I’m defective, somehow. Maybe I’m being hurt so deeply because God can’t see much good in me.”

Friends Try So Hard to Help

A bruised or broken heart causes the most excruciating pain known to mankind. Most other human hurts are only physical, but a heart that is wounded must carry a pain that is both physical and spiritual. Friends and loved ones can help soothe the physical pain of a broken heart. When they are there, laughing, loving, and caring, the physical pain eases, and there is temporary relief. But the night falls, and with it comes the terror of spiritual agony. Pain is always worse in the night. Loneliness falls like a cloud, when the sun disappears. The hurting explodes when you are all alone, trying to understand how to cope with the inner voices and fears that keep surfacing.

Your friends, who really don’t understand what you are going through, offer all kinds of easy solutions. They get impatient with you. They are mostly happy and carefree, at the time; and they can’t understand why you don’t simply snap out of it. They suspect that you are indulging in self-pity. They remind you that the world is filled with heartbroken, hurting people who have survived. More often, they give that one-time, cure-all, solve-everything piece of advice. They tell you to: “Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps,” and walk away from your despair.

That’s all well and good, but this kind of advice usually comes from people who have never known much suffering in their own lives. They are like Job’s babysitters, who knew all the answers, but who could not relieve his pain. Job said to them, “You are all physicians of no value” (Job 13:4). Thank God for well-meaning friends, but if they could experience your agony for even one hour, they would be changing their tunes. Put them in your place just once, feeling what you feel, experiencing the inner pain you carry, and they would be saying to you, “How in the world can you take it? I couldn’t handle what you are going through!”

Time Heals Nothing

Then there is that age-old cliché: “Time heals all wounds.” You are told to hang in there, put on a smile, and wait for time to anesthetize your pain. But I suspect all the rules and clichés about loneliness are coined by happy, unhurt people. It sounds good, but it is not true. Time heals nothing; only God heals!

When you are hurting, time only magnifies the pain. Days and weeks go by, and the agony hangs on. The hurting won’t go away, no matter what the calendar says. Time may push the pain deeper into the mind, but one tiny memory can bring it to the surface.

People seldom get hurt just once. Most who hurt can show you other wounds also. Pain is layered over pain. A broken heart is usually a tender, fragile one. It is easily broken because it is not protected by a hard shell. Tenderness is mistaken for vulnerability by the hard-shelled heart. Quietness is misjudged as a weakness. The tender heart that is not afraid to admit its need of love is often misjudged.

It follows then that a tender heart which reaches for love and understanding is often the easiest to break. Hearts that are open and trusting are usually the ones that are wounded the most.

This world is filled with men and women who have rejected the love offered to them from a heart that is gentle and tender. These strong, hard-shelled hearts that trust no one, hearts that give so little hearts that demand love be constantly proved, hearts that are always calculating, hearts that are always manipulating and self-serving, hearts that are afraid to risk are the ones that seldom get broken. They don’t get wounded, because there is nothing to wound. They are too proud and self-centered to allow anyone else to make them suffer in any way. They go about breaking other hearts and trampling on the fragile souls who touch their lives, simply because they are so thick and dull at heart themselves, and they think everyone should be just as they are. The hard hearts don’t like the tears. They hate commitment. They feel smothered when asked to share from their own hearts.

Is there balm for the broken heart? Is there healing for those deep, inner hurts? Can the pieces be put back together and the heart be made even stronger? Can the person who has known such horrible pain and suffering rise out of the ashes of depression and find a new and more powerful way of life? Yes! Absolutely yes!

Let me share a few simple thoughts about how to cope with your hurt.

1. Stop trying to figure out why you got hurt. What has happened to you is a very common ailment among mankind. Your situation is not unique at all. It is the way of human nature. Whether you were right or wrong means absolutely nothing at this point. All that matters now is your willingness to move on in God and trust His mysterious workings in your life. The Bible says:

“Think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you” (1 Peter 4:12,13).

God didn’t promise you a painless way of life: He promised you a way of escape. He promised you help to put you back on your feet when weakness makes you stagger. So lay off all your guilt trips. Stop condemning yourself. Stop trying to figure out what you did wrong. It is what you are thinking right now that really counts with God.

2. When you hurt the worst, go to a secret place and weep out all your bitterness. Jesus wept. Peter wept bitterly! Peter carried with him the hurt of denying the very Son of God. He walked alone on the mountains, weeping in sorrow. Those bitter tears worked a sweet miracle in him. He came back to shake the world.

A woman who had endured a mastectomy wrote a book entitled First You Cry. How true! Recently I talked with a friend who was just informed he had terminal cancer. “The first thing you do,” he said, “is cry until there are no more tears left. Then you begin to move closer to Jesus, until you know His arms are holding you tight.”

Jesus never looks away from a crying heart. He said, “A broken heart will I not despise” (see Psalms 51:17). Not once will the Lord say, “get a hold of yourself! Stand up and take your medicine! Grit and dry your tears.” No! Jesus bottles every tear in His eternal container.

Do you hurt? Bad? Then go ahead and cry! And keep on crying until the tears stop flowing. But let those tears originate only from hurt, and not from unbelief or self-pity.

3. Convince yourself you will survive, you will come out of it; and live or die, you will belong to the Lord. Life does go on. You would be surprised how much you can bear, with God helping you. Happiness is not living without pain or hurt – not at all. True happiness is learning how to live one day at a time, in spite of all the sorrow and pain. It is learning how to rejoice in the Lord, no matter what has happened in the past.

You may feel rejected. You may feel abandoned. Your faith may be weak. You may think you are down for the count. Sorrow, tears, pain, and emptiness may swallow you up, at times; but God is still on His throne. He is still God!

You can’t help yourself. You can’t stop the pain and hurt. But our blessed Lord will come to you, and he will place his loving hand under you and lift you up to to sit in heavenly places. He will deliver you from the fear of dying. He will reveal his endless love for you. Look up! Encourage yourself in the Lord. When the fog surrounds you and you can’t see any way out of your dilemma, lie back in the arms of Jesus and simply trust him. He has to do it all! He wants your faith and confidence.

He wants you to cry aloud, “Jesus loves me! He is with me! He will not fail me! He is working it all out, right now! I will not be cast down! I will not be a victim! I will not lose my mind or direction! God is on my side! I love Him and He loves me!”

The bottom line is faith. And faith rests on this one absolute: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” – Ephesians 2:8-10

"Heaven? Come On!"

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Francis Anfuso

“I don’t believe in heaven – Why should someone believe in what we cannot see or hasn’t personally experienced?”

“Just because another person is convinced about something, does not mean that I have to agree with him.”

“People talk about Heaven, but no one can prove to me that it exists – until I know for sure, I’m not going to accept it.”

Many people have strong reasons as to why they don’t believe in Heaven. We all have the freedom to accept whether or not it exists.

I am sure that each of us has heard of people who have had “out of the body experiences,” in which their physical bodies either came precariously close to deaths, or actually even died. When they returned to being physically conscious, they reported incredible experiences in another dimension. Many have insisted that they went to Heaven or Hell for a brief but live changing period of time. We each certainly have the right to accept or reject their reports, but the frequency and similarity of these experiences make us wonder.

In a similar way, we all have the privilege of rejecting the idea of Heaven, but we also should be open to consider why hundred of millions of people on this earth believe it exists.

Let’s consider some of the reasons why people believe in Heaven. One reason is because the Bible says it exists (2 Cor. 5:1; 1 Pet. 1:4). More copies of the Bible are published every year than any other book. Those who have taken the time to read it with an open mind have found it to be 100% accuate.

The Bible said that the world was suspended in space more than 2,000 years before scientists found out it was (Job 26:7). Another reason why people believe in Heaven is because Jesus said it existed (Matt. 5:3,12,20). He claimed to be the creator of the universe, and so He certainly would have known what He created (John 1:1,3; Heb. 1:8,10).

You might say, “I don’t believe in the Bible or in what Jesus said, so neither would affect me.” Then consider this if you will. I am one of those millions of people who knows Heaven exists because I have a personal relationship with the God who created the whole universe, including Heaven. I’m not saying that in a boastful way, because I don’t deserve to know Him. But because He reached into my life and gave me a wonderful communication with Him, I now believe what the Bible says and what Jesus said, that there is definitely a Heaven.

Though I cannot convince you that there is a Heaven, the one who convinced me can. I sincerely wanted to know God, if He existed, and so I asked Him to reveal Himself to me. He did it in such a personal way that I was completely persuaded that He was very much alive. Since that day, over 12 years ago, I have continued to have a daily communication with Him.

Now if all this sounds crazy to you, I can completely understand. For over seven years I didn’t believe in God or in Heaven. But when I was 23 years old, I came to know Him personally. All I said was this: “Jesus, I don’t know if you are who man says you are, but if you are, come into my life and do for me what you’ve done for him.” Because I was sincere, He did exacly what I asked Him to do. I encourage you to do the same and I assure you He will reveal Himself to you in a very special way.

Copyright 1984
Glad Tidings, P.O. Box 16100
South Lake Tahoe, CA 95706

How an Atheist Professor Swayed C.S. Lewis to Become a Christian

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Literary scholar C.S. Lewis, who was a professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, once believed that all Christians were wrong in holding to their beliefs. The last thing he ever intended to do was embrace Christianity.

However, in 1926, “the hardest-boiled of all the atheists” that Lewis knew came for a visit. As they sat by the fire conversing, the atheist remarked that the evidence for the historicity of the gospel message was “really surprisingly good.”

Lewis was shattered by the statements of his colleague. He remarked in his journal, “If he, the cynic of cynics, the toughest of the tough, was not safe, where could I turn? Was there then no escape?” After examining the basis and evidence for Christianity, Lewis concluded that in other religions there was “no such historical claim as in Christianity.” His knowledge of literature forced him to treat the gospel record as a trustworthy account. “I was by now,” he said, “too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myth.”

Finally, contrary to his strong stand against Christianity, Professor Lewis made an intelligent decision:

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him Whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I have in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England.”

How Did We Get the Bible?

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Answering the most often asked questions:

How was it decided which books belong in the Bible?

In a previous article in The Forerunner (“Is the Bible Authentic?” October 1991), we studied the divine inspiration of the Bible. Inspiration is the means by which the Bible received its authority; this article will deal with how the books of the Bible came to be canonized. Canonization is the process by which the books of the Bible received their final acceptance.

The people of God have played a crucial role in the process of canonization through the centuries. In order to fulfill this role they had to look for certain earmarks of divine authority. How would one recognize an inspired book if he saw it? What are the characteristics which distinguish a divine declaration from a purely human one? Several criteria were involved in this recognition process.

The Principles for Discovering Canonicity

False books and false writings were not scarce. Their ever-present threat made it necessary for the people of God to carefully review their sacred collection. Even books accepted by other believers or in earlier days were subsequently brought into question by the church.

Operating in the whole process are some five basic criteria:

1. Is the book authoritative? Does it claim to be of God?
2. Is it prophetic? Was it written by a servant of God?
3. Is it authentic? Does it tell the truth about God, man, etc.?
4. Is the book dynamic? Does it possess life transforming power?
5. Is this book received or accepted by the people for whom it was originally written? Is it recognized as being from God?

The Authority of a Book

Each book in the Bible bears the claim of divine authority. Often the explicit “thus says the Lord” is present. Sometimes the tone and exhortations reveal its divine origin. Always there is divine pronouncement. In the more didactic (teaching) literature there is divine pronouncement about what believers should do.

In the historical books the exhortations are more implied and the authoritative pronouncements are more about what God has done in the history of His people (which is “His story”). If a book lacked the authority of God, it was not considered canonical and was rejected from the canon.

Let us illustrate this principle of authority as it relates to the canon. The books of the prophets were easily recognized by this principle of authority. The repeated, “And the Lord said unto me,” or “The word of the Lord came to me,” is abundant evidence of their claim to divine authority.

Some books lacked the claim to be divine and were thereby rejected as noncanonical. Perhaps this was the case with the book of Jasher and the Book of the Wars of the Lord. Still other books were questioned and challenged as to their divine authority but finally accepted into the canon, such as Esther.

Not until it was obvious to all that the protection and therefore the pronouncements of God on His people were unquestionably present in Esther was this book accorded a permanent place in the Jewish canon. Indeed, the very fact some canonical books were called into question provides assurance that the believers were discriminating. Unless they were convinced of the divine authority of the book it was rejected.

The Prophetic Authorship of a Book

Inspired books come only through Spirit-moved men known as prophets (2 Peter 1:20-21). The Word of God is given to His people only through His prophets. Every biblical author had a prophetic gift or function, even if he was not a prophet by occupation (Hebrews 1:1).

Paul argued in Galatians that his book should be accepted because he was an apostle, “not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father” (Galatians 1:1). His book was to be accepted because it was apostolic – it was from a God-appointed spokesman or prophet. Books were to be rejected if they did not come from prophets of God, as is evident from Paul’s warnings not to accept a book from someone falsely claiming to be an apostle (2 Thessalonians 2:2) and from the warning in 2 Corinthians about false prophets (11:13).

John’s warnings about false messiahs and trying the spirits would fall into the same category (1 John 2:18-19; and 4:1-3). It was because of this prophetic principle that 2 Peter was disputed by some in the early church. Until the fathers were convinced that it was not a forgery but that it really came from Peter the apostle as it claimed (1:1), it was not accorded a permanent place in the Christian canon.

The Authenticity of a Book

Another hallmark of inspiration is authenticity. Any book with factual or doctrinal errors (judged by previous revelations) could not be inspired of God. God cannot lie; His word must be true and consistent.

In view of this principle, the Bereans accepted Paul’s teachings and searched the Scriptures to see whether or not what Paul taught them was really in accord with God’s revelation in the Old Testament (Acts 17:11). Simple agreement with previous revelation would not ipso facto make a teaching inspired. But contradiction of a previous revelation would clearly indicate that a teaching was not inspired.

Much of the Apocrypha was rejected because of the principle of authenticity. Their historical anomalies and theological heresies made it impossible to accept them as from God despite their authoritative format. They could not be from God and contain error at the same time.

Some canonical books were questioned on the basis of this same principle. Could the letter of James be inspired if it contradicted Paul’s teaching on justification by faith and not by works? Until their essential compatibility was seen, James was questioned by some. Others questioned Jude because of its citation of inauthentic Pseudepigraphal books (vv. 9, 14). Once it was understood that Jude’s quotations granted no more authority to those books than Paul’s quotes from the non-Christian poets (see also Acts 17: 28 and Titus 1:12), then there remained no reason to reject Jude.

The Dynamic Nature of a Book

A fourth test for canonicity, at times less explicit than some of the others, was the life-transforming ability of the writing “The word of God is alive and powerful” (Hebrews 4:12). As a result it can be used “for teaching, for correction, and for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

The apostle Paul revealed that the dynamic ability of inspired writings was involved in the acceptance of all Scripture as 2 Timothy 3: 16-17 indicates. He said to Timothy, “The holy scriptures … are able to make thee wise unto salvation” (v. 15, KJV). Elsewhere, Peter speaks of the edifying and evangelizing power of the Word (1 Peter 1:23; 2:2).

Other messages and books were rejected because they held out false hope (1 Kings 22:6-8) or rang a false alarm (2 Thessalonians 2:2). Thus, they were not conducive to building up the believer in the truth of Christ. Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). False teaching never liberates; only the truth has emancipating power.

Some biblical books, such as Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, were questioned because they were thought by some to lack this dynamic edifying power. Once they were convinced that the Song was not sensual but deeply spiritual and that Ecclesiastes was not skeptical and pessimistic but positive and edifying (e.g., 12:9-10), then there remained little doubt as to their canonicity.

The Acceptance of a Book

The final trademark of an authoritative writing is its recognition by the people of God to whom it was initially given. God’s Word given through His prophet and with His truth must be recognized by His people. Later generations of believers sought to verify this fact. For if the book was received, collected, and used as God’s work by those to whom it was originally given, then its canonicity was established.

Communication and transportation being what it was in ancient times, it sometimes took much time and effort on the part of late church Fathers to determine this recognition. For this reason the full and final recognition by the whole church of the sixty-six books of the canon took many, many years.

The books of Moses were immediately accepted by the people of God. They were collected, quoted, preserved, and even imposed on future generations. Paul’s epistles were immediately received by the churches to whom they were addressed (1 Thess. 2:13) and even by other apostles (2 Peter 3:16). Some writings were immediately rejected by the people of God as lacking divine authority (2 Thessalonians 2:2). False prophets (Matthew 7:21-23) and lying spirits were to be tested and rejected (1 John 4:1-3), as indicated in many instances within the Bible itself (Jeremiah 5:2; 14:14).

This principle of acceptance led some to question for a time certain biblical books such as 2 and 3 John. Their private nature and limited circulation being what it was, it is understandable that there would be some reluctance to accept them until they were assured that the books were received by the first-century people of God as from the apostle John.

It is almost needless to add that not everyone gave even initial recognition to a prophet’s message. God vindicated His prophets against those who rejected them (e.g., 1 Kings 22:1-38) and, when challenged, He designated who His people were. When the authority of Moses was challenged by Korah and others, the earth opened and swallowed them alive (Numbers 16). The role of the people of God was decisive in the recognition of the Word of God. God determined the authority of the books of the canon, but the people of God were called upon to discover which books were authoritative and which were not. To assist them in this discovery were these five tests of canonicity.

The Procedure for Discovering Canonicity

We should not imagine a committee of church Fathers with a large pile of books and these five guiding principles before them when we speak of the process of canonization. The process was far more natural and dynamic. Some principles are only implicit in the process.

Although all five characteristics are present in each inspired writing, not all of the rules of recognition are apparent in the decision on each canonical book. It was not always immediately obvious to the early people of God that some historical books were “dynamic” or “authoritative.” More obvious to them was the fact certain books were “prophetic” and “accepted.”

One can easily see how the implied “thus says the Lord” played a most significant role in the discovery of the canonical books which reveal God’s overall redemptive plan. Nevertheless, the reverse is sometimes true; namely, the power and authority of the book are more apparent than its authorship (e.g., Hebrews). In any event, all five characteristics were involved in discovering each canonical book, although some were used only implicitly.

Some principles operate negatively in the process. Some of the rules for recognition operate more negatively than others. For instance, the principles of authenticity would more readily eliminate noncanonical books than indicate which books are canonical. There are no false teachings which are canonical, but there are many true writings which are not inspired. Likewise many books which edify or have a dynamic are not canonic, even though no canonical book is without significance in the saving plan of God.

Similarly, a book may claim to be authoritative without being inspired, as may of the apocryphal writings indicate, but no book can be canonical unless it is really authoritative. In other words, if the book lacks authority it cannot be from God. But the simple fact that a book claims authority does not make it ipso facto inspired. The principle acceptance has a primarily negative function. Even the fact that a book is received by some of the people of God is not a proof of inspiration.

In later generations some Christians, not thoroughly informed about the acceptance or rejection by the people of God to whom it was originally addressed, gave local and temporal recognition to books which are not canonical (e.g., some apocryphal books).

Simply because a book was received somewhere by some believers is far from proof of its inspiration. The initial reception by the people of God who were in the best position to test the prophetic authority of the book is crucial. It took some time for all segments of subsequent generation to be fully informed about the original circumstances. Thus, their acceptance is important but supportive in nature.

The most essential principle supersedes all others. Beneath the whole process of recognition lay one fundamental principle – the prophetic nature of the book. If a book were written by an accredited prophet of God, claiming to give an authoritative pronouncement from God, then there was no need to ask the other questions. Of course the people of God recognized the book as powerful and true when it was given to them by a prophet of God.

When there were no directly available confirmations of the prophet’s call (as there often were, cf. Exodus 4:1-9), then the authenticity, dynamic ability, and reception of a book by the original believing community would be essential to its later recognition. On the other hand, simply establishing the book as prophetic was sufficient in itself to confirm the canonicity of the book.

The question as to whether inauthenticity would disconfirm a prophetic book is purely hypothetical. No book given by God can by false. If a book claiming to be prophetic seems to have indisputable falsehood, then the prophetic credentials must be re-examined. God cannot lie. In this way the other four principles serve as a check on the prophetic character of the books of the canon.

The Incomparable Christ!

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

More than nineteen hundred years ago, there was a Man born contrary to the laws of life. This Man lived in poverty and was reared in obscurity. He did not travel extensively. Only once did He cross the boundary of the country in which He lived; that was during His exile in childhood.

He possessed neither wealth nor influence. His relatives were inconspicuous and had neither training nor formal education.

In infancy He startled a king; in childhood He puzzled doctors; in manhood He ruled the course of nature, walked upon the waves as pavement, and hushed the sea to sleep.

He healed the multitudes without medicine and made no charge for His service.

He never wrote a book, and yet perhaps all the libraries of the world could not hold the books that have been written about Him.

He never wrote a song, and yet He has furnished the theme for more songs than all the songwriters combined.

He never founded a college, but all the schools put together cannot boast of having as many students.

He never marshaled an army, nor drafted a soldier, nor fired a gun; and yet no leader ever had more volunteers who have, under His orders, made more rebels stack arms and surrender without a shot fired.

He never practiced psychiatry, and yet He has healed more broken hearts than all the doctors far and near.

Once each week multitudes congregate at worshiping assemblies to pay homage and respect to Him.

The names of the past, proud statesmen of Greece and Rome have come and gone. The names of the past scientists, philosophers, and theologians have come and gone. But the name of this Man multiplies more and more. Though time has spread nineteen hundred years between the people of this generation and the mockers at His crucifixion, He still lives. His enemies could not destroy Him, and the grave could not hold Him.

He stands forth upon the highest pinnacle of heavenly glory, proclaimed of God, acknowledged by angels, adored by saints, and feared by devils, as the risen, personal Christ, our Lord and Savior.

We are either going to be forever with Him, or forever without Him. It was the incomparable Christ who said:

“Come to Me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest.”
(Matthew 11:28)

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through Me.”
(John 14:6)

“There is one God and one mediator
between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus.”
(1 Timothy 2:5)

THEREFORE:

“Believe in the Lord Jesus,
and you will be saved.”
(Acts 16:31)

The Bible - Is It Authentic?

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Through the centuries Christians have been called upon to give a reason or defense for their faith.1 Since the Scriptures lay at the very foundation of their faith in Christ, it has been incumbent upon Christian apologists to provide evidence for the inspiration of the Bible.

It is one thing to claim divine inspiration for the Bible and quite another to provide evidence to confirm that claim. Before examining the supporting evidence for the inspiration of Scripture, let us summarize precisely what it is that inspiration claims.

The inspiration of the Bible is not to be confused with a poetic inspiration. Inspiration as applied to the Bible refers to the God-given authority of its teachings for the thought and life of the believer.

Biblical Description of Inspiration

The word inspiration means God-breathed, and it refers to the the process by which the Scriptures or writings were invested with divine authority for doctrine and practice.2 It is the writings which are said to be inspired. The writers, however, were Spirit moved to record their messages. Hence, when viewed as a total process, inspiration is what occurs when Spirit-moved writers record God-breathed writings. Three elements are contained in this total process of inspiration: the divine causality, the prophetic agency, and the resultant written authority.

The Three Elements in Inspiration

The first element in inspiration is God’s causality. God is the Prime Mover by whose promptings the prophets were led to write. The ultimate origin of inspired writings is the desire of the Divine to communicate with man. The second factor is the prophetic agency. The Word of God comes through men of God. God employs the instrumentality of human personality to convey His message. Finally, the written prophetic utterance is invested with divine authority. The prophet’s words are God’s Word.

The Characteristics of an Inspired Writing

The first characteristic of inspiration is implied in the fact that it is an inspired writing; namely, it is verbal. The very words of the prophets were God-given, not by dictation but by the Spirit-directed employment of the prophet’s own vocabulary and style. Inspiration also claims to be plenary (full). No part of Scripture is without divine inspiration. Paul wrote, “All scripture is inspired by God.”

In addition, inspiration implies the inerrancy of the teaching of the original documents (called autographs). Whatever God utters is true and without error, and the Bible is said to be an utterance of God. Finally, inspiration results in the divine authority of the Scriptures. The teaching of Scripture is binding on the believer for faith and practice.

Inspiration is not something merely attributed to the Bible by Christians; it is something the Bible claims for itself. There are literally hundreds of references within the Bible about its divine origin.

The Inspiration of the Old Testament

The Old Testament claims to be a prophetic writing. The familiar “thus says the Lord” fills its pages. False prophets and their works were excluded from the house of the Lord. Those prophecies which proved to be from God were preserved in a sacred place. This growing collection of sacred writings was recognized and even quoted by later prophets as the Word of God.

Jesus and the New Testament writers held these writings in the same high esteem; they claimed them to be the unbreakable, authoritative, and inspired Word of God. By numerous references to the Old Testament as a whole, to its basic sections, and to almost every Old Testament book, the New Testament writers overwhelmingly attested to the claim of divine inspiration for the Old Testament.

The Inspiration of the New Testament

The apostolic writings were boldly described in the same authoritative terms which denoted the Old Testament as the Word of God. They were called “scripture,” “prophecy,” etc. Every book in the New Testament contains some claim to divine authority. The New Testament church read, circulated, collected, and quoted the New Testament books right along with the inspired Scriptures of the Old Testament.

The contemporaries and immediate successors of the apostolic age recognized the divine origin of the New Testament writings along with the Old. With only heretical exceptions, all of the great Fathers of the Christian church from the earliest times held to the divine inspiration of the New Testament. In brief, there is continuous claim for the inspiration of both Old and New Testaments from the time of their composition to the present. In modern times this claim has been seriously challenged by many from inside and outside Christendom. This challenge calls for substantiation of the claim for inspiration of the Bible.

Support For the Claim of Inspiration

Defenders of the Christian faith have responded to this challenge in sundry ways. Some have transformed Christianity into a rational system, others have claimed belief in it because it is “absurd,” but the great mass of informed Christians through the centuries have avoided either rationalism or fideism. Claiming neither absolute finality nor complete skepticism, Christian apologists have given “a reason for the hope that is in them.” The following is a summary of evidence for the biblical doctrine of inspiration.

Internal Evidence of Inspiration

There are two lines of evidence to be considered on the inspiration of the Bible: the evidence flowing from within Scripture itself (called internal evidence) and the coming from outside of it (known as external evidence). There are several lines of internal evidence which have been presented.

Some have claimed that the Bible speaks, like a lion’s roar, with its own convincing authority. As Jesus astonished the crowds, “for he taught them as one who had authority,“3 even so the “thus says the Lord” of Scripture speaks for itself. When the voice spoke to Job out of the whirlwind, it was evident to him that it was the voice of God.4

The word of Scripture need not be defended; they need only to be heeded to know they are the words of God. The most convincing way to demonstrate the authority of a lion is to let it loose. Likewise, the inspiration of the Bible does not need to be defended; rather, the teachings of the Bible need to be expounded. It is argued that God can speak most effectively for Himself. The Bible can vindicate its own authority once its voice is heard.

Evidence Of the Testimony of the Holy Spirit

Closely allied with the evidence of the self-vindicating authority of Scripture is the witness of the Holy Spirit. The Word of God is confirmed to the children of God by the Spirit of God. The inner witness of God in the heart of the believer as he reads the Bible is evidence of its divine origin. The Holy Spirit not only bears witness to the believer that he is a child of God5 but that the Bible is the Word of God.6

The same Spirit who communicated the truth of God also confirms to the believer that the Bible is the Word of God. From the earliest centuries it has been the consensus of the Christian community in which the Spirit operates that the books of the Bible are the Word of God. God’s Word is thus confirmed by God’s Spirit.

The Transforming Ability of the Bible

Another so called internal evidence is the ability of the Bible to convert the unbeliever and to build up the believer in the faith. Hebrews says, “The word of God is alive and active, sharper than a two-edged sword…“7

Untold thousands have experienced this power. Drug addicts have been cured by it; derelicts have been transformed; hate has been turned to love by reading it. Believers grow by studying it.8 The sorrowing are comforted, the sinners are rebuked, and the negligent are exhorted by the Scriptures. God’s Word possesses the dynamic, transforming power of God. God vindicates the Bible’s authority by its evangelistic and edifying powers.

Evidence From the Unity of the Bible

A more formal evidence of the Bible’s inspiration is its unity. Comprised as it is of sixty-six books, written over a period of some fifteen hundred years by nearly forty authors in several languages containing hundreds of topics, it is more than accidental that the Bible possesses an amazing unity of theme – Jesus Christ. One problem – sin – and one solution – the Saviour – unify its pages from Genesis to Revelation.

Compared to a medical manual written amid such variety, the Bible shows marked evidence of divine unity. This is an especially valid point in view of the fact that no one person or group of men put the Bible together. Books were added as they were written by the prophets. They were collected simply because they were considered inspired.

It is only later reflection, both by the prophets themselves9 and later generations, which has discovered that the Bible is really one book whose “chapters” were written by men who had no explicit knowledge of the overall structure. Their role could be compared to that of different men writing chapters of a novel for which none of them have even an overall outline. Whatever unity the book has must come from beyond them.

External Evidences of the Bible’s Inspiration

The internal evidence of inspiration is mostly subjective in nature. It relates to what the believer sees or feels in his experience with the Bible. With the possible exception of the last mentioned evidence, the unity of the Bible, these internal evidences are available only on the inside of Christianity. The nonbeliever does not hear the voice of God, nor sense the witness of the Holy Spirit, nor feel the edifying power of Scripture in his life. Unless he steps by faith to the inside, these evidences will have little if any convincing effect on his life.

This is where the external evidence plays a crucial role. It serves as sign posts indicating where the “inside” really is. It is public witness to something very unusual, which serves to draw attention to the voice of God in Scripture.

Evidence From the Historicity of the Bible

Much of the Bible is historical and as such is subject to verification. There are two main lines of support for biblical history: archaeological artifacts and specifically written documents. With respect to the first, no archaeological find has ever invalidated a biblical teaching. On the contrary, as Donald J. Wiseman wrote, “The geography of Bible lands and visible remains of antiquity were gradually recorded until today more than 25,000 sites within this region and dating to Old Testament times, in their broadest sense, have been located.“10
In fact, much of the earlier criticism of the Bible has been decisively overturned by archaeological discoveries which have demonstrated the existence of writing in Moses’ day, the history of chronology of the kings of Israel, and even the existence of the Hittites, a people once know only from the Bible.

The more widely publicized discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls illustrates a point less well known; namely, that there are thousands of manuscripts for both Old and New Testaments, compared with a handful of many great secular classics. This makes the Bible the best documented book from the ancient world.

While no historical find is a direct evidence of any spiritual claim in the Bible, such as the claim to be divinely inspired, yet the historicity of the Bible does provide indirect verification of the claim of inspiration. For confirmation of the Bible’s accuracy in factual matters lends credibility to its claims when speaking of other subjects. Jesus said, “If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?“11

Evidence From the Testimony of Christ

In connection with the foregoing evidence for the historicity of the biblical documents is the evidence of the testimony of Christ. Since the New Testament has been documented as historical, and since these same historical documents provide us with the teaching of Christ about the inspiration of the Bible, one needs only to assume the truthfulness of Christ in order to argue for the inspiration of the Bible.

If Christ possesses any kind of authority or integrity as a religious teacher, then the Scriptures are inspired. For He taught that they were God’s Word. In order to falsify this contention, one must reject the authority of Jesus to make pronouncements on the subject of inspiration. The evidence from Scripture conclusively reveals that Jesus held to the full divine authority of the Scriptures.

Indications from the gospel record, with ample historical backing, show that Jesus was a man of integrity and truth. The argument, then, is this: if what Jesus taught is true, and Jesus taught that the Bible is inspired, then it follows that it is true that the Bible is inspired of God.

The evidence from prophecy. Another forceful external testimony to the inspiration of Scripture is the fact of fulfilled prophecy. According to Deuteronomy 18, a prophet was false if he made predictions which were never fulfilled. No unconditional prophecy of the Bible about events to the present day has gone unfilled. Hundreds of predictions, some of them given hundreds of years in advance, have been literally fulfilled.

The time, city and nature of Christ’s birth were foretold in the Old Testament, as were dozens of other things about His life, death, and resurrection.12 Other prophecies, such as the education and communication explosion, the repatriation of Israel, and the rebuilding of Palestine are being fulfilled today.13

There are other books which claim divine inspiration, such as the Koran and parts of the Veda. But none of these books contain predictive prophecy. As a result, fulfilled prophecy is a strong indication of the the divine authority of the Bible.

Evidence From the Influence of the Bible

No book has been more widely disseminated and has more broadly influenced the course of world events than has the Bible. The Bible has been translated into more languages, has been published in more copies, has influenced more thought, inspired more art, and motivated more discoveries than any other book. The Bible has been translated into over one thousand languages representing more than ninety percent of the world’s population. It has been published in some billions of copies. There are no close seconds in the all-time best-seller list.

The influence of the Bible and its teaching in the Western world is clear for all who study history. And the influential role of the West in the course of world events is equally clear. Civilization has been influenced more by the Judeo-Christian Scriptures than by any other book or combination of books in the world.

No great moral or religious work in the world exceeds the depth of morality in the principle of Christian love, and none has a more lofty spiritual concept than the biblical view of God. The Bible presents the highest ideals known to men which have molded civilization.

The Indestructibility of the Bible

Despite its importance (or maybe because of it), the Bible has suffered more vicious attacks than would be expected to be made on such a book. But the Bible has withstood all its attackers. Diocletian attempted to exterminate it (c. A.D. 303), and yet it is the most widely published book in the world today. Biblical critics once regarded much of it as mythological, but archaeology has established it as historical. Antagonists have attacked its teaching as primitive, but moralists urge that its teaching on love be applied to modern society.

Skeptics have cast doubt on its authenticity, and yet more men are convinced of its truth today than ever. Attacks continue to arise from science, psychology, and political movements, but the Bible remains undaunted. Like the wall four-feet hight and four-feet wide, blowing at it seems to accomplish nothing. The Bible remains just as strong after the attack. Jesus said, Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.“14

Evidence From the Integrity of the Authors

There are no good reasons to suppose that the authors of Scripture were not honest and sincere men. From everything that is known of their lives, and even their deaths for what they believed, they were utterly convinced that God had spoken to them. What shall we make of men – over five hundred of them15 – who claim as evidence for the divine authority of their message that they saw the Jesus of Nazareth, crucified under Pontius Pilate, alive and well? What shall we make of the claim that they saw Him on about a half-dozen occasions over a period of a month and a half?

That they talked with Him, ate with Him saw His wounds, and handled Him, and even the most skeptical among them fell at His feet and cried, “My Lord and my God!“16 It stretches one’s credulity to believe that they were all drugged or deluded, especially in view of the number and nature of the encounters and its lasting effect on them. But granting their basic integrity, we are confronted with an unusual phenomenon of men – hundreds of them – facing death with the claim that God had given them the authority to speak and write.

When men of sanity and noted integrity claim divine inspiration and offer as evidence that they have communicated with the resurrected Christ, then men of good will who seek the truth must take notice. In brief, the honesty of the biblical writers vouches for the divine authority of their writings.

Other arguments have been offered for the Bible’s inspiration, but the main weight of the case here will rest on these. Do these arguments prove that the Bible is inspired? No, these are not proofs with rationally inescapable conclusions. Even an amateur philosopher can devise ways to avoid the logic of the arguments.

Even if they did prove the inspiration of the Bible, it would not necessarily follow that they would persuade it to the satisfaction of all. Rather, they are evidences, testimonies, or witnesses. As witnesses they must be cross-examined and evaluated as a whole. Then, in the jury room of one’s own soul a decision must be made – a decision which is based not on rationally inescapable proofs but on evidence which is “beyond reasonable doubt.”

Perhaps all that need be added here is that if the Bible were on trial and we were part of a jury called upon for a verdict, based on a comprehensive examination of the claim and alleged credentials of the Bible to be inspired, we would be compelled to vote that it is “guilty of being inspired as charged.” The reader too must decide. For those who tend to be indecisive, one is reminded of the words of Peter: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.“17

In other words, if the Bible – with its clear cut claim to be inspired, with its incomparable characteristics and multiple credentials – is not inspired, then to what else can we turn? It has the words of eternal life.

1 1 Peter 3:15. 2 2 Timothy 3:16-17. 3 Mark 1:22. 4 Job 38.
5 Romans 8:16. 6 2 Peter 1:20-21. 7 Hebrews 4:12.
8 1 Peter 2:2. 9 e.g. 1 Peter 1:10,11.
10 Donald J. Wiseman, “Archaeological Confirmation of the Old Testament,” Revelation and the Bible, ed. Carl F.H. Henry.
11 John 3:12. 12 Date: Daniel 9; City: Micah 5:2; Nature of Christ’s Birth: Isaiah 7:14 13 Education & Communication Explosion: Daniel 12:4; Repatriation of Israel & Rebuilding of Palestine: Isaiah 61:4. 14 Mark 13:31. 15 1 Corinthians 15:6.
16 John 20:28. 17 John 6:68.

Jesus Christ Was Not a "Coincidence"

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

There are 48 distinct prophecies given in the Bible which make direct reference to Jesus Christ’s coming or His life on earth. They speak of His unique birth, the regions where He traveled, and the way He would die, and they were all recorded hundreds of years before His advent. Today, scientists have been able to use mathematical probability to demonstrate that Jesus’ fulfillment of these prophecies was no accident or coincidence.

Peter Stoner, in Science Speaks, says that the chance for a man to fulfill just eight of the recorded prophecies would be 1 in 10 to the 17th power. That would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. In order to help us comprehend this staggering probability, Stoner illustrates it by supposing that “we take 10 to the 17th power silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They would cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell his that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that it is the right one.

“What chance would he have of getting the right one? Just the same chance that the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time, providing they wrote them in their own wisdom.

“Now these prophecies were either given by inspiration of God or the prophets just wrote them as they thought they should be. In such a case the prophets had just on chance in 10 to the 17th power of having them come true in any man, but they all came true in Christ. This means that the fulfillment of these eight prophecies alone proves that God inspired the writing of those prophecies to a definiteness which lacks only one chance in 100 to the 17th power of being absolute.”

Now, when you consider that Jesus not only fulfilled these eight prophecies, but a total of 48, the mathematical probability increases to 1 in 10 to the 157th power!

Stoner helps us visualize the greatness of this number in this way: “The silver dollar, which we have been using, is entirely to large. We must select a smaller object. The electron is about as small an object as we know of. It is so small that it will take 2.5 times 10 to the 15th power of them laid side by side to make a single line one inch long. If we were going to count the electrons in this one inch line, and counted 250 each minute, counting day and night, it would take you 19,000,000 years just to count the once inch line.”

Stone then says that if you threw one of these tiny electrons into the vast expanse of the state of Texas, and sent a blindfolded man out to find it, the probability of him finding it would equal the probability of a man fulfilling all 48 of the messianic prophecies recorded in the Old Testament!

The fact that He fulfilled those prophecies was anything but a “coincidence.”

English Judge Said Resurrection Was a Fact

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

A former Chief Justice of England, Lord Darling, was once talking about the truths of Christianity at a dinner party – and particularly the evidence for Christ’s resurrection. Placing his fingertips together, assuming a judicial attitude, and speaking with a quiet emphasis that was extraordinarily impressive, he said:

“We as Christians are asked to take a very great deal on trust; the teachings, for example, and the miracles of Jesus. If we had to take all on trust, I, for one, should be skeptical. The crux of the problem of whether Jesus was, or was not, what He proclaimed Himself to be must surely depend upon the truth or otherwise of the resurrection. On that greatest point we are not merely asked to have faith. In its favor as a living truth there exists such overwhelming evidence, positive and negative, factual and circumstantial, that no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.”

Got a Problem With the Bible?

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

It is not uncommon to hear critics of the Bible speak of its “contradictions” and “inaccuracies.” Yet if one studies the history of ancient writings, it is obvious that no book in history has been so carefully preserved over the centuries.

Bernard Ramm, in Protestant Christian Evidences, speaks of the accuracy of the biblical manuscripts: “Jews preserved it as no other manuscript has ever been preserved. They kept tabs on every letter, syllable, word and paragraph. They had special classes of men within their culture whose sole duty was to preserve and transmit these documents with practically perfect fidelity. Who ever counted the letters and syllables and words of Plato or Aristotle? Cicero of Seneca?

“In regard to the New Testament there are about thirteen thousand manuscripts, complete and incomplete, in Greek and other languages, that have survived from antiquity. No other work from classical antiquity has such attestation.”

Author John Lea makes an observation about the Bible and Shakespeare: “In an article in North American Review, a writer made some interesting comparisons between the writings of Shakespeare and the scriptures, which show that much greater care must have been bestowed upon the biblical manuscripts than upon other writings, even when there was so much more opportunity of preserving the correct text by means of printed copies than when all the copies had to be made by hand.

“It seems strange that the text of Shakespeare, which has been in existence less than two hundred and eight years, should be far more uncertain and corrupt than that of the New Testament, now over eighteen centuries old, during nearly fifteen of which it existed only in manuscript. With perhaps a dozen or twenty exceptions, the text of every verse in the New Testament may be said to be so far settled by general consent of scholars, that any dispute as to its readings much relate rather to the interpretation of the words than to any doubts respecting the words themselves.

“But in every one of Shakespeare’s thirty-seven plays, there are probably a hundred readings still in dispute, a large portion of which materially affects the meaning of the passages in which they occur.”

The Real Jesus

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

HE was God before He came into the world, even before the sun, the moon, the stars began to shine.

He was God when He invaded the earth from heaven at a place called Bethlehem.

He is God today, gloriously enthroned on high. He is God eternally, forever God, as long as endless ages roll.

When He lived on earth, our Lord was forever asking questions. It was one of His favorite ways of teaching truth. Of all the questions He ever asked, surely these two are most revealing, most soul-searching: “Who do men say that I am? Who do you say that I am?”

The answer we give to the second question will show at once where we stand in relation to the fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith – the deity of Christ.

This concept of God is contained in embryonic form in the very first mention of God’s name in Scripture: “In the beginning God (Elohim) created the heaven and the earth.” Before He came into the world by way of human birth at Bethlehem, Jesus existed as God.

The Lord Jesus is unique. Paul tells us that “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Co. 2:9). The Lord Jesus did not surrender His de-ity when He entered Mary’s womb. There was a change of position, but no surrender of His essential being. No such surrender would have been possible. God cannot possibly cease to be God.

At Bethlehem, when the preexistent and eternal God lay in a manger for men to see, He did not surrender His deity. He only gave up the visible manifestation of the glory that had been His from eternity as God.

It is not possible that the Lord’s actual deity could be diminished or that He could have surrendered any of His divine attributes for the simple reason that God is immutable, unchangeable. Jesus was “God manifest in flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16).

When Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath Day, He defended His action with the words, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17).

“Therefore,” we read, “The Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18).

Yet, for all that, Jesus was really and truly a Man. He prayed and wept and slept and ate and drank and asked questions and grew up as would any other human being. The two natures, the divine and the human, were present; but He was just one person.

Again and again the New Testament tells us that the Lord Jesus was the Creator of the universe. That means He possesses omnipotent power, omniscient wisdom, and omnipresence of being.

He manifested absolute power over the forces of nature, over sickness, over the tomb.

With the same power, the same authority, the same ease, the same results, Jesus was able to do what the Father was able to do. He full wielded all the prerogatives of omnipotence. He was able to handle all the laws, forces, and powers of nature with the confidence and ease with which the Father handled them.

“The Father … hath committed all judgment unto the Son,” He said, “that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father” (John 5:22-23). Angels and archangels, cherubim and seraphim, principalities and powers, demons and men, all are under the control of the Son and all must render the same homage of the Son that is rendered to the Father.

The Lord Jesus is the universal Judge. That means, of course, that He must have an intimate, personal, infallible knowledge of all the millions of beings who have existed and do exist in the universe.

Since all judgement has been committed to the Son, then He must have a perfect mastery of all the laws of God to be able to competently judge in all the realms where God rules; and so infallible must be His insight and comprehension that His sentences must be absolutely right, eternal, and beyond all courts of appeal. Such attributes belong to God alone, and since Jesus is the Judge, Jesus is God.

Life-independent, absolute life – is the Son’s to impart when and where He wills (John 5:21). He has control over physical life, spiritual life, resurrection life, eternal life. He has authority over the grave, over death and Hades, over the destinies of the saved and the unsaved.

He asserts, “All power – untrammeled, unhindered, unequalled power – is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18).

Only God could made a statement like that.

It was necessary for Jesus to enter human life and take possession of a human body so that His blood could be shed as an atonement for sin. Apart from his humanity, no blood could have been shed.

Yet the blood that was shed at Calvary is evaluated by God Himself as “precious,” because it was the blood that poured through the human veins of One who was and did not cease to be God.

There are sobering implications in this. If the life that Jesus surrendered on the cross was only a human life, then that death would have atoned for just one person. Th law of Moses demanded “a life for a life.”

His was an infinite life. Therefore, it was a life sufficient to atone for the sin of the world. The Holy Spirit assures us that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19).

• To the Jews there was no greater person than Abraham.
• To the Jews there was no greater prince than Solomon, at least, as far as the magnificence of his kingdom went.
• To the Jews there was no greater patriarch than Jacob.
• To the Jews there was no greater prophet than Jonah.
• To the Jews there was no greater place then the temple.

The Lord Jesus took preeminence over them all. He was greater than their greatest person (John 8:53-58), greater than their greatest patriarch (John 4:12-14), greater than their greatest prince (Luke 11:31), and greater than their greatest prophet (Matt. 12:41), and greater than their greatest place (Matt. 12:6).

This indeed, is the greatest opening theme of the epistle to the Hebrews. The writer tells his Hebrew readers that Jesus was greater than the angels, greater than Aaron, great than Moses, greater than Joshua. He talks about the preeminence of Christ over all.

Paul picks up the theme and, having told us something of the person and power of Christ, tells us of His outright preeminence too. He says that Jesus has the preeminence “in all things” for “it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell” (Col. 1:18,19).

God addresses the Son as God. He tells us that the Lord Jesus sits upon God’s own throne. He sits there by sovereign right, by virtue of the fact that He Himself is God.

Who indeed but God could sit upon God’s throne?

Once, in the history of the universe, a mere creature tried to sit upon that throne. His name was Lucifer, the son of the morning. He was the highest of all created beings.

But when he aspired to sit upon God’s throne, to bridge the gap between the creature and the Creator, between a finite being and the infinite God, he was instantly cast out of heaven.

Yet Jesus sits upon God’s throne. He sits there because He has every right to sit there, even though He is now clothed with human flesh. He sits there because He always was, never ceased to be, and always will remain God in every sense of the word.

The writer of the epistle to the Hebrews tells us, in a glorious statement of truth, that our beloved Lord is “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

He is the Jesus of history – the Jesus of yesterday. He is the Jesus of experience – the Jesus of today. He is the Jesus of eternity – Jesus forever.

Christ's Resurrection Stands Legal Test

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

An Englishman, John Singleton Copley, better known as Lord Lyndhurst, is recognized as one of the greatest legal minds in British history. He was the solicitor-general of the British government, attorney-general of Great Britain, three times high chancellor of England, and elected as high steward of the University of Cambridge, thus holding in one lifetime the highest offices ever conferred upon a judge in Great Britain.

After Copley’s death, some personal papers were discovered which contained his comments concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the light of legal evidence, and why he became a Christian: “I know pretty well what evidence is: and I tell you, such evidence as that for the resurrection has never broken down yet.”

Dr. Simon Greenleaf was a famous Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University who was primarily responsible for Harvard’s eminent position among law schools in the United States. Greenleaf produced a famous, three-volume work, A Treatise on the Law of Evidence, which is still considered one of the greatest authorities on the subject in the entire literature of legal procedure.

With a lawyer’s skill, Greenleaf put his principles to work as he examined the historical evidence surrounding the resurrection of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Bible and other historical writings. After a very careful examination, he wrote a book entitled An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice.

Also, the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Darling, once said that “no intelligent jury in the world could fail to bring in a verdict that the resurrection story is true.”

Scientific Accuracy of the Bible

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

David M. Skjaerlund

The Bible, passed down through many generations of recorded history, is the basis of Christianity and contains God’s instructions for man. The Bible also describes the origin of life on earth. Many have questioned whether a book written thousands of years ago could still be found accurate when scrutinized by modern science. But each time man thought that science contradicted the Bible, later scientific discoveries proved it to be true – while proving the previous scientific theories to be false.

Many of the greatest scientific discoveries occurred during the Reformation period. A thousand years of almost no scientific discovery passed in the period known as the Dark Ages. During this time the Bible was not in the hands of the people or even available in their own language. Biblical knowledge was restricted during this period. But with the onset of the Reformation, when the Bible was translated and put into the hands of many more people, something happened. Major scientific discoveries were made by men whose minds were illumined by the Scriptures. The psalmist’s revelation aptly describes this advancement of scientific knowledge: “The entrance of Thy Word gives light” (Psalm 119:130).

Many scientific principles were recorded in the Bible thousands of years before scientists actually discovered them. Throughout history, popular scientific opinion was typically against what the Bible suggested regarding a certain idea – until new scientific discoveries supported the idea put forth by God’s Word.

Limitless Stars and a Globe Hanging on Nothing

Consider the field of astronomy. Before the invention of the telescope, man actually believed that the stars could be numbered. The great Ptolemy gave the number as 1,056. Tycho Brahe cataloged 777 and Kepler counted 1,006. The astronomers of those days were certain that they could count the number of stars. Since the invention of the telescope by Galileo in 1608, we now know that the number of stars are limitless. Today, astronomers estimate that there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy with an additional 20-100 billion galaxies in the universe!

But long before the telescope was invented, the Bible had put forth the notion that the stars are countless in number. God spoke to Abraham that his descendants would be “as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the grains of sand on the seashore” (Genesis 22:17). Jeremiah 33:22 states: “The host of heaven cannot be numbered.” Thousands of years later we see the confirmation of the Bible by modern astronomers.

Men also speculated on the earth’s foundation and how it was supported in space. At one point, it was believed that space was filled with a hypothetical substance like ether. Today, gravity is used to explain certain phenomena, but the world still appears to be hung on nothing, as is evident from our space travels. Again, this concept is not new from the viewpoint of the Bible. Job 26:7 mentions that God “hangs the earth upon nothing.”

For ages, scientists believed in a geocentric view of the universe. The differences between night and day were believed to be caused by the sun revolving around the earth. Today, we know that the earth’s rotation on its axis is responsible for the sun’s rising and setting. But 4,000 or more years ago, it was written, “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place? It is changed (turned) like clay under the seal” (Job 38:12, 14). The picture here is of a vessel of clay being turned or rotated upon the potter’s wheel – an accurate analogy of the earth’s rotation.

For centuries, man believed that the earth was flat. Christopher Columbus was criticized for his proposition that he could reach the Indies by sailing west. When he sailed out of the harbor, many expected Columbus to sail off the edge of the earth. But few of us realize that Columbus received his inspiration and motivation from the Bible.

He once wrote in his diary: “It was the Lord who put it into my mind – I could feel his hand upon me – the fact that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies … All who heard of my project rejected it with laughter, ridiculing me … There is no question that the inspiration was from the Holy Spirit, because He comforted me with rays of marvelous illumination from the Holy Scriptures… For the execution of the journey to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics, or maps. It is simply the fulfillment of what Isaiah had prophesied.”

The Bible is the first source to mention that the earth is spherical. The prophet, speaking in Isaiah 40:22, mentions that God “sits above the circle on the face of the deep.” The word circle in Hebrew, khug, is best translated in terms of sphericity or roundness. The Bible had refuted the flat earth theory long before scientists actually disproved it.

The Bible has also accurately described the water cycle, which includes precipitation, subsequent evaporation, and transpiration followed by condensation in the clouds (see Job 36:27-29). Science later documented the direction of wind currents and wind paths. This was unknown in previous centuries, but Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:6, “The wind blows to the south and goes round to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits with wind returns.”

Solomon also mentions about the movement of water in verse 7: “All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.” Matthew Maury (1806-1873), who is known as “the Pathfinder of the Seas,” was the founder of modern oceanography and hydrography. Maury firmly believed in and was inspired by Psalm 8:8, which mentions “whatever passes along the paths of the sea.” Maury believed that if the Bible wrote about “paths in the seas” then there must truly be paths in the sea. He dedicated his life to find and document these paths God had mentioned. Maury spent part of his career with the U.S. Navy charting the winds and currents of the Atlantic which were not known before his documentation.

Great Scientists Who Knew the Creator

Most of the great scientists in history were men who believed in the Bible as the inspired Word of God and did not see a contradiction between science and the Bible. In fact, many of the great scientific discoveries were actually inspired by the Word of God. Sir Isaac Newton is famous for his discovery of the law of gravity, the development of calculus into a comprehensive branch of mathematics, and the construction of the first reflecting telescope. He believed that the Bible was God’s Word and said: “We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever.”

William Thompson, known as Lord Kelvin, was a physical scientist of the same stature as Newton. He held the chair of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow for 54 years. Kelvin established the scale of absolute temperatures so that such temperatures are today given in so many “degrees Kelvin.” He also established thermodynamics as a formal scientific discipline and formulated the first and second laws in precise terminology. Despite his 21 honorary doctorates, Kelvin remained a humble Christian, firmly believing the Bible. In a famous testimony given in 1903, Lord Kelvin stated that, “with regard to the origin of life, science positively affirms creative power.”

Samuel Morse is famous for his invention of the telegraph. The first message he ever sent over the wire was “What God hath wrought!” (Numbers 23:23). Morse, who graduated from Yale in 1810, wrote these words four years before he died: “The nearer I approach the end of my pilgrimage, the clearer is the evidence of the divine origin of the Bible. The grandeur and sublimity of God’s remedy for fallen man are more appreciated and the future is illuminated with hope and joy.”

Werner von Braun, who was primarily responsible for America’s guided missile and space flight program, was the Director of NASA’s Space Flight Center. Dr. von Braun was an active Christian and gave this testimony: “Manned space flight is an amazing achievement, but is has opened for mankind thus far only a tiny door for viewing the awesome reaches of space. An outlook through this peep hole at the vast mysteries of the universe should only confirm our belief in the certainty of its Creator. I find it difficult to understand a scientist who does not acknowledge the presence of a superior rationality behind the existence of the universe.”

Dr. James Simpson, born in 1811, was responsible for the discovery of chloroform’s anesthetic qualities. His discovery and use of chloroform eliminated pain, and it was produced on a large scale worldwide for use as a medical anesthetic. He also laid a solid foundation for gynecology and predicted the discovery of the X-Ray. Dr. Simpson was president of the Royal Medical Society and was appointed Royal Physician to the Queen, the highest medical position of his day. He once stated, “Christianity works because it is supremely true and therefore supremely livable. There is nothing incompatible between religion and science.”

All of science points to the Omnipotent Creator of the universe. As we have seen throughout history, science has time and time again bowed its knees to the Author of the laws of the universe. As Owen Barfield said, “There will be a revival of Christianity when it becomes impossible to write a popular manual of science without referring to the incarnation of the Word.”

When asked what his greatest discovery was, Dr. Simpson replied: “It was not chloroform. It was to know I am a sinner and that I could be saved by the grace of God. A man has missed the whole meaning of life if he has not entered into an active, living relationship with God through Christ.” The greatest discovery in history has not been the law of gravity, calculus, telescopes or the telegraph. The greatest discovery an individual could ever make is finding Jesus Christ and making Him both Lord and Savior.

Sharing Christ on a One-to-One Basis

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Tom Hinton

Many people have asked me how I share my faith in Christ. I guess must say that I do not share Christ the same way twice. Because of different personalities and circumstances, the conversations flow in different ways. Even so, I do find that there is a basic pattern that develops as I share my faith.

By no means is the following conclusive. However, I do feel that the following will help you if you apply it to your life. I have a burden for the Lord to raise up individuals in America that would not simply know how to share their faith, but would do it.

The following are simply principles that I incorporate when I share Christ on a one-to-one basis.

Common Ground

It is important for you to establish some point of reference common to you and the individual with whom you are talking. You might talk about an athletic event, the weather, the economy, a mutual friend, a humorous happening, or a geographic location.

You establish common ground by asking in the course of the conversation various questions that cause the person to think and to respond to you. Questions such as: Who? What? Where? When and How? Be sincerely interested in the person’s response to your questions as you ask them.

Common ground is a time for collecting information and looking for opportunities to affirm and to agree. I believe that in the common ground phase of soul winning, people pick up and quickly your sincere desire and interest in them. You must remember that in this phase it is important for you to take the initiative to establish the relationship. Taking the initiative is of paramount importance.

Transition

Sharing your faith begins with a phase entitled Common Ground, but many times ends because we are not planning to share our faith. The transition sentence is the door to a conversation about Jesus.

In this phase, look for opportunities to turn the conversation to the subject of Jesus Christ. The transition sentence is a link between Common Ground and the third phase – Jesus.

You can develop transition sentences. Think in terms of everyday conversation and how those conversations can be turned to a discussion about God and Jesus Christ. For example, when Jesus talked with the woman at the well (John 4), He used the subject of Living Water as the transition. The woman was talking about the water at the well when Jesus told her about Living Water.

A basketball player wins on the court. A good transition question you can ask him is: “Are you winning in life?” A good transition may begin with, “That reminds me of a story.” Then explain to the individual that you are sharing with a related parable that is in the Bible.

After establishing Common Ground with someone, you might say, “Could I have five minutes with you to share the most important thing in my life?” I use this question as a transition into a conversation about Jesus.

Pray and ask the Lord to show you opportunities for transition. Sensitivity here is very important. Be sensitive to the person’s needs that come up in the Common Ground phase.

By this time you have gathered a lot of information. You have made the person feel at ease about his or her needs. You have turned the conversation into a conversation about Jesus; that is the transition. The third phase is entitled “Jesus.”

Jesus

The need of the hour is for people to talk about Jesus – not church, not religion, not philosophy, not denomination, but Jesus Christ. Here are three ways that you can talk about Jesus Christ.

1. Your personal testimony

You might consider using your personal testimony by sharing what took place in your life before you were saved and what has happened after you were saved. Contrast your life before Christ with your experience after you gave your life to the Lord. If you were raised as a Christian, you might share what Christ has done to enrich your life.

2. “What does it mean to be a Christian?”

Many times I ask people this question. As a Christian I recognize that:

a. The Bible tells us that we have all sinned and fallen short of God (Romans 3:23).

b. The Bible tells us that there is a penalty for sin (Romans 6:23a).

c. The Bible tells us that there is a provision for sin through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23b).

d. The Bible tells us that if we repent and turn from our sin, we can receive God’s grace and be assured we are forgiven (1 John 1:9; Revelation 3:20).

When asked: “What does it mean to be a Christian?” many individuals will tell you what a Christian does: “A Christian goes to church” – “A Christian carries a Bible” – “A Christian witnesses” – A Christian does this and a Christian does that. What they are saying and sharing is with you is what a Christian does, but not what a Christian is.

Let’s ask the question again: “What does it mean to be a Christian?” The simple plan of salvation that I have shared with you answers that question. You might tell the individual, “You have answered what a Christian does, but not what a Christian is.” A Christian is an individual who has recognized and experienced these truths found in the Bible.

3. The Message of the Cross (Mark 15)

a. Jesus died on a cross.

b. Jesus was put in a tomb and wrapped in linen cloth.

c. Jesus rose from the tomb.

d. Jesus is coming back (1 Thessalonians 4:17).

Always remember that your goal is to present Jesus Christ, whether you use any one of these three different approaches, is to make a clear, articulate presentation about Him.

One of the most alarming and startling facts about church people today is that they are not clearly presenting Jesus Christ. Individuals are being invited to church. They are being invited to a revival service. They are told how good the church is, but that’s not sharing Christ. It is an invitation to a building. What we are calling for is people to present the claims of Christ leaving the results to God.

Let’s turn now to the fourth phase of sharing our faith. This phase is called The Close.

The Close

Even though distractions will come when you attempt to share Christ, try to make the presentation the best as you can. Upon making that presentation, ask the person if he or she would like to pray and make a sincere commitment to the Lord. I simply bow my head and show them how I prayed and gave my heart to the Lord.

Here is a sample prayer: “Dear Jesus, I ask you right now to forgive me of any wrongdoing. I ask You to be the Lord of my life. I ask you to be in charge of everything that I do. I give you complete control of every decision that I make. I ask You right now to forgive me of my sin. Thank You, Jesus, for answering this prayer. Amen.”

Don’t be afraid to ask the question after you have presented Christ. “What about you. Would you pray right now asking Christ to be the Lord and Savior of your life?” or “What hindrances do you know of right now from making a commitment to Jesus Christ?”

Many times after I have presented Jesus Christ, people are thinking about it and they are not quite sure about accepting Him as they work through mental and spiritual barriers. A question like the second question helps them.

After they answer this question, I share with them that even though there are hindrances in their life, Jesus never requires us to get it all together before we give our life to Him. If we simply come to Him just as we are, He will enable us to live a holy life.

If you receive an affirmative nod of the head or a yes, lead the individual in a prayer of commitment. If you receive a negative response, share with the individual that you love him or her. Thank them for the privilege to share Christ with them. At this point, it is important to establish a favorable and positive point of reference for the future.

Let me share with you several things that might help you in this area. First of all, I ask people after presenting Christ if I can pray for them and for the needs of their family. Secondly, I always remember that the message of Jesus – the Cross – and not my personality should be offensive to the person. Thirdly, if the person is not ready to accept Christ, I don’t press it. I know that if I have clearly presented Jesus Christ, I have accomplished my purpose and God is the One Who actually does the work.

You never fail when you share your faith. We fail only if we don’t do it at all.

Siberian student Murad Abdul-Ali testifies

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Greetings from Siberia! I enjoyed the time I spent with you in Moscow. I saw the first issue of the Russian “Forerunner” – (Predvestnik). The first issue was good.

I’ve enclosed a document that your readers might find interesting. This card, given to me when I was a student in Krasnoyarsk, says that the owner of it is a member of the Pioneers Organization of Lenin of school #35. (This is a communist youth group.) Inside there is a poem: “In your hearts a big power is growing. Roads, storm, and wind are waiting for you. Live so that you will not be ashamed to look into the eyes of our dear Lenin.” On the other side it says: “Your name is written down in the Book of Honor. And you have the honor to have your picture taken next to the flag, the banner of the Pioneers Organization of school #35.” Now they don’t use this card anymore. And there is no longer a Pioneers Organization in our school.

Murad Abdul-Ali
Krasnoyarsk, Siberia

Ukrainian student Alexander Bolotnikov testifies

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

I am a student of physics at Kiev State University. I have been studying for two years. There were two parallel processes involved in my coming to know Jesus Christ: first, my study in a Rabbinical seminary; and second, my education at Kiev State.

Although I was raised in an atheistic home, I am Jewish and my uncle is a Rabbi. I didn’t know anything about God because my parents didn’t tell me I was a Jew. But I soon met with anti-semitism. This was a very great problem during the age of stagnation.

I began to study in a Rabbinical seminary two years ago. My field of study was apologetics of Judaism and debating with Christians. I studied for two years and got a diploma for passing the first step of Rabbinical education. Then I tried to practice my knowledge. I debated with Orthodox priests. They were afraid of me because I showed them scriptures about idolatry and compared it to icon worship. They called me “a devil.” I was very happy because I had such success in my field of study.

I was also studying in the university as a parallel education. One day in my dorm, I met some Pentecostals and I began to debate with them. I expected that they would be afraid of me and consider me an enemy. But it didn’t happen. Instead, I saw a great love which I had never seen before.

We began to debate and I showed them the same scriptures about idolatry. They told me: “We are full gospel Christians. We have no icons; we don’t bow before crosses; etc.” I didn’t know what I could say to them to prove my position. We became very good friends after that and we had many more discussions. They showed me prophecies from the Old Testament about the Messiah – Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9. Everyday in the synagogue we read a chapter from the Bible. But we never read Isaiah 53 because the Rabbis were afraid of this passage about the Messiah. I read this chapter for the first time with Christians.

Another factor that influenced me was that when I was in the synagogue, I did not have a serious attitude toward God. God was a formal substance for me. But when I began to have fellowship with Christians, I began to become afraid that God would judge me for my sins – I began to have a fear of God. I was very involved in sin before my friendship with Christians. But now I began to be afraid to sin. I tried to follow the Law, but it was very difficult. But I didn’t want to accept Jesus because I was afraid that I would lose my Jewishness. So I began to consider Jesus as “another way to God.”

Then one day as I continued debating with my friends, I couldn’t answer one question. I said: “God, if you want me to be a Christian, then I will be a Christian.” But in my heart I didn’t really want this.

Another time – I don’t really know what inspired me to ask this question – I said to my friend: “Do you think that in the future I will be a Christian?” I considered this question as a joke. I half expected him to say: “No, you are too strong in Judaism.” Instead he said: “I love you. I pray for you. I am sure that you will become a Christian!”

This posed a great problem for me. I could not reject this conversation, because rejection of love is an eternal sin and I was afraid to sin. I began to pray. I prayed all night and cried out to God, “What can I do? I cannot reject such great love.” Then I heard a voice saying, “You must accept Christ.”

I began to discuss with this voice, “But if I accept Christ, I will lose my Jewishness!” The voice said, “Don’t worry! Be Jewish and Christ will be your God. He will be as an addition – a very useful addition – to your Jewishness. Follow me and you will see that it will be good!”

So I decided to follow Jesus. I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and my God.

Alex has a vision to begin congregations for “completed Jews” in the Ukraine. He will be training in America at a Messianic Jewish Seminary which will help to equip him to plant these fellowships with Christian Youth International.

Two Men Who Tried to Disprove Christianity

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

In the first half of the 16th Century, two young men, Gilbert West and Lord Nyttleton, went to Oxford, England. They were friends of Dr. Samuel Johnson and Alexander Pope. These young men were determined to attack the very basis of the Christian faith. Nyttleton settled down to prove that Saul of Tarsus was never converted to Christianity, and West to demonstrate that Jesus never rose from the tomb.

“Some time later,” says author Michael Green in his book Man Alive (InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL), “they met to discuss their findings. Both were a little sheepish. For they had come independently to similar and disturbing conclusions. Nyttleton found, on examination, that Saul of Tarsus did become a radically new man through his conversion to Christianity; and West found that the evidence pointed unmistakably to the fact the Jesus did rise from the dead.”

You may still find their book in a large library. It is title Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, and was published in 1747. On the fly-leaf they printed this telling quotation from Ecclesiasticus 11:7, which might be adopted with profit by any modern agnostic: “Blame not before thou hast examined the truth.”

Whatever Happened to Sin?

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By J.C. Ryle

“Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4).

Whoever wishes to attain right views about Christianity must begin by examining the vast and solemn subject of sin. We must dig down very low if we would build high. A mistake here is most harmful. Wrong views about Christianity are generally traceable to wrong views about human corruption.

A right knowledge of sin lies as the root of all saving Christianity. Without it such doctrines as justification, conversion, sanctification, are “words and names” which convey no meaning. The first thing, therefore, that God does when He makes anyone a new creature in Christ, is to send light into his heart and show him that he is a guilty sinner. Dim or indistinct views of sin are the origin of most of the errors, heresies and false doctrines of the present day. If a man does not realize the dangerous nature of his soul’s disease, then it is no wonder if he is content with false or imperfect remedies. I believe that one of the chief wants of the church has been, and is, clearer, fuller teaching about sin.

We are all, or course, familiar with the terms “sin” and “sinners.” But what do we mean by these terms? Do we really know? I fear there is much mental confusion and haziness on this point. Let me try, as briefly as possible to supply an answer.

Sin, speaking generally, is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man that is naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth alway against the spirit; and, therefore, in every person born into the world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation.

Sin is that vast moral disease which affects the whole human race, of every rank and class and name and nation and people and tongue, a disease from which there never was but One born of woman that was free. Need I say that “One” was Christ Jesus the Lord?

“A sin,” consists in doing, saying, thinking or imagining anything that is not in perfect conformity with the mind and law of God. “Sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). The slightest outward or inward departure from absolute math-ematical parallelism with God’s revealed will and character constitutes a sin, and at once makes us guilty in God’s sight.

Concerning the origin of sin, Adam and Eve were created “in the image of God,” innocent and righteous at first, but our parents fell from original righteousness and became sinful and corrupt. And from that day to this all men and women are born in the image of fallen Adam and Eve and inherit a heart and nature inclined to evil. “By one man since entered into the world.” – “That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” – “We are by nature children of wrath.” – “The carnal mind is enmity against God.” – “Out of the heart [naturally, as out of a fountain] proceed evil thoughts, adulteries” and the like (Rom. 5:12; John 3:6; Eph. 2:3; Rom. 8:7; Mark 7:21).

The fairest babe that has entered life this year and become the sunbeam of a family is not, as its mother perhaps fondly calls it, a little “angel,” or a little “innocent,” but a little sinner! As it lies smiling and crowing in its cradle, that little creature carries in its heart the seeds of every kind of wickedness! Only watch it carefully, as it grows in stature and its mind develops, and you will soon detect in it an incessant tendency to that which is bad, and a backwardness to that which is good. You will see in it the buds and germs of deceit, evil temper, selfishness, self-will, obstinacy, greediness, envy, jealousy, passion, which, if indulged and let alone, will shoot up with painful rapidity.

Concerning the extent of this vast moral disease of man called “sin,” let us make no mistake. The only safe ground is that which is laid for us in Scripture. “Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart” is by nature “evil,” and that “continually.” – “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Gen. 6:5; Jer. 17:9).

Sin is a disease which pervades and runs through every part of our moral constitution and every faculty of our minds. The understanding, the affections, the reasoning powers, the will, are all more or less infected. Even the conscience is so blinded that it cannot be depended on as a sure guide, and is as likely to lead men wrong as right, unless it is enlightened by the Holy Ghost. In short, “from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness” about us (Isa. 1:6). The disease may be veiled under a thin covering of courtesy, politeness, good manners and outward decorum, but sin lies deep down in our constitution.

Let us remember that every part of the world bears testimony to the fact that sin is the universal disease of all mankind. Search the globe from east to west and from pole to pole; search every nation of every clime in the four quarters of the earth; search every rank and class in our own country from the highest to the lowest – and under every circumstance and condition, the report will be always the same.

The remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, completely separate from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, beyond the reach alike of Oriental luxury and Western arts and literature, islands inhabited by people ignorant of books, money, steam and gunpowder, uncontaminated by the vices of modern civilization, these very islands have always been found, when first discovered, the abode of the vilest forms of lust, cruelty, deceit and superstition. If the inhabitants have known nothing else, they have always known how to sin! Everywhere the human heart is naturally “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9).

I am convinced that the greatest proof of the extent and power of sin is the pertinacity with which it cleaves to man, even after he is converted and has become the subject of the Holy Ghost’s operations.

Concerning the guilt, vileness and offensiveness of sin in the sight of God, I do not think that mortal man can at all realize the exceeding sinfulness of sin in the sight of that holy and perfect One with whom we have to do. On the one hand, God is that eternal Being who “chargeth His angels with folly,” and in whose sight the very “heavens are not clean.” He is One who reads thoughts and motives as well as actions and required “truth in the inward parts” (Job 4:18; 15:15; Ps. 51:6 sees sin clearly).

We, on the other hand – poor blind creatures, here today and gone tomorrow, born in sin, surrounded by sinners, living in a constant atmosphere of weakness, infirmity and imperfection – can form none but the most inadequate conceptions of the hideousness of evil. We have no line to fathom it and no measure by which to gauge it. The blind man can see no difference between a masterpiece of Titian or Raphael and the queen’s head on a village signboard. The deaf man cannot distinguish between a penny whistle and a cathedral organ. And man, fallen man, I believe, can have not just idea what a vile thing sin is in the sigh of that God whose handiwork is absolutely perfect.

No proof of the fullness of sin, after all, is so overwhelming and unanswerable as the cross and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and the whole doctrine of His substitution and atonement. Heavy must that weight of human sin be which made Jesus groan and sweat drops of blood in agony at Gethsemane and cry at Golgotha, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46).

Nothing, I am convinced, will astonish us so much, when we awake in the resurrection day, as the view we shall have of sin and the retrospect we shall take of our own countless defects. Never till the hour when Christ comes the second time shall we fully realize the “sinfulness of sin.”

One point only remains to be considered on the subject of sin, which I dare not pass over. That point is its deceitfulness. It is a point of most serious importance and I venture to think it does not receive the attention which it deserves. You may see this deceitfulness in the wonderful proneness of men to regard sin as less sinful and dangerous than it is in the sight of God and in their readiness to make excuses and minimize its guilt.

“It is but a little one! God is merciful! God is not extreme to mark what is done amiss! We mean well! One cannot be so particular! Where is the mighty harm? We only do as others!” – Who is not familiar with this kind of language? You may see it in the long string of smooth words and phrases which men have coined in order to designate things which God calls downright wicked and ruinous to the soul. What do such expressions as “fast,” “wild,” “thoughtless,” “loose” mean? They show that men try to cheat themselves into the belief that sin is not quite so sinful as God says it is, and that they are not so bad as they really are.

I fear we do not sufficiently realize the extreme subtlety of our soul’s disease. We are too apt to forget that temptation to sin will rarely present itself to us in its true colors, saying, “I am your deadly enemy and I want to ruin you for ever in hell.” Oh, no! Sin comes to us, like Judas, with a kiss, and like Joab, with an outstretched hand and flattering words. The forbidden fruit seemed good and desirable to Eve, yet it cast her out of Eden. The walking idly on his palace roof seemed harmless enough to David, yet it ended in adultery and murder. Sin rarely seems sin at its first beginnings. We may give wickedness smooth names, but we cannot alter its nature in the sight of God.

The more light we have, the more we see our own sinfulness; the nearer we get to heaven, the more we are clothed with humility. In every age of the church you will find it true, if you will study biographies, that the most eminent saints have always been the humblest men.

How deeply thankful we ought to be for the glorious gospel of the grace of God. There is a remedy revealed for man’s need, as wide and broad and deep as man’s disease. We need not be afraid to look at sin and study its nature, origin, power, extent and vileness, if we only look at the same time at the almighty medicine provided for us in the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. Though sin has abounded, grace has much more abounded.

Yes: in the everlasting covenant of redemption, to which Father, Son and Holy Ghost are parties; in the Mediator of that covenant, Jesus Christ the righteous, perfect God and perfect Man in one Person; in the work that He did by dying for our sins and rising again for our justification; in the offices that He fills as our Priest, Substitute, Physician, Shepherd and Advocate; in the precious blood He shed which can cleanse from all sin; in the everlasting righteousness that He brought in; in the perpetual intercession that He carries on as our Representative at God’s right hand; in His power to save to the uttermost the chief of sinners, His willingness to receive and pardon the vilest, His readiness to bear with the weakest; in the grace of the Holy Spirit which He plants in the hearts of all His people, renewing, sanctifying and causing old things to pass away and all things to become new – in all this (and oh, what a brief sketch it is!) – in all this, I say, there is a full, perfect and complete medicine for the hideous disease of sin.

Awful and tremendous as the right view of sin undoubtedly is, no one need faint and despair if he will take a right view of Jesus Christ at the same time.

It only remains to point out some practical uses to which the whole doctrine of sin may be profitably turned in the present day:

1. A scriptural view of sin is one of the best antidotes to that vague, dim, misty, hazy kind of theology which is so painfully current in the present age. It is vain to shut our eyes to the fact that there is a vast quantity of so-called Christianity nowadays, which you cannot declare positively unsound, but which, nevertheless, is not full measure, good weight and sixteen ounces to the pound. It is a Christianity in which there is undeniably “something about Christ and something about grace and something about faith and something about repentance and something about holiness,” but it is not the “real thing” as taught in the Bible.

2. A scriptural view of sin is one of the best antidotes to the extravagantly broad and liberal theology which is so much in vogue at the present time. The tendency of modern thought is to reject dogmas, creeds and every kind of bounds in religion. It is thought grand and wise to condemn no opinion whatsoever, and to pronounce all earnest and clever teachers to be trustworthy, however heterogeneous and mutually destructive their opinions may be.

Everything is true and nothing is false! Everybody is right and nobody is wrong! Everybody is likely to be saved and nobody is to be lost! The atonement and substitution of Christ, the personality of the devil, the miraculous element in Scripture, the reality and eternity of future punishment, all these mighty foundation stones are coolly tossed overboard, like lumber, in order to lighten the ship of Christianity and enable it to keep pace with modern science.

Stand up for these great verities, and you are called narrow, illiberal, old-fashioned and a theological fossil! Quote a text, and you are told that all truth is not confined to the pages of an ancient Jewish book, and that free inquiry has found out many things since the book was completed! Now, I know nothing so likely to counteract this modern plague as constant clear statements about the nature, reality, vileness, power and guilt of sin. We must tell them that nothing will ever make them feel rest, but submission to the old doctrines of man’s ruin and Christ’s redemption and simple childlike faith in Jesus.

3. A scriptural view of sin will prove an admirable antidote to the low views of personal holiness. I am afraid that Christ-like love, kindness, good temper, unselfishness, meekness, gentleness, good nature, self-denial, zeal to do good and separation from the world are far less appreciated than they ought to be and than they used to be in the days of our fathers.

Once we see that sin is far viler and far nearer to us, and sticks more closely to us than we supposed, and we shall be led to get nearer to Christ. Once drawn nearer to Christ, we shall drink more deeply out of His fullness, and learn more thoroughly to “live the life of faith” in Him, as Paul did. Once taught to live the life of faith in Jesus, and abiding in Him, we shall bear more fruit, shall find ourselves more strong for duty, more patient in trial, more watchful over our poor weak hearts, and more like our Master in all our little daily ways. Just in proportion as we realize how much Christ has done for us, shall we labor to do much for Christ.

As I said in the beginning, we must begin low, if we would build high. I am convinced that the first step towards attaining a higher standard of holiness is to realize more fully the amazing sinfulness of sin.

Who Is This Jesus Christ Anyway?

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

by Josh McDowell

Jesus considered who men believed Him to be of fundamental importance. C.S. Lewis, who was a professor at Cambridge University and once an agnostic, wrote: “I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is one thing that we must not say.

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with a man who said he was a poached egg – or else He would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.“1

C.S. Lewis added that: “You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.“2

In the words of Kenneth Scott Latourette, the great historian of Christianity at Yale University: “It is not His teachings which make Jesus so remarkable, although these would be enough to give Him distinction. It is a combination of the teachings with the man Himself. The two cannot be separated …3

Is Jesus Christ God?

Jesus claimed to be God. He did not leave any other options. His claim to be God must either be true or false, and is something that should be given serious consideration. Jesus’ question to His disciples, “But who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:29) is also being asked of us today.

Jesus’ claim to be God must either be true or false. If Jesus’ claims are true, then He is the Lord and we must either accept or reject His lordship. First, let us suppose that His claim to be God was false. If it was false, then we have two and only two alternatives. He either knew it was false or He did not know it was false. We will consider each one separately and examine the evidence.

Was He a Liar?

If, when Jesus made His claims, He knew that He was not God, then He was lying. But, if He was a liar, then He was also a hypocrite because He told others to be honest, whatever the cost, while He Himself taught and lived a colossal lie. And, more than that, He was a demon, because He told others to trust Him for their eternal destiny. If He could not back up His claims, and knew it, then He was unspeakably evil.

Philip Schaff, the Christian historian, said: “This testimony, if not true, must be downright blasphemy or madness. The former hypothesis cannot stand a moment before the moral purity and dignity of Jesus, revealed in His every word and work, and acknowledged by universal consent. Self-deception in a matter so momentous, and with an intellect in all respects so clear and so sound, is equally out of the question.

“How could He be an enthusiast or a madman who never lost the even balance of His mind, who sailed serenely over all the troubles and persecutions, as the sun above the clouds, who always returned the wisest answer to tempting questions, who calmly and deliberately predicted His death on the cross, His resurrection on the third day, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the founding of His church, the destruction of Jerusalem – predictions which have been literally fulfilled?

“A character so original, so complete, so uniformly consistent, so perfect, so human, and yet so high above all human greatness, can neither be a fraud nor a fiction. The poet, as has been well said, would in this case be greater than the hero. It would take more than a Jesus to invent a Jesus.“4

In another book by Schaff, he probes further: “How, in the name of logic, common sense, and experience, could an imposter – that is a deceitful, selfish, depraved man – have invented, and consistently maintained from the beginning to the end, the purest and noblest character known in history with the most perfect air of truth and reality? How could He have conceived and successfully carried out a plan of unparalleled beneficence, moral magnitude, and sublimity, and sacrificed His own life for it, in the face of the strongest prejudices of His people?“5

Someone who lived as Jesus lived, taught as He taught, and died as He died could not have been a liar. What other alternatives are there?

Was He a Lunatic?

If it is inconceivable for Jesus to be a liar, then could not He actually have thought Himself to be God, but been mistaken? After all, it is possible to be both sincere and wrong.

But we must remember that for someone to think that He is God, especially in a culture that is fiercely monotheistic, and then to tell others that their eternal destiny depends on believing in Him, is no slight flight of fantasy … surely they are the thoughts of a lunatic in the fullest sense. Was Jesus Christ such a person?

The French leader Napoleon Bonaparte once said this: “I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ was not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and other religions the distance of infinity …

“Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and whoever else in the world, there is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being by Himself. His ideas and sentiments, the truth which He announces, His manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things …

“His religion is a revelation from an intelligence which certainly is not that of man … one can find absolutely nowhere, but in Him alone, the imitation of the example of His life … I search in vain in history to find the similar to Jesus Christ, or anything which can approach the gospel. Neither history, nor humanity, nor the ages, nor nature, offer me anything with which I am able to compare it or to explain it. Here everything is extraordinary.“6

Historian Schaff said this: “Is such an intellect – clear as the sky, bracing as the mountain air, sharp and penetrating as a sword, thoroughly healthy and vigorous, always ready and always self-possessed – liable to a radical and most serious delusion concerning His own character and mission? Preposterous imagination!“7

Whom you decide Jesus Christ is must not be an idle, intellectual exercise. You cannot put Him on the shelf as a great moral teacher. That is not a valid option. He is either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. You must make a choice. “But,” as the Apostle John wrote, “these have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” and more important, “that believing, you might have life in His name” (John 20:31).

The evidence is clearly in favor of Jesus as Lord. However, some people reject the clear evidence because of moral implications involved. There needs to be a moral honesty in the above consideration of Jesus as either liar, lunatic, or Lord and God.

1 C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. (New York: MacMillan and Company. 1952)., pp. 40-41.
2 Ibid.
3 Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, (York: Harper & Row, 1953), p. 44.
4 Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 8 Vols. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1962), p. 109.
5 Philip Schaff, The Person of Christ, (New York: American Tract Society, 1913), pp. 94-95.
6 Vernon C. Grounds, The Reason for Our Hope, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1954), p. 37.
7 Schaff, The Person of Christ, pp. 97-98.

Taken from Evidence That Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell, © 1972 by Campus Crusade for Christ, San Bernardino, CA. Used by permission.

The “Jesus” film is distributed by The Jesus Project, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, and has been shown in over 110 countries in 106 languages to over 270 million people. It is considered by some to be the most accurate portrayal of the life of Christ on film. It has been used in Bible studies to clearly explain the gospel to the viewer. Video cassettes can be purchased by writing The Jesus Project, P.O. Box 7690, Laguna Niguel, CA 92677.

The Book that Refused to Be Written

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Dr. Frank Morrison, a lawyer who had been brought up in a rationalistic environment, had come to hold the opinion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was nothing but a fairy tale happy ending which spoiled the matchless story of Jesus. He felt that he owed it to himself and to others to write a book which would present the truth about Jesus, expose the misconceptions, and dispel forever the mythical story of the resurrection.

Upon studying the facts, however, he, too, came to a different conclusion. The sheer weight of the evidence compelled him to conclude that Jesus actually did rise from the dead. Morrison wrote his book – but not the one he had planned. It is titled, Who Moved the Stone? The first chapter, very significantly, is “The Book that Refused to Be Written.”

The Influence of the World's Greatest Book

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

One writer has aptly noted that if every Bible in every city of the world was destroyed, the entire book could be restored by piecing together quotations from books on the shelves of public libraries. This example was given to show how often the Bible has been cited in the works of literature.

Historian Philip Schaff vividly describes the uniqueness of the Bible and its influence: “This Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions than Alexander, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon: without science and learning. He shed more light on things human and divine than all scholars and philosophers combined: without the eloquence of schools. He spoke such words of life as were never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of orator or poet; without writing a single line. He set more pens in motion, and furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and modern times.”

Bernard Ramm, a Christian apologist, elaborates on this dead: “There are complexities of bibliographical studies [on the Bible] that are unparalleled in any other science or department of human knowledge. From the Apostolic Fathers dating from A.D. 95 to the modern times is one great literary river inspired by the Bible – Bible dictionaries. Bible encyclopedias. Bible lexicons. Bible atlases, and Bible geographies. These may be taken as a starter.

“Then at random, we may mention the vast bibliographies around theology, religious education, hymnology, missions, the biblical languages, church history, religious biography, devotional works, commentaries, philosophies of religion, evidences, apologetics, and on and on. There seems to be an endless number.”

And all of this writing came about because of the brief life of Jesus Christ. Kenneth Scott Latourette, in his History of Christianity, concludes by saying: “It is evidence of His importance, of the effect that He has had upon history and presumably, of the baffling mystery of His being that no other life ever lived on this planet has evoked so huge a volume of literature among so many people and languages, and that, far from ebbing, the flood continues to mount.”

Short Meditations on the Bible and Peanuts

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Robert L. Short

Q. What’s the best thing you can do for yourself and others?

A. Know the Bible!

“Jesus answered them, ‘How wrong you are! It is because you don’t know the Scriptures or God’s power.’” – Matthew 22:29 TEV

When Jesus made this statement to the Sadducees, they weren’t discussing little questions. They were discussing some really big ones. These are the only questions the Bible and Jesus are interested in – the really big ones. For the most part, they are interested in meaning, not means. They discuss ultimates, not penultimates. The author of the book of Revelation talks about “the four corners of the earth” (Rev. 7:1, 20:8). Does this mean that John thought that the earth was shaped like this page, with flat corners? Maybe so. Maybe not.

Apparently the question didn’t bother him very much, or he would have mentioned it. No, John wasn’t interested in the physical shape of the world but in the spiritual shape the world was in. We’re asking the Bible the wrong questions when we come to it with our little questions. Its purpose is to answer the questions that really bother us the most and are the hardest for us to handle.

None of us can escape these big questions any more than we can escape seeing Woodstock’s single giant question mark here. These questions are to us what this question is to Woodstock: bigger than we are. They are also over our heads. Nevertheless, most of us are forced to come up with at least some provisional answers for these big non-provisional questions.

But what if our answers are wrong? This would mean we’d be basing our entire lives on something that wasn’t true. We’d be embarking on a long trip, but sailing on the wrong ship. And in the case of others, we’d constantly be suppling them with incorrect information.

When Snoopy attempts to write a book on theology, he hits on what he considers the perfect title: “Has It Ever Occurred to You That You Might Be Wrong?” Good question. This is the first question of all good theology. “How do we know right from wrong?” “How do we know the truth?” Or “Can we know the truth?”

Also notice this: Jesus didn’t say, “In my humble opinion, it seems to me that you may be somewhat mistaken;” or, “Perhaps we should all think about this a little more.” No, he said bluntly, “How wrong you are!” You are wrong because your knowledge is inadequate; “You don’t know the Scriptures or God’s power.” Evidently, for Jesus, these were the two sources that held the answers to life’s really big questions. If he’s right, and we don’t want to be wrong, then obviously this is the best thing we can do for ourselves: Know the scriptures!

Shouldn’t we also know God’s power? Yes. But this is not anything we can do for ourselves. If it were, this would be a power we could control. It would not be God’s power but ours.

- Robert L. Short

**************************

A timely and provocative conversation between faith and culture, Short Meditations on the Bible and Peanuts is Robert L. Short’s follow-up to the 25th anniversary of the best seller The Gospel According to Peanuts. Charles M. Schulz, who became a Christian after his mother’s death in his early twenties, and Short, a theologian, team up using humor to make us think seriously.

Like The Gospel According to Peanuts and Parables of Peanuts, Short uses Peanuts comic strips to provide us with insightful glimpses into Truth. This was a perilous experiment that came off.

Short Meditations on the Bible and Peanuts, by Robert L. Short, will be available beginning in October through Westminster/Knox Press for $7.95.

An Insight Into Hollywood Standards

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

by Joseph Farah

Last year, one of United Artists Pictures surprise hits was “Child’s Play,” a horror film about a diabolical and murderous spirit that inhabits a doll and terrorizes a mother and her son. Not only did the moderate-budget screamer gross $35 million in theatrical release, it also sold more that 200,000 video cassettes.

Therefore, by Hollywood standards the film, starring Catherine Hicks and Chris Sarandon, was a natural for a sequel. Producer David Kirschner and director John Lafia were set to start shooting the sequel on Oct. 15, 1989, when United Artists (UA) movie President Richard Berger called to say “Child’s Play II” was dead.

The decision to kill the project has horrified the Hollywood establishment because it was made not for financial reasons, but for considerations of taste. UA, you see, is about to be purchased by an Australian group that thinks horror films, while profitable in the short term, are destructive to the image and long-term success of the company.

“Why would you make a film like this?” David Evans, who will be the new chief executive of UA, asked of Kirschner. Startled and puzzled, Kirschner pointed out that it was a sure thing. He explained that Universal Studios built its entire foundation on horror films. Gore, excessive violence and shock had long been a Hollywood tradition.

As befuddled as Kirschner was, the rest of the industry was even more perplexed by this unusual programming decision based on higher standards and moral values. “I think the decision is insane,” one unnamed studio chief told the Los Angeles Times. “The one thing they don’t have is product.” A top Hollywood agent asked: “Since when had anyone in this business drawn a line that means not making money?”

Indeed, when word got out that “Child’s Play II” had been turned down by UA, every other studio in town immediately went after it. Conventional wisdom held that the film had the potential to be another long-running series like “Friday the 13th” or “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Paramount, Warner Bros., Columbia, 20th Century Fox, the Price Co., Carolco, New Line, and even Disney all expressed interest, but Universal appears to have the inside track on distribution rights. Kirschner plans to shoot the film as an independent production.

Still, there is concern throughout the business about UA’s apparent prohibition on horror and what its officials describe as certain other “exploitation genres.” Admission by industry insiders that Hollywood actually “exploits” audiences is considered a form of heresy within the establishment. The industry is still spoiling over a campaign for “higher standards” waged by British producer David Puttnam during his reign at Columbia. Even current UA honcho Berger reportedly disagrees with the decision of the Australians.

Meanwhile, the new team, which includes Christopher Skase, chairman of the Gintex Group, and Evans, is due to take over the company September 30. Evans said he did not want the company associated with any film that connected a child with murder. One source said the new rules would prohibit films like “The Bad Seed,” “The Omen” and “The Exorcist” from being made by UA.

The development raises some interesting questions: Is if possible that foreign ownership will actually bring some standards to Hollywood? With the entry of the Japanese and Australians into mainstream Hollywood production, will studio executives be more likely to begin questioning the long-term implications of producing exploitative entertainment? Will the bottom line remain the only criterion for determining which projects are pursued?

In Hollywood lately, there’s been much concern expressed about pollution of our environment. Rarely if ever, however, have the self-righteous activists in the entertainment industry bothered to look in the mirror and examine the kinds of effluents they themselves are spewing into our homes and theaters. They apparently believe the environment is limited to the air, the water and the earth, and that pollution of the mind is somehow less important than pollution of the body.

At a time when criminal and sexual violence are reaching epidemic proportions in our urban areas, few Hollywood executives have been willing to reflect honestly on how their own products may be helping to spread such diseases. In fact, the widespread gratuitous sex and ultra-violence in the media is certainly having a far greater impact on our society’s values than the occasional public service messages encouraging recycling and preservation of the rain forest.

Whether moved to do so entirely by public relations motivations or by genuine ethical concerns, UA officials are Hollywood pioneers in the art of restraint and self-control. While it is too early to begin celebrating the redemption of Hollywood, the incoming team at UA at least deserves some credit for bucking the tide.

Please contact Mr. David Evans to thank him for his stand against exploitation films and his decision to drop “Child’s Play II” from the United artist production schedule. He needs your encouragement since many Hollywood leaders have expressed their displeasure at his morality. His address is: Mr. David Evans, President, United Artists Pictures Inc., 450 N. Roxbury Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210.

Ludwig van Beethoven

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

“It was not a fortuitous meeting of chordal atoms that made the world. If order and beauty are reflected in the constitution of the universe, then there is a God.”

Ludwig van Beethoven is considered by many to be the world’s greatest composer. From the time he was born in 1770, Beethoven faced overwhelmingly difficult circumstances. The defining tragedy of his life, and the one which diminished his performing career, was his growing deafness. It was this miserable affliction that intensified the tumultuous eruption of emotion which is found throughout Beethoven’s life and music. As Beethoven’s deafness increased, he withdrew more and more into the work of composing and into his intimate and unorthodox relationship with God.

Discerning Beethoven’s belief is no easy task. All his biographers agree that he was intensely spiritual. But his untraditional faith makes it difficult to categorize the composer. Beethoven, like many geniuses, was a very complex man with eclectic interests and influences. Beethoven was born and baptized into a Roman Catholic family. His mother was very pious. In his youth, he attended a variety of churches and his principle teacher, Christian Gottlob Neefe, was a Protestant believer. Beethoven’s letters and diaries contain dozens of devout references to God, giving evidence of strong conviction. His relationship to God was deeply personal, and he turned to God to make sense out of life’s unfairness.

To a close friend in 1810, he confessed an almost childlike faith: “I have no friend. I must live by myself. I know, however, that God is nearer to me than others. I go without fear to Him, I have constantly recognized and understood Him.“1

Beethoven owned both a French and a Latin Bible and late in life he prayed with his young nephew almost every morning. His library included such Christian devotionals as Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ and a very heavily marked copy of Christian Sturm’s Reflections on the Works of God in Nature. And of course Beethoven composed some of the most profound Christian masterpieces of history.

Beethoven’s complex personality traits leave the world’s greatest musicologists at odds on the subject of the composer’s faith. Perhaps the best clues to his personal beliefs can be found in Beethoven’s music – music which reveals the man himself. The portrait or Beethoven’s life which emerges from historical accounts, his own written reflections and his music is one of tremendous achievement in the face of unimaginable difficulty and tragedy. Hearing loss would present a severe trial to anyone, but for a musician – indeed, a master musician – deafness was devastating.

Nevertheless, Beethoven was determined to prevail and to continue in his art, which he considered a sacred trust placed upon him by his Creator. It is astonishing to study the complexities and beauty of his late works and to realize that, except in his imagination, he never heard them performed. Beethoven’s principle virtue was his sheer determination to overcome. The judgement of a man’s greatness is not only to be measured in the mission he accomplishes, but in the obstacles he has overcome in the process.2

1 Philip Kruseman, Beethoven’s Own Words (London: Hinricksen Edition, 1947), p.53.
2 Compiled from The Spiritual Lives of Great Composers, Patrick Kavanaugh (Sparrow Press, Nashville, 1992) pp.35-42

Affirmative action ineffectual says Washington Post columnist

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

GAINESVILLE, Florida – Affirmative action doesn’t help poor people, Washington Post columnist William Raspberry said at the University of Florida on October 4th.

Raspberry, who spoke as a part of UF’s People Awareness Week, said affirmative action helps people who already have jobs instead of the unemployed. “It’s people like me and my colleagues that affirmative action helps,” he said. “Not the people in the streets.”

Raspberry said everyone – not just U.S. Supreme Court Justice (then nominee) Clarence Thomas – has a problem with affirmative action on some level. “Nobody believes in giving extra points to those who are scorned,” Raspberry said. “We don’t like awarding prizes based on ethnicity.”

Creating opportunities and getting everyone to the same starting line is what is important, Raspberry said. “Then everyone’s got to run for themselves.”

Raspberry said it is difficult to explain long-term opportunities to inner-city black males, whose lives mirror “live for today” attitudes, which often involve drug use.

“You and I are afraid to do what they do. We’re afraid it will shorten our lives or hurt our reputations,” he said. “Those are long-term concerns. To those kids, long term is next weekend. Our social policy reflects this, since we try to directly supply needs instead of enabling others to help themselves. Positive feelings are the result of an individual’s efforts, not government action.”

“I think that’s why people hate welfare and public housing even when they depend on welfare and public housing,” Raspberry added. “The only qualification for them is to be a failure.”

Raspberry, whose urban affairs column is syndicated nationwide by the Washington Press Writers Group, joined the Washington Post in 1962. He received the Capital Press Club’s 1965 “Journalist of the Year” award for his coverage of the Watts riots in Los Angeles.

Washington Post columnist William Raspberry spoke to hundreds of University of Florida Students on October 4 during UF’s People Awareness Week.

Black History Month

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

As we celebrate Black History Month, we recall our rich heritage, filled with courage, heroism, and the memory of the sacrifice of countless men and women who gave their lives for freedom. Looking at the past, we see how far we’ve come. Living in the present, we see how far we still must go. But more importantly, we must look at the future. We must ask ourselves: what steps must we take to realize the equality and freedom that we have yearned for as a people since the captivity of our ancestors?

Although we have advanced economically and socially in so many ways, most blacks are still wounded, angry, and hurt. Though the medals of economic and social attainments have been awarded to us, we are still being held back by spiritual bondage.

An alarm has been sounded by the media as reports are released describing the plight of Black America. From the breakdown of the family, to the rise in teen-age pregnancy, to the slumping number of blacks entering college, and now to the sobering fact that 25 percent of all AIDS cases are black people – even though we make up only 10 percent of our society – it has become obvious that we must have an accurate diagnosis of our problem in order to reach a solution.

Although the chains of slavery have been removed from us, we remain enslaved unless we find true spiritual freedom. Jesus Christ once said, “What does it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26). We as black Americans must face up to these words.

Observing the symptoms that are ailing many blacks in America today, we must conclude that we have a heart problem. Though many blacks attend church and live outwardly religious lives, the truth is that most of us are broken, disillusioned, and bitter. Most of us are not living victorious Christian lives.

Why? Many of us have made unforgiveness and bitterness against whites an idol in our lives. We sit in the church pews and profess allegiance to a God of love and forgiveness, yet we constantly nurse our hurts. But Jesus stated it plainly when He said: “If you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (Matthew 6:15).

The Pharisees in Jesus’ day faithfully attended religious functions and kept all the rules, yet He was not pleased with them. These people did not understand that it is His love and His Spirit that is to rule our lives – not rules. We need to learn this lesson, too. Only when we experience a living, loving relationship with Jesus Christ can we experience the kind of freedom that we are all longing for.

Have you been looking to social and economic gains to heal the wounds in your spirit?

A new generation of black Americans is emerging today, and they are looking at a heap of shattered dreams for the promise of a better future. We must point them to the only pathway that leads to freedom – obedience to God’s Word. As we are immersed in a loving relationship with Jesus Christ, and as we deny our own selfish desires for His cause, we will see that the ultimate issue in our struggle was not racial. Our deepest need has always been the need for a Savior – which God has provided through Jesus Christ.

A New Era for Black Leadership

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Clarence Thomas
U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Much has been said about blacks and conservatism. Those on the Left smugly assume blacks are monolithic and will by force of circumstances always huddle to the left of the political spectrum. The political Right watches this herd mentality in action, concedes that blacks are monolithic, picks up a few dissidents, and wistfully shrugs at the seemingly unbreakable hold of the liberal Left on black Americans. But even in the face of this, a few dissidents like Thomas Sowell and J.A. Parker stand steadfast, refusing to give in to the cult mentality and childish obedience that hypnotize black Americans into a mindless political trance. I admire them, and only wish I had a fraction of their courage and strength.

Many pundits have come along in recent years, who claim an understanding of why so many blacks think right and vote left. They offer “the answer” to the problem of blacks failing to respond favorably to conservatism. I, for one, am not certain there is such a thing as “the answer.” And, even if there is, I assure you I do not have it.

I have only my experiences and modest observations to offer. I was raised to survive under the totalitarianism of segregation, not only without the active assistance of government but with its active opposition. We were raised to survive in spite of the dark oppressive cloud of governmentally sanctioned bigotry. Self-sufficiency and spiritual and emotional security were tools to carve out and secure freedom. Those who attempt to capture the daily counseling, oversight, common sense, and vision of my grandparents in a governmental program are engaging in sheer folly. Government cannot develop individual responsibility, but it certainly can refrain from preventing or hindering the development of this responsibility.

Animosity from Other Blacks

I failed to realize [early in my conservative years] just how deep-seated the animosity of blacks toward black conservatives was. The dual labels of black Republicans and black conservatives drew rave reviews. Unfortunately the raving was at us, not for us. The reaction was negative, to be euphemistic, and generally hostile. Interestingly enough, however, our ideas themselves received very positive reactions, especially among the average working-class and middle-class black American who had no vested or proprietary interest in social policies that had dominated the political scene for the past 20 years. In fact, I was often amazed with the degree of acceptance. But as soon as “Republican” or “conservative” was injected into the conversation, there was a complete about-face. The ideas were okay. The Republicans and conservatives, especially the black ones, were not.

Our black counterparts on the Left and in the Democratic Party assured our alienation. Those of us who were identified as conservative were ignored at best. We were treated with disdain, regularly castigated, and mocked; and of course we could be accused of anything without recourse and with impunity. I find it intriguing that there has been a recent chorus of pleas by many of the same people who castigated us, for open-mindedness toward those black Democrats who have been accused of illegalities or improprieties. This open-mindedness was certainly not available when it came to accusing and attacking black conservatives, who merely had different ideas about what was good for black Americans and themselves.

Reckless Media

The flames were further fanned by the media. I often felt that the media assumed that, to be black, one had to espouse leftist ideas and Democratic politics. Any black who deviated from the ideological litany of requisites was an oddity and was to be cut from the herd and attacked. Hence, any disagreement we had with black Democrats or those on the Left was exaggerated. Our character and motives were impugned and challenged by the same reporters who supposedly were writing objective stories.

Unfortunately, it must have been apparent to the black liberals, and those on the Left that conservatives would not mount a positive (and I underscore positive) civil rights campaign. They were confident that our central civil rights concern would give them an easy victory since it was confined to affirmative action – that is, being against affirmative action. They were certain that we would not be champions of civil rights. Therefore, they had license to roam unfettered in this area claiming that we were against all that was good and just and holy, and that we were hell-bent on returning blacks to slavery. They could smirk at us black conservatives because they felt we had no real political or economic support.

GOP’s Failure of Principle

But conservatives must open the door and lay out the welcome mat if there is ever going to be a chance of attracting black Americans. There need be no ideological concessions, just a major attitudinal change. Conservatives must show that they care. By caring I do not suggest or mean the phony caring and tear-jerking compassion being bandied out today. I, for one, do not see how the government can be compassionate and then only with their own money, their own property, or their own effort, not that of others.

According to our higher law tradition, men must acknowledge each other’s freedom, and govern only by the consent of others. All our political institutions presuppose this truth. Natural law of this form is indispensable to decent politics. It is the barrier against the “abolition of man” that C.S. Lewis warned about in his short modern classic.

This approach allows us to reassert the primacy of the individual, and establishes our inherent equality as a God-given right. This inherent equality is the basis for aggressive enforcement of civil rights laws and equal employment opportunity laws designed to protect individual rights. Indeed, defending the individual under these laws should be the hallmark of conservatism rather than its Achilles’ heel. And in no way should this be the issue of those who are antagonistic to individual rights and the proponents of a bigger, more intrusive government. Indeed, conservatives should be as adamant about freedom here at home as we are about freedom abroad. We should be at least as incensed about the totalitarianism of drug traffickers and criminals in poor neighborhoods as we are about totalitarianism in Eastern bloc countries. The primacy of individual rights demands that conservatives be the first to protect them.

Responsibilities of Freedom

But with the benefits of freedom come responsibilities. Conservatives should be no more timid about asserting the responsibilities of the individual than they should be about protecting individual rights.

The principled approach would, in my view, make it clear to blacks that conservatives are not hostile to their interests but aggressively supportive. This is particularly true to the extent that conservatives are now perceived as anti-civil rights. Unless it is clear that conservative principles protect all individuals, including blacks, there are no programs or arguments, no matter how brilliant, sensible, or logical, that will attract blacks to the conservative ranks. They may take the idea and run, but they will not stay and fraternize without a clear, principled message that they are welcome and well protected.

Conservative Gadget Ideas

I am of the view that black Americans will move inexorably and naturally toward conservatism when we stop discouraging them; when they are treated as a diverse group with differing interests; and when conservatives stand up for what they believe in rather than stand against blacks. This is not a prescription for success, but rather an assertion that black Americans know what they want, and it is not timidity and condescension. Nor do I believe gadget ideals such as enterprise zones are of any consequence when blacks who live in blighted areas know that crime, not lack of tax credits, is the problem.

Blacks are not stupid. And no matter how good an idea or proposal is, no one is going to give up the comfort of the leftist status quo as long as they view conservatives as antagonistic to their interests, and conservatives do little or nothing to dispel the perception. If blacks hate or fear conservatives, nothing we say will be heard.

Martin Luther King

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

A Modern Day Prophet

Where are the modern day prophets? At crucial times in history God has always raised up prophets. They are men and women who love the truth more than they love their own life. They are the heroes of a generation. God is looking for such people today. He is looking for those to whom He can trust to deliver His words to this generation. The prophets’ success has always been found in their faithfulness to stand by the word of the Lord and their fearlessness in the face of danger. They were men and women who had conquered the fear of death.

Civil rights leader and 20th century prophet, Martin Luther King, Jr., once declared: “Until you conquer the fear of death, you don’t know what freedom is!” King led a group of 8,000 civil rights protestors in an historic march to Montgomery, Alabama. His address given in Montgomery echoes the cry of the prophets of all ages:

“We are on the move now and no wave of racism can stop us. The burning of our churches will not deter us. The bombing of our homes will not divert us. The release of their known murderers will not discourage us. We are on the move now, like an idea whose time has come. Not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. We are moving to the land of freedom.

“I know you are asking today, ‘How long will it take?’ Someone is asking today, ‘How long will prejudice blind the eyes of men?” I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again!”

“How long? Not long! Because no lie can live forever! How long? Not long! Because you shall reap what you sow! How long? Not long! ‘Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne, yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown, standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own.’

“How long? Not long! Because the arch of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. How long? Not long! For mine eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord. He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on!

“He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat. He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat. O, be swift my soul to answer Him, be jubilant my feet! Our God is marching on! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Hallelujah! His Truth is marching on!

Such sentiments live and burn in the hearts of God’s prophets.

The New Segregation

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Shelby Steele

The civil rights movement of the 1950s and1960s culminated in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act – two monumental pieces of legislation that have dramatically altered the fabric of American life.

During the struggle for their passage, a new source of power came into full force. Black Americans and their supporters tapped into the moral power inspired by a 300-year history of victimization and oppression and used it to help transform society, to humanize it, to make it more tolerant and open. They realized, moreover, that the victimization and oppression that blacks had endured came from one “marriage” – a marriage of race and power. They had to stop those who said, “merely because we are white, we have the power to dominate, enslave, segregate and discriminate.”

Race should not be a source of power or advantage or disadvantage for anyone in a free society. This was one of the most important lessons of the original civil rights movement. The legislation it championed during the 1960s constituted a new “emancipation proclamation.” For the first time segregation and discrimination were made illegal. Blacks began to enjoy a degree of freedom they had never experienced before.

Delayed Anger

This did not mean that things changed overnight for blacks. Nor did it ensure that their memory of past injustice was obliterated. I hesitate to borrow analogies from the psychological community, but I think that one does apply: Abused children do not usually feel anger until many years after the abuse has ended, that is, after they have experienced a degree of freedom and normalcy. Only after civil rights legislation had been enacted did blacks at long last began to feel the rage they had suppressed. I can remember that period myself. I had tremendous sense of delayed anger at having been forced to attend segregated schools. (My grade school was the first school to be involved in a desegregation suit in the north.) My race, like that of other blacks, threatened for a time to become all consuming.

Anger was both inevitable and necessary. When suppressed, it eats you alive; it has got to come out, and it certainly did during the 1960s. One form was the black power movement in all of its many manifestations, some of which were violent. There is no question that we should condemn violence, but we should also understand why it occurs. You cannot oppress people for over three centuries and then say it is all over and expect them to put on suits and ties and become decent attaché-carrying citizens and go to work on Wall Street.

Once my own anger was released, my reaction was that I no longer had to apologize for being black. That was a tremendous benefit and it helped me come to terms with my own personal development. The problem is that many blacks never progressed beyond their anger.

The Politics of Difference

The black power movement encouraged a permanent state of rage and victimhood. An even greater failing was that it rejoined race and power – the very “marriage” that civil rights legislation had been designed to break up. The leaders of the original movement said, “Anytime you make race a source of power you are going to guarantee suffering, misery and inequity.” Black power leaders declared: “We’re going to have power because we’re black.”

Well, is there any conceivable difference between black power and white power? When you demand power based on the color of your skin, aren’t you saying that equality and justice are impossible? Somebody’s going to be in, somebody’s going to be out. Somebody’s going to win, somebody’s going to lose, and race is once again a source of advantage for some and disadvantage for others. Ultimately, black power was not about equality or justice; it was, as its name suggests, about power.

And when blacks began to demand entitlements based on their race, feminists responded with enthusiasm, “We’ve been oppressed too!” Hispanics said, “We’re not going to let this bus pass us by,” and Asians said, “We’re not going to let it pass us by either.” Eskimos and American Indians quickly hopped on the bandwagon, as did gays, lesbians, the disabled and other self-defined minorities.

By the 1970s, the marriage of race and power was once again firmly established. Equality was out: the “politics of difference” was in. From then on, everyone would rally around the single quality that makes them different from the white male and pursue power based on that quality. It is a very simple formula. All you have to do is identify that quality, whatever it may be, with victimization. And victimization is itself, after all, a tremendous source of moral power.

The politics of difference demanded shifting the entire basis of entitlement in America. Historically, entitlement was based on the rights of citizenship elaborated in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. This was the kind of entitlement that the original civil rights movement leaders claimed for blacks: recognition of their rights as American citizens to equal treatment under the law. They did not claim, “We deserve rights and entitlements because we are black,” but, “We deserve them because we are citizens of the United States and like all other citizens are due these rights.” The politics of difference changed all that. Blacks and other minorities began demanding entitlement solely based on their history of oppression, their race, their gender, their ethnicity, or whatever quality that allegedly made them victims.

Grievance Identities

By the 1980s, the politics of difference had, in turn, led to the establishment of “grievance identities.” These identities are not about such things as the great contributions of women throughout history or the rich culture of black Americans. To have a strong identity as a woman, for example, means that you are against the “oppressive male patriarchy” – period. To have a strong identity as a black means that you are against racist white America – period.

You have no choice but to fulfill a carefully defined politically correct role: (1) you must document the grievance of your group; (2) you must testify to its abiding and ongoing alienation; and (3) you must support its sovereignty. As a black who fails any of these three requirements you are not only politically incorrect, you are a traitor, an “Uncle Tom.” You are blaming the victim, you are letting whites off the hook, and you are betraying your people.

In establishing your grievance identity, you must turn your back on the enormous and varied fabric of life. There is no legacy of universal ideas or common human experience. There is only one dimension to your identify: anger against oppression. Grievance identities are thus “sovereignties” that compete with the sovereignties of the nation itself. Blacks, women, Hispanics and other minorities are not even American citizens anymore. They are citizens of sovereignties with their own right to autonomy.

The New Segregation on Campus

The marriage of race and power, the politics of difference, and grievance identities – these are nurtured by the American educational establishment. They have also acted on that establishment and affected it in significant ways. After a talk I gave recently at a well-known university, a woman introduced herself as the chairperson of the women’s studies department. She was very proud of the fact that the university had a separate degree-granting program in women’s studies.

I stressed that I had always been very much in favor of teaching students about the contributions of women. But I asked her what it was that students gained from segregating women’s studies that could not be gained from studying within the traditional liberal arts disciplines.

Her background was in English, as was mine, so I added, “What is a female English professor in the English department doing that is different from what a female English professor in the women’s studies department is doing? Is she going to bring a different methodology to bear? What is it that academically justifies a segregated program for women, or for blacks, or any other group? Why not incorporate such studies into the English department, the history department, the biology department or into any of the other regular departments?”

As soon as I began to ask such questions I noticed a shift in her eyes and a tension in her attitude. She began to see me as an enemy and quickly make an excuse to end the conversation. This wasn’t about a rational academic discussion of women’s studies. It was about the sovereignty of the feminist identity, and unless I tipped my hat to that identity by saying, “Yes, you have the right to a separate department,” no further discussion or debate was possible.

Meanwhile, the politics of difference is over-taking education. Those with grievance identities demand separate buildings, classrooms, offices, clerical staff – even separate Xerox machines. They all want to be segregated universities within the universities. They want their own space – their sovereign territory. Metaphorically, sometimes literally, they insist that not only the university but society at large must pay tribute to their sovereignty.

Today there are some 500 women’s studies departments. There are black studies departments, Hispanic studies departments, Jewish studies departments, Asian studies departments. They all have to have space, staff, and budgets. What are they studying that can’t be studied in other departments? They don’t have to answer this questions, of course, but when political entitlement shifted away from citizenship to race, class and gender, a shift in cultural entitlement was made inevitable.

Those with grievance identities also demand extra entitlements far beyond what should come to us as citizens. As a black, I am said to “deserve” this or that special entitlement. No longer is it enough just to have the right to attend a college or university on an equal basis with others or to be treated like anyone else. Schools must set aside special money and special academic departments just for me, based on my grievance. Some campuses now have segregated dorms for black students who demand to live together with people of their “own kind.” Students have lobbied for separate black student unions, black yearbooks, black homecoming dances, black graduation ceremonies – again all so that they can be comfortable with their “own kind.”

One representative study at the University of Michigan indicates that 70 percent of the school’s black undergraduates have never had a white acquaintance. Yet, across the country, colleges and universities like Michigan readily and even eagerly continue to encourage more segregation by granting the demands of every vocal grievance identity.

A Return to a Common Culture

Colleges and universities are not only segregating their campuses, they are segregating learning. If only for the sake of historical accuracy, we should teach all students – black, white, female, male – about many broad and diverse cultures. But those with grievance identities use the multicultural approach as an all-out assault on the liberal arts curriculum, on the American heritage, and on Western culture. They have made out differences, rather than our common bonds, sacred. Often they do so in the name of building the “self-esteem” of minorities. But they are not going to build anyone’s self-esteem by condemning our culture as the product of “dead white males.”

We do share a common history and a common culture, and that must be the central premise of education. If we are to end the new segregation on campus and everywhere else it exists, we need to recall the spirit of the original civil rights movement, which was dedicated to the “self-evident truth” that all men are created equal.

Even the most humble experiences unite us. We have all grown up on the same sitcoms, eaten the same fast food and laughed at the same jokes. We have practiced the same religions, lived under the same political system, read the same books and worked in the same marketplace. We have the same dreams and aspirations as well as fears and doubts for ourselves and for our children. How, then, can our differences be so overwhelming?

Louis Farrakhan

By Jay Rogers
Published April 2008

Louis Farrakhan is known by his followers as being “a better orator than Martin Luther King Jr., a better author than Norman Mailer, a better diplomat than Henry Kissinger, and more handsome than Muhammad Ali.” Let’s take a look at one the best known and most articulate Black Muslims in America and his ideology.

According to founder Wallace D. Fard Muhammad, the Muslim Cult of Islam started in July 4, 1930. Ford proclaimed he was sent to wake “the black nation to the full range of the black man’s possibilities in a world temporarily dominated by the blue-eyed devils.” He taught that the African American culture was unique and separate from that of “the Caucasian devils.”

The Muslim Cult of Islam lasted almost four years under the leadership of Fard until his departure in 1933. According to his son’s mother, Hazel Barton, he was never to be seen or heard from again.

Elijah Poole, Fard’s first assistant and one of his most loyal followers, told members of the Cult that Fard “had returned to Allah” and that Poole had been selected to succeed him. He changed his name to Elijah Muhammad and moved the sect, now called the Nation of Islam, to Michigan and then to Chicago: the “New Mecca.”

Elijah Muhammad (Poole) continued the same hard line of dialogue as his predecessor. He taught that blacks were the “original people” and whites were “devils,” an “artificial mutation” created by an evil scientist.

Elijah was honored at the Black Muslim Annual Convention in Chicago on February 25, 1962. The late America Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell said, “Elijah Muhammad is the Adolf Hilter of the black man.”

Louis Eugene Wolcott, also known as “Calypso Gene,” an inspiring singer and songwriter with a “smooth charismatic stage presence” and a voice that rivaled that of the legendary Harry Belfonte, was an entertainer insured of a promising and successful career. Wolcott’s childhood experience of open rejection of African Americans in a neighborhood predominantly Jewish at the time, coupled with the racial discrimination of the past, fueled his disdain for whites and the Jewish community.

In 1955, Wolcott accepted a friend’s invitation to a rally given by Elijah Muhammad’s organization. This event would change him from an inspiring singer into devoted follower of Elijah. He told an associate that the rally resulted in his “rebirth” experience.

Wolcott changed his name to “Louis X” according to Black Muslim tradition, and later to Louis Farrakhan. The “X” denoted “unknown,” indicating that the true heritage of African Americans was stolen during the slave trade.

Farrakhan became a member of the Nation of Islam under the leadership of Malcolm X in 1955. Louis worked diligently learning the teachings of Elijah Muhammad and eventually moved up into ranks of leadership in the movement. He eventually became “the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s national spokesman.”

As head of the Harlem Mosque from 1965 to 1975, he became well known in the community. His messages at rallies across America conveyed African American separatism, economic rebirth and a continual attack of whites and Jews.

In 1977, two years after the death of Elijah Muhammad, Farrakhan formed his own sect patterned after the Nation of Islam. White supremacists have found common ground with Louis’ desire for separate territories for African Americans and whites. Their solidarity has grown stronger around their disdain for the Jewish community.

Farrakhan continues today with recruitment of youth gang members, prison inmates, college educated youth and the African American middle-class with the same message that many critics term as “words of hate and racism.” In a speech given March 11, 1984, Farrakhan proclaimed, “Some white people are going to live …. but (God) don’t want them living with us. He doesn’t want us mixing ourselves up with the slavemaster’s children, whose time of doom has arrived.”

Steps Toward Academic Excellence

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

A visiting author teaches students “How to study smarter – not harder – and get straight “A’s”

GAINESVILLE, Florida (FR) – When Richard Little was a college freshman in 1982 at the University of Miami, he took 12 courses and managed only one “A” during the entire year. A bright student, he resolved to try harder the next year. However, he managed only two “A’s” in all 12 courses the second time around.

Having learned that he could earn “C’s” with little effort, he was baffled as to why much effort yielded the same results. He knew that it wasn’t because of his intelligence level, so he embarked on a search to discover the answer to his dilemma. After hanging around with some “A” students, he found, to his amazement, that they didn’t study any harder than he did! What was it that made the difference?

During the next three years, he learned the secret to success. Little decided he would put all of this material in a no-frills study guide, The Smarter Student: How to Study Smarter, Not Harder, and Get Straight A’s. This guide includes information on: the education system, the fundamentals, good study habits, study secrets, how to read a book, how to write a research paper, how to take a test, stress, and a direct and sensible way which insures success.

Little believes that most students have the ability to receive “A’s” in 90% of his classes. Speaking recently at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Little’s seminar was so popular that many students were turned away due to overcrowding. At the seminar, he outlined his method of success which consisted of (1) taking action consistently, (2) viewing failure as opportunity, and (3) focusing on the positive.

Little’s 40 page booklet is available for $5.95 plus $1.90 shipping, by writing to Student Publications, 3555 NW Federal Hwy Suite 100, Jensen Beach, FL 34957.

British Education: Keeping The Faith

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Garry J. Moes

LONDON (CR) – Of all the remarkable achievements marking Britain’s conservative shift, few are more stunning than a recent act of Parliament requiring state education in the United Kingdom to be distinctly Christian in character.

The new law went into effect September 5th, following several months of negotiation over wording designed to guarantee respect for other faiths. The legislation, contained in amendments to Britain’s long-standing Education Reform Bill, was spearheaded by the Conservative Family Campaign, a Christian action group headquartered in Surrey.

Specifically, it requires that compulsory religious education in state schools be “in the main Christian” and that the daily act of worship in state schools likewise be Christian in character. The legislation includes “provisions and caveats” for students from non-Christian faiths, according to Graham Webster-Gardiner, chairman of the Conservative Family Campaign.

Nearly as noteworthy as the legislation itself was the alignment of forces for and against the pro-Christian amendments, officially sponsored in the House of Lords by Baroness Caroline Cox. Not so surprising was the opposition of Britain’s socialist Labor Party and a variety of liberal church interests who saw the legislation as a threat to religious pluralism. What was truly remarkable was the support given by key leaders of non-Christian faiths whose interests allegedly would be jeopardized by the new law.

Among such supporters was Lord Jakobovits, chief rabbi of the House of Lords, who underscored the sweeping significance of the legislation during floor debate in the upper house. “If we consider religious faith and precept as the spiritual lifeblood of the nation and all its citizens … indiscriminate mixing of blood can prove dangerous and so can the mixing of faiths in education,” Lord Jakobovits said.

He offered as an example of how that principle applies to Jews the testimony of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, principal of Jews’ College. In a radio meditation, Rabbi Sacks described how he was raised at a primary school which was devoutly Church of England and where Jewish boys had their separate Jewish assemblies.

Rabbi Sacks related: “The effect of this schooling on our Jewish identity was curious. It made us, of course, acutely aware that we were different. But because those around us were taking their religion seriously, it made us consider our Judaism seriously, too … So it isn’t strange that all this produced a rabbi. From living with those who valued their traditions, I learned to cherish my own.”

Lord Jakobovits noted that two Newcastle teachers had complained in a report called “Crisis in Religious Education” that today’s school children have been losing the chance to grow as practicing Christians. “They might, I think, have gone further still; for if Christianity suffers, so, in a curious way, does every other faith as well,” Rabbi Jakobovits observed.

Graham Webster-Gardiner said the opposition of liberal churchmen showed “how riddled the Body of Christ is with secular humanism not only in the apostate Church but seemingly reliable organizations. It just emphasizes the necessity for Conservative Family Campaign to exist and how vital it is for us to continue to speak out for Christian values and standards in society.”

Baroness Cox, in promoting the measure, said, “Many parents and teachers had been expressing grave concern over what has been happening in many schools, where religious education and worship have either become secularized and politicized, or been transformed into a confusing multifaith mixture which does justice to no faith and may destroy all faith.”

During debate, Lord Home said claims by some members of Parliament and certain church leaders that Britain is no longer a Christian country were “too facile a judgment.” Noting that Britain has an established church headed by the queen and that Parliament itself begins its daily proceedings with the prayer “Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings …” Lord Home concluded: “All that is not a sham. It is real, and our young people ought to know the story of Christianity and the commitment of their predecessors to its values. Far too many of them do not know about that today.”

While the United States has from its beginning vigorously avoided an “established” church, Lord Home’s conclusion is clearly applicable to the American situation as well. For without a doubt, the United States was founded and built upon the same Christian commitment and values, vital roots which have been totally severed from the public educational nourishment of American schoolchildren.

Lord Charteris of Amisfield (Independent) told his peers that there is grave danger in a “multifaith approach” to education.

“I think it is a mistake and dangerously wishy-washy,” he said. “It is absolutely right that children should learn about faiths other than their own and learn to respect them. But, unless they really know one, they will not really know anything worth knowing about any. I believe we have a great opportunity to redeem the past. If we fail to grasp it, future generations will not easily forgive us.”

Viscount Buckmaster, claiming to speak for Britain’s Moslems, said adherents of Islam also supported Lady Cox’s amendments because “Moslems feel very strongly that Christian education in our schools should be given a more positive image.”

Lord Thorneycroft, a Conservative Party member, said the floor speech given by the chief rabbi highlighted the fact that the legislation does not require “Jews to become Christians, but … Christians to become Christians. With the West Indians clamoring for it, with the Moslems praying for it, and with the Jews urging it in this House, what case is there for not having Christian education in the schools?

“What is the alternative? I ask that deep thought be given to this matter. The amendment [offered] by Lady Cox goes to the root of the alternative, which is some kind of multifaith education. The Chief Rabbi called it a ‘kind of religious cocktail.’ The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London said that he is nervous of compulsion. So am I. I would be most nervous of compelling people to have a multifaith education.”

Christian education advocates in America, Australia, France, Scandinavia and other highly secularized or pagan lands may consider the adoption of legislation similar to the British amendments a virtual impossibility. But those with such despairing views should consider the spiritual climate in Great Britain a few years ago, and even today. If such a step can be accomplished in a nation whose population has been regarded as overwhelmingly apathetic or hostile to true faith for many decades, it can surely be accomplished in countries, such as the United States, where vast majorities still claim a Christian faith and millions actively pursue it for the reconstruction of their society.

Excerpted from an article by Garry Moes, in Chalcedon Report, P.O. Box l58, Vallecito, CA 95251. Used with permission.

A Brief History of Christian Influence in U.S. Colleges

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Harvard had been founded in 1636 by Puritan Calvinists who recognized the necessity for training up a clergy if the new Bible commonwealth was to flourish in the wilderness.

Since 1620, some 17,000 Puritans had migrated to New England, and they wanted ministers who were able to expound the Scriptures from the original Hebrew and Greek, as well as be familiar with what the church fathers, scholastic philosophers and reformists had written in Greek and Latin.

The kind of teaching that Harvard College was to provide was spelled out in its “Rules and Precepts” as follows:

Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, John 17:3, and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all found knowledge and Learning…

Secularization of the American university begin with the takeover of Harvard by the Unitarians in 1805. Actually, the Unitarian takeover was preceded by a protracted struggle between orthodoxy and liberalism, which began in 1701 when Increase Mather stepped down from the presidency. The liberals, who had obtained a definite majority in the governing Corporation, elected John Leverett as president of Harvard College. Leverett, a religious liberal and a layman, set the college on its course away from Calvinist orthodoxy.

Gentlemen vs. Scholars

Under Leverett, Harvard became known as a place where young men became gentlemen rather than scholars. Leverett differed from his predecessors, who regarded Harvard merely as a seminary for orthodox Congregational ministers. According to Samuel Eliot Morison’s Three Centuries of Harvard:

Former presidents liked to refer to Harvard men in commencement orations and the like by the Old Testament phrase filli prophetarum, “Sons of the Prophets.” Leverett called the alumni harvardinates, or “Sons of Harvard.”

It was also under Leverett that Harvard began attracting the unfavorable attention of the press, which reported on students living “in riot and luxury.” Leverett’s own diary reveals that the faculty was having plenty of trouble with “profane swearing,” “riotous Actions,” and “bringing Cards into the College.” An undergraduate’s diary of the time notes that the students were frequently slipping off to Boston for horse races, private hangings, and other diversions. Liberalism was already producing its inevitable by-products.

In 1720, Thomas Hollis, a London merchant, endowed the Hollis Professorship of Divinity, Harvard’s first professorial chair; in 1721, Edward Wigglesworth, a talented young cleric, was appointed to it. Although Wigglesworth satisfied the orthodox members of the Corporation as to his adherence to Calvinist doctrine, he soon showed his true colors. Morison writes:

One of the first theologians in New England who dared publicly to challenge the “five points of Calvinism,” he employed the deadly method of doubt in inquiry, rather than direct attack… Wigglesworth was a prime favorite with Harvard students, and he and his son Edward, who succeeded, had a very great influence on New England theology. It was the Wigglesworths who trained the pioneers of liberal Christianity in New England – the ministers who led the way out of the lush but fearsome jungles of Calvinism, into the thin, clear light of Unitarianism.

The founding of Yale College in 1701 at New Haven, Connecticut by orthodox Harvard graduates was a reaction to the growing liberalism at Harvard. Yale, in fact, was to carry on the orthodox tradition well into the 19th century before it too succumbed to liberalism.

The Great Awakening

That the religious liberalism of the Harvard elite did not reflect the true feelings of the average man in the colonies became quite obvious during the Great Awakening, which began in the 1730s. In September 1740, George Whitefield, the fiery evangelical revivalist, arrived in Boston and addressed 15,000 people on Boston Common. He was invited to Harvard, where the students were eager and attentive, but the faculty was rather cool. On a subsequent visit to the Boston area, Whitefield was not even invited to Harvard. Henceforth, he and his followers began to denounce Harvard as a house if impiety and sin. As a result, Harvard began to suffer a decline in enrollment. Yale, on the other hand, now required that “the students should be established in the principles of religion according to the [Westminster] Assembly’s Catechism.” Also, every officer of the college was required to subscribe publicly to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Saybrook Platform of the congregational churches of Connecticut before entering upon his duties. Morision writes:

On the whole, Harvard succeeded in keeping as far ahead of popular religious prejudice, and so far independent of sectarian control, as the times and circumstances made wise and possible. Too abrupt a change in religious matters would have isolated Harvard in the New England community, diminished her usefulness, and at the time of the Revolution, endangered her existence. There are still those who believe that, by keeping the Calvinist machine running, Yale and Princeton conserved certain values that were dissipated at Cambridge in the exhaust of Unitarianism; but it is difficult nowadays to imagine a Harvard linked up with fundamentalism.

Although the Great Awakening had little effect on the Harvard elite, it gave tremendous impulse to God-centered education elsewhere in the colonies. In 1746, the Philadelphia Presbyterian Synod secured a charter for the College of New Jersey, which in 1756 became Princeton College. Most of its first six presidents, Jonathan Edwards among them, had been prominent preachers in the revival movement.

In 1766, members of the Dutch Reformed Church founded Queen’s College, which sixty years later became Rutgers at New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 1764, Baptists founded Brown University in Rhode Island, and in 1769 a Congregational preacher by the name of Eleazar Wheelock founded Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Even the nonsectarian University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1756 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, welcomed preachers to edify the students. In short, the religious fervor, which also kindled the flame of freedom that brought on the struggle for independence, greatly diminished the influence of Harvard until well after the Revolutionary War ended.

Rebellion Against Calvinism

The rise of Unitarianism among the academic and merchant elite in Puritan New England might seem at first a highly unlikely occurrence. But universities, as we so well know, seem to attract men of intellectual pride who gaze longingly on the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thinking that if they eat of its fruit they will be as gods.

In 1785, under the ministry of Harvard-educated Unitarian James Freeman, the congregation of King’s Chapel in Boston purged their Anglican liturgy of all references to the Trinity, thus establishing the first Unitarian church in America. Twenty years later, the Unitarian takeover of Harvard was complete.

The rebellion against Calvinism was a rebellion against the Biblical view of man and God. William Ellery Channing, a Harvard alumnus who became the leader of the Unitarian movement, explained the basis of Unitarianism at the dedication of a new Unitarian church in Baltimore in 1817. After dismissing the concept of the Trinity as “an enormous tax on credulity,” he then zeroed in on God Himself:

We believe in the moral perfection of God… It is not because He is our Creator merely, but because He created us for good and holy purposes; it is not because His will is irresistible, but because His will is the perfection of virtue, that we pay Him allegiance. We cannot bow before a being, however great and powerful, who governs tyrannically. We respect nothing but excellence whether on earth or in heaven. We venerate, not the loftiness of God’s throne, but the equity and goodness in which it is established…

Now we object to the systems of religion which prevail among us, that they are adverse, in a greater or less degree, to these purifying, comforting, and honorable views of God, that they take from us our Father in heaven, and substitute for Him a being, whom we cannot love if we would, and whom we ought not to love if we could.

For Unitarians, the worship of God depended on His being what they thought He should be, not what He actually was. In any case, Jesus was reduced to the status of prophet and teacher. He was divine only to the extent that we were all divine. Thus, salvation was not longer attained exclusively through Christ but through a good education and good works.

Every Man a God

The Unitarians also rejected the Calvinist view of man as being innately depraved. Man, they were convinced, was not only basically good, but perfectible. For this reason, social action became the principal mode in which Unitarians practiced their religion. They were convinced that evil was caused not by man’s sinful nature, but by ignorance, poverty, and social injustice.

Thus, by eliminating ignorance (through universal public education), they would eliminate poverty and thereby eliminate social injustice. Once this was done and the happy results observed by all, the Unitarians would have proven that they were right and the Calvinists were wrong.

While the early Harvard Unitarians believed that their rational form of Christianity was quite scriptural, the newer generation, influenced by the Enlightenment and the intoxicating elixir of Hegelian pantheism, saw no reason why they should subject their emotional, spiritual and intellectual aspirations to the stultifying restrictions of the Bible.

Thus it was that in 1838 Ralph Waldo Emerson shocked the older Unitarians with his famous Divinity School address in which he offered a devastating criticism of all organized religion. Through the new movement of Transcendentalism, Emerson was able to release Unitarians from the weak bonds that still maintained their connection with the religion of the Bible. Transcendentalism was the new form of spirituality that elevated man to godhood. It was far more compatible with the Eastern religions than with the religion of the ancient Hebrews.

Meanwhile, Harvard became the Unitarian Vatican, a self-governing principality on the Charles River, a citadel of humanist liberalism. When America’s oldest, richest and most prestigious university becomes the nation’s foremost antagonist of orthodox biblical religion, it is bound to have a spiritually devastating influence on American cultural and intellectual life.

E.J. Kahn writes in Harvard, Through Change and Through Storm:

Other appraisers of Harvard have compared it to a tiny part of Europe – specifically, to the Vatican. Members of the Corporation, among whose responsibilities is the selection of Harvard’s president, have compared themselves to the College of Cardinals.

No president of Harvard is known to have invested himself publicly with Papal stature, but the analogy has its points. Harvard has traditionally operated like a small, powerful, and subjectively infallible political entity with a worldwide constituency…

It is one of Harvard’s special problems that it has long been conscious of being a super-power – King, as it were, of the academic mountain.

The road to secularization among other great private American universities was somewhat similar. Yale, Princeton, William and Mary, Brown, Dartmouth, and Columbia were founded by Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists. However, as the Protestant sects became liberal, the universities followed suit.

God and Hegel at Yale

At Yale, the departure from orthodoxy was spurred by the profound influence of German Hegelian philosophy. Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was probably the most influential philosopher of his time – and probably the most influential of ours if we consider his influence on the Marxists who permeate American universities.

Hegel rejected the theology of the Bible and believed that everything in the universe is God. In this pantheistic universe, God was in the process of perfecting Himself through a dynamic evolutionary process known as the dialectic – a constant, endless struggle between the thesis and the antithesis, which then resolved themselves into a synthesis. This synthesis then became the new thesis, which then inevitably formed a new antithesis to continue the progressive struggle onward and upward toward perfection. It was this dialectic concept of progress that became the basis of the “progressive” movement.

Hegel also believed that man’s intellect was the highest manifestation of good in the universe and that man himself was involved in the dialectic process. Karl Marx (1818-1883) adopted the dialectical concept of progress but rejected Hegel’s pantheism, formulating his own concept of “dialectic materialism,” which became the philosophical basis for scientific socialism and communist revolution. If revolutionaries could harness the forces of the dialectical struggle, they could lead mankind into communist utopia. By viewing the dialect as a scientifically provable force, like gravity, the communists saw themselves as a vanguard of social progress leading mankind into a glorious future.

Hegel also viewed the state as being god on earth, the ultimate authority and law in man’s lives, because it represented man’s collective power. It was this statist philosophy that set the stage for communism, socialism, Nazism, and two world wars. Ideas do indeed have consequences!

Skullduggery

At Yale, the departure from Christian orthodoxy was begun in 1833 with the formation on campus of an American chapter of a German secret society known as The Order of Skull & Bones. Antony Sutton, in his book America’s Secret Establishment, describes The Order as a conspiracy to control the evolution of American society by putting its members in positions of leadership throughout the country:

The Order is neither “left” nor “right.” “Left” and “right” are artificial devices to bring about change, and the extremes of political left and political right are vital elements in a process of controlled change… In the dialectical process a clash of opposites brings about a synthesis… This conflict of opposites is essential to bring about change… In the Hegelian system conflict is essential. Furthermore, for Hegel and systems based on Hegel, the State is absolute. The State requires complete obedience from the individual citizen… He finds freedom only in obedience to the State.

Sutton’s hypothesis explains how such disparate personalities as William F. Buckley Jr., Robert Taft, and George Bush – all conservative Republicans – and Robert Sloane Coffin, John Kerry, and W. Averell Harriman – all liberal Democrats – could belong to the same secret society. It might also explain why William F. Buckley Jr. denounced Robert Welch when the latter told the American people that there was a conspiracy of Insiders who were controlling the course of events in America and the world.

Most interesting of all is how The Order has managed to gain control of American education. Three members of The Order were responsible for this development: Timothy Dwight (1849), professor at Yale Divinity School and later 12th president of Yale; Daniel Coit Gilman (1852), first president of the University of California, first president of Johns Hopkins University, and first president of the Carnegie Institution; and Andrew Dickson White (1853), first president of Cornell and first president of the American Historical Association. All three also studied philosophy at the University of Berlin.

The three most important men in the progressive education movement – John Dewey, James McKeen Cattell, and G. Stanley Hall – were all at Johns Hopkins at the same time. Hall, who was trained by Wilhelm Wundt at Leipzig, taught Dewey and Cattell the new psychology. It was also at Johns Hopkins that Dewey was introduced to Hegelianism. James McKeen Cattell later studied under Wundt in Leipzig and went on to become America’s leading educational psychologist at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dewey went on to create the new progressive curriculum for the public schools, which downgraded literacy and emphasized socialization. Cattell’s experiments in Wundt’s laboratory were to become the scientific basis for using the look-say, whole word method in teaching reading in the primary schools.

Totalitarian Tutoring

For the last 60 years or so, American education has been in the hands of humanists, socialists, and Hegelians turning out confused Americans who are not sure where they are going or why they are going there. Yet the secular State cannot accumulate total power because our constitution stands in the way. It was written 200 years ago by men steeped in orthodox religion who knew of man’s depraved, sinful nature and were determined to make it as difficult as possible for evil men to gain total political power in the United States.

There was no such constitutional tradition in Germany to prevent Hitler from becoming a total dictator and leading a cultivated, civilized nation into utter depravity and ruin. The universities of Germany were spawning grounds for the ideas that led to Hitler, and they offered no resistance when he arrived on the scene. Why should they have resisted when he was basically what they wanted?

But the scene in America is different. We can prevent the rise of one big Hitler, but we have no way of preventing the many little Hitlers from occupying positions of power and influence in our many diverse institutions, public and private. The totalitarian spirit can be found in bureaucrats, judges, legislators, educators, union leaders, etc. In fact, we even have real-live, self-admitted totalitarians in the Communist Party USA working with great dedication to turn America into a dictatorship of the proletariat, with plenty of sympathizers in our universities. One would think that the lessons of recent history would turn people away from such obvious insanity. However, Calvinists would simply remind us that man is innately depraved, a sinner to the core, attracted to evil to satisfy a variety of his carnal and intellectual lusts.

The Influence of Catholics

For a time it seemed as if the establishment of major Catholic universities in America – Notre Dame, Loyola, Holy Cross, Boston College, etc. – would offset the secularization of American higher education. Catholic educators offered some of the strongest arguments against progressive education. They vigorously defended the rights of parents and private schools. When the socialist Cardenas government in Mexico banned the operation of schools “directly or indirectly linked to any religious creed” in 1935, Msgr. Pascual Diaz, archbishop of Mexico, instructed Catholics in a pastoral letter to refuse to comply with the new socialistic education laws:

First – No Catholic can be a socialist, understanding by socialism the philosophical, economic or social system which in one form or another does not recognize the rights of God and the church nor the natural right of every man to possess the goods he has acquired by his work or inherited legitimately, or which foments hatred and the unjust struggle of classes.

Second – No Catholic can study or teach socialism, nor cooperate directly to those ends, since it contains many errors condemned by the church.

Third – No Catholic can subscribe to declarations or formulas according to which he approves, although only for appearance, socialistic education, since this would be to work against the dictates of his own conscience.

Fourth – No Catholic can approve pedagogic naturalism or sexual education, since they are very grave errors which bring serious consequences.

In saying that no Catholic can do what is prohibited, we make it clearly understood that those who do so commit a mortal sin.

It should be understood that these prohibitions are not arbitrary, but conform exactly with the general mandates of the church, which has the right, given by God Himself, to command its sons to do what is necessary for their eternal salvation and to prohibit them from doing what would carry them away from that end: proceeding in everything as a loving mother who seeks only the good of her children; when they work against what she commands, they bring down their own unhappiness.

That letter was not only signed by the archbishop of Mexico, but by eight other archbishops and thirty bishops. It is doubtful that any Catholic archbishop would put his signature on that kind of letter today, for Catholic educators, with very few exceptions, have succumbed to the same secular humanistic philosophy that now permeates all of academia.

The founding of Regent University, Pensacola Christian College, Liberty University, and other schools indicates that God-centered education is still desired by a small but growing segment of the American population. But some day the humanist State may decide that God-centered education promotes religious prejudice and bigotry; that it presents a danger to society; and that, therefore, it must cease.

Of course, the religious freedom clause in the First Amendment should make such an occurrence unlikely. But it did not stop Nebraska authorities from jailing Reverent Everett Sileven for operating an “unapproved” Christian school, nor is it stopping a number of states from prosecuting Christian home-schoolers for not complying with the education laws.

A new concept has emerged in the courts – that “state’s compelling interest in education” – which is being deftly used by state prosecutors, superintendents of schools, and judges to override the Constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.

An Establishment of Religion

With our great state universities all under humanist control, and our nation’s public school under similar control, it is obvious to anyone who can see that, under the guise of secularization, the humanists have created the most powerful and pervasive government-funded establishment of religion that has ever existed in the United States.

Humanism is religion. It is, in fact, Unitarianism in the guise of secular philosophy. In 1987, U.S. District Court Judge W. Brevard Hand, in Smith v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, Alabama, ruled that the secular humanists philosophy is a religion. He said:

For purposes of the First Amendment, secular humanism is a religious belief system, entitled to the protections of, and subject to the prohibitions of, the religion clauses.

Edwin H. Wilson, a Unitarian minister and one of the founders of the humanist movement, took great pains to show the interchangeability of humanism and Unitarianism in an article he wrote for the Nov/December 1962 issue of The Humanist. He stated:

The American Humanist Association itself was organized … by a group composed primarily of liberal ministers and professors who were predominantly Unitarians and considered themselves as religious humanists…

Of the 34 persons who signed the Humanist Manifesto in 1933, all but four can be readily identified as “religious humanists” … My conviction is that a probe into what is actually believed would show that the “liberal Unitarian position” and what is generally presented as Humanism – whether as a religion or as a philosophy – differ very little.

Then there was the Torcaso case, in which the Supreme Court recognized Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, and Secular Humanism as religions existing in the United States even though they do not teach what is traditionally considered belief in God.

There is no doubt that our government education system is an illegal establishment of religion in flagrant violation of our constitution. The American people permit this system to exist mainly because of ignorance, confusion, and deference to a number of powerful and corrupt special interests. But a nation that prefers to live with lies – because it is too cowardly and corrupt to fight for truth – will have to accept the consequences of its depravity.

See also: The Boston Awakening

How Christians Started the Ivy League

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth – all owe their origins to the gospel.

Probably no segment of American society has turned out a greater number of illustrious graduates than New England’s Ivy League. Labels like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, still carry their own mystique and a certain aura of elitism and prestige.

Yet perhaps it would surprise most to learn that almost every Ivy League school was established primarily to train ministers of the gospel – and to evangelize the Atlantic seaboard.

Harvard, 1638

It only took eighteen years from the time the Pilgrims set foot on Plymouth Rock until the Puritans, who were among the most educated people of their day, founded the first and perhaps most famous Ivy League school. Their story, in brief, is etched today in an entry way to Harvard Yard:

“After God had carried us safely to New England, and we had built our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God’s worship, and settled the civil government; one of the next things we longed for, and looked after was to advance learning, and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when our present ministers shall lie in the dust.”

Harvard College’s first presidents and tutors insisted that there could be no true knowledge or wisdom without Jesus Christ, and but for their passionate Christian convictions, there would have been no Harvard.

Harvard’s “Rules and Precepts adopted in 1646 included the following essentials: “Every one shall consider the main end of his life and studies to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life. Seeing the Lord giveth wisdom, every one shall seriously by prayer in secret seek wisdom of Him. Every one shall so exercise himself in reading the Scriptures twice a day that they be ready to give an account of their proficiency therein, both in theoretical observations of languages and logic, and in practical and spiritual truths….”

According to reliable calculations, 52 percent of the 17th century Harvard graduates became ministers!

Yale, 1701

By the turn of the century Christians in the Connecticut region launched Yale as an alternative to Harvard. Many thought Harvard too far away and too expensive, and they also observed that the spiritual climate at Harvard was not what it once had been.

Princeton, 1746

This school, originally called “The College of New Jersey,” sprang up in part from the impact of the First Great Awakening. It also retained its evangelical vigor longer than any other Ivy League school. In fact, Princeton’s presidents were evangelical until at least the turn of the Twentieth Century, as also many of the faculty.

Dartmouth, 1754

A strong missionary thrust launched this new school in New Hampshire. Its royal charter, signed by King George of England, specified the school’s intent to reach the Indian tribes, and to educate and Christianize English youth as well. Eleazar Wheelock, a close friend of evangelist George Whitefield, secured the charter.

Columbia, William and Mary, Rutgers, Brown & UPenn

The first president of New York’s Columbia University, first known as “King’s College,” at one time served as a missionary to America under the English-based “Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.” The Church of England established the College of William and Mary, near today’s colonial Williamsburg. Dutch Reformed revivalists founded Queen’s College (later Rutgers University) in New Jersey. Brown University originated with the Baptist churches scattered on the Atlantic seaboard. With the exception of the University of Pennsylvania, every collegiate institution founded in the colonies prior to the Revolutionary War was established by some branch of the Christian Church.

Even at UPenn, however, an evangelist played a prominent part. When Philadelphia churches denied revivalist George Whitefield access to their pulpits, forcing him to preach in the open, some of Whitefield’s admirers, among them Benjamin Franklin, decided to erect a building to accommodate the great crowds that wanted to hear him. The structure they built became the first building of what is now the University of Pennsylvania, and a statue of Whitefield stands prominently on that campus today.

Though the Ivy League schools eventually turned secular, they fed into the mainstream of society in those earlier days a great army of graduates who could claim Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord, and who left a strong impact on our nation. Their presidents and their faculties helped to set a high spiritual tone, and at times their campuses in turn felt the impact of revival. The educators of early America understood that the moral climate of its schools, colleges and universities would shape its future generations, and could ultimately decide the course of the nation.

Reprinted from The Rebirth of America, published by the Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation.

See also: The Boston Awakening

Classroom Bias

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Brent Knox

I once heard a professor say nonchalantly,“The Bible actually does teach reincarnation. Remember the story of John the Baptist? Wasn’t he Elijah reincarnated? And there used to be many other Scriptural passages which taught reincarnation, but in the third and forth centuries, biased church fathers took their scissors and cut those enlightening passages from the Bible.”

All the heads in the classroom bobbed up and down in mesmerized agreement. I gaped in astonishment. I thought I had heard every possible criticism against the Bible, but this one was really incredible. It was so far-fetched that even several of the religion professors at the same university I talked to hadn’t heard it. But even more astonishing was that the students in the classroom absorbed the tale as if it was gospel truth. Why? Because professors are the experts. They are scholars and have a lot of abbreviations after their names to prove it.

As a Christian student at a public university, I learned very quickly not to be overawed by professors. They are just men. And men make mistakes. In fact, the Bible reveals that man can actually suppress the truth, not because it is intellectually dissatisfying, but because of their desire for sin (Romans 1:18). Men can appear wise and learned, but actually be fools with futile thinking because of a secret rebellion in not honoring God (Romans 1:19-23).

Although not all college professors have this problem, unfortunately, many do promote unreasonable and irrational criticisms against God, His Word and His Son because their moral bias makes them unable to think correctly. Remember, your professor may be an expert in biology, but he may be foolish when he speaks fondly of our “ancestor” Australopithecus.

It’s important to be able to distinguish between truth and the presuppositions of many of our country’s college professors. If we can’t detect when these presuppositions are leading a professor into academic error, then our faith may be weakened or destroyed by half-truths masquerading as truths. I would like to look at three of these presuppositions, or “faiths,” that have invaded many of our nation’s classrooms:

1. The hard-core scientists rally under the banner that says, “Prove it to me!” They say God is irrelevant because His existence cannot be proven and faith is irrational because you must abandon your intellect. But they, too, have a faith: The universe is a closed system of causes and effects; only that which is empirically verifiable is of reality; all else is meaningless. From this faith comes the belief that a scientific view of the world can give a complete picture of all that is true. But realize this: this faith is truly a faith, not a scientific conclusion.

The scientific method is not the only way to arrive at knowledge. Countless times, as I have told someone about the resurrection, I’ve received the retort, “Prove it to me!” It used to befuddle me. I couldn’t even prove it and would leave the conversation barbecued. But now, I ask gently,“Well, can you prove to me that Julius Caesar lived and fought in the Gallic Wars?” The point is made. You cannot prove anything in history scientifically. But that doesn’t make historical events any less real than e = mc2.

Back in my college days, I was discussing Christianity with a chemistry teaching assistant.

“I can’t believe in this Jesus stuff because it rests on so many miracles. And miracles are so unscientific,” he said.

I paused and said, “That’s the point. If you could explain miracles scientifically, then they wouldn’t be miracles anymore.”

He had never thought of that before. If there is a God, then His existence, His proofs (miracles) and His revelations would all defy the scientific method because the events must be repeated and observed a statistical amount of times. Just because science cannot observe history, revelation, God, miracles, etc., doesn’t make these things irrational, questionable or untrue.

2. One pleasant afternoon at the University of Iowa, I was discussing with a group of students the morality of the Bible and that God’s laws are absolutely true no matter what culture or time in history you live in. One scholarly looking student defiantly interrupted, “But there are no such things as absolutes!”

“Are you sure?” I replied.
“Yes, I am sure!” he shouted back.
“Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes!!!” he shrieked.
“Then you are an absolutist just like me!” I said.

I thought he was going to fall off the steps. No one likes to be an absolutist.

The bias in the classroom is that no absolutes exist. But that’s an impossible position. In order to be a true non-absolutist, a person must admit the possibility of absolutes and thereby the possibility of God and His revelation in the Bible. A true non-absolutist should inspect Christianity’s perspective as a viable alternative view. But often, the Christian perspective on morality, ethics, the nature of man as it relates to psychology and sociology, etc., is dismissed as narrow-minded, empty-headed fundamentalists’ dogma that couldn’t possibly be true.

Who really is narrow-minded and biased? If you want to test this bias, try standing up in a class on Religion in America during a discussion on pluralism and state, “Jesus is the only way to God.” You will see people’s hair stand straight up on their neck. But if God exists and God spoke, then the statement is not absurd at all.

Because God is considered irrelevant in the classroom, there is no longer any basis from which to form opinions on morality, ethics and religion. Our society’s motto has become, “Hey, it doesn’t make any difference what you believe, as long as you believe it.”

Well, it does make a difference what you believe! If you believe that question 2 on a multiple-choice test is option “d,” does your faith make “d” the correct answer? If your test is returned and “c” is the answer, will an appeal to the professor saying, “But I believed in ‘d’ with all my heart” raise your score? No! (Not unless you make better appeals than I did.)

Why? Because there are correct answers and wrong answers, and a person’s faith has little to do with the reality of right and wrong.

Our society has become a little schizophrenic, thinking that right answers exist for any area of life except religion and morality. Again, if God exists and spoke, then absolutes exist and we have a basis for deciding right from wrong. Yet, people reject Christianity, not because they researched the historical evidence and found it lacking, but because they simply don’t like what it says. That’s a classic bias.

3. Listening to a biology lecture on evolution, I heard the professor chirp, “There are other views explaining the origin of man that exist besides Darwinism. Many people believe that the world was created rather than evolved. But since those theories imply a god, we cannot discuss the merits of these theories in the classroom because the state cannot be a promoter of religion.”

In one quick swipe, this professor dismissed a whole realm of scientific knowledge with the over-worn phrase “separation of church and state.” Not only has God Himself been declared unscientific (remember, He is not at the end of man’s leash to be examined and tested) and therefore irrational, a person cannot even discuss Him without fear of being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Proficient constitutional lawyers realize that the intent of the Constitution is to protect religion from power-hungry government rather than protect the government from power-hungry religion. The people should not be insulated from open, intellectual discussion of God and the Bible, especially if it might be all true. Actually, people use the concept of “separation of church and state” as a tool to carry out their own anti-Christian bias. It’s a favorite war slogan to toss out to avoid facing the music.

To illustrate this, I knew a Christian religion professor at a state university who wrote a paper on the life of Jesus, stating that the gospel accounts were not only historically accurate, but that they were also true (heaven forbid!). The religion department shook for days.

He was asked to leave the university and join a Christian college because he was judged guilty of promoting a religion. His colleagues wanted to box him away and out of sight from students who were searching. And yet, at the same university, other professors regularly promote the theories that discredit the historicity of the gospel accounts.

Apparently, the academic ethic of “freedom to think, research and express opinions” is trashed if a man investigates the reality of Christianity.

The devil has a strategy for the classroom: to drive a deep wedge between education and Christianity, thereby keeping the Christian faith in the churches only. However, our faith is relevant to and deeply affects many disciplines – biology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, religion, business, history, anthropology, etc.

With this war of ideas going on in the classroom, as a student, you will find many opportunities to express the Christian perspective in class. But you will need to be informed to do so accurately and effectively. There are many resources available in Christian book stores that can help you be more knowledgeable. Or, you can sometimes learn about the different approaches to a subject by simply doing extra research at the library.

It’s also important to approach each class with a healthy dose of skepticism, not simply accepting as the gospel truth every single thing the professor or the book states. Armed with resources independent of those the professor assigned, you will be able to think a little more intelligently and critically about the subject and will be better able to sort out truth from theory and outright distortion.

In addition, work hard at your school work. Many people think that Christians are intellectual air-heads and there is no need for you to verify their opinion.

But armed with the Holy Spirit and a storehouse of knowledge, you can come out of the classroom more convinced of your Christian faith and better able to help others come to the same conclusions.

Used by permission of The Christian Cause, © 1988, by Great Commission Inc., Laurel , MD 20707.

Test Your C.L.Q.*

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

(Cultural Literacy Quotient)

1. Which is closer to Washington, D.C.: San Diego, California, or Managua, Nicaragua?

2. Name five countries that have coastlines on both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

3. True or False: For the Soviet Union to invade Iran they would have to cross through Afghanistan.

4. This great American writer penned the narrative poems Hiawatha and Evangeline.

5. Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount _______.

6. Name the first five presidents of the United States in the correct order.

7. In what year was the Magna Carta written?

8. Name the mountain range which lies between Spain and France.

9. Who composed “The Star Spangled Banner” and what was the occasion which prompted its writing?

10. Who betrayed Jesus Christ and how much did he accept as payment for turning Him in to the authorities?

11. What famous 18th century French historian travelled throughout America during the early days of our founding, writing much about our new system of government?

12. What Roman emperor first proclaimed Christianity a state religion in the Roman Empire, and it what century?

13. What great American military hero said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

14. Where in the U.S. were the Wright Brothers first successful in flight?

15. Who was Simon Legree and in what popular American novel did he appear?

16. Who wrote the majority of the New Testament?

17. Which one of the following phrases is not in the Bible: 1) “No man can serve two masters” 2) “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” 3) “Out of the mouths of babes” 4) “strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.”

18. True or False: The Greek poet Homer wrote the famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

19. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence?

20. True or False: “Manifest Destiny” is a doctrine discussed in the New Testament.

Cultural Literacy Test Answers

1. Managua, Nicaragua.
2. Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile.
3. False.
4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
5. Sinai.
6. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe.
7. 1215.
8. the Pyrenees.
9. Francis Scott Key composed the song during the War of 1812.
10. Judas, for 30 pieces of silver.
11. Francis de Toqueville.
12. Constantine the Great in the 4th century.
13. Nathan Hale.
14. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
15. the wicked slaveowner in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
16. the Apostle Paul.
17. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
18. False. It was written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
19. Thomas Jefferson.
20. False. Manifest Destiny was the idea that Americans should expand their governmental influence throughout the North American continent.

Accuracy in Academia - Freedom of Speech Violations

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Campus Report

Freedom of speech is being redefined by university faculty and administrators to protect leftist academicians from any serious challenges of their views, according to reports collected by Accuracy in Academia.

Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy gave a lecture recently entitled “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, Free Speech Has Got to Go!” Kennedy advocated the removal of freedom of speech on the grounds that “toleration has its limits.” Of course, those limits would be defined by his reasoning and only his.

“Can a protester abridge the rights of a Reagan or a Republican Secretary of Defense?” a student asked during the lecture. Kennedy said he would sanction the silencing of their views, as well as those of a visiting ‘contra’ from Nicaragua. When a student asked how he would feel if a visiting lecturer was beaten or killed during such a protest, Kennedy remarked, “It’s a close call, something I’d have to think deeply about.”

Another Harvard professor, mathematics Professor Vishwambhar Pati, defended the silencing of a South African speaker by writing “… there is no provision under U.S. law that guarantees uninterrupted free speech … [The South African’s] privilege to air his views from a Harvard podium is hardly a right.”

The university, which is supposed to be an arena of inquiry, testing and thinking, is becoming a haven for those who only ascribe to a certain point of view, according to an article in Accuracy in Academia’s Campus Report. The article stated that Brooklyn College Professor Robert Cheery defended the silencing of government speakers in a letter:

“…[A]cademic freedom was initiated to protect those who held anti-establishment positions. Those who represent the government have more than ample access to the media so that anyone seriously interested can easily find out their position. If opponents choose to disrupt a government representative’s talk, it reflects a protest against the government’s policies, not an abridgement of freedom of speech.”

A speech by Nicaraguan Resistance Leader Adolfo Calero was recently cancelled by a dean at Harvard University because the audience was dominated by conservatives. Prior to the speech, the same dean spearheaded a protest against Calero. Campus Report posed an interesting question at the end of their published findings:“Where is the American Civil Liberties Union and People for the American Way when you need them?”

Are You Funding Marxist Revolution with Your Tuition?

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

by Solomon Wise

Higher education. It certainly sounds prestigious. It brings to mind a group of serious students in an ivy-covered lecture hall discussing the works of Shakespeare, Jeffersonian demo- cracy, or Adam Smith’s economic principles. But today in America, higher education has taken a nosedive. In many classrooms, Shakespeare, Jefferson, and Smith are out. Marx, Castro, and a host of other radical communist thinkers are in.

And it’s all done quietly and peacefully – and paid for by unknowing parents to the tune of $18,000 a year.

Radical communists teaching in U.S. universities? Surely not. If you don’t believe it, perhaps you should attend the next Marxist Scholars Conference and take a tape player. The most recent of these gatherings, held at the University of California/Berkeley last November, drew 500 American professors and political activists to discuss how they could better disseminate their views into the mainstream of American thought. Their primary target, of course, is the university student.

Here are just of few remarks made at the conference by some of these professors:

• Herbert Apthecker, law professor at the University of California/Berkeley, told the audience that communists will create a “Heaven on earth.”
• Another UC/Berkeley professor, Carlos Munoz of the Chicano Studies department, proclaimed that “This empire (of America) will fall, and we will contribute to its fall.” Munoz went on to explain that the large-scale immigration of Hispanics to the U.S. in coming years will make California “the first Third World state” – and that communists plan to control Hispanic votes.
• Philosophy Professor Jack Pitt of California State University/Fresno said that “teaching is important to those of us on the left” because the classroom is one of the “institutions which disseminate ideology that renders [the ruling class’s] control acceptable … it is essential that we see ideology as contested terrain, as one of the sites where the class struggle is waged.” Pitt said he identifies himself as a Marxist to his students only “if it’s a matter of class solidarity.”
• A high school civics teacher from San Francisco, and member of the executive board of the American Federation of Teachers, told the audience that high school students should be a prime target of their doctrines: “Our need, as educators and as Marxists, is to teach our young people what the correct choices are … I teach my students how to find examples of ethnocentrism, Eurocentrism, racism, bias, distortion …”

He also explained that many immigrants who come to America believe “the myth that America is the land of freedom,” and come with anti-communist sentiments. But he assured the audience that he was not giving up the fight:“We need more Third World teachers in our classrooms. We need more Marxists in our classrooms. We need more progressiveness in our classrooms. That’s where the future is: in the classrooms.”

• Roberto Rivera is an ethnic studies professor at San Francisco State University. Rivera explained why he uses the radical teachings of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian revolutionary, to prepare his students for revolution. “The Nicaraguan revolution is where it is,” Rivera said, because they have used Freire sucessfully in the classroom. He also predicted that the communist revolutionary forces in El Salvador and Guatemala would prevail because “they’re using Freire well.”
• Howard University Political Science Professor Michael Parenti pointed out to the audience that the First Amendment is not the enemy, but how it is used by the ruling class. Parenti also added that the appointment of another conservative to the U.S. Supreme Court would “lead to the end of democracy.”
• Ric Holt, a Northwestern Missouri State professor, told the group how he opens students’ minds to Marxist ideas. Early in the semester, he takes students to watch bankrupt farms being auctioned off as “the generations lose everything they own.”

Of all the special guest speakers at the Marxist Scholars Conference, the largest percentage of speakers were professors who hold degrees in traditional academic subjects as well as more recently invented disciplines such as Native American studies, Black studies, and Chicano studies.

Conference organizer Jack Kurzweil of San Jose State University said that the November meeting was the largest Marxist Scholars Conference in history. The principal sponsors were the Marxist Educational Press, directed by a professor from the University of Minnesota, and the Berkeley chapter of the Union of Radical Political Economists.

In early February of this year, Secretary of Education William Bennett made some fiery comments about the academic establishment which drew sparks from college presidents around the nation. Bennett said: “The American people are beginning to wonder whether the emperor – higher education – has any clothes.” Bennett charged that higher education is losing credibility because faculty members are trashing traditional disciplines for trendy, soft-headed courses.

“Is this what parents are being asked to pay $18,000 a year for?” Bennett asked.

Yes, Mr. Bennett, on many American campuses today, parents are paying that kind of money to send professors like Apthecker, Munoz, Pitt, and Parenti to meetings like the one I have described. In their meetings, they are discussing the most practical and effective ways to overthrow the American system as we know it. Parents are also paying roughly $18,000 a year for these radical teachers to indoctrinate their children in hostile ideologies.

The radical elements in U.S. academia say it’s time for revolution. I agree. I say its time for students, parents, and university administrators to revolt against this madness that is being masqueraded as academic curriculum. Pressure needs to be put on these anti-intellectuals: either they change their militant views, or they’re out of a job. It’s time that we Americans stop financing our own downfall.

The Marxist Assault on the Curriculum

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Lee Grady

The anti-intellectuals have struck again. This time, they’re after the control of the basic freshman curriculum.

Most colleges in America today require some type of general introductory course in Literature and Philosophy. These courses offer a required reading list of truly “Great Books” that represent our cultural heritage and give a simple understanding of the progress of civilization. Students are typically given ample doses of the ancient philosophers, the Bible, Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, and Locke … progressing all the way to the great defenders of American democracy like Hamilton and Jefferson.

But if a certain radical element in our universities continues to have their way, the great books will be shelved forever. The freshman curriculum is now being viewed as a political tool that some radical professors would like to use in a subtle revolutionary campaign.

At Stanford University last year, 500 students and professors – joined by presidential candidate Jesse Jackson – gathered to protest a freshman course on Western literature and philosophy. Chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, Western culture’s got to go,” these activists were calling for a new curriculum which emphasizes non-European cultures and works by “women, minorities, and people of color.”

Some educators at Stanford, along with their colleagues on other campuses which are facing similar controversies, say that our Western cultural heritage is too white, too European, and too male. They say it’s time for democratic equality on the required reading list, and would like to replace Shakespeare with Confucius, Longfellow with the feminist poets, and the Bible with the Bhagavad-Gita and African tribal music. In short, they want to uproot Western traditions, and replace them with a myriad of ethnic diversities which they feel will appear less prejudiced and more open-minded.

The Problem with Relativism

University of Chicago professor Allan Bloom pointed out in his best-selling book The Closing of the American Mind that students in this country are being intellectually maimed by relativism in our classrooms. Because we have rejected moral absolutes, the curriculum has no central reference point to revolve around, and no foundation on which to rest. College-level courses have become a confusing blur because no one really knows what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s good and what’s bad.

That’s the main reason why we see a movement to strike the study of Western culture from the curriculum. After all, who says Western society has ever contributed anything good to mankind? And if it did, who really knows how we could pick a “great books” list? Who knows what “great” really means anyway? What’s great to me may not be so great to the next guy. And who says the Bible is worth studying? Who says the poetry of the ancient Mayans isn’t just as worthy of our attention? Or the novels of Richard Wright or D.H. Lawrence or James Joyce?

When you eliminate moral values and absolute principles of right and wrong, then you are left with lots of questions and no answers. There is no more room for great books, great ideas, or great men, because there is no longer a means to measure greatness. In terms of the college literature course, that means that the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and Paradise Lost have no meaning or value for us today.

The Spirit of Marxism at Work

There’s more involved in this curriculum controversy than the natural conclusions of relativism, however. At the core of this argument is a desire on the part of some educators to tear down everything that the West stands for.

Although Marxists talk a great deal about the positive goals of their world mission – to rebuild or reconstruct society – we have yet to see anything positive happen after a Marxist revolution. The very nature of Marxism is destructive: it produces poverty, genocide, and economic collapse … and then institutes a slave state on top of the rubble.

The motivating force at work in Marx, Lenin, and Engels was hatred and the desire to destroy: hatred of the family, hatred of private property, hatred of wealth, hatred of individual reward. These men had no plan or program for rebuilding what they wanted to tear down. Their revolution was not redemptive, simply vindictive. This is because hatred cannot produce anything positive. Evil cannot beget good.

The anti-intellectuals in our academic community who are challenging the curriculum requirements at Stanford and other universities are being motivated by this same Marxist doctrine. They cannot allow the Bible, the plays of Shakespeare, the essays of Hamilton, or the poems of Longfellow to be read in the classroom because they hate the values that these writings convey. They hate biblical morality (the strongest single influence in Western culture), the concepts of freedom and democracy, and all the other contributions of Western history that have built free and prosperous nations.

The whole goal of the new Marxist, anti-Western curriculum is to remove today’s student from the values of our forefathers. They want to uproot an entire generation of young people from their entrenchment in the “narrow-minded” Western ideas of morality, property, and individual freedom under God. Then, when the operation is complete, they can interject their new, revolutionary ideas.

I am not saying that Western traditions are perfect, by any means. We are a flawed civilization with plenty of problems that were passed down from the Greeks to the Romans to the English to the Americans. But what we should be doing is looking at the positive contributions of Western society – which for the most part were all shaped by Christian ideas. How can our students ever learn to appreciate individual freedom, private property rights, the republican form of government, or representation, if they never learn where the ideas originated, or how great men worked and even gave their lives to secure them?

It’s time we challenged these anti-West critics. I agree with Herbert London, a dean at New York University, who recently expressed his concern about the Stanford incident: “If there is anything the academy needs at the moment,” he wrote, “it is a debunking of the debunkers. We need scholars who can affirm the best in our tradition, without fearing to discuss its flaws. We need teachers who can rediscover the substantive value of Western civilization without apologies to a brand of special pleaders standing on a soap box of gender, class, and race.“1

It is indeed ironic that these academicians – some of them with sincere intentions, perhaps – say that their battle is against prejudice. In the final judgment, it is obvious that they are the true bookburners.

1 Herbert London, “The Debunkers Need to Be Debunked,” Campus Report, January 1988, p. 8.

Siberia is "Land of Opportunity" Says 6th Grade Textbook

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

LONGVIEW, TX (FR) – The U.S. public education system is distributing Soviet propaganda in the guise of social studies textbooks.

Sixth graders are learning that Siberia is a land of opportunity, and not the location of slave labor camps for citizens who do not conform to Soviet wishes.

Mel Gabler, educational research analyst, recently gave a presentation to the Texas State Textbook Committee in Austin, Texas, concerning several social studies textbooks which give a radically different view of Soviet life. A few weeks after the presentation, the committee voted, without comment or discussion, to recommend for adoption all of the social studies texts that had been submitted by publishers.

According to the textbook, The World Past To Present, “Young Soviet workers go east much as young Americans used to go west to make their fortunes,” and “The Soviet government encourages these young people to do so. It offers them better wages, longer holidays, and life of adventure.”

After reading passages that describe Siberia as a “land of opportunity” and/or a “life of adventure” the student is assigned to write an essay that describes Siberia as a land of opportunity. Students are asked to include terms such as unexplored wilderness, life of adventure, and better wages in their passages.

Soviet satellite countries are termed ‘independent nations,’ although they are under Soviet control. The text does not indicate that the Soviets should divest themselves of their colonies (satellites) as is stressed for Western colonies. Angola, Congo, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are called independent nations.

The absence of civil rights in totalitarian Marxist nations is virtually ignored in the textbooks. The harsh regimentation in China is depicted as beneficial teamwork. Communism is not totalitarian, but midway between democracy and totalitarianism, according to the textbooks.

The textbook is also 20 years out of date with the civil rights situation in South Africa. Chief Buthelezi, a black moderate who is the elected leader of 7,000,000 Zulus and represents the vast majority of South African Blacks, is not mentioned, whereas Bishop Tutu who conveys the radical extremist position of the African National Congress is given prominence even though he represents only a tiny percentage of the Blacks in South Africa.

Regarding genocide, the textbook censors the fact that the Soviet Union has eliminated approximately 23,000,000 people. German atrocities are clearly set at 6,000,000. In China, the estimated number of persons eliminated in purges run from a minimum of 45,000,000 to over 80,000,000.

Traditional American values are considered a “moral equivalent” to Marxist values. The student is never told that the Marxist value system is directly opposite the values upon which our nation was founded, and which are still held by a vast majority of American citizens.

Mel Gabler and his wife, Norma, analyze and provide evaluations of textbooks and are based in Austin, Texas. For more information, write: The Mel Gablers, P.O. Box 7518, Longview, Texas 75607-7518.

Steps Toward Self Education

By Jay Rogers
Published April 2008

Recent test results have revealed that the average American student today has stronger skills in the school subjects of Math and English than the students of a generation ago. This is a result of the so-called “back-to-basics” movement which began in the early ’70s. After a generation has passed it has become obvious that the back to basics movement worked – students are now stronger in basic skills than they were 15 years ago – but students today are also less well-rounded than they used to be.

The average American student can read and write well and solve basic math problems, however, there is a huge gap in what has been called cultural literacy. This means that in areas such as history, geography, civics and science, American students are poorly equipped. At the graduate level, for instance, most doctorates in science are now awarded to international students. If this trend continues, foreign countries will soon outshine the United States in scientific fields.

Another sad fact is that most Americans have only a vague knowledge of their heritage. Even as many nations of the world such as China, the Soviet Union, South Africa and those in Eastern Europe are beginning to look to American history in order to understand principles of government and liberty, as a result of ignorance, the average American student has little to share with the world.

Although this situation does not look very bright, there is a remedy. Many Americans of past centuries became successful and contributed a great deal to their society with little formal education. Many Americans of the 18th and 19th centuries were self-educated and studied well into their adult years amassing knowledge as a life long process. Voluntary self-education is needed by an entire generation of Americans in order for them to become relevant, productive members of their society.

Improving Your Cultural Literacy

The following books are recommended by the staff of The Forerunner for those who desire to reeducate themselves in the most important areas of the basic school curriculum. Please note that this list has been prepared by a Christian primarily for a Christian audience. Because Christian history and ideas have been carefully edited from the public school curriculum over the last 100 years, there is a great need to restore these truths. This list was prepared with that in mind.

CULTURAL LITERACY IN GENERAL:

E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. Available in most libraries and bookstores. This book has an excellent list of terms, personalities, places, and dates which are considered by the author to be necessary knowledge in today’s society. This list is guaranteed to show you how much you don’t know!

Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind, Simon and Schuster, New York. Available in your library. A University of Chicago professor makes a strong statement against modern American education and its rejection of moral absolutes. Bloom links our current literacy crisis with this lack of moral values.

HISTORY and GOVERNMENT:

Charles Coffin, The Story of Liberty, Maranatha Publications, P.O. Box 1799, Gainesville, FL 32602. Reprinting of an 1879 classic history text. Available only from the publisher / $11.95. This 412-page illustrated volume tells the story of how civil freedom progressed from the Magna Charta to the establishing to the United States. This understanding of how freedom grew out of the growth of Christianity in Europe is missing in most history courses today.

Peter Marshall and David Manuel, The Light and the Glory, Fleming Revell Company, Old Tappan, New Jersey. Available at all Christian bookstores. A classic retelling of the early history of America without the editing of the secular humanists. This book does not glamorize our Christian founders – it tells the truth about the glories and the failures of the men and women who founded America.

James Draper, If the Foundations Be Destroyed, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville. Another excellent retelling of America’s history that does not apologize for our Christian beginnings. A shorter but well-documented work. Available at Christian bookstores.

Verna Hall, The Christian History of the United States of America – Christian Self-Government, San Francisco, Foundation for American Christian Education. An important collection of writings from the founders which reveal just how Christian these men were in their reasoning and philosophy. A very scholarly work best used in group study. A companion study volume is also available. Contact the Foundation for American Christian Education, Box 27035, San Francisco, California 94127.

David Stedman and LaVaughn Lewis, Our Ageless Constitution, W. David Stedman Associates, Asheboro, North Carolina. This attractive volume is the best-researched work in recent history to help make the American Constitution understandable to the common man. Available from the Stedman Foundation, P.O. Box 2909, Asheboro, North Carolina 27203.

Historical documents and papers which are also required reading:

The Mayflower Compact
The Declaration of Independence
The Constitution of the United States of America
The Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

LITERATURE and PHILOSOPHY

Gary DeMar, Surviving College Successfully, Wolgemuth and Hyatt, Nashville. Available at your Christian bookstore. This book, written primarily for college students, gives a good overview of the philosophies currently waging war against truth on the university campus. It is excellent material to help a student begin to formulate his own convictions about biblical truth.

Dagobert Runes, Pictorial History of Philosophy, Bramhall House, New York (or any other overview of philosophy available in your library). Every Christian needs a basic understanding of the major philosophies which have dominated different parts of the world. Another good overview is Will Durant’s The Story of Philosophy, Simon and Schuster, New York. Available at most bookstores or libraries.

It is recommended that the serious student NOT begin this by reading the works of the philosophers themselves, but rather by reading an abbreviated overview of different philosophies and the men behind them. The philosophies you should study must include:

Plato and Greek thought
Islam
Marxism
Rationalism / Humanism
Buddhism and Eastern mysticism
Evolution

In studying literature, it is not necessary to read all the so-called great literary works themselves to be culturally literate. The most important goal here is to understand the concepts and philosophies which were promoted by these writers. A good way to cultivate this understanding is to read the condensed biographical sketches of individual authors as they appear in The Norton Anthologies. These literature collections can be purchased at any campus bookstore: The Norton Anthology of British Literature (I and II), The Norton Anthology of American Literature (I and II), and The Norton Anthology of World Literature.

The biographical sketches of the authors will reveal their motivation and the cultural and historical significance of their work and how their ideas have affected us today.

If we were to prepare a recommended reading list of great literature, we would select the following as the most important. These are also the books which we would recommend for children and teens to introduce them to the great books:

The King James Bible (to understand Old English language structure)
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (to understand the Protestant Reformation)
Foxes’ Book of Martyrs (this book was once standard fare for children – a classic account of the lives and deaths of the heroic Christians who died for their faith)
Aesop’s Fables by Aesop
Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson
The works of Shakespeare
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
Paradise Lost by John Milton
Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The works of Jonathan Edwards
Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving
The Courtship of Miles Standish and Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Johnny Tremaine by Esther Forbes

An excellent source for the best in literature for children is Books Children Love by Elizabeth Wilson, Crossway Books. Available at Christian bookstores.

GEOGRAPHY

The problem of geographic illiteracy in America is growing rapidly, mainly because the subject itself is not taught as an individual discipline in public schools; it is now incorporated into a vague “social studies” plan which has failed miserably. The only way Americans can regain their needed understanding of geography is to educate themselves with a few simple lessons.

Every home needs a globe, a world map, and a good world atlas. Good quality atlases can be purchased at varying price ranges from your local bookstore.

One easy way to become geographically literate is to practice this exercise: every time you read or hear about a place in the world with which you are not familiar, look it up in your atlas on on a map. If a newscaster mentions the Po River, the city of Lagos, or an outbreak of violence in Sri Lanka, go immediately and familiarize yourself with where these places are.

If you have difficulty in reading maps, you can read The Language of Maps, by Haig Rushdoony, Pitman Learning, 1982. This is a practical workbook for parents and students to teach map reading skills.

SCIENCE

Those of us who spent 12 years in public schools have been indoctrinated in evolutionary thought. Our minds have been strapped by deception and ignorance because of this mindset, and we all desperately need to have our minds renewed in these areas. The following books, published by Creation-Life Publishers, are recommended as the best introduction to a proper understanding of science. These books are balanced and objective. Contact Creation-Life Publishers, P.O. Box 15666, San Diego, CA 92115

Scientific Creationism by Henry Morris, Ph.D.
The Waters Above by Joseph Dillow
The Genesis Flood by Henry Morris, Ph.D.
The History of Evolutionary Thought by Bert Thompson, Ph.D.
Evolution: The Fossils Say No! by Duane Gish, Ph.D.
The Biblical Basis for Modern Science by Henry Morris, Ph.D.
Origins and Destiny by Dr. Robert Gange

This list is by no means complete. These books represent just a small sampling of the areas of learning in which most young Americans are sadly deficient. It is hoped that our readers will begin to take the challenge of self education seriously. If just least a few Americans will begin to reclaim the areas of lost knowledge which past generations mastered, this will be one step toward restoring the standard of academic excellence which this country once attained.

THEOLOGY

The following books are excellent resources for those building a library of Christian classics. These books cover a broad spectrum of Church history and theology for those who desire to better understand America’s Puritan heritage as a model for rebuilding a Christian democratic republic.

Institutes of the Christian Religion, by John Calvin, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI.

The Reformation in Scotland, by John Knox, Banner of Truth Trust, P.O. Box 621, Carlisle, PA 17013.

Systematic Theology, by Charles Hodge, Available through Christian Book Distributors, Box 6000, Peabody, MA 01961, 3 volumes.

A History of Chrisitanity, by Kenneth Scott LaTourette, Harper & Brothers, New York, NY, 2 volumes.

Christ’s Victorious Kingdom: Postmillennialism Reconsidered, by John Jefferson Davis, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

That You May Prosper: Dominion By Covenant, by Ray Sutton, Dominion Press, 7112 Burns St., Ft. Worth, TX 76118.

What Happened When the Praying Stopped

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

ALEDO, TX (FR) – How did the removal of voluntary prayer from the schools of the United States affect our nation as a whole? That question has been answered in detail by a research company in Texas which has gathered and tabulated statistics from hundreds of sources relating to the rates of moral decline in America.

Specialty Research Associates, under the direction of David Barton, has released a report entitled America: To Pray or Not to Pray which uses over 100 pages of graphs and statistical analysis to prove that crime, venereal disease, premarital sex, illiteracy, suicide, drug use, public corruption, and other social ills began a dramatic increase after the Engel vs. Vitale Supreme Court decision was made in 1962 which banned school prayer.

Prayer in schools prior to 1962 was utilized in school districts all over the U.S. in many varieties. Some teachers used extemporaneous prayers, simply expressing their thoughts and desires; others implemented structured prayers, such as the Lord’s Prayer or the 23rd Psalm, or others approved by local school boards. New York students prayed each day: “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee and beg Thy blessing over us, our parents, our teachers, and our nation.” It was this simple prayer which came under fire and went to the Supreme Court for the landmark decision.

Says David Barton, “It is impossible to know how many of the 39 million children were involved in daily verbal prayers, but most accounts indicate that a clear majority of the students voluntarily participated in daily school prayer. Is it possible that the prayers that were being offered by these children and their teachers across the nation actually had any measurable, tangible effect?”

It was this question that led Barton to uncover the statistical proof that the removal of prayer did indeed take its toll on America. Below are just a few of the charts featured in Barton’s report, with a brief explanation of each:

Figure 1: The SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) is an academic test that measures the developed verbal and math reasoning of a student exiting from high school or some similar type of learning facility. The results of these tests are commonly used by colleges and universities to indicate the strength of a student’s academic preparation and his potential for success on the college level.

Figure 1 shows how drastically the actual knowledge of high school students began to drop at an accelerating rate after 1962. Barton notes in his report that the upturn in SAT scores since 1981 is due to the increase in private Christian educational facilities which began to flourish at that time. Statistics have proven that students from private Christian schools showed higher academic achievement and higher test scores.

Figure 2: This graph shows the increase in sexual activity in unmarried teen-age girls after the 1962 Supreme Court decision. It is evident from the figures provided that in the years previous to the removal of prayer the rates remained stable and relatively unchanged. In the post- prayer years the numbers immediately began to soar. The sudden increase on the graph appears as if a great restraining force had suddenly been removed.

Figure 3: Unwed women 15-19 years of age showed a phenomenal increase in the rate of pregnancies after the School Prayer decision. Note that the figure jumps drastically after the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision which made abortion legal in the U.S. The United States now has the highest incidence of teen-age motherhood in any Western country.

Figure 4: For the 15-19 and 20-24 age group, the rates of youth suicide remained relatively unchanged during the years from 1946 to the School Prayer decision in 1962. But in the years since, suicides among the same group have increased 253 percent, or an average of 10.5 percent per year.

Figure 5: Stability in the family has also been affected since the 1962 decision. Divorce, single parent families, couples living together but not married, and adultery are areas of family breakdown which have experienced radical growth in recent years. In the graph above, the increase in single parent families (households with only a mother and children) are detailed. Note the dotted line at the bottom, which shows the rate of growth prior to the 1962 decision.

Figure 6: Crime, productivity, and national morality had been on a fairly stable level prior to the 1962 decision, but that is no longer the case. It is obvious that such a quantity of students praying for their nation had a very positive effect on the course that this nation had taken. The rate of violent crime, as shown above, has risen over 330 percent.

If you would like a copy of America: To Pray or Not to Pray?, send $7.95 to Specialty Research Associates, P.O. Box 397, Aledo, TX 76008. All of the figures and statistics compiled in this book are taken from data made available by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Disease Control, Statistical Abstracts of the United States, Vital Statistics of the United States, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other official sources.

The World's Greatest Thinkers

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

The Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom through Academia

“I Wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions” (Proverbs 8:12).

While many Christians of today are great thinkers, few are as notable as some of the great thinkers of past centuries. America’s Christians of today might have opinions about certain areas of thought, such as science, history and technology, but have no formulated, well thought-out worldview as had the saints of past centuries.

The Christian worldview has almost always prevailed in the history of western culture. In fact, some of the greatest thinkers throughout the centuries have been Christians. These people were consistent in their application of Christianity to various intellectual pursuits. The important point is that they did not believe their faith kept them from using their minds.

• In the area of LAW, Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England has remained a classic of legal scholarship since it was first published in the mid-1700s. Blackstone defined law as “a rule of action dictated by some superior being.” He claimed that God dictated laws for men, which could be discovered in nature and in the Bible: “Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human law should be suffered to contradict these.“1
• In LITERATURE, the number of great Christian writers through the centuries is astounding. To look only at England, we find that many of the greatest poets were Christians, even clergymen: John Donne, George Herbert, and John Milton. Samuel Johnson was, in his time, the leading literary critic in the English language, and the compiler of an early English dictionary. Even into this century, many leading English literary figures were Christians, including G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, C.S. Lewis, and Dorothy Sayers.
• In PHILOSOPHY, Christians dominated the West from the fifth century until modern times. The great philosophers of the Middle Ages were all theologians: Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Anselm of Canterbury, William of Ockham. When philosophers began to abandon Christianity in the 17th century, most continued to be influenced by Christianity and to address the issues that Christians had been wrestling with for centuries. Even the “father of modern philosophy,” Rene Descartes, despite the evil effects of his thought, was trying to provide a secure proof for the existence of God.
• In POLITICS, many of the important political leaders of the medieval and early modern West were Christians. Until the later Middle Ages, every king of Europe claimed to be Christ’s representative on earth. In Russia, the czars claimed to be the protectors of the Orthodox Church right up to the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. In the modern era, such outstanding political figures as John Adams, George Washington, William Gladstone, and William Wilberforce were all to varying degrees professing and practicing Christians.
• In the ARTS, we discover again that most of the (sometimes anonymous) medieval painters, sculptors, and architects were evidently Christians. The great cathedrals of Europe, the magnificent stained glass windows, the colorful altar pieces, the statuary that adorned the cathedrals – all were dedicated to Christian themes, and were generally produced by Christian artisans. During the Renaissance and Reformation periods, artists began to gain more individual recognition, and we have clearer evidence that many were believers. Among these were Rembrandt van Rijn and Albrect Durer, two Protestant painters.
• In MUSIC, much of Western music was written by Christians.2 Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friederich Handel are two representatives of the great German Christian tradition in music. Handel’s “Messiah,” a series of Scripture texts set to some of the most exhilarating music ever written, is still a holiday favorite today. Everyone recognizes the tune to Handel’s magnificent “Hallelujah Chorus.” Bach was, if anything, even more self-consciously Christian than Handel, and dedicated many of his compositions to the glory of God.
• SCIENCE and technology in the modern world often seem to be at odds with Christianity, but this was not always the case. In fact, after Christianity had taken over the Western Roman Empire, there was an unprecedented burst of innovation in agricultural technology. The inventions included the heavy plow, crop-rotation, new types of harnesses for horses, and nailed horseshoes. Some scholars have concluded that this burst of technology, which continued throughout the medieval period in Europe, was a result of Christian beliefs and attitudes.3 Many of the leading scientists of the early modern world were also professing Christians: Isaac Newton, Johann Kepler, Robert Boyle, Lord Kelvin, Louis Pasteur, Michael Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, and many more.

1 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1765), vol. 1, pp. 38-42.
2 See Jane Stuart Smith and Betty Carlson, The Gift of Music (rev. ed.; Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1978).
3 Lynn White, Jr., Medieval Religion and Technology (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 77, 236.

Christ and Civil Government: An Exposition of Psalm 2

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Stephen D. Wood

Thinking Americans are concerned by the growing signs of national decay. Even the foundations of our governmental structures seem to be shaking. Many are wondering if our nation will survive as a free nation much past the year 2000.

America is in the midst of an authority crisis. Who is to be the ultimate authority in our national affairs? Shall it be the Supreme Court, the Congress, the President, the majority will of the people, the opinion of experts, or some combination of these? Our answer to the authority question will determine the future of our nation.

Many are appealing to our constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or the Christian history of the United States, in attempts to reconstruct a Christian civil government in America. while these appeals are commendable, they lack the authority that is uniquely found in the Bible. Therefore, in attempting to answer the question of the ultimate authority for our government we will limit our investigation solely to God’s word.

PSALM 2:1-3 – ‘Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?’ The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

Psalm 2 opens with a prophetic picture of the gentile nations (the heathen) and their rulers conspiring together in order to free themselves from the Messiah’s authority.

This Psalm was written by David, the greatest of all Jewish kings during the Old Testament era. David undoubtedly saw some type of immediate application of Psalm 2 to himself. At the same time, we must remember that the greatness of David’s kingship was only a shadow of the universal kingship that the coming Messiah would possess.

The apostles of the New Testament authoritatively declared that Psalm 2 found its fulfillment in Jesus Christ (Acts 4:25ff.) They also stated that David gave these predictions regarding the Messiah under divine inspiration.

God had a direct bearing on the government of the Jews during the Old Testament. Many Christians are under the impression that since the first coming of Jesus Christ, there is no longer any connection between God and government. Nothing could be further from the truth! If anything, there is an increased relation between God and civil government.

Before I go any further let me make an important point of clarification, lest I be misunderstood. I firmly believe that the Bible teaches a separation of church and state. Both church and state are two distinct spheres of government united under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. One sphere should not seek to usurp authority over the other.

It is one thing to believe in the separation of church and state. It is quite another thing to believe in the separation of God and state. Many Americans have mistaken the separation of church and state to mean the separation of God and state. This is a fatal mistake.

As we shall see in Psalm 2, any nation which seeks to separate its civil government from the government of God is doomed to destruction.

The first three verses of Psalm 2 describe the vain attempt of gentile nations and their rulers to try to become independent from the government of God. The nations and rulers referred to in these verses are non-Jewish kingdoms. The word translated “heathen” by the King James Version refers to the gentile peoples. It is in this context of a kingly messiah and his relation to the gentile rulers that we see the relationship between Christ and the civil governments.

Evidently these rulers and their subjects regard submission to the Lordship of the Messiah as some form of bondage. They view God’s government as “chains” and “cords” preventing them from “doing their own thing” rather than God’s will.

Many in our day argue against an explicitly Christian civil government on the grounds that it would be overly repressive. A Christian civil government would be as repressive to a nation as wings are to a bird. It is the way God made Gentile nations to fly.

Psalm 2:4-7 – He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.

Starting in verse 4 the scene before us shifts from earth to heaven. In verses 1-3 we saw the rebellious kings of the earth. In verses 4-9 we will see the reaction and reply of the King of Heaven.

The significance of this shift of scenes cannot be overly stressed when trying to understand the relationships of Jesus Christ to civil governments. As we shall see in these verses, there is a king enthroned in heaven who is currently the ruler of the nations and kingdoms on earth. This king is Jesus Christ who has been given the name KING OF KING AND LORD OF LORDS (Rev 19:16).

Verse 4 describes an interim period. The earthly kingdoms are carrying out their rebellious schemes without a reaction from heaven. No doubt these rulers are vainly imagining that they are succeeding in their purposes. As their plans progress, so their pride increases.

God’s reaction to these feeble attempts to thwart his government is laughter. Most of you have had the experience in a swimming pool when a little tyke squirms up your back and then tries to dunk you under the water. What is your reaction when the attack begins? If you are like me, you probably let it go on for a little time while you enjoy a little laughter. Then the time of reckoning comes. You lift up your attacker and throw him for a splash. After a few repetitions his enthusiasm is usually dampened.

It is not a humorous game to oppose the rule of God. There is a time gap between the beginning of a rebellion to God’s rule and the punishment God inflicts for that rebellion. Verse 5 declares that the terrifying wrath of God immediately follows the laughter of God. A preacher once said, “It is not funny when God laughs.”

God the Father has firmly established his son, Jesus Christ, as the Messianic King (vss. 6-7). The establishment of the Son of God as Messianic King is part of the fixed and unalterable decree of God (vs. 7). The rejection of the Messianic King by the nations of the world will not, and cannot, alter the will of God.

Many, if not most, of the popular commentators and Bible teachers in America emphatically deny that Jesus Christ has begun his kingdom reign. If this is true, then it must be affirmed that in today’s world Christ has no authority over civil governments. But is it true that Jesus Christ has not yet been installed as king on Mount Zion? A wrong answer to this question could mean the wrath of God falling upon our nation.

Those who reject the idea that Christ is currently king of this world share the same method of interpreting the Bible that was used in the first century by those who failed to recognize Jesus as the Christ (i.e., the Messiah).

The common messianic expectation of the first century was a earthly king who would rule the nations with a physical sword (i.e., a powerful military force). What they did not expect was a king who would rule earth from heaven with the omnipotent Word of God. Out of the mouth of this king “comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations” (Rev 19:15).

Many modern prophecy experts claim that the second coming will begin the kingdom rule of Jesus Christ. They expect Jesus to be an earthly king who sits on a physical throne located in Jerusalem, Israel. The book of Hebrews sharply contradicts this teaching.

We are told in Hebrews 12 that we “have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem” (vs. 22). the Mount Zion referred to in Psalm 2-6 is not the Jerusalem on earth, but the one in heaven.

In Hebrews 1 we are told that the son’s throne is in heaven, not on earth. Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” after his sacrificial death on the cross.

Hebrews 1:8 explains that sitting on the right hand of God is equivalent to sitting on the Messianic throne and exercising the authority of the kingdom of God: “But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.

In case anyone has not yet understood from these passages that Christ is currently ruling earth from heaven, I refer you to two summary verses in the book of Hebrews. “Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such a high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens … For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest” (Heb. 8:1&4a).

Those who expect the Messiah to sit on an earthly throne like Old Testament kings have substituted the shadow for the substance (Heb. 8:5).

Psalm 2:8-9 – “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

God the Father promises his Son that he will extend the Messianic kingdom to the ends of the earth (vs. 8). This promise of the Father stands as the foundation for the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20). It was only after Jesus declared that he had received “all authority in heaven and on earth” that he commanded his disciples to carry the Gospel of the Kingdom to all nations. The Great Commission is the King’s Commission!

The time for the Son to receive the nations as his inheritance began after his resurrection. The greatest advances of the Kingdom of God since the days of the Apostles have been made by those believing in a victorious kingdom that would appear on the earth before the second coming.

Christ taught his disciples to pray for the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth (Matt. 6:10). We can make this petition to the Father in the name of Jesus knowing that it will be answered. such a prayer is made in harmony with the eternal plan of God. Prayers cannot only move mountains, they can move kings and nations (Prov. 21:1). the loyal subjects of King Jesus are to daily pray for the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom on earth.

The Messiah has been given an iron rod (scepter) to rule the nations (Ps. 2:9, Rev. 12:4, 19:15). The scepter is a symbol of Christ’s sovereign power with which he rules the earth as “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS” (Rev. 19:16). Such symbolism has highly political overtones!

Psalm 2:10-12 – “Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. “Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.” Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

Psalm 2 concludes with a solemn warning to civil rulers. In light of the heavenly realities just mentioned, the earthly rulers are told to wise up. They must bow to Jesus Christ or perish. They are exhorted to “be wise” and cease trying to escape the dominion of the Messiah (cf. vss. 1-3).

The rulers and kings of the earth (i.e., the civil governments) are told to “kiss the Son.” To kiss a king was an ancient mode of showing allegiance and doing homage.

Notice very carefully that the civil rulers are explicitly told to kiss the Son, not the Father, Jesus said. “He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him” (John 5:23b). Civil rulers who do not express public allegiance to the Son are in rebellion against the Father. God is not honored in the nation that does not specifically and expressly honor Jesus Christ as its head. The God of the Bible demands that all nations submit to the rule of God in the person of Jesus Christ.

The implications of these Biblical declarations are startling when you realize that America no longer acknowledges itself to be a Christian nation, but a “pluralistic” one. We still acknowledge that we are a nation under God. Unfortunately, the god which we acknowledge has become a generic variety and not the God of the Bible who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. Therefore, our nation is in rebellion to the government of God.

The United States civil government must either do homage to the Son or perish (2:12). Our nation will have the wrath of God poured out upon it if we do not repent and confess that Jesus Christ is the lawful king of America (Ps. 79:6).

Conclusion

May all people everywhere commit themselves, by the grace of God to pray for and diligently work toward the establishment of the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ over all the earth and the reformation of all aspects of American society and politics by the infallible Word of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of the Triune God.

May we not rest until we see under the Lord’s blessing, Christian individuals in Christian families and Christian churches and Christian schools and Christian businesses in a truly Christian republic with genuinely Christian elected officials and Christian judges practicing Biblical Law and passing Christian legislation.

May that day soon come when our beloved nation will publicly and officially confess:

‘We the people of the United States of America, distinctly acknowledge our responsibility to God, and the supremacy of his Son, Jesus Christ, as King of kings and LORD of lords, and hereby ordain that no law shall be passed by the congress of these United States inconsistent with the will of God, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. AMEN. SO LET IT BE.’

A Christian Agenda for Environmental Protection

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Calvin Beisner

Managing the resources of the earth – a very crucial issue facing us in the 1990s – involves the planning and controlling of the raw materials which are developed for the benefit of mankind. How do we formulate public policy on the environment from a Christian perspective? Five chief standards from the Bible seem apparent to me:

1. The Dominion Mandate. The first of these appears in what theologians have called “the dominion mandate” in the opening chapter of Genesis. There God says, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule [or “have dominion”] over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” And, having made man male and female, He said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:26, 28). Let me suggest three observations about this mandate.

First, the dominion mandate is, as Old Testament scholar R. Laird Harris put it, “far from specific. To have ‘rule over’ the earth might as easily refer to free use and development of resources as to our responsibility for their conservation. To ‘rule over’ the animals does not specifically say high dams for power should be rejected so as to avoid bringing an exotic type of little fish to extinction.“1 In other words, the dominion mandate cannot be packed as a pistol in the holster of either the devotees of untouched nature or the rapists of mother earth.

Second, while it may be ambiguous about other things, the dominion mandate clearly means that the earth, with everything in it – though it all belongs to God (Psalm 24:1) – was intended by God to serve man’s needs. Man was not made for the earth; the earth was made for man. It is man, not the earth or anything in it, who was created in the image of God. To make man subservient to the earth is to turn the purpose of God in creation on its head.

Third, the dominion mandate does not tell us what particular uses of the earth are best suited to man’s service. From this we can legitimately infer two things: (a) that God intended there to be considerable liberty regarding the ways in which we rule the earth, particularly since we differ about how we want the earth to serve us; (b) that difficult scientific and practical issues are involved in determining how best to make the earth serve us. From these two inferences we can derive a third: that we owe it to each other to be moderate and humble in our judgments of each others’ views about resource management lest we mistakenly impose our own standards rather than God’s.

2. Private Property. Scripture clearly approves of the ownership of private property, forbidding, as it does, all forms of theft (Exodus 20:15). In the context of resource management, granted the prevalence of statist attempts to control people’s uses of property, it is particularly important to note that the Bible assigns to the owner of property absolute control over it within the limits of God’s moral law (Acts 5:4, Matthew 20:13, 15). This principle tells us that the owners of resources may use them as they wish so long as they do not violate the rights of others – rights delineated in the Ten Commandments.

3. Justice. The third theological and moral standard governing our use of resources is the broad biblical principle of justice. It is important, however, that this principle be rightly understood. Justice means rendering impartially to everyone his due in accordance with the right standard of God’s moral law revealed in Scripture.2 What the law prohibits, we should neither do nor permit others to do; what the law permits, we may not prohibit.

Furthermore, the principle of justice prohibits force for any purpose other than to prevent or punish violations of God’s moral law. Force may not be used to induce compliance with anyone’s wishes outside those supported by that law. Reward, not punishment, is the proper incentive to lawful economic action; punishment should be restricted solely to violations of biblical moral law.

4. Liberty. From these first three theological and moral principles follows a fourth: liberty. If God’s instruction that we “rule over” the earth and everything in it is far from specific, and if a biblical understanding of justice prohibits the use of force except to prohibit, prevent, prosecute, and punish violations of God’s moral law – the doing of injustice – then it follows that in all activities not proscribed by God’s moral law we have, and are to grant others, liberty.

So long as we do no injury to another, we may use what belongs to us as we please – at least we may do so without fear of human judgment. (God’s judgment is another thing. He looks on the heart, not only on the outward action. He knows whether we have done something just from an unjust motive, and He judges us for that motive as well as for the act. But such judgment is impossible for human minds.)

5. Love. But the dominion mandate, private property, justice, and liberty do not exhaust the biblical principles governing resource management. A final principle is love, the selfless act of caring for the needs of others. While justice gives us the minimum standards of action, love is the high goal toward which every child of God is called to aim. It is not enough that we should refrain from injuring our neighbors; we must do them positive good.
This said, however, it is essential to note that love cannot be forced. It must be voluntary. Hence no appeal may properly be made to civil government to force actions above and beyond the minimum standards of justice. Because civil government is by nature an entity of force, the principle of love falls largely outside its capacities. It exists to enforce justice, not love.

Applying These Principles to the Environment

How might these general principles be applied to problems related to resource management? Time permits us only a brief survey of two basic points, and I cannot claim that this is an exhaustive list. My purpose is only to suggest some directions in which we might go.

First, the dominion mandate means at least that man, not the environment, is primary. Certainly the environment should be protected, but it must be protected for the sake of man, not for the sake of the environment. Anything else is idolatry of nature. 3

Second, the biblical principles of private property, justice, and liberty mean at least that no entity, private or public, has proper authority to restrict others’ use of property – including any resources they own – in any way other than that required by God’s moral law, particularly the fifth through ninth commandments. Civil law should prohibit and punish actual injustices to life (sixth commandment), family and other contractual relationships (fifth and seventh commandments), property (eighth commandment), and reputation (ninth commandment) by acts of violence, rebellion, unfaithfulness, theft, and fraud. It has no authority to use its legal monopoly of force for any other purpose.

This does not mean that “just anything goes.” Pollution – whether toxic chemicals, noxious odors, bothersome noises, or solid waste – that causes injury to others or their property should be subject to redress through criminal and, primarily, civil action. The redress, however, should be in the form of restitution to those injured, not of fines to the state, which exists to protect and vindicate citizen’s God-given rights. Scripture provides for restitution of losses due to misuse of property (Exodus 21:28-36; 22:6). However, real damage to or trespass upon property (or person) must occur in order for restitution to be justified.

Some major difficulties arise at this point. Since the Industrial Revolution, civil courts have adopted conflicting notions of property rights and pollution-related torts. Furthermore, ever-growing state ownership of property – public lands, in particular – sometimes obscures the identities of both perpetrators and victims in pollution-related lawsuits. In addition, technology has enabled us to observe and measure levels of physical invasion – by sound, lights, liquids, solids, and gases – heretofore unnoticed. This greatly complicates problems related to pollution policy.

Both biblical principle and prudence indicate that this dilemma is best resolved by tightening up the understanding of private property and its attendant rights and responsibilities rather than by transferring such rights and responsibilities increasingly to the state – the latter being the choice of many theorists and courts. Furthermore, I cannot help thinking that the current crisis in the courtroom cannot be overcome until Americans learn to trust anew in the loving providence of God and so accept most of life’s inevitable suffering as from His gracious hand rather than thinking all of it must be blamed on someone else who must make restitution.

Who Should Plan and Control Resources?

It will come as no surprise now that I suggest that planning and control of resources should, except perhaps under the extremities of war, be left to the owners of the resources, within the limits of biblical moral law. There is simply no biblical justification for the civil government’s attempting to control the use of private property, including natural resources, beyond those limits.

Making this work is not always simple. Problems arise in which property rights are difficult to define and determine. Ownership of water in aquifers or running streams or rivers, for example, is difficult to define, as is ownership of lakes, oceans, and the atmosphere. In some instances, it seems that the state, acting on behalf of its citizens, must take on the role of owner of some such resources. In those instances, however, the state must function as nearly as possible the way private persons function as owners of property. If it fails to enforce its own property rights vigorously enough, its citizens will suffer loss due to abuse. If it exercises too vigorous control over the resources of which it asserts stewardship, its citizens may be deprived of considerable economic advantage and production.

Devising appropriate policies in this regard is not easy, but keeping three fundamental principles in focus should at least provide a sound basis for formulating policy: (1) resources exist to serve man; man does not exist to serve them. Therefore they should be used, to the greatest extent possible, in manners best suited to the desires of the greatest number of people. (2) the state always faces the temptation to exert its will beyond proper boundaries. Safeguards against this must always be built into every policy. (3) State officials and employees are subject to the same moral frailties as private persons. Their access to the coercive capacities of the state, however, makes them potentially more dangerous to others’ rights than most private persons. Strict systems of accountability, therefore, must always be part of policy.

What Are the Goals of Resource Management?

Consistent with the dominion mandate’s insistence that the earth, with everything in it, was made for man, not man for the earth, the goal of resource management should be to increase the degree to which the world serves man. Since, however, different people have different needs and desires, no generalization is possible regarding what particular uses serve that goal and what ones don’t. Within the limits of God’s moral law, any use of resources that serves people is permissible; the more efficiently it serves them, the better it is.

In general, expansion – not contraction – of private property rights, and even the transfer of more and more property into private hands rather than state hands, should be the goal of resource management policy. Such a policy will tend to keep the power of the state within its proper bounds, and so will diminish opportunities for oppression. It will also increase people’s liberty within the bounds of God’s law and, simultaneously, will increase their enjoyment of the goods and services that can be provided by the use of resources.

1 R. Laird Harris, “The Incompatibility of Biblical Incentives with the Driving Forces of World Economic Systems,” an address at Baylor University, 1988, p. 3.
2 Calvin Beisner, Prosperity and Poverty: The Compassionate Use of Resources in a World of Scarcity, (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books), chapters 4-5.
3 Herb Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983), p. 171.

In Search of Democracy

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Mark Beliles and Stephen McDowell

The development of civil liberties has been a slow and rocky path. As ancient family groups and tribes gradually formed into nations with organized civil structures, the tendency has always been to centralize power. People unwisely tend to put their trust in the state and collective political power rather than in themselves and God, Who is the source of all things.

The ancient empires of Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, Rome and China are proof of this point. It has taken thousands of years to convince men that utopian ideas of centralized government remaining just and incorrupt are unrealistic.

The governments of every ancient civilization, with the exception of the Hebrew Republic, rested on the assumed natural inequality of men. The individual was regarded as of value only as he formed a part of the political fabric, and was able to contribute to its uses, as though it were the end of his being to aggrandize the State.

The wisest philosophers of antiquity could not rise above this idea that man was made for the State. They were convinced that power should rest in the hands of the one or a privileged few, who would then fashion the thought and control the action of the many. Throughout history, there has been a steady development of democratic ideas, which are in contrast to those above. We will highlight the main advancements.

The Hebrew Republic

The first genuine example of democratic government in world history is found in the Hebrew Republic established by Moses around 1300 B.C. This great emancipator provided a complete system of written civil law that was in great contrast to the ancient civilizations at that time. All other governments in the world centralized power in the hands of a king or emperor, but Moses set up a government with most powers decentralized.

Moses established a central body which governed the nation and was composed of both elected and un-elected officials. The Hebrew Republic was the first government in history to allow the people the freedom to elect their representatives. These representatives, furthermore, were limited in their decisions and actions but an absolute written moral and civil code known as the law of Moses which included the “Ten Commandments.”

All of these representatives, elected or un-elected, were not allowed to govern without an official agreement or “covenant” with the people to abide within the guidelines of the written code. This covenant ceremony, established by an oath before God, was the origination of the principle that government “derive their just consent of the governed.” Government based on agreement with the people was the origin of constitutionalism.

Three major principles established under the law of Moses were:

• Decentralization of government
• Election of representatives
• Constitutionalism

Once the Hebrew government was conquered by other empires there was not another complete example of these principles practiced by any nation in history until the establishment of the United States of America three thousand years later.

Greece and Rome

The second major attempt at democratic government was the Greek city-state of the sixth century B.C. The Athenian lawgiver, Solon, drew up a legal system that would allow the people to make their own laws. Plato and Aristotle emphasized that a just society was one where every man is moved by concern for the common good.

These concepts were also embraced by Roman statesmen such as Cicero and Seneca in the 2nd century B.C. They proposed an impartial system of laws based on Natural Law which, Cicero said, comes from God and originated before “any written law existed or any state had been established.”

The Greek and Roman theories were never as democratic as the Hebrew, however, because of their belief in inequality of men. The ideas of democracy and freedom were only extended to certain classes and all others were denied basic rights. Cicero was murdered and they reverted to complete totalitarianism to restore order.

Greek and Roman contributions to democratic ideas were therefore more theoretical than actual, but were helpful to later generations who learned from their mistakes.

The fundamental flaws of their attempts at democracy were rooted in their belief that man was naturally unequal and that only one or a privileged few were competent to govern the rest.

Christianity

A few hundred years later, Jesus Christ began to re-assert the basic Hebrew concepts of equality and liberty. Through his death and the commission He gave His followers to teach these things to all nations, the march of democracy took a major leap forward.

Christianity emphasized that, in the eye of God, all men are equal. This asserted for the individual an independent value regardless of political contribution or social class or race. It occasioned the great inference, that man is superior to the state.

Jesus specifically taught that government rulers are to be public servants. Instead of people serving government, it ought rather be fashioned to provide justice and protection for them. Government should provide this service equally to all.

Today, all of western civilization now calls its top civil rulers “ministers” which is simply another word for servants. The Christian view of man and government was a significant contribution toward democracy that made what Greece and Rome failed to achieve a possibility for future nations. The early Christian churches also established a model of self-government and unity with diversity that provided order without sacrificing freedom.

Britain

Although all of Europe was Christianized, it was the unique isolated situation that enabled the British Isles to develop their democratic institutions without interference from surrounding nations. Patrick, a Christian missionary to Ireland in the 5th century, not only spread the Christian faith but also wrote a book about the form of government established by Moses in Israel, (Liber Ex Lege Moisi, or Book of the Law of Moses).

The Irish and, later, the Anglo-Saxon governments began to establish democratic institutions. Patrick’s Liber influenced the greatest Anglo-Saxon king, Alfred the Great, to copy from the Hebrew model in his Code of Laws in the late ninth century. He set an example of a king who truly saw his role as one of serving the people.

Some of the biblically derived democratic reforms that the Anglo-Saxons originated were:

• The Common Law
• Trial by Jury
• Habeas Corpus: (a written warrant is required for search and seizure).

In addition, they established an elected representative body called the “Witen.” Though conquered by the Normans in 1066, the march toward democratic government was revived at Runnymeade when King John was forced to sign the Magna Charta. This document, drafted by the Christian clergyman Stephen Langton in 1215, affirmed in written form the basic rights such as representation, private property, and trial by jury.

The Protestant Reformation in Europe

About the same time the Ming dynasty was ousting the Mongol dynasty in China, John Wycliffe was planting the seeds for the reformation of Europe. This Christian clergyman in 1382 translated the Bible into the common English language so that people would read it and establish, in his words, “a government of the people; by the people; and for the people.”

By the early 16th century, similar translations had been completed in Germany, France, and other European countries. The results were not only religious reformation but also political reformation.

The writings of Protestants such as John Calvin, Samuel Rutherford, and the Huguenots led finally to the English Bill of Rights in 1628 and the establishment of the first true democracy in modern history among the European exiles in America.

These exiles, having no other government to contend with in the New World, were the first free men to form their own government by consent through the signing in 1620 of what is known as the Mayflower Compact.

America

The Mayflower Compact was just one of 86 different constitution-like documents drafted by the 13 colonial governments in America over the 150 year period preceding the American Revolution. The first really complete constitution was written for Connecticut in 1638 by the Christian clergyman Thomas Hooker. The first “Bill of Rights” in America was written by another clergyman, Nathaniel Ward, for Massachusetts in 1641.

The Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson and approved by the Continental Congress in 1776, was the most significant national document in modern times that articulated democratic ideals to their fullest extent. Thirteen years later these ideas were established institutionally in the United States Constitution.

The Enlightenment in Europe

Back in Europe the Protestant Reformation gave rise to a movement of free-thinking men who continued to influence that continent toward democracy. The English Bill of Rights was written in 1689 which established the supremacy of England’s representative body known as Parliament.

A year later, the Englishman, John Locke wrote his Second Treatise on Civil Government, (1690). He had studied previous works such as the Frenchman John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), and the French Protestant document, A Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants (1579), which was written by Samuel de Puffendorf.

In France, The Spirit of Laws, written by Baron von Montesquieu in 1748, articulated very effectively the principle of the separation of powers into three branches with checks and balances.

Others with a more secular approach like Rousseau and Voltaire were also influential, especially in France. The French Revolution, with its Declaration of the Rights of Man, followed on the heels of the American Revolution but had entirely different results.

It followed the chaotic pattern similar to pure democratic efforts back in Greece and Rome. The “Reign of Terror,” a result of mob rule, was brought to an end only by the restoration of totalitarianism under Napolean Bonaparte.

Many other revolutions have occurred around the world since then and dozens of constitutions have been written and rewritten with little effect. One hundred and sixty constitutions exist in the world today and all but fourteen were written in the last forty years.

The average life span of a constitution today is fifteen years before a military coup or popular revolt takes place. Many countries recognize the powerful idea of democracy and offer elections that are not really free; their one-party system effectively eliminating all choice in the contests.

How can we avoid the pitfalls that many peoples have already suffered through? What are the missing parts necessary for success that have eluded many countries who have experienced a revolution such as France had 200 years ago?

The French political philosopher, Alexis De Tocqueville, offered some insightful answers. De Tocqueville realized that the American experiment with democracy was successful due to Christian principles embedded in the foundation of our Republic. Without the basic Christian principles essential to support a Democratic Republic, De Tocqueville reasoned, democracy will not work.

Messiah Complex

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Ray Allen

There’s a dangerous falsehood loose in modern America. It is the illusion that we can save ourselves from chaos by changing the men at the top.

To be sure, we need leaders. But, do we need one single leader at the top who has the power to arbitrarily solve all our problems? And, if we got such a leader, might we discover that he is not what we wanted, after all?

History clearly shows that such leaders, when addicted to total power, seldom surrender it without bloodshed. Our founding fathers called these hateful and dangerous men tyrants, and they went to extraordinary lengths to protect us from authoritarian governments of individual tyrants as well as the tyranny of the 51 percent majority found in pure democracy.

Yet, today, many Americans, blinded by complex modern problems and the threat of unending chaos, talk as if they would embrace any leader or form of government which could end America’s disintegration into lawless chaos. In fact some seem to prefer the idea of one centralized, all-powerful problem-solver over the decentralized stratagem of the founding fathers. Why?

Americans are infected with a Messiah Complex. We seem to want a big, benevolent tyrant who will solve our problems for us, leaving us alone to pursue our vision of pleasure without responsibilities or repercussions.

Having lost hope that we truly can govern ourselves, many are far down the road toward accepting the leadership of anyone who can establish a governing agenda for America while preserving the illusion of liberty.

I see three related reasons for our flirtation with authoritarian leaders.

1. No nation can long endure disintegration such as we will face if unable to resolve conflicting perspectives over fundamental issues like how to provide for the national defense, how compassionately to reform the welfare system and how to protect true individual liberties while restricting irresponsible forms of freedom which threaten the lives and liberties of all.

2. As democratically self-governed citizens, we voluntarily must agree upon goals, public policy issues, and, more fundamentally, values which are rooted in a broad, religious and moral consensus. Only voluntary union can end the chaos of conflicting ideologies resulting in a lasting governing consensus.

3. Americans seem hopelessly divided by deep disagreements over religious presuppositions, world views and values. That there is no modern moral consensus has resulted in a calamity predicted by James Madison in 1787.

Factionalism, Madison warned in the Federalist Papers, would give rise to a politically powerful army of special interests, each of which would selfishly control a fragment of the American political process. This fragmentation would make self-government by free men impossible, for it would destroy our ability to agree about important public policy goals and issues.

That special interest army is now upon us; its foot-soldiers addicted to the narcotic of federal funds. Virtually all would die addicts rather than face the cure of withdrawal. And, those who dole out tax dollars know they are buying votes. They, too, are addicts – addicts who crave illegitimate power.

So many Americans have fallen under the spell of these twin intoxicants that over half of all Americans now are recipients of some form of federal money – a situation which cannot continue indefinitely without national bankruptcy.

It is this budgetary crisis which threatens to unravel America’s last vestiges of orderly government. We can’t pay for currently budgeted guns and butter. Guess what will happen to the national consensus the day welfare checks bounce. Guess how long the Soviet Union will be restrained by treaties once our defenses are deemed ineffective. To remain vulnerable could be suicidal.

Obviously, we must hammer out a new national consensus – a governing agenda rooted in moral consensus, giving rise to a unified world view, and resulting in philosophically consistent public policy goals. But today, we are hopelessly grid-locked by the greed of competing special interests.

What lies ahead? Only three options exist so far as I can see.

We must form a new governing consensus rooted in the self-evident truths agreed to by our founding fathers. In 1776, we agreed that God created all men with unalienable rights to life, liberty (not the absence of moral restraint as in libertinism), and pursuit of happiness (family, property and personal conscience). We agreed that for these reasons (and these alone) governments are instituted among men. We again must buy in to these essentials and translate them into detailed public policy based on consensus.

Should we fail to reach a voluntary consensus which protects liberty, and controls chaos, two options remain: consensus as determined by the 51 percent majority – a consensus which shifts according to the laws of mob rule, and which historically always has led to the only remaining alternative to chaos – a tyrant who arbitrarily uses his power to dictate a governing consensus.

So, here we are, back at the beginning: What kind of government will we have? A colonial woman asked Benjamin Franklin this question at the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. His reply: “A republic, Madam. If you can keep it.”

Yes, we must have a governing consensus; but, not one purchased at the price of chains and slavery. Forming a new governing consensus must remain our job – a job better handled by problem-solving leaders on the local level – by school boards, city councils, mayors, county commissions, state legislators, state senators and governors. Remember this point at every election.

No President can save America; and, we can’t afford to yield to the simplistic illusory answer of those who put unfounded hope in the top-down solution of the Messiah Complex.

Ray Allen is the chairman of American Coalition for Life in Washington, D.C., and the editor of Washington Report. His newsletter is available by writing ACL, P.O. Box 1895, Washington, DC 20013.

Making a Difference in the U.S. Military

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

Col. John J. Sullivan story

BEAUFORT, S.C. (FR) – A commanding officer at one of America’s Marine Corps air stations is gaining respect for more than his past aviation honors and his present leadership skills on base. This military leader is taking a bold stand for Jesus Christ, and encouraging his officers and enlisted men to do the same.

Col. John J. Sullivan, who demonstrated enough heroism in the Vietnam War to earn three Distinguished Flying Cross awards, is now bravely challenging the 10,500 people who live and work at the Beaufort Marine Corps Air Station to uphold Christian standards. And although some people see Sullivan’s Christian example as unique, the Colonel sees himself as only a part of a growing spiritual revival that is occurring in the U.S. military. Just at the Beaufort station, several squadron commanders and senior staff officers join him at a weekly Bible study.

God’s work in Col. Sullivan’s life began years ago. His first operational tour took place in the jungles of South Vietnam, flying helicopter gunships in a sensitive area just below the North Vietnamese border near the South China Sea. He was not a Christian at the time, and actually developed a deep bitterness toward God while living in the sweltry jungles of Quang Tri Province. That bitterness became more acute when the only professing Christian in his unit became the first combat casualty.

“I just couldn’t understand it,” explained Sullivan. “Why would God take him? It was only later that I was able to understand that. And thank God He didn’t take me then because I wasn’t ready.”

Human life during that grueling thirteen months in South Vietnam began to lose meaning for Sullivan. All of the men lived together in Quonset huts with no windows and no air conditioning. There were regular memorial services in the nearby chapel tent for men who died in combat, but Sullivan refused to attend. “I was angry with God. We were involved in so much killing – and human life was losing all value. Plus I had no faith. I think that’s the way it was for a lot of the men – we may have started out with idealistic ideas about fighting for our country, but that was gradually reduced to a personal war of vindication.”

After flying over one thousand successful helicopter missions in Vietnam, Sullivan was transfered to Okinawa. There he met his future bride, a Department of Defense schoolteacher, was married, and then returned to the States as an instructor pilot. All throughout this time, his inner turmoil and anger toward God only grew. “My heart was very hard,” he admitted. “We tried to go to church a few times, but I would break out in a cold sweat after the first ten minutes.”

It wasn’t until the Sullivans had two young children that God began to soften the Colonel’s heart and make him more receptive to the gospel. His wife, Bobbi, was still deeply interested in Edgar Cayce and reincarnation, even though they began attending an Episcopal church and leading a Sunday School class for children.

“Over a period of months,” related Col. Sullivan, “I began to yield my life to the Lord. My wife also realized that her ideas about reincarnation were wrong after attending a Bible study. This was the beginning of our walk with Jesus.”

Sullivan’s spiritual life really began to develop in Newport, Rhode Island, where he attended the Naval War College. He continued to grow spiritually after he was relocated to the Pentagon in Washington to serve as an aircraft program coordinator. Besides attending a charismatic Episcopal church in Virginia, Sullivan became a part of a Wednesday morning Bible study for Pentagon officers and civilian employees. That weekly experience, which Sullivan described as “a tremendous boost,” was something that he would eventually duplicate after being assigned to the Air Station in South Carolina.

Sullivan took command of MCAS Beaufort, which is situated in the South Carolina coastal lowlands, in early 1987. As he began to reach out with the love of Christ to the thousands of men and women on the base, and instituted a Wednesday morning Bible study and a Wednesday evening prayer group in his home, his reputation as an outspoken Christian began to circulate among officers and enlisted men alike.

“Col. Sullivan is a rarity,” said Roxanne Cibuzar, whose husband is a squadron commander. “You just don’t find people who love the Lord at the very top.” The Cibuzars attend the Sullivan’s Wednesday evening prayer meeting on a regular basis, and Roxanne also prays for the salvation of air station officers each morning with Bobbi Sullivan.

Lt. Kent Underwood, Officer-in-Charge of the Joint Substance Abuse Counseling Center at the station, is also a Christian and a member of Col. and Mrs. Sullivan’s home fellowship meeting. “Col. Sullivan is a man of unquestionable character and integrity,” said Underwood. “He’s a fine example for all of us Marines to look up to.” Underwood also added that, even though Sullivan is a strong commander who keeps the air station in complete order, he is not afraid to show humility or to openly express the love of Christ to his men. “The Colonel has prayed for me in his office when I had a need,” he said.

Sullivan’s Christian example has not always been appreciated, however. Shortly after he took command of the station, the Colonel decided to order pornography off of the base. Several soft-core porn magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse were being sold in the station’s retail outlets, and Sullivan notified the Marine Corps Exchange that he wanted the publications out immediately.

“It took guts for Col. Sullivan to do that,” said Lt. Underwood. Sullivan was both criticized and applauded by many for his action, but he held fast to the decision and began to seek God’s wisdom about how to convince his men that he had made the right move.

Col. Sullivan explained what he did at that point: “I could have just sat here and dictated what will be sold and marketed at this station – I have that kind of authority. But I felt that to make a unilateral decision in an area of what most people call ‘individual freedom,’ I needed community support.”

Sullivan then put together a presentation on pornography and how it is linked to domestic violence – which at that time was a growing problem at the air station. He then called together a group of the station’s commanding officers and gave them the startling statistics about actual domestic violence problems occurring at Beaufort. Pornography was traced as one of the root causes of the ugly situation, and the statistics verified Sullivan’s premise.

“Most of the commanders, after viewing the presentation, said they had no idea this was going on right here in Beaufort,” said Sullivan. “They were shocked. And after that meeting I began to get support from other officers on my decision.”

Community leaders in the small town of Beaufort are also appreciative of Sullivan’s leadership role in the crackdown on porn. The county leadership wants to take similar action, and state congressmen are supportive of the Colonel’s stand. It has set a precedent in the area which is likely to be duplicated.

Since the pornography decision, Sullivan has created a Community Advisory Group composed of non-commissioned officers, wives’ groups, chaplains, and other service agency representatives. The group is responsible for helping to promote a healthy environment on the base, and to research specific topics which the community thinks might be a problem. They then recommend special courses of action to the Colonel for implementation.

Recently the station’s Morale, Welfare and Recreation office wanted to bring what they called a “Ladies’ Boxing Act” to the base for entertainment. Sullivan’s Sergeant Major looked into the situation, and discovered that the show was nothing more than a thinly disguised pornographic presentation.

Sullivan called in his crew of community advisors. “We got the promotional video for the act, and showed it to the group,” said the Colonel. “I asked them, ‘Is this something that we want to promote at this station?’”

Only one viewer thought that individual Marines should have a choice in the matter, and that the show should be permitted. “Everyone else agreed that to allow such a show – which was so degrading to women – would be detrimental to the pro-family atmosphere we are trying to create on this base,” added Sullivan.

Col. Sullivan and his wife are both outspoken about their views on the family. “Life in the military places a lot of strain on families,” related the Colonel. “Because our squadrons are sent on assignment for six-month periods, there is a greater temptation to be unfaithful. The children also suffer from having their dads gone so much. So we have always made it a clear rule around here: God is first, your family is second, and your job is third.” Bobbi Sullivan echos this sentiment whenever she is given the opportunity to speak to military wives.

The base commander’s ideas have not always been readily received, but many have later consented wholeheartedly to his views after being educated. One exchange officer who had questioned the removal of pornography from the station’s stores later admitted to Sullivan that he “had no idea the problem was so bad.” He also pledged to do “everything he could” to promote a wholesome environment on the base.

Beaufort Air Station’s Community Advisory Group is now looking at the issue of rock music and possible negative influences that the rock culture has on young people. The council has viewed several presentations on the subject, and will be making recommendations on what possible actions should be taken in regards to limiting concert ticket sales on base. “People just need to be educated on a lot of these things,” said Sullivan. He predicts that the advisory group will want to show a seminar on the unreported negative influences of rock music to all the Marines on base.

To the other Christians at the Beaufort station, Col. John Sullivan is a shining example; but Sullivan himself is a modest man who speaks hesitantly about his many military honors and his achievements as base commander. He is especially excited to hear of reports from around the country of other outspoken Christians in the military.

“I know of a Christian brother on a base in North Carolina who has been baptizing men on the beach,” said Sullivan. “There are also many senior officers at the Pentagon who are believers. I was told by a Christian friend that the former Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps had attended a large Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship meeting in Washington. So I know that the Lord is moving among military people all over the nation.”

Although recent news media reports might lead us to believe that the U.S. military is tainted by corruption and self-interest, Sullivan says that the reports concerning the recent Pentagon scandal have been distorted. “Although there are certainly many opportunities for greed and bribery in that environment, by and large, military people working in Washington have very high moral standards,” related the Colonel. “There may be some civilians out there who have given in to the pressure, but my experience with military people confirms to me that this present situation at the Pentagon is not a negative reflection on our armed forces.”

Sullivan added that no active-duty military personnel have been indicted in the weapons procurement scandal: “The men and women in the military believe in what they are doing and are dedicated to preserving our country and our way of life. They’re sure not in this for the money! Military men and women willingly accept sacrifices often required of them, including frequent family separations, long working hours, and, occasionally, grave personal danger because of their love for this country.” Sullivan related that he would like to see more in media reports about the positive contributions of servicemen, rather than the typical barrage of criticism.

With an obvious Christian revival breaking out within the ranks of our military servicemen, we can certainly anticipate more encouraging reports in the future. We can also expect more bold, courageous Christian leaders like Col. John Sullivan to emerge in the military community.

- by Lee Grady

©1988, The Forerunner. All rights reserved.

Why Has the Appeal of Communism Endured for So Many?

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

by Patrick J. Buchanan

The year just ended, 1987, marred the 70th anniversary of the coming to power of Lenin’s party. In the remarkable seven decades since the storming of the Winter Palace, that party has compiled a catalogue of crimes unique in human history.

A partial rendering would include the murder of the czar’s family; destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church; the forgotten holocaust in the Ukraine; the forced famine of the ’30s; Stalin’s purges; the Hitler-Stalin pact; the rape of the Baltic states; the unprovoked attack on Finland; the Katyn massacre of the Polish officers; the deceptions of Yalta; the crushing of the Hungarian Freedom Fighters and the Prague Spring; the Gulag Archipelago; and the war of genocide against the Afghan people now entering its ninth year.

And, after all this terror, what has Marxist economics produced? From China to Cuba, from Ethiopia to Vietnam, one bankrupt state after another. And, for those same decades, Moscow has persecuted Russia’s greatest men of letters, like Solzhenitsyn, and Pastsernak, and driven her greatest artists, like Nureyev and Baryshnikov, into exile.

Despite this abominable history, however, communism retains a certain magnetism in the West. In elite American universities, some professors still proudly call themselves Marxist. From their pulpits, Christian clergymen decry any U.S. effort to remove Communist regimes in Grenada, Nicaragua and Angola. In Europe, writers and intellectuals generally believe Gorbachev’s regime is a greater friend of peace than the United States.

How do we explain this continuing suspension of disbelief, despite the manifest crimes of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Col. Mengistu and Pol Pot?

The answer, I think does not lie in a lack of knowledge about the Communist record, but, rather, in the presence of a form of religious belief.

The “Political Pilgrims” of whom Paul Hollander writes, those “useful idiots” who go abroad to Communist lands and come home singing the praises of the Brave New World, from Lincoln Steffens to Jane Fonda, do not see the misery, tyranny and moral squalor – because that is not what they went to see.

Their sudden new “faith in the atrocious systems they have just seen firsthand fills an emptiness in the soul caused by the loss of faith in the animating ideas and ideals of their own civilization. Their enthusiasm is that of the convert, because, in their hearts, they have been converted. They have, in a real sense, changed sides.

Nor should this be unexpected in our age of disbelief. Lost souls do not stay lost; they find a new faith. Ideology often fills the void left by a dying religious belief.

Communism is, in the last analysis, a Christian heresy, and it has the magnetism of a heresy. Where Christianity teaches that we are all children of God, with God-given human rights, destined for a heavenly kingdom, communism teaches there is no God, that life begins and ends here, that the Communist state is man’s teacher and guide, that building paradise is the business of this world.

To those in the West who have lost faith in Judeo-Christian values, traditions and beliefs and, indeed, have come to despise their Western heritage, Communists, no matter how brutal in practice, will always have the appeal of men of action who do more than talk; thus, the party will never lack for secret admirers and self-appointed public defenders in the West.

Indeed, the alienated son who hates his father and finds happiness in his father’s economic ruin is not different in attitude from the Americans who exulted in the final victories of the North Vietnamese Communists over the allies of their own country.

Seven years after his assassination, Somoza remains a reviled figure, though his crimes against the Nicaraguan people do not remotely approach the scale or scope of those committed by the decadent Sandinistas, whose survival seems the constant concern of the American Left. Why ? Because Somoza was on our side; and the Sandinistas, most emphatically, are not.

And it is, I am persuaded, not some deep-seated love of the downtrodden Xhosa or Zulu that has caused America’s press and clergy to insist upon the most severe of sanctions upon South Africa. (After all, Ndebele, Hutu, Tutsi, Ibo and countless tribal peoples have been massacred in far greater numbers in modern Africa, without a peep of protest from these same sources.)

The spirit driving the anti-apartheid coalition worldwide is not love at all; it is hatred, and not just hatred of apartheid, but hatred of the Boer, hatred of Botha, his party and people, hatred of the 19th century idea they embody – the idea that the Christian West, because of the superiority of its values and the civilization those values produced, has an inherent right to rule over other peoples.

Oddly, today, it is the Soviets who have taken up Kipling’s “white man’s burden,” who openly proclaim their inherent right to rule mankind, based upon their correct reading of history, and their party’s predestined role in that history. Meanwhile, we Westerners have taken to preaching such 20th century notions as non-intervention and the equality of all states and “making the world safe for diversity,” in JFK’s phrase, even though that diversity, as often as not, includes a Fidel Castro as well as an Idi Amin.

The Leader America Needs

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

by Ray Allen

What America needs today, a good ten cent cigar won’t fix. We need fundamental changes more than mere cosmetic changes. And, if we don’t make some of them soon, we’ll be lucky if the cigar doesn’t explode in our faces one day.

But, change is usually embodied in a man … a reformer … a leader.

Like the little boy who cried, “The emperor has no clothes!,” simple wisdom came from an unexpected source during my first attempt at sharing some of my concerns with a group of elderly citizens some 17 years ago. In the middle of my presentation, a woman suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s disease turned to her fellow-listeners, and with a frightening sense of desperate conviction, cut to the heart of the matter: “We need a leader,” she exclaimed.

She may have spoken out of turn, but certainly was not out of touch with reality. A need that was true then grows increasingly acute. America desperately needs a leader – a leader of a certain quality of character, and, one who follows a certain quality of vision. He must know where he’s going and have what it takes to get us all there, safely.

First, let’s talk about the quality of the leader. He must be a man who understands the proper stewardship of power. He must know the necessity of limiting the exercise of that power to those actions which serve the best interests of his fellow-citizens. And, he must walk with a limp. Let me explain.

The young and foolish actually believe they are invincible; that the law of cause and effect exacts its toll only on the old who are less clever than they; that good intentions are as acceptable as delivering the goods; and, that meaning well excuses unforeseen damages. Young men and young lions share these delusions.

Old men and old lions do not. Why? Because the old-timers often are still paying the painful price of careless mistakes made in moments of weakness or misjudgment. Pain is a great teacher which costs dearly. That’s why they walk with a limp. If you ask a man about his limp and hear humility and wisdom in his thoughtful answer, you may have found a leader who will not blithely lead you into foolish and unnecessary danger.

Remember this; your well-being depends on it: if your leader has not learned about pain firsthand, he is likely to be willing to let you suffer some. And, he is unlikely to know the depth of his own vulnerability when his own pain gets unbearable. Untested men and freshly wounded lions are dangerous to be around when pressure or pain mounts.

Remember the disciples of Jesus at the Last Supper? When Jesus announced that one would betray Him, each asked with anguish, “Is it I?” They knew about weakness. And, each knew, from painful experience, the fragility of his own nature and will to do good. They became fruitful disciples precisely because they understood human fallibility – beginning with their own.

Second, let’s discuss the quality of the leader’s vision. It’s no good to have a leader of proven moral character and humility, walking with a limp, if he doesn’t know where he’s going. He must be able to see beyond his limp to that fixed point on the far horizon where he knows we must all go if we are to fulfill our highest and noblest destiny.

He must have a vision which is consistent with the highest aspirations of those he expects to lead, not merely the sum of his personal preferences. He must lead men and women to greater liberty, greater productivity, greater wisdom, courage, virtue, kindness, and service than they believed possible; and when it’s all done, he must give them the credit for their achievement. He may lead them through painful places; but, their pain should accomplish and end that is worthwhile.

I believe some current presidential candidates have the first quality of character well in hand. One candidate in particular, stands out, I think. But, I’m hearing far too little about that“destiny beyond the horizon,” and, much too much about the efficiency of the journey. A trip without a fixed destination may be futile, dangerous, or both.

So, I’m asking questions aimed at the present crop of “would-be” leaders. Where are we going? Where will you take us, prospective Mr. President? Will tax-burdened Americans be allowed to keep more of the fruit of their labor? Will you help unleash America’s vast productivity and creativity by rolling back the petty tyrannies of top-heavy government?

Will you isolate and scorn the tin-horn dictators who fleece their people and grow fat and belligerent while wolfing down American handouts? Will you use your moral character to inspire our own moral character; and, will you inspire us by your actions to lead among the nations of the earth in voluntary compassionate service?

Will the enslaved of the earth be liberated? Will you help us to be wise and tolerant with our allies, wise and wary when dealing with our faithless enemies? Will you help stop the killing of unborn babies? Will you stop mortgaging our children’s future with budget deficits today?

Will you remember the lessons of your limp when we send you abroad on Air Force One, or gliding in isolated splendor in your gilded cage of motorcades and police escorts?

If not, future Mr. President, please spare us the agony.

America does not need a president who is merely competent. America needs a leader. An elderly woman who had already forgotten everything else she ever knew, still knew that; and, I haven’t been able to forget it either.

Was America founded as a Christian nation?

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

There are many today who would doubt or deny that this is true. There has even been an attempt to cover up and, in some cases, to destroy the legacy of Christian thinking that has gone into the formation of our republic. Yet what were the true thoughts and intentions of the men and women who came before us?

A careful look into the past reveals landmarks which were essential in guiding America along the pathway that led us to where we are today. More often than not, at each one of these landmarks, there also appears irrefutable evidence that a sense of divine destiny accompanied the most important events of our history.

Here in part are some of these landmarks:

1490-1492 – Columbus’ commission was given to set out to find a new world.

According to Columbus’ personal log, his purpose in seeking undiscovered worlds was to “bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the heathens. …. It was the Lord who put into my mind … that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies … I am the most unworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely … No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Saviour, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service.” (Columbus’ Book of Prophecies)

April 10, 1606 – The Charter for the Virginia Colony read in part:

“To the glory of His divine Majesty, in propagating of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.”

November 3, 1620 – King James I grants the Charter of the Plymouth council.

“In the hope thereby to advance the enlargement of the Christian religion, to the glory of God Almighty.”

November 11, 1620 – The Pilgrims sign the Mayflower Compact aboard the Mayflower, in Plymouth harbor.

“For the glory of God and advancement of ye Christian faith … doe by these presents solemnly & mutually in ye presence of God and one of another, covenant & combine our selves togeather into a civill body politick.”

March 4, 1629 – The first Charter of Massachusetts read in part:

“For the directing, ruling, and disposeing of all other Matters and Thinges, whereby our said People may be soe religiously, peaceablie, and civilly governed, as their good life and orderlie Conversacon, maie wynn and incite the Natives of the Country to the Knowledg and Obedience of the onlie true God and Savior of Mankinde, and the Christian Fayth, which in our Royall Intencon, and The Adventurers free profession, is the principall Ende of the Plantacion..”

January 14, 1638 – The towns of Hartford, Weathersfield and Windsor adopt the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut.

“To mayntayne and presearve the liberty and purity of the Gospell of our Lord Jesus, which we now professe…”

August 4, 1639 – The governing body of New Hampshire is established.

“Considering with ourselves the holy will of God and our own necessity, that we should not live without wholesome laws and civil government among us, of which we are altogether destitute, do, in the name of Christ and in the sight of God, combine ourselves together to erect and set up among us such government as shall be, to our best discerning, agreeable to the will of God…”

September 26, 1642 – The rules and precepts that were to govern Harvard were set up.

“Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternall life, John 17:3 and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning. And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdome, Let every one seriously set himselfe by prayer in secret to seeke it of him Prov. 2.3.”

Harvard College was founded on Christi Gloriam and later dedicated Christo et Ecclesiae. The founders of Harvard believed that “all knowledge without Christ was vain.”

The charter of Yale University clearly expressed the purpose for which the school was founded: “Whereas several well disposed and Publick spirited Persons of their sincere Regard to & zeal for upholding & propagating of the Christian Protestant Religion … youth may be instructed in the Arts & Sciences who through the blessing of Almighty God may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church & Civil State.”

In addition to Harvard and Yale, 106 out of the first 108 schools in America were founded on the Christian faith.

April 3, 1644 – The New Haven Colony adopts their charter.

“That the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses … be a rule to all the courts in this jurisdiction …”

1647 – Governor William Bradford publishes Of Plimouth Plantation.

“Lastly, (and which was not least,) a great hope and inward zeall they (the Pilgrims) had of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto, for ye propagation and advancing of ye gospell or ye kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of ye world; yea, though they should be but stepping-stones unto others for ye performing of so great a work … their desires were set on ye ways of God, and to employ his ordinances; but they rested on his providence, and know whom they had beleeved.”

April 21, 1649 – The Maryland Toleration Act is passed.

“Be it therefor … enacted … that no person or persons whatsoever within this province … professing to believe in Jesus Christ shall … henceforth be any ways troubled, molested (or disapproved of) … in respect of his or her religion nor in the free exercise thereof …”

April 25, 1689 – The Great Law of Pennsylvania is passed.

“Whereas the glory of Almighty God and the good of mankind is the reason and the end of government … therefore government itself is a venerable ordinance of God …”

May 20, 1775 – North Carolina passes the Mecklenburg County Resolutions.

“We hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people; are, and of a right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing association, under control of no other power than that of our God and the general government of Congress.”

Summer 12, 1775 – Continental Congress issues a call to all citizens to fast and pray and confess their sin that the Lord might bless the land.

“And it is recommended to Christians of all denominations, to assemble for public worship, and to abstain from servile labor and recreation on said day.”

Summer 2-4, 1776 – Declaration of Independence written and signed.

“We hold these truths … that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights … appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world … And for the support of this Declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence…”

As the Declaration was being signed, Samuel Adams said: “We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven, and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let his kingdom come.”

On the same day, Benjamin Franklin suggested that the national motto be: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”

Historian and philosopher G.K. Chesterton said of the founding of America that it is “the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth in dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.”

September 17, 1787 – The Constitution of the United States is finished.

At least 50 out of the 55 men who framed the Constitution of the United States were professing Christians. (M.E. Bradford, A Worthy Company, Plymouth Rock Foundation., 1982).

Eleven of the first 13 States required faith in Jesus Christ and the Bible as qualification for holding public office.

The Constitution of each of the 50 States acknowledges and calls upon the Providence of God for the blessings of freedom.

1787 – James Madison, the “architect” of the federal Constitution and fourth president:

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future .. upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

April 30, 1789 – Washington gives his First Inaugural Address.

“My fervent supplications to that Almighty Being Who rules over the universe, Who presides in the council of nations, and Whose providential aid can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a government instituted by Himself for these essential purposes.”

March 11, 1792 – President George Washington:

“I am sure that never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency which so often manifested in the Revolution.”

December 20, 1820 – Daniel Webster, Plymouth Massachusetts:

“Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers brought hither their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate … and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political and literary.”

July 4, 1821 – John Quincy Adams:

“The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected, in one indissoluble bond, the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. From the day of the Declaration … they (the American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledged as the rules of their conduct.”

1833 – Noah Webster:

“The religion which has introduced civil liberty, is the religion of Christ and his apostles … This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitutions and government … the moral principles and precepts contained in the Scripture ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws.”

1841 – Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America):

“In the United States of America the sovereign authority is religious … there is no other country in the world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.”

Summer 8, 1845 – President Andrew Jackson asserts:

“The Bible is the rock upon which our Republic rests.”

February 11, 1861 – Abraham Lincoln, farewell at Springfield, Illinois:

“Unless the great God who assisted (Washington) shall be with me and aid me, I must fail; but if the same Omniscient Mind and Mighty Arm that directed and protected him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail … Let us all pray that the God of our fathers may not forsake us now.”

Lincoln on the Bible:

“In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we would not know right from wrong. All things most desireable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.” (George L. Hunt, Calvinism and the Political Order, Westminster Press, 1965, p.33)

1884 – U.S. Supreme Court reiterates the Declaration’s reference to our rights as being God-given.

These inherent rights have never been more happily expressed than in the Declaration of Independence, “we hold these truths to be self-evident” that is, so plain that their truth is recognized upon their mere statement “that all men are endowed” – not by edicts of emperors, or by decrees of parliament, or acts of Congress, but “by their Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and to secure these” – not grant them but secure them “governments are instituted among men.”

1891 – The U.S. Supreme Court restates that America is a “Christian Nation.”

“Our laws and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian … this is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation … we find everywhere a clear definition of the same truth … this is a Christian nation.” (Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States, 143 US 457, 36 L ed 226, Justice Brewer)

1909 – President Theodore Roosevelt:

“After a week on perplexing problems … it does so rest my soul to come into the house of The Lord and to sing and mean it, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty’ … (my) great joy and glory that in occupying an exalted position in the nation, I am enabled, to preach the practical moralities of the Bible to my fellow-countrymen and to hold up Christ as the hope and Savior of the world.” (Ferdinand C. Iglehart, Theodore Roosevelt – The Man As I knew Him, A.L. Burt, 1919)

1913 – President Woodrow Wilson:

“America was born to exemplify the devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the Holy Scriptures.”

1952 – US Supreme Court defines the “Separation of Church and State.”

“We are a religious people and our institutions presuppose a Supreme Being … No Constitutional requirement makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion and to throw its weight against the efforts to widen the scope of religious influence. The government must remain neutral when it comes to competition between sects … The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every respect there shall be a separation of Church and State.”

January 20, 1977 – President Jimmy Carter:

“Here before me is the Bible used in the inauguration of our first President in 1789, and I have just taken the oath of office on the Bible my mother gave me just a few years ago, opened to the timeless admonition from the ancient prophet Micah: ‘He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God’” (Micah 6:2).

1980 – President Ronald Reagan:

“The time has come to turn to God and reassert our trust in Him for the Healing of America … our country is in need of and ready for a spiritual renewal.”

May 3, 1990 – President George Bush proclaims National Day of Prayer.

“The great faith that led our Nation’s Founding Fathers to pursue this bold experience in self-government has sustained us in uncertain and perilous times; it has given us strength to this very day. Like them, we do very well to recall our ‘firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence,’ to give thanks for the freedom and prosperity this nation enjoys, and to pray for continued help and guidance from our wise and loving Creator.”

America's Christian Leaders: Anne Hutchinson

By Jay Rogers
Published April 2008

In 1636, Anne Hutchinson, the wife of one of Boston’s leading citizens, was charged with heresy and banished from Massachusetts Colony. A woman of learning and great religious conviction, Hutchinson challenged the Puritan clergy and asserted her view of the “Covenant of Grace” – that moral conduct and piety should not be the primary qualifications for “visible sanctification.”

Her preachings were unjustly labeled “antinomianism” by the Puritans – a heresy – since the Christian leaders of that day held to a strong “Covenant of Works” teaching which dictated the need for outward signs of God’s grace. The question of “works versus grace” is a very old one; it goes on forever in a certain type of mind. Both are true doctrines, however, the “Covenant of Grace” is true in a higher sense.

Anne Hutchinson’s teaching can be summed up in a simple phrase which she taught the women who met in her home: “As I do understand it, laws, commands, rules and edicts are for those who have not the light which makes plain the pathway. He who has God’s grace in his heart cannot go astray.”

Actually, what Anne Hutchinson was preaching was not antithetical to what the Puritans believed at all. What began as quibbling over fine points of Christian doctrine ended as a confrontation over the role of authority in the colony. Threatened by meetings she held in her Boston home, the clergy charged Hutchinson with blasphemy. An outspoken female in a male hierarchy, Hutchinson had little hope that many would speak in her defense, and she was being tried by the General Court.

After being sentenced, she went with her family to what is now Rhode Island. Several years later she moved to New York where she and some of her family were massacred by Indians. One of her descendants, Thomas Hutchinson, later became governor of Massachusetts.

Anne Hutchinson pioneered the principles of civil liberty and religious freedom which were written into the Constitution of the United States. The spirit of Anne Hutchinson, the first woman preacher and fearless defender of freedom in New England, survived her persecution and death and it survives even until this day.

See also: The Boston Awakening

Columbus' Christian Character and Divine Mission

By Editorial Staff
Published April 2008

By Stephen McDowell

MUCH CONTROVERSY HAS ARISEN over the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Many attacks have been leveled against him and western civilization. The target of the attacks of many is not so much against Columbus as it is against Christianity, which is the source of the values of western civilization. Fundamentally, the battle is between a Christian world view and a humanistic worldview.

To properly understand Columbus and others involved in the discovery and colonization of the Americas, we must view them in light of the world in which they lived. While Columbus had many shortcomings, his motives were most certainly Christian. Washington Irving writes of Christopher Columbus:

“He was devoutly pious: religion mingled with the whole course of his thoughts and actions, and shone forth in his most private and unstudied writings. Whenever he made any great discovery, he celebrated it by solemn thanks to God. The voice of prayer and melody of praise rose from his ships when they first beheld the New World, and his first action on landing was to prostrate himself upon the earth and return thanksgivings. Every evening the Salve Regina and other vesper hymns were chanted by his crew, and masses were performed in the beautiful groves bordering the wild shores of this heathen land. All his great enterprises were undertaken in the name of the Holy Trinity, and he partook of the communion previous to embarkation. He was a firm believer in the efficacy of vows and penances and pilgrimages, and resorted to them in times of difficulty and danger. The religion thus deeply seated in his soul diffused a sober dignity and benign composure over his whole demeanor. His language was pure and guarded, and free from all imprecations, oaths and other irreverent expressions.“1

Journal of First Voyage of Columbus

Columbus’ actual journals have been lost, but two of his companions, his son Ferdinand and Bartolome Las Casas, recorded abstracts of the original journal. At places they quote Columbus and in other places they summarize his journals.2

Writings in Columbus’ journal reveal his primary motives for sailing were his Christian convictions. He had a desire to preach the gospel throughout the nations, and in particular to take Christianity to the Great Khan of eastern Asia. About 200 years before Columbus’ voyage, Marco Polo, who had traveled throughout parts of Asia, brought word from the Khan of a desire for missionaries to be sent to his empire. Other Khans who had ruled since Polo’s time had also made this request. Columbus had studied the writings of Marco Polo’s travels and was also familiar with more recent requests for missionaries to be sent to teach the Christian religion.

He opens his journal of his first voyage with the following:

“In the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Whereas, Most Christian, high, Excellent and Powerful Princes, King and Queen of Spain and of the Islands of the Sea, our Sovereigns, this present year 1492, after your Highnesses had terminated the war with the Moors reigning in Europe, the same having been brought to an end in the great city of Granada, where on the second day of January, this present year, I saw the royal banners of your Highnesses planted by force of arms upon the towers of the Alhambra, which is the fortress of that city, and saw the Moorish king come out at the gate of the city and kiss the hands of your Highnesses, and of the Prince my Sovereign; and in the present month, in consequence of the information which I had given your Highnesses respecting the countries of India and of a Prince, called Great Can, which in our language signifies King of Kings, how at many times he, and his predecessors had sent to Rome soliciting instructors who might teach him our holy faith, and the holy Father had never granted his request, whereby great numbers of people were lost, believing in idolatry and doctrines of perdition.

“Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith, and are enemies of the doctrine of Mahomet, and of all idolatry and heresy, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and furthermore directed that I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone…”

After reaching land, which he thought were islands off the east coast of Asia (or India), Columbus saw many natives, whom he called Indians. He spoke often of his desire to convert them to Christianity.

Friday, Oct. 12th…“As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and perceived that they could be much more easily converted to our holy faith by gentle means than by force, I presented them with some red caps, and strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many other trifles of small value, wherewith they were much delighted and became wonderfully attached to us… I am of opinion that they would very readily become Christians, as they appear to have no religion.”

Tuesday, Oct. 16th…. “They have no religion, and I believe that they would very readily become Christians as they have a good understanding.”

Tuesday, Nov. 6th… “I have no doubt, most serene Princes, says the Admiral, “that were proper devout and religious persons to come among them and learn their language, it would be an easy matter to convert them all to Christianity, and I hope in our Lord that your Highnesses will devote yourselves with much diligence to this object, and bring into the church so many multitudes, inasmuch as you have exterminated those who refused to confess the Father, Son and Holy Ghost [this refers to the conflict with the Moors], so that having ended your days (as we are all mortal) you may leave your dominions in a tranquil condition, free from heresy and wickedness, and meet with a favourable reception before the eternal Creator, whom may it please to grant you a long life and great increase of kingdoms and dominions, with the will and disposition to promote, as you always have done, the holy Christian religion, Amen.”

Monday, Nov. 12th… “Your Highnesses should therefore adopt the resolution of converting them to Christianity, in which enterprise I am of opinion that a very short space of time would suffice to gain to our holy faith multitudes of people…”

Tuesday, Nov. 27th… “The language of this people neither I nor any of my company understand, and we are perpetually making mistakes in our conversation with one another… Henceforth, with the permission of our Lord, I shall use my exertions, and have the language taught to some of our people, for I perceive that thus for the dialect is the same throughout. Thus we shall acquire a knowledge o