CFT's bi-weekly CHRISTIAN NEWS

30 January 1998

* SA ABORTION CLINIC CLOSED BY PRO-LIFERS - CFT (KwaZulu-Natal) released a press statement on 19 January announcing that after a month of picketing outside the `Nightingale Family Planning Clinic' the abortuary was officially closed on 15 January. Mr Johnson Hlela, Pietermaritzburg CFT chairman, said: "Although abortion is legal it still remains wrong in God's eyes and we will continue to speak for those who cannot speak." CFT thanked all groups, churches, doctors, nurses and teachers, for their support in picketing the clinic. The campaign had started with 15 picketers and, with continual additions from members of the local community, there were over 200 by the time the clinic closed.

* PEDOPHILIA SCANDAL IN DUTCH CHURCH - CFT friends from the Netherlands report that the entire executive committee of the Reformed Church (Gereformeerde Kerken) has resigned because of a scandal around the acceptance of pedophilia. In December 1997 the Synod accepted the theological stand of Prof Den Heyer from the Theological University of Kampen. He denied reconciliation through the Blood of Christ and taught that the New Testament does not teach that Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross was for the atonement of the sinner. The president of the Synod, Dr Vissinga, made a speech stating that the Synod is proud of the courageous Prof Heyer. Vissinga was already on record as having pleaded for acceptance of homosexuality.

Three weeks later, on 10 January, an article defending pedophilia appeared in the largest Christian Newspaper, `Trouw', by Rev Leen van Drimmelen of the Reformed Church and lecturer in Church Law at the Free University of Amsterdam. He claimed that it can "even be a blessing for a child to have pedophile relationship with an adult." The next day, Sunday, the president of the Synod, the above mentioned Dr Vissinga, defended Van Drimmelen in a radio interview as a "courageous man." That evening Dr Vissinga again supported his colleague as a "fine Christian man." A few days later it was revealed that Van Drimmelen's article had been written in conjunction with a youth worker in a Reformed Church who is in prison convicted of serious sexual abuse of a number of under age boys. At this point Van Drimmelen, Vissinga and the other Synod members decided to step down.

Evangelical TV host Feike ter Velde told Christian News: "What a shame! Especially for the Name of Christ and the honour of our God. May it bring all Christians in this country to their knees."

* GEORGI VINS DIES - Georgi Vins, former General Secretary of the Council of Evangelical Baptist Churches, the leadership body of 2,000 persecuted congregations in what was then the Soviet Union, died Jan. 11, months after being diagnosed with a malignant inoperable brain tumor. He was 69.

* POPE'S TRIP TO CUBA - Pope John Paul II ended his five-day trip to Cuba with a call for more religious freedom and the release of political prisoners. "Freedom! Freedom!" chanted a crowd estimated at 300,000 on Jan. 25 at the pope's final Mass in Havana's Revolution Square. Cuban leader Fidel Castro attended the Mass, in which John Paul urged people to be reconciled to God. He asked that the church be allowed to assume a larger role in society. ...The pope criticized Marxist atheism as repressive, and said unchecked capitalism "subordinates the human person to blind market forces." He encouraged Cuban young people to reject hedonistic lifestyles, drugs, and prostitution, and stressed the need for faith in Christ. Religion is not "just an ideology, not an economic or political system. It's a path of peace, justice, freedom, and truth," he said.

* WE WISH WE'D WAITED - A New Zealand study conducted recently to investigate the circumstances of first sexual intercourse and to determine how these correspond with views in early adulthood about its timing, found that most women who had sex at younger ages were more likely to say that they should have waited. Dr Nigel Dickson, senior researcher, said that women regretted having sexual intercourse before 16 years. Dickson said sexually transmitted diseases were reported by about 28% of women who had intercourse before 16 years. (Sunday Tribune, 18 January)

* SODOM AND GOMORRAH PINPOINTED BY GEOLOGISTS - A geologist at the University of Leicester in Britain says he has pinpointed the location of Sodom and Gomorrah and the cause of their destruction. Writing in Geology Today, Dr John Whitaker says the cities were located in the former Vale of Siddim on the northern banks of the Dead Sea. Witaker believers Sodom and Gomorrah may have been destroyed by an earthquake which ignited underground oil and bitumen deposits. He believes that geological evidence supports the Bible's account. The Vale of Siddim was comprised almost entirely of Sedom clay, which is unstable and prone to sudden subsubsidence during an earthquake. If an earthquake had occurred, the cities would have suddenly dropped below the level of the Dead Sea, which would have covered them. John Dewey, a professor of geology at Oxford University, told the London Sunday Times: "The fault running through the Dead Sea moves very slowly, but over long periods stresses can build up and be released as a big earthquake. The theory fits together." (Sunday Times, 18 January)

* GERMAN BISHOPS IN ABORTION DILEMMA - Caught between the pope and German politicians, German bishops have promised to seek an alternative to issuing certificates for women who need to prove they had counseling before having an abortion. Many German politicians want the Roman Catholic lay groups who conduct abortion counseling to continue offering the service, saying it saves the lives of unborn babies. But the pope wants his church out of a system that appears to approve of abortion. The bishops' announcement appeared to be an attempt to satisfy both sides. Women in Germany must obtain certificates saying they underwent counseling about abortion -- from church groups, the Red Cross or the state -- before they can have the procedure. In an "urgent request" to German bishops released Tuesday, Pope John Paul II argued that signing the certificates was tantamount to granting permission for an abortion, which the church considers a grave sin. "It's clear that church institutions are not permitted to do anything that can serve in any way as a justification for abortion," he wrote. (AP)

* NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES IN THE BRAIN - BBC radio recently (19 January 2:55 GMT) broadcast a feature programme on Near Death Experiences (NDEs). "Many of the people who had NDEs reported evil presences or creatures who were coming to fetch them." One woman testified of her "ghastly" experience. The BBC noted that those who had negative NDEs were mostly not the hell-deserving sinner types (as outlined by traditional Christianity) but were all pretty decent people. A proposal was made that negative NDEs could be attributed to a drug-like substance released in the brain after surgery.

(Ed: Perhaps it proves that evil creatures also fetch pretty decent people.)

* SUICIDE CARD "IN SPIRITUAL TUNE WITH MILLENNIUM" ( Excerpts from the "Daily Telegraph", Saturday 24th January 1998) HALLMARK, the greetings card firm, is to launch a "suicide" card for those bereaved by a loved-one who takes their own life, writes Charles Laurence, in New York. The company, which has 44 per cent of the American market, plans to release the first suicide condolence card in April. It said it had tested demand for the card in six cities and found an "overwhelmingly positive" response. Rachel Bolton, company spokesman, said the series "celebrates all experiences, beautiful and painful". The first design has a light blue background with a cloudy skyline at the front and at the bottom a lone sailing boat on calm water. Its message describes someone fleeing from life and the impossibility of understanding their pain. It breaks with the Christian doctrine of suicide as a sin by reassuring the recipient "our compassionate Creator" understands the suicide and has "already welcomed" the loved-one "home". The company makes it clear that the card is not macabre humour. It is to help friends and relatives to break the ice of a taboo subject with the family left behind by suicide. "What these cards do is open the door to communication," said Ms. Bolton. The company thought that the approaching Millennium had increased the need to talk openly about "spiritual" matters and the card was "very much in tune with the times".