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CFT's bi-weekly CHRISTIAN NEWS 15 September 1999
* CONDOM DISTRIBUTION IN KZN SCHOOLS - The Department of Education in KwaZulu-Natal has decided to allow condom distribution in its schools. According to newspaper reports it is expected that "conservatives" and the "religious community" will object to this new anti-Aids drive by the Education Department. In CFT's press statement it was pointed out that this "backward looking" decision will only make the problem worse and that parents with common sense will not want their children to be handed a "rubber solution". CFT said that an abstinence-based programme is the answer. * KIDS TO SUFFER AFTER WORLD VISION AXINGS - Top officials of World Vision of South Africa have been suspended over allegations of mismanagement - and thousands of children are likely to go hungry. The Reverend Norman Montjane, chairman of World Vision of South Africa's board, has confirmed the suspension of the chief executive officer and the national projects officer. Sources within World Vision say that community development projects would be the worst hit, and that a series of child-feeding schemes around the country will suffer as a result. In KwaZulu-Natal, 10,000 children would be affected when the projects are closed at the end of the year. (Independent on Saturday, 11 September) * JEHOVAH'S WITNESS TO GET `BLOODLESS' LIVER OPERATION - A dying man who has been refused a liver transplant in South Africa because of his religious beliefs has flown to Britain where surgeons have promised him a "bloodless" operation. Mr Euan Opperman (19) a Jehovah's Witness, is awaiting the operation at St James's University Hospital in Leeds. He has been told he needs a transplant to save his life, but says he will have surgery only if it is conducted without a blood transfusion. Although donated blood is refused by the sect there is a grey area surrounding the use of other blood products and the recycling of the patient's own blood. (The Independent, London) * SATANISM RUMOURS: PROCTOR & GAMBLE WILL SUE - A rumour being circulated in South Africa via the Internet, that associates the billion-dollar multinational company Proctor & Gamble with satanism, could get the people into legal trouble. The Ohio-based company has successfully filed 15 suits against instigators of the rumour in the United States. A spokesman for the company said: "If we find someone in South Africa who is spreading the rumour with malicious intent we would consider a lawsuit there, too." Rumours about P&G have been allegedly spread by one of their competitors, Amway. (Ed: A number of these attacks on P&G have been sent to Christian News. Our position is that these unproven accusations are "electronic gossip". * "I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT TV" – The german magazine "Eltern" has published the results of a survey they recently performed amongst 2,000 children. The question was asked "what would you take along if you had to live on a lonely island ?". Most children, 53, 4 %, answered that TV and Radio is their most important luggage. A 13 years old pupil reasoned "I cannot live without TV". A 12 years old girl would take her new swimming costume along and another 13- year-old pupil chose a cellphone. Only 0.3 % declared to take their Bible along. The youngest participator, a 7 year old girl, said: "Only my mother, because when she is around nothing can happen. In her presence I always feel well, because she gave birth to me". * ADULTERY CAN BE IN MIND, COURT RULES - Italy's highest court of appeal has declared that "adultery in the mind" is as culpable an offence as actual sexual betrayal. The Court of Cassation overturned a ruling by a lower court in Bologna hearing the case of a married woman from Ravenna named only as Anna who developed a passion for a bus driver named Pasquale. The court granted Anna and her husband Angelo a divorce, but accepted her argument that since she did not go to bed with the driver there was no "carnal betrayal" and she was therefore not to blame. But the appeal court disagreed with the ruling and said that a "platonic affair" could cause as much unhappiness as a sexual affair since the guilty partner was betraying the "trust and intimacy", which lie at the heart of marriage, by paying excessive attention to another. (The Mercury, 10 September) * A MASSACHUSETTS MINISTER IN TROUBLE FOR SPANKING HIS SON - The state Department of Social Services filed abuse charges against Donald Cobble, pastor of the Christian Teaching and Worship Center in Woburn, because he used a leather belt to spank his son Judah, 12. A lower court agreed with the DSS and the case is being appealed to the state Supreme Court, the Associated Press said. The state has offered to drop the charges if Cobble agrees to stop spanking, but he refused, saying it would interfere with his religious rights. ...The spankings are "mild, loving, routine, [and] structured" and there is no evidence they have caused physical abuse, Cobble's attorney said. Spankings are always administered to the fully clothed boy's buttocks and Cobble says he hugs him and tells him that he loves him before and after. He often reads from the Bible to help him understand the religious and spiritual nature of the discipline. The spankings leave pink marks that fade after about 10 minutes, but no welts or bruises, Judah told Social Services workers. * CHRISTIANS KILLED IN EAST TIMOR - A Protestant church leader has been killed in East Timor. Francisco de Vasconcelos Ximenes, general secretary of the Christian Church in East Timor, was shot by militiamen between Dili and Bacau, John Barr of Australia's Uniting Church said. He and others had sought refuge at an evangelical church in Dili, but left for Bacau during the night. A church leader told the Uniting Church he had found his body on the road. Christians are targets of the militia and more than a dozen Catholic clergy are reported dead in the violence, news reports said. (Religion Today) * US CHRISTIAN STUDENT JAILED - On 31 August, Liberty University student John Keyes began serving a six-month jail sentence for sharing the gospel and speaking against abortion on a high school campus in Lynchburg, Virginia before the start of the school day. Although 45 police officers at the scene testified that he and the 150 other demonstrators at the school were well-behaved and left promptly when asked to do so, Keyes was convicted of trespassing. (Maranatha News Briefs) * LEAP OF CYBERFAITH - Newprayer.com is offering to beam prayers to the part of the universe where "we know God resided." Read the following if you want to lose some of your money: "How can we know that our prayers are heard and that we are clearly sending our message to GOD? What do we know for sure about the location of GOD? Science tells us that the universe began with very thing that exists in one single location and that this mass suddenly exploded in a 'Big Bang' that created everything we know of in our universe. Surely, if everything in the universe was in a single place before the "Big Bang", GOD was there also. Therefore, we know for sure that GOD was at the site of this birth of the universe, while we debate if this took millions of years or if it took only seven days, our science tells us that some parts of our universe are much older near the center of this 'Big Bang' explosion that started it all. If we know for sure this one location of GOD, and we can send radio messages into space to this location, why not send our prayers to a place where we know for sure GOD resided? To this end NewPrayer has created a radio transmitter and can transmit your prayer to the last known location of GOD. For a small fee NewPrayer will send your message to the last known location of GOD. Click here to send your prayer!!" (Ed: People who send money to newprayer.com and troubled by space - between their ears.)
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