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CFT's bi-weekly CHRISTIAN NEWS 30 March 2000 * THEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT OF OTHER RELIGIONS - The `Theological Convention of the Conference of Confessing Fellowships' in Germany has issued a document "No Other Name - Theological Declaration Concerning the Assessment of the Religions in the Light of the Gospel". Prof Peter Beyerhaus says that "this declaration stands in continuity with former public utterances of the Theological Convention in which we addressed ourselves to burning issues of Christianity, starting with the Frankfurt Declaration on the fundamental crisis of Christian missions in 1970. We feel that the encounter between the biblical gospel and non-Christian faiths is the most vital question which the church world wide has to face today." The 16 page document is introduced by the authors by stating that: we wish to remind the Christian community of our responsibility to preserve the purity of the one saving revelation of God in Jesus Christ entrusted to us in the Holy Scriptures and to thankfully give testimony about it to others in love. Our aim is not to demean other religions and their cultural values, or calling upon Christians to meet their adherents in ways which are disparaging, hostile, or fearful. Neither is it our intention to exaggerate the value of our own `Christian religion', whose numerous deformations and abuses we are well aware of." (copies of the document can be ordered from Institut-Diakrisis@t-online.de) * GAYS RIGHT TO DONATE BLOOD IN SA - In a landmark decision, the South African Human Rights Commission has ruled (24 March) that gay people have a constitutional right to donate blood. The Western Cape Blood Transfusion Service has confirmed it is seeking legal advice in a bid to overturn the HRC's demand that it change its policy on homosexual blood by 3 April or face court action. Reacting to the HRC's ruling, Arthur Bird, the transfusion service's medical director, said it was "no secret to say that what I read I don't agree with." (Saturday Star, 25 March) In their reaction the ACDP said: The African Christian Democratic Party believes that the decision by the South African Human Rights Commission that homosexuals have a constitutional right to donate blood is a case of victory of 'political correctness' over common sense and sound medical decision-making. * MOUNT ST HELENS NEW INSIGHTS INTO FLOOD RECOVERY - Scientists who flocked to study the devasted area of Mount St Helens, which erupted on 18 May 1980, have found that pessimistic forecasts of long-term barrenness were largely unfounded. For example, within just three years, 90% of the original plant species were found to be growing within the blast zone. The innate resilience of the creation had been greatly underestimated. Shortly after the eruption, the then U.S. President Jimmy Carter compared it to a moonscape. Scientists studying the affected area referred to an `apparently sterile landscape', lamenting that `it will never be again, in our lifetime' and speculating that it would be `impossible for insects to recover at all.' Today, however, the diversity of species living in the area is approaching its pre-eruption levels. Ecologists have been forced to rethink their theories of ecological `succession'. According to creation scientists Keith Swenson and David Catchpoole, observing the return of life to Mount St Helens can provide some insight into the return of life to the world after Noah's Flood. Sceptics have argued that recovery from a global catastrophe such as the Flood would be impossible within a short Biblical time-frame. Mount St Helens, however, demonstrates how quickly and completely recovery can occur in the natural world. (Creation Ex Nihilo, March-May 2000) * EUROPE NEEDS THE GOSPEL - New efforts are needed to re-evangelize nominally Christian Europe, missions theorist C. Peter Wagner says. It is time for Christians to pray for Europeans and send more missionaries to open up what he calls the "40/70 Window," he said, referring to the areas between the 40th and 70th parallels. In more than 50 nations of highly secularized Europe, many people who are numbered as Christians "have never heard the gospel," he said. Since 1989, millions of Christians have been praying for Muslims and Hindus who live in the "10/40 Window," where most people, who have not heard the gospel, live. "Evangelism is going on all over the 10/40 Window," Wagner said. (Religion Today) * SCHOOLS, CHURCHES AND HOSPITALS BOMBED IN SUDAN - Schools, churches, mission stations and hospitals in Southern Sudan have been subjected to repeated aerial bombardments by the National Islamic Front Government of Sudan. On the 1st, 7th, 22nd and 23rd of March , Russian made Antonov aircraft of the Sudanese Air Force bombed the mission hospital at Lui, Moruland, in Southern Sudan. More than 100 patients were being treated or housed at the hospital at the time of the first attack. Four American doctors from Samaritan's Purse were operating at the hospital when Sudanese aircraft dropped 12 bombs on, or near, the hospital killing numerous people, critically wounding many others. The Children's and Tuberculosis wards were damaged and many patients fled into the bush. This hospital, which Frontline Fellowship helped to establish, has been run by Samaritan's Purse since August 1997. It is the largest hospital in Southern Sudan and it is the only hospital in Moruland (an area inhabited by over 350,000 people). (FF) * BOB JONES AND CULTS - Bob Jones University put a statement calling Catholicism and Mormonism "cults" back up on its web site. The statement had been removed, but the South Carolina school's president, Bob Jones III, told the Greenville News March 15, that reports that implied the school was backing down were "totally misleading." In his statement, Jones says, "The diminution of evangelistic enterprise to cults which call themselves Christian, including Catholicism and Mormonism, is frightening." He said the statement will stay on the site "as long as this present controversy exists." (Religion Today) * CHRISTIANS TARGETED IN PERU - An evangelical Peruvian village leader was executed March 20 after Marxist guerrillas declared him guilty of taking part in police and military activities. While Antonio Izuisa Chasnamote, the mayor of Ramal de Aspuzana, probably was not killed directly for his faith, Christians in Peru's rural communities often have been targets of violence because of their refusal to choose sides in the conflict and for their non-communist beliefs. (Maranatha News Briefs, 27 March) LITTLE PEOPLE CHURCH HUMOR - The preacher was wired for sound with a lapel mike, and as he preached, he moved briskly about the platform, jerking the mike cord as he went. Then he moved to one side, getting wound up in the cord and nearly tripping before jerking it again. After several circles and jerks, a little girl in the third pew leaned toward her mother and whispered, "If he gets loose, will he hurt us?" A wife invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, "Would you like to say the blessing?" "I wouldn't know what to say," the girl replied. "Just say what you hear Mommy say," the wife answered. The daughter bowed her head and said, "Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?" |
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