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Christian News

31 October 2000

* EUROPEAN "TRUE LOVE WAITS" CONFERENCE IN SWITZERLAND - The first European Congress of the international youth movement True Love Waits (TLW) was held and attended by 1400 youths from across Europe, on the 21st and 22nd of October, in Winterthur. The campaign which encourages young people to remain sexually pure until marriage, was started by Richard Ross in 1993. Today TLW is embraced and promoted by scholars, students and churches in approximately 100 countries. According to Ross, who was the main speaker at the Congress, the US Government with its condom solution to the problem of rising teenage sexuality, has "lost the youth's confidence". He explained to the participants of the congress that God has ordained sexuality for marriage, and that it is necessary for young people to make a determined decision to conform to that lifestyle. Present at the congress were active sportsmen and prominent guests, like ice-hockey player Mark Ouimet of the ZSC Lions, mountain-biker Brigitte Kasper, Prince Philip von Preussen from Germany and Kjell Olsen from South Africa. The present Mr. Switzerland, Claudio Minder, gave a video presentation especially for the young people. They all encouraged the participants to live according to their convictions and not to be influenced by the spirit of the time. The Euro-choir performed the musical "Walk of Life", especially composed for TLW. The congress participants brought chocolates from their countries and made the world's biggest and heaviest chocolate heart, to be recorded in the Guiness Book of Records. It weighed 550 kg, covering 9 m². The heart was divided amongst all the participants, a symbolic gesture of the promotion of the TLW message. Spokesperson for the campaign, Michael Muller, said that the overwhelming response from the youth shows that TLW meets many teenagers' needs. (26 October, TLW Germany)

* REBEKKA ST.JAMES SAYS SAVE SEX FOR MARRIAGE - In an interview with K.Olsen, Rebekka St.James the popular Christian singer, encouraged teenagers to "save sex for marriage". Rebekka, who is presently on tour in Europe, said in the interview that she does not want to think of any other man when she gets married . In her latest album, `Transformed', she has written a letter to her future husband and she expects him to likewise be sexually abstinent so that he will not be thinking of another woman when they get married.

* ADDICTED CAMEL MAN SUES US TOBACCO GIANT - A smoker is suing the makers of Camel cigarettes for R100-million, claiming he is so addicted to nicotine that he even smokes cigarette butts. Howard Jeslowitz, 28, a computer technologist from Johannesburg, SA, has submitted a lengthy affidavit to the Pretoria Supreme Court in a move towards a class action against the powerful tobacco industry. Joselowitz said in court that he was submitting his claim in his personal capacity and on behalf of any South African who could prove that his or her poor medical condition stemmed from smoking Camels. He said the company - RJ Reynolds, the second-largest tobacco company in the US - had broken the law by withholding crucial information from him about the harmful effects of smoking. "I have grown up believing that smokers of Camel cigarettes can climb the highest mountains and swim the deepest river". He said he was heavily influenced by Camel adverts in cinemas, depicting smokers of the brand as healthy, young, outdoor adventurers. Soller, Joselowitz' lawyer in the case, said the judge had postponed the case to allow other members of the public to join the action. (22 October, Sunday Times)

* PLANS FOR 'CHRISTIAN' ANIMAL SACRIFICE SUBVERT GOSPEL MESSAGE, SAYS PRIEST - (London) A leading animal rights theologian, Andrew Linzey, has spoken out against moves to include symbolic sacrifice of animals in Christian worship, describing it as "subversive of the Gospel". Some Christians in Africa have suggested that traditional local non-Christian rituals such as sacrificing sheep and cows should be included in services to give an authentic indigenous dimension to worship. Earlier this year, a Roman Catholic archbishop in South Africa suggested that blood libations to honour ancestors should be incorporated into the

Mass. (Ecumenical News International, 20 October 2000)

* FRENCH CHRISTIANS DON'T WANT THE LATEST AMERICAN IMPORT: HALLOWEEN - The dark holiday, halloween was introduced into France a few years ago to help increase fall department store business, but Christians consider it a satanic festival that could traumatize children and endanger older people, Reuters reported. ...Halloween is a "veritable resurgence of druidical beliefs," the Protestant Evangelical Committee for Human Dignity reported. The committee said that all of France should be alarmed that Oct. 31, a day dear to fans of witchcraft, will be observed in public schools, because psychologists have found that the holiday can harm children psychologically. Society "must not focus its attention on the death cult that surrounds Halloween," the group said. Catholics in the resort town of Saint Raphael have organized a protest against the holiday, according to Reuters.

(28 October 2000, Religion Today)

* MOST PREGNANT CANADIAN TEENS ABORT THEIR BABIES - Statistics Canada released a report on Teenage Pregnancy on 20 October which noted that for the first time, statistics are showing that Canadian pregnant teens aged 15-19 aborted most of their babies. The report says that "in 1997, for the first time, the percentage of teenage pregnancies ending in abortion (50.3%) surpassed that of live births (46.8%). The remaining 2.9% of pregnancies ended in a miscarriage or stillbirth." Thus the news that the number of births and the birth rate of teens reached an "at all-time low" in 1997 is severely tainted - more than half of the children conceived by teens were killed by abortion. Trends at the national level were driven by patterns in the three most

populous provinces - Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia - where the majority of teenage pregnancies were aborted in 1997. Among the provinces and territories, 1997 abortion rates were highest in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Ontario, and lowest in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. (25 October, Weekend News, Lifesite.net)

* THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAN DECIDE WHETHER U.S. TAX DOLLARS USED FOR ABORTIONS ABROAD OR NOT - Congressional Republicans this week agreed to remove restrictions against $425 million in foreign aid to groups that perform abortions or promote abortion rights, but made sure the money could not be used before February 15 - after the next president takes office. ...That means the next president will decide whether the money goes to overseas abortions. Lawmakers anticipate that Al Gore, should he win, will allow the restrictions to be done away with, while George W. Bush, through executive order, could reinstate the restrictions if he is elected. "Everybody's betting on the election," Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, a Democrat, told The New York Times. ...The American Life League, a pro-life group, said congressional Republicans caved in to the abortion industry. "Most Americans would be appalled to know that millions of their hard-earned tax dollars are going to groups that kill pre-born children throughout the developing world," said Judie Brown, the group's president. (28 October 2000, Religion Today)

* MONEY LURES PROMINENT COMPANIES TO SELL SEX - Some of the most recognizable mainstream corporations are getting involved in the pornography business. ...General Motors, the world's largest company, now sells more graphic sex films through its DirecTV subsidiary than does Hustler pornographer Larry Flynt, according to distributors of the films, The New York Times reported. ...Other companies selling the kind of X-rated fare that used to be seen mostly in adults-only theaters include Time Warner, Liberty Media, Marriott International, On Command, LodgeNet Entertainment, and the News Corporation, the Times reported. ...New technology that brought anonymity to customers has vastly expanded the pornography business. Years ago, a person would have to venture into a seedy part of town to find hard-core films or bookstores. The introduction of the videocassette recorder in 1975 changed the situation and now pay-per-view television and Internet have removed the final barriers to shame. ...Religious and civic groups have castigated companies offering hard-core porn. Only one small chain, the Omni Hotels, chose to remove the sex films, and received phone calls and letters of thanks from 50,000 people as a result. (Religion Today)

* JEWS FOR JESUS URGE PRAYER FOR JERUSALEM - (San Francisco) An advertisement in "The New York Times" on 27 October urged evangelical Christians to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (according to Psalm 122) and "share the love of Messiah Jesus with Jews and Arabs alike." The appeal was placed by Jews for Jesus, whose Executive director, David Brickner, said that news from the Arab Summit and the "intemperate remarks" of Yassir Arafat made it clear that there was little hope for peace in Israel from political initiatives. The advertisement was: "an attempt to focus on the only one who is the hope for Middle East peace - Y'shua [Jesus]. Only through the Prince of Peace can true and lasting peace come to Jerusalem, indeed to all of the world." The ad said that while the tide of world opinion is once again turning against Israel, this should not be a surprise to those familiar with Bible prophecy. The advertisement added that, "as followers of Jesus, we must demonstrate that loving Israel does not mean hating Arabs" and "as God's people, committed to peace...call for restraint on both sides of the conflict." (28 October, Top News, Charisma News)

* LEADING CHRISTIAN WEB SITE CLOSES DOWN - Grand Rapids, MI - The Christian living Web site, iBelieve.com, has shut down. Despite reaching or surpassing all of its marketing and ministry goals, iBelieve.com was not able to secure funding to continue, according to an iBelieve press release. Launched in January with $40 million in funding, it was rated the top Internet site in July by PC Data, a leading provider of Web traffic measurement and analysis, and billed as the leading Christian site by Top10Links.com. "We're disappointed for a number of different reasons," said Jef Fite, president of iBelieve.com. "We were very successful in achieving our business goals, except one very critical area, and that's raising capital." The shutdown comes after several months of efforts to secure additional funding to keep the site up and running. iBelieve.com plans to honor all orders previously completed on the site. However, orders for current backorder and pre-release titles such as the new "Left Behind" video and "The Mark," the latest book in the fiction series, will not be fulfilled. iBelieve.com, based in Grand Rapids, Mich., registered more than 500,000 users in its 10 months of existence. (24 October, Charismanews)

* INTERNET FUNERAL BROADCASTS - Undertakers are broadcasting funerals on the Internet. Internet funerals, called "memorial Webcasts," allow people to pay their respects when they are too far away, too ill, or too old to attend the funeral, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. When Henry Armitage died at age 81 in February in Syracuse, his family knew that few of his World War II Army friends could plod through the snow for his funeral, so they broadcast it over the Internet, the newspaper reported. "We were able to show at least part of the service, as much as the widow wanted us to shoot," said Pat Ferguson of Ferguson's Funeral Home. "His faraway friends were able to see the military procession carrying the casket." (25 October, Religion Today)

* INDONESIAN REVEREND ESCAPES THIRD MURDER ATTEMPT IN ONE MONTH - Rev Benjamin Munthe escaped from a murderous attack on 17 September. He was taken to church by a friend, when the murderer drove up next to them. Usually Rev. Munthe would have been driving himself, but on this day, when someone on a motorbike shot at the chauffeur, he had not been behind the wheel. The seriously injured chauffeur was able to pull off the road, but died later in hospital. Rev Munthe is leading a church with 10 000 members in Medan, Sumatra. The attack had been the third attempt on his life in one month. (20 October, Open Doors)