Christian News
30 Jun 2005
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Southern
Africa:
* 31st YEAR OF YOUTH CONFERENCES AMONG ZULUS - This July's
Youth Conference (1st to 7th July) marks 31 years of bi-annual youth meetings at
Kwasizabantu Mission. Held every July and December during South Africa's school holidays,
these one week conferences usually draw crowds of between 3 and 8 thousand teens. Most of
them are from KwaZulu-Natal but a few hundred come from provinces as far as the Eastern
Cape and Mpumalanga. The theme for this conference is "But know this..." taken
from Ecclesiastes 11:9. Activities include preaching from the Bible as well as talks on
topical issues such as drugs, abstinence and HIV/Aids. Rev Erlo Stegen, now 70 years of
age, is the main speaker. Daily updates with photos will be posted on the mission's
website at: www.ksb.org.za. (to index)
* HOMOSEX AND THE DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH IN SOUTH AFRICA
- The Dutch Reformed Church (also known as the NG Kerk) says it is "officially
confused" about the gay issue. In response Dr Botha has published the results of his
research in a book "Die Sinode & Homoseks - 'n kritiese evaluering van die
homoseksualiteitdebat in die NG Kerk in Suid Afrika." The 332 page analysis of
Homosexuals and the church is available in Afrikaans and, Dr Botha hopes that the English
version will be available at the beginning of September. This is the first written
response to the pro-homosexual decisions taken at Hartenbos Synod 2004. The synod had
decided that only "promiscuous" homosexual deeds are rejected and that
practising homosexuals have full membership of their denomination. In effect, as Dr Botha
explains, this means that homosexual relationships, free from promiscuity (adultery,
fornication etc) are acceptable to the Church. The Synod said to the media that they are
"officially confused" and would study the whole matter of full membership and
promiscuity in homosexual relationships further, to come to a clearer understanding of the
concept.
The study by Dr Botha states that all homosexuals acts are sin according to the Bible
which only provides for heterosexual relationships. No patriarch, matriarch, prophet,
disciple, apostle or Jesus Himself, made provision for homosexual relationships. This has
been the essence of the Bible and the Church teaching through the ages. Dr Botha told
Christian News that "the reading of homosexual conduct into the Bible as acceptable,
is the result of the revisionistic interpretation being done today." He said that.
"This book has as its goal, to bring the Synod and its members to revise their
previous pro-homosexual decision and come back to the Bible's non-negotiable rejection of
homosex. (more information is available on Dr Botha's website: www.homosexuality.co.za) (to index)
International
* BILLY GRAHAM’S FINAL CRUSADE IN AMERICA -
“By the end of his historic Greater New York Crusade, Billy Graham had preached to
more than 242,000 people, and over 8,700 people of all ages and widely varying
nationalities had committed their lives to Jesus Christ.”
Mr. Graham spoke freely of his own mortality, even as his larger message concerned
humanity’s mortality and need for the saving power of the risen saviour, Jesus
Christ. Thanking longtime associate, 96-year-old vocalist George Beverly Shea, and
mentioning his own age of 86, he said, “I know it won’t be long before both of
us are going to be in heaven. ... In Amos chapter four it says, ‘Prepare to meet your
God.’ Are you prepared?”
Unprecedented media coverage has surrounded the Crusade, as national and international
outlets have broadcast live from Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Reporters from around the
globe have filled press rooms, and Billy and Franklin Graham have conducted interviews for
major networks and newspapers in recent weeks.
Franklin Graham, President of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, introduced his
father following worship times by Christian music artists Salvador and Steven Curtis
Chapman, and a testimony from Mel Graham. Longtime associates Cliff Barrows and George
Beverly Shea, who have each been at nearly every one of Mr. Graham’s 417 crusades
dating back to 1947, shared time on the platform as well. Mr. Barrows hosted the evening
and Mr. Shea sang the hymn, “O Love of God.”
More than 1,300 churches from more than 80 denominations have come together to support the
Crusade, providing hundreds of counsellors who went through the BGEA’s Christian Life
and Witness training course in preparation for this weekend’s meetings. Among the
counsellors are representatives of more than 20 language groups prominent in New York,
including Spanish, Arabic, Punjabi, Mandarin Chinese, and Russian, marking this Crusade as
one of the most internationally focused in BGEA history. (26 June 2005, billygraham.org) (to index)
* “A MONSTER IN HUMAN FORM” -
Within a year, the book will be translated into Chinese. It will be banned in China, of
course, but it will find its way in nevertheless, mostly on CDs, and it will find
fascinated but appalled readers in every corner of the country. Nothing will change right
away, but over time it will probably have the same impact on how Chinese see their own
history and the Party that rules over them that Alexander Solzhenitsyn's “Gulag
Archipelago” had on Russians.
The book is “Mao: The Unknown Story”, a massively researched biography of the
“Great Helmsman” that strips all the flattering myths away and reveals the
founder of China's Communist regime as a monster with no redeeming qualities whatever. The
authors, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, spent 10 years trawling through previously untapped
archives and interviewing literally hundreds of people who were close to Mao Tse-tung at
some point in his life, and the picture they draw of the man is as definitive as it is
repellent.
He was a mass murderer on an even bigger scale than Hitler or Stalin - and unlike them, he
took a sadistic pleasure in watching films of his victims being tortured and killed.
Yet Mao remains a hero for the Communist regime because they can't get away from him: he
created them. They can't deny the fact that some of his decisions were catastrophically
bad, but the official line, first formulated by Deng Xiaoping, is that he was three parts
wrong, seven parts right. So a book demonstrating that he was bad and wrong 100% of the
time is a danger to that regime, but can a book ever bring down a regime? Well, consider
Solzhenitsyn - and consider Nikita Khrushchev's lethal comment: "I look at Mao, I see
Stalin, a perfect copy."
In 1962, Solzhenitsyn published “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, his
fictionalised memoir of life in the vast system of concentration camps (gulags) in
Stalin's Soviet Union. It broke the long silence on the mountain of cruelty, suffering and
murder that lay behind the facade of Soviet power. Then, after a decade of research, he
published “The Gulag Archipelago”, a massively documented three-volume history
of the Stalinist terror that consumed tens of millions of lives.
The book was banned and Solzhenitsyn was sent into exile abroad, but copies circulated
feverywhere in "samizdat" (illegal, often handwritten copies). A decade later,
everyone knew the truth and the Communists' long struggle to bury the past and foster
myths that would legitimise their rule lay in ruins. They lost power five years later.
Eleven years ago, Jung Chang published “Wild Swans”, a fictionalised memoir of
her family's sufferings under Mao's rule. After a decade of research, she and her
historian husband Jon Halliday have published” Mao: The Unknown Story”, which
documents Mao's crimes and failures in unrelenting, unprecedented detail. A decade from
now, everybody in China will know the gist of the information in this book (though few
will have ploughed through all 800 pages of it). And then we shall see what happens. (27
June 2005, The Witness) (to index)
* ONLINE PORN GETS ITS OWN WEB DOMAIN –
Pornographic websites will soon have their own corner of cyberspace.
The domain name extension “xxx” has been approved by the California-based
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the organisation responsible
for approving decisions about domain extensions.
Icann is currently hammering out details surrounding the use of the “xxx” domain
extension with the ICM Registry, which handles the technical aspects of assigning Internet
addresses.
The move represents a turnaround by Icann, which had previously opposed the implementation
of the “xxx” extension. (27 June 2005, The Witness) (to
index)
* UK METHODISTS BLESS SAME-SEX COUPLES -
Methodists release report "on how to respond to requests to conduct prayers or
services of blessing for same-sex couples”
Controversial issues have been brought to open discussion as the Methodist Conference 2005
approaches its end. The Conference on Wednesday at the Riviera Centre, Torquay, saw some
384 representatives from Methodist churches across the UK, vote on a major report on human
sexuality entitled "Pilgrimage of Faith", which was unanimously approved.
The "Pilgrimage of Faith" report concluded the viewpoint of the Church on human
sexuality in six points and was first adopted at the 1993 Methodist Conference at Derby.
However, Methodists have called for a review in 2003 in the light of the increasingly
liberal social attitude towards homosexuality or other sexuality issues.
The Methodist Church's conference decided yesterday to research guidelines, which could be
offered to ministers on how to respond to requests to conduct prayers or services for
blessing same-sex couples. There is a chance that Methodists will become the first
mainstream Church in Britain to offer blessing services to same-sex couples.
However, while the Church is under the risk of being rebuked by other mainstream churches,
the Methodist Church insisted that the guidelines would continue to uphold the Church's
teaching that sex should be restricted to heterosexual marriage. (30 June 2005, The
Christian Post) (to index)
