Pastoral Bible Institute News PBI Directors Elected The members of the Pastoral Bible Institute have elected these seven individuals to serve as director for the next 12 months:
New Booklet We are pleased to offer the newly reprinted booklet How to Study the
Bible [and have it make sense]. Our friends in Oakland County [Michigan] reset the type
and upgraded the look of this booklet. It will appeal to those who are seeking to
understand what the Bible really teaches. It discusses the importance of five different
methods of study and also contains a synopsis of God’s plan for the ultimate blessing
of mankind. Those interested in obtaining this booklet should request it using the back of
the insert sheet found in every issue of this magazine. International Convention Discourse Book An international convention of Bible Students occurs somewhere in Europe
in August of even-numbered years. The presentations are translated into the five lanugages
supported at the convention and are published in books. As a courtesy to our readers, we
are pleased to offer the 1998 book of discourses in English at a cost of just $5 postpaid
anywhere in the world. Use the special insert sheet found in this issue to order this
book. It will not be available from us after the month of September. Those attending the
convention will receive the book automatically if they requested it when they made their
convention reservation. Letters I can’t thank you enough for sending me all the hope-inspiring Bible literature. Upon its arrival I immediately sat down and "devoured" it. These are Bible truths both my late husband and I have been blessed to know for many years. But to read and re-read them again in someone else’s words is so very comforting. I am having a memorial open-house for all my family and I would like to [receive copies of] the booklet "Comfort and Consolation" for those who would like to read it. Brenda Hawkins, Indiana Around the World The Times of London and the Daily Mail, the leading British tabloid,
carried a report from a think tank,written by 12 academics, lamenting the
"sentimentalism" of modern society. It involves the substitution of appearance
for reality, of wishes for facts, of self-indulgence for restraint, and of victimhood
forpersonal responsibility. For example, the modern attitude toward the environment is one
of "happy myths." People are unwilling to give up any of the comforts of
prosperity and development that taming nature has produced. They refuse to accept the
reality that raw nature has always been man’s enemy. Another area is in the obsession
with health. No society has ever been healthier or lives longer. Yet it talks obsessively
about health. It scours the newspapers for the latest story showing that there might be
some link between a certain lifestyle factor and disease. Ata time when medicine is better
based in science thanever before, it spurns doctor’s verdicts it does not like and
rushes after some alternative medicine which will be more in keeping with fantasies about
how things should be. In modern society even religion is frantic to adjust reality to
appearance and indulgence. In this case it must adjust the ultimate reality, God, to a
human image we feel comfortable with. He is not to be judgmental or set moral standards
that are inconvenient for us. He is not to be described by immutable doctrines of truth
but to be infinitely and variably malleable into our own image. Israel The Absorption Ministry announced that immigration was up more than 20% in the last six months of 1997, compared to the first six months of the year, with the majority of newcomers arriving from Ukraine and Ethiopia. Some 36,000 immigrants arrived, compared to 29,000 during the first six months. An Israeli-produced textbook was ordered by a Jordanian publisher for use in the Jordanian school system, becoming the first Israeli textbook to be used inan Arab state. Dr. Avraham Stahl, the author of "Why Don’t Different People Live in Peace?" said that the book is part of a six-book series that he developed by asking fifth and sixth graders to give him questions they wanted answered. —Jerusalem Post In an interview given by PA leader Yassar Arafat on Egyptian TV on April 18, 1998, Arafat spoke of a 1974 plan to create a Palestinian state on territory ceded by Israel, and then to use that state as a base for a general Arab assault on Israel itself. When asked by the interviewer how he justified asking Palestinians to refrain from violence, Arafat then referred to the "Khudaibiya agreement" which the prophet Muhammad signed with the Koreish tribe, which was later broken when the Islamic army was strong enough to defeat the Koreish. Arafat said, "I suggest that we maintain quiet. We respect agreements the way the prophet Muhammad and Salah a-Din respected the agreements which they signed." —Middle East Digest (MED), 4/29/98 Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu urged members of the small Jewish community in Warsaw, Poland, to immigrate to Israel. "In view of the coming year 2000, it is time for Israel to receive the last Jewish communities which still exist around the world," he said speaking in a synagogue. Before the Holocaust in WWII, some 3.5 million Jews lived in Poland. The figure has now shrunk to 4,000. — Deutsche Press Agentur (DPA), 4/24/98 Islam Another Iran-Iraq war may be looming on the horizon—this time, unlike the 1980–88 conflict, at the instigation of Iran. Why would Iran be gearing up for war? The answer is chemical weapons. Iran is one of the very few nations in modern times that know chemical weapon attacks first-hand. In the previous war with Iraq, chemical weapons were used against Iran often. In fact, the country may have won the war if it had not been for the international tolerance of the use of Iraq’s chemical weapons against it. —Wall Street Journal, 4/5/98 Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said he intends to declare an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza in 1999. Broadcast live on the Arab Orbit satellite channel, Arafat said, "the year 1999 will attend a declaration of a Palestinian state according to the date we are committed to which should be five years after signing the peace agreements with Israel." —Associated Press, 4/18/98 Christendom Two Catholic priests have been sentenced to death by a Rwandan court for their involvement in the genocide in the East African country four years ago. The priests are said to be the first churchmen sentenced to death by a court in the country. They were found guilty of taking part in the murder of 2,000 Tutsis whom they lured into their church in the Kibuye region to cover up their intention of delivering them into the hands of the Hutu militia. The Hutu extremists crushed the victims to death by using bulldozers to destroy the church where they had taken shelter. Pope John Paul II has called for priests and other church representatives involved in the genocide to be brought to account. More than half a million Tutsis and tens of thousands of Hutu moderates were massacred in Rwanda from the beginning of April to the end of June 1994. —Associated Press, 4/18/98 Unitarianism is emerging as the religion of choice among political conservatives. As contributions to the Christian Coalition—the political arm of evangelical churches—show signs of decline, Unitarians are gaining ground. Donations to the Unitarians have more than doubled over the past decade to about $130 million annually and membership has risen by nearly 9 percent. "Unitarianism holds a strong appeal for liberal Americans who are under pressure in many other religious sects in the country," says David Hall, professor of religion at Harvard’s Divinity School. Because of the organizational capability and financial resources of the church, the rise and fall of rival religions in the U.S. have enormous political implications. Political campaigns are often won and lost from church pulpits. Pundits attributed the Republican takeover of Congress a few years ago largely to efforts by the religious right. Unitarians stand out in their devotion to "political correctness." They celebrate both Easter and Passover; their charter says they believe in both Judaic and Christian values. —Financial Times, 3/17/98 A poll conducted by the New York Times and CBS found that 94 percent of teenagers aged 13–17 believe in God, 51 percent trust the government to do the right thing most of the time, and 51 percent get along with their parents very well. The poll was conducted over the telephone between April 2 and April 7 and had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percent. —New York Times, 4/30/98 Economics George Soros, the financier and philanthropist, said he had lent the Russian government several hundred million dollars in June 1997, helping the Kremlin keep its promise to pay overdue pensions. "They were stuck. There was one period of a few days when we did make a kind of a bridge loan to enable the government to pay the arrears," Mr. Soros said. The loan from Mr. Soros appears to fit into a pattern of secret borrowing by the Russian government from western banks and financiers in moments of crisis. Shortly after helping the Russian Government bridge its short-term financing gap, Mr. Soros became a key player in the country’s privatization process. —Financial Times, 3/5/98 Mexican drug traffickers took advantage of the country’s financial turmoil and lax regulation in 1995 and 1996 to buy a small domestic bank, government officials confirmed. It is the first admission that drug cartels succeeded in infiltrating Mexico’s weak banking system. Banking supervisors said the attorney general’s office was investigating the links between Grupo Financiero Anahuac and the Juarez Cartel, the most powerful criminal organization in Mexico. The devaluation of the peso, triple-digit interest rates and an avalanche of loan defaults wiped out the capital of most Mexican banks and unleashed a scramble for new partners. A dozen banks buckled under the weight of loan defaults and were placed under intervention. In spite of the growing power of Mexican drug cartels—U.S. authorities believe they now control one-third of the $50 billion dollar market for illegal drugs in the U.S.—Mexico has been unable to curtail the banking activity associated with them. —Financial Times, 3/17/98 The heavy-handed police response to a Nigerian opposition march shows how precarious is the stability imposed by military ruler Sami Abacha, analysts said. The resurgence of street violence has economists worried because of the impact on the country’s stock exchange at Lagos. The currency, the naira, has kept its value, but could deteriorate should violence threats continue. Analysts say the macroeconomic stability Gen. Abacha conjured through tight spending controls looks fragile as underfunded state companies slow down and the price of crude oil slips. —Financial Times, 4/16/98 On May 1, a new edition of "The Communist Manifesto" reached
bookstores, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of its publication. "Laissez faire
capitalism isn’t yet close to winning the war of ideas," said Robert Higgs,
editor of the Independent Review. Many believe socialism’s critique of capitalism
still has weight. "Large numbers of working people and their intellectual surrogates
still feel in their bones that an unfettered free market is a jungle, that workers do not
get their fair share of what they produce," wrote political theorist Richard
Cornuelle, a former libertarian. He lists other alleged problems of capitalism that many
feel must be solved by government: Capitalism despoils the environment; it is prone to
disruptions and depressions, which especially hurt working people; and it leaves undone
the things a good society needs most. Science Governments should not worry about the ethical issues thrown up by genetic engineering but focus onthe benefits that can be derived from it, the former head of the human genome project in the United States said. Nobel laureate Dr. James Watson, in Sydney, told ABC radio that cloning did not worry himalthough it might have a downside. "I wouldn’t wantto be a clone of a hundred genetically identical people walking around Sydney, having people confuse you for someone else," said Watson, who in the 1960s co-discovered the structure of human DNA. Watson said the benefits of genetic science were enormous. He noted that DNA scans already made it possible to tell people if they had genes that predisposed them to certain diseases. "There are about 80 disease genes cloned now. If we know the gene that has gone wrong we might be able to go from the gene to the function." He said it would not be long before the gene that controls the aging process revealed its secrets. —DPA, 4/3/98 Dying patients often ask their doctors to help them commit suicide or to perform euthanasia, and about 6 percent of doctors have acceded to the request at least once, a new study shows. Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and their colleagues sent surveys to 3,102 doctors in 10 specialties that often deal with death. More than a third of those who responded said they would write prescriptions to help a patient end his life if it were legal, while 11 percent said they would do so in certaincircumstances now. While physician-assisted suicide is illegal in most states in the U.S., public opinion polls show the majority of people favor legalization. —Bloomberg News, 4/23/98 Book Review Show Me God: What the Message from Space is Telling Us About God, Fred Heeren, Day Star Publications, Revised edition 1997, 404 pages. In his new book, science writer Fred Heeren interviews a number of today’s foremost cosmologists to explore how the latest findings of cosmology bear upon the questions of faith. The root question pursued through the book is whether cosmologists have stumbled upon evidence for God. Heeren himself takes the approach of a skeptic and asks the difficult questions a skeptic would ask. But he also provides a believer’s response to the questions. In so doing he introduces people of faith to science and skeptics to the rational basis of faith. The book provides a good overview of the history of cosmology and how cosmologists have been led to various conclusions based upon the discoveries they made. Heeren writes in a down-to-earth style that will help those unfamiliar with the science of cosmology. He adds a fair amount of humor that he cleverly uses to make points. Using comments from scientists Heeren shows that the current evidence leads to the conclusion that the universe was designed for man. Of particular interest to Bible Students is a section entitled "Is the Gospel Logical?" Heeren lists seven possible scenarios he calls "cosmic" histories that suggest what God is doing. He uses logic to eliminate all but one. The one he keeps comes close in several respects to the Divine Plan although it misses the mark on the doctrine of "the ransom for all." The book does a fine job of stimulating thought without becoming adversarial to unbelievers. It will be most enjoyed by those with some technical background, but the lack of such a background will not be a major detriment toward understanding the point of the material. Each chapter is copiously footnoted with the author’s sources. —David Stein |
