Pastoral Bible Institute News New Booklet on the Trinity Until now the
PBI has had no booklet refuting the widely-held
world-wide belief in the doctrine of a triune God. After
reviewing booklets published by others, we are pleased to
announce the selection of the booklet The Doctrine of
Christ. It is published by the Oakland County Bible
Students. This 80-page oversize booklet discusses
virtually every aspect of how this unfortunate doctrine
came to be accepted by mainstream Christianity, and how
contrary it is to the word of God. In addition to the
value of its content, it may also be the most beautifully
printed booklet available from any Bible Student group
today. Single copies will be sent free. Multiple copies
are 50-cents each. New Overseas Distribution Service Although the
world's postal system is a marvel and a blessing, we have
been aware that the time it takes to deliver THE
HERALD to countries outside the United
States is longer than we would like. We are now using a
distribution service that promises much faster delivery
at a modest increase in cost. We invite comment from our
non-U.S. readers as to whether or not they see an
improvement in the delivery time of THE
HERALD. Letters Thank you for THE HERALD. It gives me spiritual encouragement and knowledge, not only to me, but also to our church and ministries in Myanmar. In our country it is very hard to get spiritual books and it costs us very much. We are thankful to you for sending THE HERALD regularly without cost. We praise God. In Myanmar 85% of the population is Buddhist. Most of the leaders have very little Christian education and knowledge because our country was cut off from the world for 26 years. By the grace of our Lord, now the government opened the doors, but very carefully. So we need more Christian education and knowledge. Some of the articles from THE HERALD I translate into Myanmar and distribute to some believers and some churches and ministries. We always pray for THE HERALD and for the staff, And believe God will bless you more. I pray that THE HERALD will not get diluted like the Gospel is nowadays-Being diluted in many places. Samuel
Pau Za Lian, Union of Myanmar Around the World A study by the US Agency for International Development said that 25,000 people die each year in Cairo because of the high level of lead pollution, mostly from gasoline and pipes. The study suggests that children's intelligence is negatively affected by Cairo's lead pollution problem, and that as many as 11,600 people suffer heart attacks each year as a result of lead pollution. Egypt is promoting the use of natural gas in cars instead of lead, because it is environmentally safer and in order to preserve petroleum for export. El Wafd, Cairo, 10/28/97 Deputy Education Minister Moshe Peled met with U.S. government investigators and briefed them on what he asserted was Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's link to the terrorists who bombed New York's World Trade Center in 1993. Peled spoke of Arafat's arrival in Khartoum, Sudan, four days before the bombing. He also pointed to a CIA report that linked Arafat to Sudanese and Islamic terrorists. Several key members of Congress have said that if the assertion proves correct, they will immediately cut the annual $100 million in aid to the Palestinian Authority. Jerusalem Post, 10/97 A new World Bank report predicts that economic growth in developing countries will accelerate over the next 25 years led by the five biggest emerging economies-Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Russia. Despite this, it is also true that never have there been more poor people in our world, and never has the world kept adding more poor people to its population. The Washington-based Population Institute published its own study which said that nearly a third of the global population of 5.8 billion lives in "absolute poverty," defined as per-capita income of less than the equivalent of $370 annually. Some 82 countries are unable to produce or buy sufficient food for their populations, even as a record 100 million children are being born each year in "developing" countries. Chronic water shortages, mounting environmental degradation, urban congestion, high crime, rising numbers of abortions, increasing drug use-all are established consequences of population growth. Despite all the cheerful talk of global economic growth, there are more children hungry each night, more mothers having unwanted babies and more people in need of jobs. International Herald Tribune, 9/16/97 Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, granted his first interview in 18 years. Now under house arrest in northern Cambodia, Pol Pot told reporters, "My conscience is clear. Everything I have done and contributed is first and foremost for the nation and the people and the race of Cambodia." Pol Pot presided over the killing of at least one million of his fellow Cambodians during a ruthless four-year reign in the 1970s. Analysts envision him of wrapping up the wickedness of Hitler, Stalin and Mao into one mysterious figure in an attempt to prevent Viet Nam from taking over Cambodia, which it did eventually in 1979. Financial Times, 10/20/97 The Anti-Defamation League is monitoring anti-Semitic incidents that have occurred in Atlanta. In 1996, the Federal Hate Crimes Statistics Act reported over 7,900 hate crimes in the United States. In its annual report on anti-Semitic incidents, the organization said over 1,700 incidents of vandalism and intimidation occurred. Jay Kaiman, Southeast Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League said, "Each of these motivations suggest symptoms of larger problems for our society. The state of Georgia is one of the few states in the country that does not have a state hate crime law." PR Newswire, 9/15/97 The Middle East Desalination Center (MEDRC) will announce the implementation of a substantial research grant program to fund research on desalination technology. The program includes ten specific research projects. The Middle East is facing serious dangers of fresh water shortages in the next century. The project is aimed at preventing this and finding a solution to the crisis. MEDRC is based in Muscat, Oman. Press
Release by MEDRC, 10/02/97 Israel Israel has virtually no need for the supercomputer the U.S. and Japan have refused to sell to them. It now has scientists that have developed a next-generation multi-processor parallel device, according to the Hebrew University professor who headed the 10-year project. Prof. Amnon Barak, head of the university's computer science institute said that he and his team developed the computer operating system based on algorithms for use with ordinary workstations. The cost of the project was $150,000 versus $10 million for a supercomputer. The U.S. and Japan have refused to sell Israel the computer because it could be used to develop nuclear weapons. Jerusalem Post [date unknown] The Palestinian Authority has drafted a plan which would create a belt of Palestinian communities circling Israeli neighborhoods in Jerusalem. The announcement came from Faisal Husseini, the Palestinian in charge of Jerusalem affairs. Palestinians have been enlisting the aid of Arab international business leaders to implement a plan to buy land in Jerusalem for the program. Israel My Glory, October/November, 1997 Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov will discuss selling Russian natural gas to Israel. Israeli officials will press Russia not to supply Iran with nuclear technology and missiles. An Israeli foreign minister stated, "Russia is one of the sponsors of the peace process, but they haven't been very positively involved in Iran. Russian companies are active there in nuclear development and supplying missiles. We intend to raise this point: You can't build peace on one hand and destroy it on the other." Israel may import gas as fuel for power generation as its electricity consumption grows. It is currently seeking gas from Egypt and a new pipeline to Turkey could be extended under the Mediterranean Sea to Israel. Bloomberg News Service, Jerusalem, 10/26/97 Sephardi Chief Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron recently criticized rabbis who call for Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, and said such a move could cause many Jews to sin unknowingly. Bakshi-Doran recalled that following the Six Day War, the Chief Rabbinate ruled that because of its holiness, it was forbidden for Jews to ascend the Temple Mount. Jerusalem Post, 10/97 Dan Propper, president of the Manufacturers' Association of Israel met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss strengthening the ties between business in Israel and Egypt. Proper said that the two countries should pursue peace without waiting for the politicians and that the economies of the two countries were complimentary rather than competitive. El Ahram, Cairo, 10/28/97 Palestinian unemployment has nearly doubled and per capita income has shrunk by a fifth since the start of the Oslo peace process with Israel in 1993. Overall investment in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has slumped from 28 percent of GDP to just over 18 percent. A collapse in private investment from 25% to 10% also threatens the weakened economy. All this is in stark contrast to developments in the far bigger and more sophisticated Israeli economy since 1992. Israel's exports had by 1995 grown by 43 percent in dollar terms, nearly doubling in Asian markets opened up by the peace process, while foreign investment in Israel went up sixfold over the same period to over $2 billion a year. International
Monetary Fund, September, 1997 Islam Indonesia is concerned one of its worst droughts in years could cause a famine in Central Java and Sulawesi by January. Of particular concern is the food shortage will likely coincide with the Moslem holy month of Ramadan, when Indonesian food inflation is always its highest. Though Ramadan is called the "fasting month" because devout Moslems don't eat during daylight hours, the observances include lavish feasts at night. The government is concerned a famine could lead to unrest. The dry season on Java this year has been worse than normal, exacerbated by the tropical weather pattern El Nino, which occurs when trade winds slow and allow the Pacific Ocean to heat up. Bloomberg
News, 8/27/97 Christendom Evangelist Billy Graham's three-city Bay Area crusade realized the highest percentage response among young people of his 50-year ministry. More than 1,400 churches representing over 100 denominations came together, representing unprecedented unity in the area. An average of 41,200 attended the meetings. Young people aged 12-18 made up more than 50 percent of the attendance and accounted for over 60 percent of the 10,000 who responded to altar calls. Graham's message was geared toward a "neutral" evangelistic setting. Billy
Graham Evangelistic Association, 10/27/97 Economics An economic crisis in Thailand threatened to close down half of the country's finance companies. The government is currently seeking up to $15 billion in aid from the International Monetary Fund, with appeals to the governments of Japan, Asia, Australia and the U.S. to be part of the lending group. The suspension of 42 financial companies has caused a major economic impact, since they are the main employers of thousands of the best-educated, most highly-paid professionals. Last August, a run on the deposits of the institutions threatened to topple the financial system. A national press conference halted the crisis. However, the country is experiencing a 25% default rate on loans. Wall Street Journal, 8/6/97 Programmers are constructing a single global system to handle the settlement of funds that flow through foreign exchange markets each day, about $2.4 billion. The system will handle the funds of the world's largest banks. With the significant increase in the flow of funds around the world, the purpose of the system is to prevent a trading collapse such as happened in 1974 when Germany's Bankhaus Herstatt defaulted. If such a thing were repeated on the scale of today's foreign exchange trading, it would produce a shock to the world's financial system. Financial Times, 10/1/97 By the year 2029, the U.S. Social Security System will be bankrupt, according to a World Bank report. The government-run retirement system is facing a fiscal crisis based on the medical advances which are leading to an increased life expectancy. In 1930, a 65-year- old man was expected to live 11.8 years and a woman 12.9 years; by 1993 the expectancies had increased to 15.2 years and 19.1 years, respectively. During the next 70 years, the life expectancy is projected to increase by an additional 3 years. Also, the elderly's share of the world's population will increase from 9% in 1990 to 31% in 2030. In the U.S. alone, the number of people over 60 years of age will increase from 16.6% of the population to 30.9% of the population. A decreasing number of workers for each retiree will result in the inability of the system to endure under current design. Investor's Business Daily, 10/16/97 China's gap between rich and poor is widening and government policies are heightening inequalities risking social upheaval, a World Bank study has concluded. The report warns that in spite of remarkable average rates of growth since 1978, rural China is falling behind. The benefits of growth were distributed unevenly, accruing to those most able to take advantage of rising opportunities: the educated and the enterprising, the mobile and those with high quality land. The World Bank warns that if richer groups enjoy consistently higher growth, "simmering social tensions" can become politically destabilizing. Sharing Rising Incomes: Disparities in China, The World Bank, 1997 Defense co-operation is taking its place alongside geopolitics and commerce as one of the axes of Washington's burgeoning relationship with a string of former Soviet republics, which are also establishing a dense network of ties with one another. The Ukraine played host in August to a naval exercise which simulated the suppression of an ethnic rebellion fomented by a neighboring power. Russia is a grudging participant in the Central Asian war games. President Boris Yeltsin deplored rising U.S. influence in the Caucasus. "Our interest is weakening, but the Americans, on the contrary, are beginning to penetrate this zone." Strobe Talbott, deputy secretary of state, said in a speech that U.S. policy towards the Caucasus and Central Asia was motivated by "a valuable trade and transport corridor" and the fear of extremism, instability and even outright war. "It would matter profoundly to the U.S. if that were to happen to an area that sits on as much as 200 billion barrels of oil." The real wild card in the area is Russia's relationship with Iran, which Moscow has treated as a tactical ally. Financial Times, 9/23/97 In October, the collapse of a stock market in a small territory on the other side of the world caused turmoil in western markets. Why did the Hong Kong crash have such a wide-ranging impact? The aftermath of the Hong Kong crash is an early example of how globalization is increasing the volatility of western markets. More integration of the world's markets means that the performance of one country's financial market will be subject to the movements of many other countries' markets. The world is being tied together in ways not before thought of. Financial Times, 10/25/97 Book Review "Creation Facts of Life", Gary Parker, Master Books, 1994. 215 pages. Brethren generally, and properly, dismiss 1859 Darwinism, the "man from monkey" idea, which is clearly contrary to the Bible's specific assertion of the direct creation of man. However, many are unaware of the century of extensive research (and scientific discovery such as DNA) that has gone into supporting Darwin's ideas. Darwin's book, "Origin of Species," has been claimed to be second only to the Bible in its influence on society, and some would now put it first. Many see in natural selection a means to explain all appearance of design without reference to a Designer, and are unimpressed with the creationist argument that "the watch implies a watchmaker." The historian Will Durant said that the book changed the whole course of history. Dr. Gary Parker began his scientific career teaching evolution enthusiastically at a respected university. He believed he was ridding his students of "pre-scientific superstitions, such as Christianity." After attending a Bible study led by a fellow professor, he soon found that the errors he tried to point out were his errors. He spent the next three years re-examining evidence of evolution, and gave it up in favor of the biblical framework. In this book, Dr. Parker discusses in an easy-to-understand manner DNA, embryo development, fossils, "early man," symbiosis, genetics and much more. The book is written for a younger reader which makes it especially useful for those readers (like this author) who understand little about science. It helps to answer questions such as: does the "Big Bang" theory support evolution or creation? does DNA research support evolution or creation? were there really dinosaurs? The book is worth reading if only for the discussion of fossils, which is perhaps the most overwhelming "evidence" presented by evolutionists today that man was at one time very different from today in looks and makeup. |
