Pastoral Bible Institute News

Date of Annual Meeting

The annual meeting of PBI Members and Directors will be held on Friday, July 14, on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown in Pennsylvania. The General Convention of Bible Students will begin on Saturday, July 15, at the same location and end the evening of July 20. Those who are interested in the Pastoral Bible Institute, whether members or not, are encouraged to attend this meeting. Contact the Institute’s secretary for details concerning accommodations.

Around the World

The AIDS conflagration continues to blaze out of control throughout most of the developing world. In 1999 alone, there will have been 2.6 million fatalities—the highest yearly total since the epidemic began two decades ago. More than 70% of the HIV-positive live in sub-Saharan Africa, a region that contains only 10% of the world’s population. UN officials predict that life expectancy at birth in the region will drop to 45 sometime in the next five to ten years. The most glaring current hot spot, however, encompasses the former Soviet Union, where the proportion of the population living with HIV has doubled in only two years. Tragically, more than half the victims worldwide are under the age of 25, and few will live to see their 35th birthdays.

—Los Angeles Times, 11/24/99

Russian voters on December 19 cast their ballots according to emotional considerations rather than rational calculations. Parties of the center-right whose economic policy will be reformist (Communist) and whose defense and foreign policy will be hawkish will control the new Duma. The war in Chechnya had serious impact on the whole process. For all its ugliness, it has been popular among Russians, and even liberal politicians have toed the patriotic line by supporting the war effort. But Westerners must be careful not to oversimplify the tragedy in Chechnya. The Russian public seems to have bought the official story that Chechens were behind terrorist attacks in Moscow and Volgodonsk in September, though there’s hardly any evidence. The "Chechen rebels" are bandits who ply their trade on Russian territory and whose methods can only be described as medieval. For the majority of Russians, the military crackdown in Chechnya is their only hope of ever ending corruption and criminality in cities where they live. In the coming years the shape of Russia—with all that implies for the rest of the world—may yet be decided by the ultimate outcome in little, bloody Chechnya.

—Wall Street Journal, 12/21/99

Two recent events particularly jolted the intelligence community. One was the arrest in Jordan of 13 terrorists reportedly planning attacks on Americans and Israelis. The other was the apprehension of several suspected terrorists who tried to sneak across the Canadian border with more than 100 pounds of explosives. The seized material convinced U.S. experts that the Algerian terrorist network is zeroing in on American targets. The shadowy Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden has been sheltered by the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan. A little over a year ago he issued [a decree] calling on Muslims to "kill Americans." The possibility of a more peaceful Mideast increases, in the short term, the threat of terrorism. These are free agents accountable to no nation states.

—Wall Street Journal, 1/6/2000

Israel

Israel is facing its worst drought in nearly a century, and the country’s environment minister has called on the government to declare a national state of water emergency. The Middle East is already two months into what is considered its winter season and no significant rainfall has been received across much of Israel. The level of the country’s major water resource, the Sea of Galilee, is critically low and expected to drop even further if the recent hot, dry weather persists.

—Los Angeles Times, 12/2/99

If there is any law that embodies the ethos of the Jewish State, it is the Law of Return. In a world in which most countries jealously guard the right to immigrate, Israel uniquely grants millions of "foreigners" the right to show up and almost instantly become citizens. Of course, the point is that no Jew is a "foreigner" to Israel—the Law of Return legally expresses the essence of Jewish peoplehood. Ironically, the quintessential vehicle for Jewish unity is now being accused of undermining the Jewish character of the state. The rise in the proportion of non-Jews among immigrants from 12% in 1990 to 53% in 1999 has set off alarm bells. The growing proportion of non-Jewish immigration is not so much a function of the expansiveness of the Law of Return as it is of increasing assimilation within Diaspora Jewry. The extension of the Law of Return to grandchildren is based partly on the idea that anyone who under the Nazi Nuremberg laws would have been sent to the gas chambers for being a Jew should be allowed to immigrate to Israel. Of the roughly 200,000 non-Jews who arrived over the last decade, most have Jewish family members, but see little reason to convert to Judaism to further integrate into Israeli society.

—Jerusalem Post, 12/3/99

For the past two decades, Washington has been home to a cadre of peace process watchers inside and outside government who have endlessly debated the nature, merits, and prospects of a comprehensive Middle East peace. They appear to be reaching a consensus that this time, at last, there is a solid chance that Israel and Syria will sign a peace agreement. This consensus draws instead upon common conclusions reached by supporters of both Israel and the Arab cause. Israel sees a Syrian deal as the key toa deal with all but the most reconstructed Arab "rogue" states. If that proves to be the case, it is difficult to see how the prospect of a virtually comprehensive peace would be defeated in a referendum or even in a Knesset vote, though the latter is surely more difficult to predict.

—Jerusalem Post 12/20/99

Hamas plotted to cause a national epidemic by poisoning the drinking water in Israel with chemicals. During Israel Defense Forces interrogations, arrested military head Mohammed Abu Tir revealed that Addle Awadalla, the chief commander of the military branch of Hamas, was responsible for masterminding the plot. Abu Tir also told interrogators about a large shipment of weapon systems from Iran which were transported to Israel through the Dead Sea.

—Yediot Ahronot, December 1999
(an independent newspaper published in Israel)

Islam

A family of six was killed in northern Algeria in an attack attributed to Islamic insurgents. The daily La Tribune reported that six members of the same family had their throats slit in a small, isolated village near Relizane, about 160 miles west of Algiers. The Islamic holy month of Ramadan typically brings a surge of violence in the North African country. Algerian media report that about 70 people have been killed since Ramadan began December 9. In Ain Defla, 90 miles west of the capital, 17 members of the armed wing of the Islamic Salvation Front turned themselves in to authorities Sunday, hoping to benefit from a plan that would grant them amnesty, newspapers reported. An Islamic insurgency has claimed 100,000 lives in Algeria since it began in 1992. Violence broke out after the army canceled legislative elections the now-banned Islamic Salvation Front was poised to win. In September, Algerians overwhelmingly voted in favor of a peace plan aimed at reintegrating Islamic militants into society. Insurgents who turn themselves over to authorities are to be granted partial amnesty and reduced jail terms as long as they are not guilty of rape, murder or bombings.

—Associated Press, 12/20/99

The Pakistani Supreme Court today ruled that charging interest was against the teachings of Islam—a decision that will likely lead to sweeping changes in this country’s already troubled financial sector. The 1,000-page judgment also called on the government to renegotiate its international loans. Pakistan has negotiated $1.6 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund and owes more than $3 billion to commercial lending institutions and donor countries.

"Serious efforts shall be made by the federal government to relieve the burden of foreign debt as soon as possible and to renegotiate the existing loans," the court said. "Serious efforts should also be made to structure future borrowings if necessary on the basis of Islamic modes of financing." Eight specific laws governing interest payments will have to be revoked no later than March 30, 2000. Other laws will have to be changed by June 30, 2000 and still others by June 30, 2001, the court said. "Any amount big or small over the principal in a contract of loan or debt is `riba’ and is prohibited by the Holy Koran," the judgment found, using the Arabic word that is interpreted as interest. There was no immediate comment from Pakistan’s army-led government or from leading financial institutions.

—Associated Press, 12/23/99

Christendom

A broad coalition of religious, educational and civil-liberties groups agreed last week to encourage schools to make study about the Bible "an important part of a complete education." . . . [Guidelines were] developed to help teachers include academic instruction about the Bible in literature and history courses, without proselytizing. Developing better teacher training is the next step, says the National Bible Association.

—Time, 11/22/99

The pope’s visit to the Holy Land in March of 2000 could be a new page in the historically strained relations between the Catholic Church and Jews. Israel’s chief rabbi, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, said, "We see it as a reconciliation, a historic bridging of distances, in which the Catholic world feels it caused the Jews much sorrow."

—Deutsche Press Agentur, 12/20/99

After nearly five centuries as the state church, Lutheranism will end its ties with the Swedish government on New Year’s Day and will be treated like any other religion. Although 90 percent of Swedes nominally are Lutherans, the change reflects demographic and immigration trends as well as Swedes’ general indifference to organized religion. The changes, approved by parliament in 1995, remove a centuries-old tradition that automatically enrolled children whose parents were church members and made the church an organ of the government. The ruling means bishops will no longer be appointed by the government and the church can no longer receive tax money. Sweden remains a largely Protestant country. It has twice as many Muslims as Roman Catholics.

—Associated Press, 12/21/99

Economics

One of the grand myths that the U.S. government tells people is about Social Security’s soundness. It claims that even though the system will go broke in 2014, the trust fund really has $2.9 trillion in assets to pay retirees. In reality, the trust fund does not have real assets to pay benefits, say experts. "The bonds in the trust fund are just claims against future tax receipts. They are not real assets," said Peter Ferrara, co-author of the book A New Deal for Social Security. Currently workers pay a tax of 6.2% and the employer matches it. The money is then given directly to current retirees who are owed benefits. The system taxes current workers at a higher rate than necessary to pay current retirees. But the government doesn’t have a bank account to set aside this surplus. Nor is the money invested. The government issues a non-marketable bond to the Social Security Administration and uses the surplus funds for spending on current government programs or for debt reduction. "The bonds in the trust fund are worthless scraps of paper," said Scott Hodge of Citizens for a Sound Economy.

—Investors Business Daily, 12/17/99

Juan Salvador Gamar sells newspapers eight hours a day from a traffic island on a busy Mexico City boulevard. His shrunken frame and weatherworn face are evidence of his job’s health risks. "I don’t like doing this, but I have to eat," said Gamar, 55. He is part of a vast army of street jugglers, candy sellers, fire-eaters, and knickknack vendors who make up a sizable portion of Mexico’s informal economy—people who work but do not pay taxes or get social welfare. Official estimates put the informal economy, which has mushroomed since a crippling 1994-95 peso crash, at 30 percent of Mexico’s roughly 37 million economically active population. Private sector estimates put the figure as high as 50 percent for nonagricultural activities. Many Mexicans saw a large chunk of their savings wiped out in a series of drastic peso devaluations in 1994-95, which led to high interest rates, a flood of defaults and job losses. While Mexico has undergone a dramatic economic transformation in the past decade through deregulation, sweeping privatization and entry into NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), over half the population remains below the poverty line.

—Reuters, 12/20/99

Science

A team of more than 200 researchers around the world has completed a genetic map of human chromosome 22, one of the 46 chromosomes that make up the genetic blueprint of humanity. The announcement marks the first time a chromosome has been completely mapped. Researchers said that the map of chromosome 22—a list of 33.4 million pieces of DNA —offers a glimpse into the potential of efforts to decode the entire human genome. Researchers already know of several disorders associated with mutations along chromosome 22, including genes that cause cancer, poor fetal development and nervous system problems.

—Bloomberg News, 12/2/99

In a rapid surge of discovery, researchers in 1999 began learning how to direct the transformation of stem cells into new body parts, a finding that may dramatically change medicine and extend life. The editors of Science have selected the new stem cell research as the "Breakthrough of the Year" for 1999. Embryonic stem cells are the ancestral cells that give rise to all of the tissues and organs in the body. Researchers believe that such cells, taken from human embryos or fetuses, could be directed to grow replacements for ailing hearts, livers or other organs. Researchers have also found that some stem cells taken from adult tissue could be converted into other types of cells—brain cells becoming blood cells, or bone marrow becoming liver. Runner-up for breakthrough of the year was the huge advances in genomics, the science of deciphering the basic genetic pattern of life. The complete gene sequence for three microbes was completed in 1999, and a third of the base pairs in human DNA, along with one complete chromosome, number 22. A rough draft of the entire human genome is expected by March.

—Associated Press, 12/16/99

Scientists have transferred a frozen embryo between species for the first time by bringing to term a rare African wildcat in the womb of an ordinary house cat. Researchers at the Audubon Institute Center for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans say the method could be used to bolster an endangered species or resurrect an entire species.

—Associated Press, 12/14/99

Book Review

Early Christian Doctrines [fifth edition], J.N.D. Kelly (San Francisco, Calif.: Harper, 1978). 499 pages.

There is no shortage of books examining the development of Christian theology. Early Christian Doctrines is of interest because of its objective examination of the evolution of dogma and its organization of an ocean of material through outlining the development of each doctrine in its historical context. Bible students who desire a generally unbiased view will find comfort in this treatise.

In the early years of the Christian church, there were so many new writings and so many influences that one wonders how some early Christians maintained any semblance of truth. Historians such as Adolph Harnack have been particularly useful to Bible students wishing to examine the development of popular doctrines such as the trinity and the divinity of Christ. However, these treatises are in multiple volumes and have not been easy to read.

Kelly’s first edition appeared in 1960. The fifth edition, published in 1978, is a clear, precise, relatively short and up-to-date account of the development of the major doctrines. It presents a balanced picture of many of the early controversies. Perhaps no controversy was greater than that of the trinity. The examination of the history of the development of this doctrine absorbs about half the fifth edition and is well worth reading. One chapter on the concept of a "divine triad" provides an excellent perspective to show how this concept was developed—it was not inherent—in early church teaching. Contrary to modern evangelical tenets, monotheism loomed so large in the minds of the early church fathers that it was held to mark the dividing line between the Church and paganism. Kelly traces the writings of early church fathers and shows how and why the Greek influences of Gnosticism and Stoicism took over the dominant position in theological thought. This culminated in the council of Constantinople in 381 with the formal ratification of the declaration that there was one God existing in three co-equal persons.

Apart from its fine summary of the development of the trinity, this fifth edition includes a new chapter on Mariology. This chapter summarizes recent archeological finds of documents which show that the worship of Mary began very early in the church and was a great source of controversy prior to its formal adoption by the Roman church in the late fifth century.

—Len Griehs