Pastoral Bible Institute News Date of Annual PBI Meeting The annual meeting of PBI Members and Directors will be held on Friday, July 20, on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown in Pennsylvania. The General Convention of Bible Students will begin on Saturday, July 21, at the same location and end the evening of July 26. 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. Temporary Closing of the PBI Office Our California office will be closed for three weeks beginning April 9. Orders received during this time will be filled after April 30. We regret any inconvenience this may cause. World News Religious The National Council of Churches, a mainline Protestant and Orthodox group, is reaching out to Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Pentecostals to create a "new national expression of Christian life." The National Council—comprising 35 mainline Protestant, black Protestant, and Orthodox denominations—has been a leading voice in the movement for Christian unity, or ecumenism, for more than 50 years. But most Christians in the United States are not in the council. "The difference this time is that we have invited the Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Pentecostals to build a new table together without dictating what that table will look like," said council General Secretary Bob Edgar. —Associated Press, 11/16/2000 In a statement that bears strong similarities to the Vatican document Dominus Iesus, the Russian Orthodox Church has claimed to be "the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, the keeper and provider of the holy sacraments throughout the world." The 5,000-word statement by the Russian Orthodox Church is entitled "Basic Principles of the Attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church toward Other Christian Confessions." It was approved by the Jubilee bishops’ council on August 14—just days before the publication of Dominus Iesus. "The Orthodox Church is the true Church of Christ established by our Lord and Savior himself," the Orthodox statement begins. Furthermore, the Russian Church insists the road to unity leads directly to acceptance of the Orthodox stance—"That genuine unity is possible only in the bosom of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. All other models of unity seem to us to be unacceptable." —MOSCOW, 11/10/2000 (CWNews.com) Across the country, churches and synagogues are giving renewed attention to an ancient belief—that worship can fight disease. While the effort is stirring debate within the clergy, it is getting surprising support from new research on the subject and from doctors themselves. The result has been an array of new rituals, from daily devotions for dieters to entire services devoted to healing. In Memphis, Tennessee, Scott Morris, a physician and minister who runs a clinic for needy patients has helped educate congregations about spiritual healing. [Of the] 1,200 studies in a new compilation on the subject published by Oxford University Press, about two-thirds suggest some connection between religious involvement and better health. —Wall Street Journal, 12/22/2000 Social More than 1 million people worldwide die each year in road accidents, most in developing countries, according to the World Health Organization. The Assn. for Safe International Road Travel [says that the] chances of dying on the road abroad can be 20 to 70 times higher than in the U.S. It’s a growing problem. By 2020 a Harvard School of Public Health study predicts road accidents will be the planet’s third leading health burden. —Los Angeles Times, 12/3/2000 A gloomy new government report forecasts sharply reduced mountain snowpacks, increased flooding, and the ruin of some coastal freshwater sources as global warming has an increasing impact on U.S. water supplies. The report, a two-year compilation ofscientific studies commissioned by the Interior Department, is one of the most detailed so far in assessing current and likely future damage from the warming of the Earth’s atmosphere on a specific resource such as water. It also is among the first to categorically say that at least some impacts from global warming are unavoidable, even if the trend were to be reversed over the next few years. —Wall Street Journal, 12/15/2000 Accordng to recent government and industry data:
—Consumer Reports, January 2001 Financial American consumers continue to spend furiously. Inthe third quarter, and maybe in the fourth, their spending will have exceeded their income for the first time since the 1930s. In other words, they had a negative saving rate. Nobody is storing up for a rainy day. In the early 1990s, American households were saving around 9% of their disposable income. That Americans now prefer consuming to saving is a familiar story. Less widely appreciated is the fact that saving is also going out of fashion in many otherdeveloped economies. Germany’s personal-saving rate has fallen by half, to some 8% over the past decade; Canada’s has plunged from 12% to 1%; and Italy’s from 19% to 13%. The main exception is Japan, where households still save 12% of their income, exactly the same as they did in 1990. —The Economist, 11/30/2000 The challenge to globalization has brought along with it a related challenge—to American domination of the world economy. It is not exactly anti-Americanism, though that, too, may be on the rise. Rather, it’s a sense that the triumph of capitalism need not mean the triumph of the supposedly "ruthless" economic model that so many Europeans think they see on the other side of the Atlantic. As economic growth returns to their long-stagnant continent, West Europeans believe they’ve found a way to preserve the comfortable props of their welfare state without sacrificing the pleasures of prosperity. Only a few years ago, the marketplace seemed to carry all before it; now, as Fareed Zakaria notes, political choices and local options seem to have more scope. The Putin regime in Russia is seeking to reinstate a dash of the old authoritarianism—and after a decade of domestic anarchy and dwindling world influence, most Russians seem to be applauding. China’s rulers are contemplating a delicate transfer of power and a drastic opening of the economy without even the faintest effort to listen to the voice of the people. And the utter collapse of order in countries like Sierra Leone and East Timor is forcing the world to confront the dilemma of how to deal with failed nations. Traditional "peacekeeping" has a spotty record and too often smacks of a new form of colonialism. In 2001 anew regional approach—relying on nearby neighbors, not Western forces from afar—will get a test. —Newsweek, 12/27/2000 Civil Today, nearly all wars occur not between countries but within them. Of the 27 substantial armed conflicts that took place in 1999, 25 were civil wars. These wars also took place within relatively poor countries. Of the 40 poorest countries in the world, 24 are either in the midst of war or have recently emerged from it. A fifth of all Africans live in countries ravaged by armed conflict. Economic research at the World Bank comes to what might seem counter-intuitive conclusions: neither inequality, whether of incomes or assets, nor absence of democracy, nor ethnic and religious diversity has any discernible impact on the likelihood of civil war. Unequal, ethnically divided countries with few political rights may seem to need or deserve successful rebellions. They are not the places most likely to have them. So what does create a viable rebellion? To answer this question, Paul Collier of the World Bank and Anke Hoeffler at Oxford university have analysed data on 47 of the 73 civil wars that occurred between 1965 and 1999, with civil wars defined as conflicts that have caused at least 1,000 battle-related deaths. They conclude that the conditions that have raised the likelihood of civil conflict are: heavy dependence on primary commodity exports; low average incomes per head; economic decline; the geographic size of a country; whether a civil war has just ended; the existence of a large diaspora in wealthy countries; the cold war; low levels of education; high population growth; and whether one ethnic group constitutes between 45 per cent and 90 per cent of the population.
The National Intelligence Council, in a report issued under the direction of Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet, said it expects the world’s population will surge to 7.2 billion by 2015 from 6.1 billion today, with 95 percent of the growth in developing countries and almost all in urban areas. —New York Times, 12/18/2000 The risk of a missile attack against the U.S. is higher today than during most of the Cold War and will increase in the next 15 years according to a report by the government’s National Intelligence Council. The most likely missile threat involving chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons will come from short and medium-range missiles deployed on surface ships or covert missions, the report said. Other chemical and biological threats to U.S. interests are expected to continue as terrorists "will become increasingly sophisticated and [their attacks] designed to achieve mass casualties," the report said. —Washington Post, 12/18/2000 The National Intelligence Council, in a report issued under the direction of Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet, said it expects the world’s population will surge to 7.2 billion by 2015 from 6.1 billion today, with 95 percent of the growth in developing countries and almost all in urban areas. —New York Times, 12/18/2000 The risk of a missile attack against the U.S. is higher today than during most of the Cold War and will increase in the next 15 years according to a report by the government’s National Intelligence Council. The most likely missile threat involving chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons will come from short and medium-range missiles deployed on surface ships or covert missions, the report said. Other chemical and biological threats to U.S. interests are expected to continue as terrorists "will become increasingly sophisticated and [their attacks] designed to achieve mass casualties," the report said. —Washington Post, 12/18/2000 Israel The atmosphere of Arab-Israeli relations today remains fundamentally altered from what it was. In fact, it resembles the bad old days of pre-1967. Back then, Israel’s enemies widely believed that they could dispatch the Jewish State with one good blow. Their overconfidence explains why, with no one planning or wanting it, full-scale war broke out in June 1967. Israel’s astonishing victory in the Six Day War then seemingly destroyed Arab exuberance and forever closed the question of its permanent existence. But it was not to be. The Oslo process, along with other signals of Israeli demoralization over the past seven years, reignited Arab overconfidence and wakened the sleeping dogs of war. The enemies of Israel are again tempted by the military option. As usual, Iraq acts the boldest, calling for a jihad to "liberate Palestine" and "put an end to Zionism." Saddam Hussein has noisily recruited two million volunteers to fight Israel and sent a division of soldiers to his border closest with Israel. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, has called Israel a "cancerous tumor" that must "be removed."
The President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) has expressed concern that U.S. mainline churches are issuing unbalanced statements, siding with the Palestinians and against Israel in the latest Middle East conflict. "U.S. churches are reflexively criticizing Israel, which is a democracy, and uncritically accepting the claims of Palestinian leaders, whose own commitment to human rights is less than clear," said IRD President Diane Knippers. Statements in recent years from U.S. mainline churches have portrayed Israel as the primary aggressor and human rights abuser in the Middle East. Ironically, these same denominational leaders continue to ignore human rights abuses by Palestinian leaders and by Arab governments, even when those governments persecute Christians and other religious minorities. Mainline church officials have largely endorsed the Palestinian claim that the present violence can be blamed almost exclusively on Israel’s "heavy-handedness." Most have called for a full Israeli withdrawal from all "occupied territories." Some have called for a reduction in U.S. aid to Israel. None have mentioned significant U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority, and none have mentioned incendiary statements by Palestinian authorities inciting violence and questioning Israel’s right to exist. Recent statements about the Middle East have come from officials and agencies of the National Council of Churches, the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Church of Christ, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the Geneva-based World Council of Churches. —PRNewswire 11/2/2000 Hydrologists and other water experts are warning of possible disruptions and even cutbacks in drinking-water supplies next year. But these experts are adamant that the crisis in the nation’s water resources is far more serious than the public realizes—it borders on the catastrophic. Lake Kinneret’s level is at its lowest mark in recorded history, 213.78 meters below sea level—nearly five meters lower than the maximum mark of 208.90m. below sea level. It would take around 850 million cu.m. of water to fill the lake to the brim. This is nearly as much fresh water as is used during a normal year by the entire farming industry, and even more than the annual consumption in the urban and industrial sectors put together. In the past, exceptionally heavy winter rains have raised the level in the Kinneret by several meters to the maximum mark, even to overflowing. But the lake has never, even according to the most ancient of records, recovered from such a low point. "From research we have carried out, this is the lowest level in the lake in the past 150 years. Even a meteorological miracle would only stave off the long-term problem that the country faces. Water experts argue that with Israel’s semi-arid climate, population growth, and need for independent food production, the country cannot afford to rely on the vagaries of the weather. If rainfall is less than average, the effect on agriculture would be catastrophic. Fresh-water quotas would be cut 70%. Some experts, however, believe drinking-water supplies could be disrupted in parts of the country, even with average rainfall this winter. —Jerusalem Post, 12/17/2000 Jews in the western Russian city of Kursk are living in a state of fear after the newly-elected governor said it was time to rid Russia of Jewish "filth," and an official of the outgoing administration was beaten up by thugs shouting anti-Semitic slogans. The remarks by the communist governor, Alexander Mikhailov, have provoked a political storm in Russia and aroused fears among Jewish leaders of a re-emergence of Soviet-style official anti-Semitism. There has also been dismay at the Kremlin’s silence on the issue. Vladimir Putin has made no attempt to distance himself from Mr. Mikhailov, who claimed the President actively supported his campaign and was an ally in his crusade against the "world Jewish conspiracy." The new governor said in a newspaper interview that the election marked a victory for ethnic Russians over Jews, and showed Russia was beginning to "liberate itself from all the filth that has piled up over the last ten years." He said he had defeated not only the outgoing governor Alexander Rutskoi, who has a Jewish mother, but also Mr. Rutskoi’s backer, Boris Berezovsky, the businessman who is of Jewish descent. —Moscow Daily Telegraph, 12/3/2000 Book Review Darwin’s Black Box, Michael J. Behe, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 1996. 307 pages. Michael Behe is a professor of biochemistry. The more he learned about the complexity of life at the molecular level, the more convinced he became that the near total embrace of Darwinism by the scientific community is wrong. (Charles Darwin in Origin of Species [1872] theorized that natural selection working on random variation produced life as we know it on earth.) Behe says it has only been since the 1950s that science has begun to understand a few of the molecules that make up living organisms. Life can be understood as consisting of "machines" made of molecules. Behe asserts that not only does Darwin fail to explain how these molecular machines "evolved" into the form we see them, the entire mass of scientific literature since his time remains silent on this question. People often call something a "black box" when they want to refer to its function without being cumbered with the details of how it does what it does. Darwin was never concerned with the implementation details of his theory. Molecular biologists, on the other hand, are intensely interested in the details. Most machines are irreducibly complex. They do what they do because they were designed that way. New machines generally do not evolve from a simpler form. If, for example, one makes even a slight change to the spring, hammer, catch, or holding bar of a common mousetrap, it won’t catch mice. One does not "evolve" a mousetrap into its present form from simpler forms. Within the body consider the phenomenon of blood clotting. Generally liquids escape when a container springs a leak, but blood does not do so within a body. Why does blood clot and stop an animal from bleeding to death? It is the result of a complex process of interdependent protein parts. The absence of any of these proteins would cause the system to fail. Either bleeding would continue unabated or clots would form inappropriately and stop blood circulation within the body. It is a system that cannot have reached its present state of complexity through step-by-step evolution because any mistake in any part of the process quickly renders the host animal dead. Behe asserts that the only satisfactory answer to the origin of life is that it was the work of a designer who, at the molecular level, made it the way it is. Whether that designer was God, aliens from another galaxy who "seeded" our planet in the dim past, or someone else, the evidence that all life on earth works the way it does because it was designed that way is so overwhelming as to be incontrovertible. Discussing life’s origins at the molecular level is a different approach to the subject of Darwinian evolution. Those with an interest in science will be fascinated with some of the details that illustrate the correctness of the psalmist’s declaration that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). —Michael Nekora |
