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Pastoral
Bible Institute News Fiscal 2011 Financial Statement of the Pastoral Bible Institute, Inc.
PBI Annual Report for 2010-2011 The first issue of The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom was dated December 1, 1918. It is still edited by a committee of five brethren appointed annually by the directors of the Pastoral Bible Institute, the parent organization. Its 1918 mission statement remains the same today: This Journal stands firmly for the defense of the only true foundation of the Christian’s hope now being so generally repudiated—redemption through the precious blood of “the Man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom (a corresponding price, a substitute) for all” (1 Peter 1:19; 1 Timothy 2:6). The cost of subscribing to The Herald in 1918 was one dollar, which had the buying power of more than fifteen dollars today. Today’s subscription price of five dollars does not cover our costs which are approximately $2 per issue for 1,500 copies every two months. The Institute also finances the printing of 500 copies in English for distribution in India for about $300; we also donate $500 annually toward the cost of producing the magazine in the Polish language for distribution in Poland. The continuation of our work is made possible only because of the dedicated support of volunteers, as well as the generous donations and bequests by the many friends of the Institute. In addition to our theme-based issues, Today in Prophecy now appears as an insert in each magazine. It looks at major events of our day in the context of Bible prophecy. So many of the world’s problems appear almost insurmountable. It is as Jesus prophesied: “Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken” (Luke 21:26). Yet the Bible assures us that God is shaking all nations so he might set up his everlasting kingdom on earth under the supervision and authority of our risen Lord (Haggai 2:7). We continue to enthusiastically proclaim that coming kingdom when the inhabitants of the earth will learn righteousness (Isaiah 26:9). The closing paragraph of the first report to readers, published in 1918 seems just as appropriate today: “This journal is published that the spiritual needs of the Lord’s people might be satisfied; that by words of encouragement and admonition the faithful may continue to be built up in the Most Holy Faith …to bear the Gospel Message—the good Word of the Kingdom—to all who have ears to hear. To the best of our ability, and as the Lord may give wisdom, we trust to proclaim the Old, Old Story as taught by our Lord and the apostles—The Message of Heavenly Love designed for all the Truth hungry, for all those of honest heart.” In the Master’s service, Directors and Editors
Religion At least 500 people died in religious rioting after Nigeria’s presidential election. Muslim opposition supporters began riots after results from the April 16 election showed a Christian had won. Many in the predominantly Muslim north of Africa’s most populous nation felt the next president should have been from their region because a Muslim president died last year before he could complete his term. —Los Angeles Times, 4/25/2011 A 2009 study by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, found that 70 percent of the world’s population live in countries where they have no religious freedom or a lot of restrictions. The same study found that religious freedom is protected in a majority of countries. —Deseret News, 4/19/2011 Organized religion will go the way of the dinosaurs in nine Western democracies. “Religion will be driven toward extinction” in Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands, researchers conclude in a new paper. It will also fade in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, and Switzerland, they predict. “If you look at the data, ‘unaffiliated’ is the fastest-growing group,” said the paper’s lead author. The U.S. could not be included in the study, because unlike the other countries, census data on religion was not available. —CNN, 3/24/2011 At least one Christian was killed and others injured when thousands of Islamic extremists set fire to 59 churches and at least 28 homes in western Ethiopia. More than 4,000 Christians in and around Asendabo, Jimma Zone have been displaced as a result of attacks that began after Muslims accused a Christian of desecrating the Quran by tearing up a copy. —Compass Direct News, 3/7/2011 A month into its 181st year of existence, the Book of Mormon has surpassed a publishing milestone— the 150 millionth copy has recently been printed. —Deseret News, 4/19/2011 The rise of Islamic parties in the Egyptian Revolution, and the continued enforcement of the Sharia in the villages outside Cairo are frightening Christians, who are attempting to emigrate to countries with greater religious freedom. According to the Egyptian Federation for Human Rights, more than 70 people a week are asking for information on how to leave the country. —Asia News, 4/12/2011 The debate over Rob Bell’s new book “Love Wins” has quickly spread across the evangelical precincts of the Internet, in part because of an eye-catching promotional video posted on YouTube. Bell, the pastor of the 10,000-member Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., criticizes the belief that a select number of Christians will spend eternity in the bliss of heaven while everyone else is tormented forever in hell. —Associated Press, 3/24/2011 A British astrophysicist known for his theories on the origin and the destiny of the universe has been honored with one of the world’s leading religion prizes. Martin Rees, a 68-year-old expert on the extreme physics of black holes and the Big Bang, is the recipient of the 2011 Templeton Prize. The one million pound ($1.6 million) award is among the world’s most lucrative. Rees said his research was posed by scientists who wonder why it is that the physical laws of the universe seemed perfectly calibrated to support human life. Even a slight tweaking of what scientists call universal constants could so alter the cosmos as to make it uninhabitable. —Associated Press, 4/6/2011 Social World Bank President Robert Zoellick said … 44 million people have fallen into poverty due to rising food prices in the past year. The United Nations Food Price index jumped 25 percent last year, the second-steepest increase since at least 1991, and surged to a record in February. Food price inflation is “the biggest threat today to the world’s poor,” Zoellick said at a press conference following meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. “We are one shock away from a full-blown crisis.” —Bloomberg, 4/16/2011 Last year the United States recorded the fewest traffic deaths in more than 60 years, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In 2010, there were 1.09 deaths for every 100 million miles traveled. In 1949, by comparison, the rate was 7.13. The reason driving deaths have declined so steeply over the past five years is a combination of factors. Old cars are being replaced by newer models with more safety features, including air bags and antilock brakes. Highways are built or refurbished with more attention to safety, with features like rumble strips and cable median barriers to separate cars from oncoming traffic. —New York Times, 4/1/2011 For the first time, American women have passed men in gaining advanced college degrees as well as bachelor’s degrees. Among adults 25 and older, 10.6 million U.S. women have master’s degrees or higher, compared with 10.5 million men. —Associated Press, 4/27/2011 Scientists in China have genetically modified dairy cows to produce milk that has the same properties as human breast milk. The feat was achieved by inserting human genes into the cows, and researchers hope it could become the third option besides breast milk and formula. The researchers have a wide goal of getting the product out to market within 10 years. China continues to be the top innovator in genetically modified food products when much of Europe continues to be hesitant to fully embrace the technology. —Sunday Telegraph, 4/3/2011 April so far shattered the benchmark for the number of tornadoes in a single month by a long shot. Meteorologists estimate that close to 600 tornadoes have formed in April. That’s nearly four times the average of 160, and twice the amount of the previous April record, 267 twisters in 1974. [In one day] tornadoes alone killed some 300 people, mostly in Alabama. Howard Bluestein, professor of meteorology at University of Oklahoma, said “This is something that happens every 10 or 20 years when everything comes together like this. This is just natural variability.” Most meteorologists agree. —Huffpost Green, 4/29/2011 The Mississippi floods in April and May 2011 are among the largest and most damaging along the waterway in the past century, rivaling major floods in 1927 and 1993. For the first time in 37 years, the Morganza Spillway has been opened, deliberately flooding 4,600 square miles of rural Louisiana to save most of Baton Rouge and New Orleans. At least 383 people were killed across seven states. Thousands of homes were ordered evacuated. About 13% of U.S. petroleum refinery output is expected to be disrupted by flood levels exceeding historical records in several locations. —Wikipedia, May 2011 People born in 2009 will live to be an average of 78.2 years old according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Average mortality rates for heart disease, cancer, accidents and a range of other causes of death decreased in 2009, with the average rate falling from 758.7 deaths per 100,000 in 2008 to 741 deaths. Infant mortality hit a record low, decreasing 2.6 percent to 6.42 deaths for every 1,000 births. —USA Today, 3/16/2011 Political A bipartisan commission tasked with analyzing “the unprecedented use of contractors” in the war on terror concluded that the U.S. “has wasted tens of billions of dollars” on them since 2002. The U.S. employs about 200,000 contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan (about as many military personnel as it has stationed there.) The report’s authors say a significant portion of the $177 billion the U.S. has spent on contractors has been lost to “ill-conceived projects, poor planning and oversight by the U.S. government, as well as criminal behavior and blatant corruption by both government and contractor employees.” —Talking Points Memo, 2/28/2011 The IRS has awarded an Enron whistle-blower $1.1 million a decade after the fraud-ridden firm collapsed. The witness said he had spent several years trying to goad the IRS into action with disappointing results. “My experience with the IRS has been extremely frustrating and discouraging,” he said. Under federal law, whistle-blowers can collect a portion of the unpaid taxes the IRS recovers as a result of the information they provide. —Washington Post, 3/16/2011 Portugal is the latest country to buckle under crushing debt and political paralysis. Portugal turned to the European Union for a bailout, the third country in the 17-member euro zone to do so. The government of Prime Minister José Sócrates crumbled after he failed to convince parliament to curtail the country’s budget. —Wall Street Journal, 4/7/2011 Less than 15 months after a series of missteps led to the worst offshore disaster in U.S. waters, BP will be allowed to go back to the Gulf of Mexico as early as this summer. The British company will be allowed to drill 10 existing wells as long as it abides by strict safety standards and grants government regulators 24-hour access to any of its deepwater wells. —Financial Times, 4/3/2011 Standard & Poor’s on Monday downgraded its credit outlook for the United States, citing a risk that policymakers may not reach agreement on a plan to slash the huge federal budget deficit. While the credit rating agency maintained the country’s top AAA credit rating, it said authorities have not made clear how they will tackle long-term fiscal pressures. S & P said the move signals at least a one-in-three chance that it could cut its long-term rating on the United States within two years. —Reuters, 4/18/2011 Financial The top 2% of taxpayers in the U.S. pay 46% of all federal income taxes. If the government confiscated all of their income for one year, it would only cover 58% of the 2011 federal budget. —Tax Foundation, March 2011 Japan’s government approved a 4 trillion yen ($50 billion) emergency budget for disaster relief on Friday without resorting to new borrowing, but it is bracing for heavier reconstruction spending later this year. Huge funds will be needed to rebuild after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, which have left nearly 28,000 dead or missing and triggered a nuclear crisis. Tokyo estimates the material damage alone could top $300 billion in the world’s costliest natural disaster. —Reuters, 4/22/2011 An important economic milestone has gone relatively unnoticed: Brazil has surpassed France and the United Kingdom to become the world’s fifth largest economy, worth about $2.2 trillion in 2010. —TIME, 4/4/2011 OPEC, the oil producers’ cartel, will reap one trillion dollars in export revenues this year for the first time if crude prices remain above $100 a barrel. The cartel has been one of the main beneficiaries of high oil prices, which have soared in recent weeks amid the civil uprisings in the Middle East and north Africa. Many of OPEC’s biggest producers are using the price gains to increase public spending, partly to guard against popular unrest. —Financial Times, 3/29/2011 Cotton prices are soaring. U.S. bills [currency], which are 75% cotton, cost 9.6¢ each to produce in 2010, a 50% jump since 2008. The Government Accountability Office recommends replacing the dollar bill with a $1 coin, which could save the U.S. $5.5 billion over 30 years. —TIME, 4/4/2011 Total hedge-fund assets are approaching $2 trillion and are soon expected to surpass their peak in early 2008. The resurrection of hedge funds, which invest money for wealthy individuals, pension funds and other large investors, marks yet another sign that the effects of the financial crisis are receding. —Wall Street Journal, 4/18/2011 Israel Old, used tires are an environmental nuisance. But now a new “green” project in Israel intends to recycle the rubber from old tires, and use as many as 1,400 tires per kilometer of new paved highway. In a pilot trial, a 1.1 kilometer [0.68 mile] section of road was paved using an experimental mixture that included hundreds of recycled tires and a blend of asphalt. —Israel 21c, 3/7/2011 Recently featured on CNN, world robotics expert Prof. Moshe Shoham of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology invented the world’s only robotic tool for back surgery, the SpineAssist. Developed by Israeli company Mazor Robotics, it’s the smallest of five medical robots in daily use in countries including the United States, Holland and Israel. —Bridges for Peace, 3/17/2011 The Israeli and Russian space agencies signed a framework agreement that will enhance cooperation in a variety of space research fields. Israel has multiple satellites in space, with Netanyahu praising the potential for the cooperation between Israel and Russia in the space field. Netanyahu also used the space agreement to highlight the bilateral relations with Russia, as this year marks the 20th anniversary of the Russian decision to renew diplomatic relations with Israel. —Israel Mosaic Radio, 3/28/2011 A Jewish group says that Ethiopian police injured 80 Ethiopian Jewish protesters and arrested 80 more during a demonstration near the Israeli Embassy in Addis Ababa. The protesters were demanding the right to Israeli citizenship. Ethiopian Jews in the past have mounted hunger strikes in the pursuit of being granted citizenship. —Associated Press, 3/30/2011 Shai Agassi is the founder of Better Place, the most sophisticated electric-car enterprise in the world. When the enterprise launches in Israel later this year, drivers should be able to travel anywhere in the country in cars with a battery range of 100 miles (160 km). If they set off from Tel Aviv to the Red Sea, a journey of 200 miles (320 km), they will be able to pull into a Better Place station along the highway and exchange their low battery for a fully charged one. —TIME, 4/26/2011 |
