TBC NewsWatch

CHARISMA HOUSE'S NEW TRANSLATION

ChristianHeadlines.com, 5/28/14, “Charisma House Introduces Modern English Version of Bible” [Excerpts]: The translation, called the Modern English Version (MEV) seeks to help readers interpret meaning of the scriptures while using contemporary language.

“To Bible readers who value biblical truth, the MEV literally translates God’s Word in a way that preserves the message but remains readable for today’s world. Because of this, we anticipate that the MEV will have broad ecumenical and consumer acceptance,” [our emphasis] said Tessie DeVore, Charisma House executive vice president.

The MEV website says the translation “provides clarity for a new generation of Bible readers. The MEV also accurately communicates God’s Word anew as it capitalizes references of God, ‘maintaining reverence’ for the Scriptures.”

The translation promises to keep the meaning of the scriptures intact, without embellishment or distortion.

(http://goo.gl/PS6kB6)

[TBC: The meaning of the Scriptures cannot be kept intact and still have “broad ecumenical acceptance.” 2 Corinthians:6:14Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
See All... still states, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”]

DRIVE-THROUGH PRAYER LANES INCREASING

ChristianHeadlines.com,.5/30/14, “Drive-Through Prayer Lanes Spreading Across the Country” [Excerpts]: “People go to Dunkin’ Donuts for coffee, not because it’s the best coffee, but because it’s the most convenient. In a similar way, this is a port of entry for somebody to begin to connect with God in an intentional kind of way.” So explains the pastor of the latest church to open a drive-through lane for people seeking prayer.

Churches from Florida to Kansas and Illinois to California are picking up the trend. One purchased a nearby bank building, staffed it with volunteers, and opened for people to drive through. The church uses the bank’s deposit tube for people who want to write down their prayer requests rather than speak to a church member.

I think something more visceral than mere convenience is at work here. Our culture is becoming increasingly secularized: the highest percentage in history says they have no religious preference and states that religion is “not very important” in their lives. But secularism does not change our basic need for God. For instance, 76 percent of Americans say religion is losing its influence today; after 9-11, just 39 percent agreed.

(http://goo.gl/lSg15w)

CHRISTIANITY CONTINUES TO GROW IN CHINA

ChristianHeadlines.com, 6/4/14, “Christianity Continues to Grow in China in Spite of Persecution” [Excerpts]: As the world commemorates the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre today, leaders maintain that Christianity in the People’s Republic of China is growing rapidly in spite of continued persecution by the nation’s Communist government.

The Brookings Institute recently held a panel discussion in Washington, DC titled “Christianity in China: A Force for Change?” Experts claim the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre motivated the underground Church and continues to impassion believers.

“The really committed, devout believers will be increasingly strengthened in their faith by this ‘winds of persecution’ and honestly the church buildings may be torn down, but that doesn’t mean the congregations themselves have scattered,” Carsten Vala, assistant professor at the Political Science Department of Loyola University Maryland and one of the panelists [said].

In advance of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) reports that Chinese human rights lawyers, activists and artists have been detained and disappeared for offenses as small as gathering to talk about what happened in 1989. Those who have been released have been warned not to participate in any kind of remembrance activity.

According to CSW dozens of churches in Zhejiang Province have had all or parts of their structure removed or demolished, or have been threatened with demolition. The churches affected include both Protestant and Catholic, registered and unregistered. Some have had signs removed, while others have been completely demolished; almost all have been ordered to remove religious symbols, most often the cross.

(http://goo.gl/Q9LXFr)

THE CLIMATE CHANGE FUNDAMENTALISTS

FrontPageMag.com,.5/20/14,.“The Climate.Change.Fundamentalists” [Excerpts]: Climate change fundamentalists are predicting an apocalypse. Human depredation in the form of unbridled materialism is the cause. Any dissent from the fundamentalists’ doomsday prophesies [and] if their radical prescriptions to save humanity and Mother Earth are not followed is regarded as heresy.

Charge the well-funded climate change “deniers” with committing “criminal negligence” for “their willful disregard for human life,” says Lawrence Torcello, a philosophy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. After all, heretics must be punished.

Stop job-creating energy independence initiatives such as the Keystone XL pipeline, says the former director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen, which he called the “fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet.” Hansen was arrested during the course of a civil disobedience protest against the pipeline as he sat in front of a banner proclaiming, “Witness for Climate and Creation.” Who knew that a pipeline transporting oil to the United States, which would otherwise travel by rail or be shipped elsewhere such as to China, the world’s largest emitter of carbon gases, would upset God’s plan of creation?

Hansen co-authored...a scare-mongering paper entitled “Assessing ‘Dangerous Climate Change’: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature.” The paper, published in December 2013, predicted “mass extinctions” of species and demanded “urgent change to our energy and carbon pathway to avoid dangerous consequences for young people and other life on Earth.” The authors moralized that human-caused climate change is on par with the evil of slavery. It represented inter-generational injustice, they said, for which they recommended there be legal remedies.

(http://goo.gl/JUffO9)

[TBC: Though called “fundamentalists,” they’re fundamentally wrong, behaving the same as liberal theologians in the church. They manipulate science as liberal theologians manipulate or abandon the Scriptures.]