The issues and comments contained in this column are gleaned from over one hundred monthly news sources. The comments and observation are ours. Sources may or may not be cited as a period of years might be involved in the final accumulation and opinions given in this column.
The people called now when tragedy strikes are the trauma counselors. It is now accepted as fact that we can't cope with tragedy in our lives without the services of a therapist, psychic type therapist at that. Our nation's trauma people have decided that a stranger with a degree in psychology is better equipped for us than the clergy to properly deal with and heal trauma in our lives. Former psychotherapist Tana Dineen says that psychologists "psychologize things and turn normal human reactions into psychology." She is the author of the most powerful indictment ever written about psychology titled: Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People," Now in its second printing. She says that "under the guise of science, it pretends there are typical ways that people react to tragic or violent situations and some formula or standard for handling them."
(We now are rearing a generation who are believing that when there is a traumatic situation or event the trauma counselors, rather than pastors, should be given the souls of those in trauma. May God help us. Man cannot fix man. It takes Jesus Christ to do that. - RT)
"If you could take all of the catholic doctrine out of Protestant churches, you would have Baptist churches. At the same time, if you were to take all of the Baptist doctrine out of Protestant churches, you would be left with Catholic Churches."
Mickey Carter, PhD
The movie released in Japan May 23, 1998 called "Pride, the Fateful Moment" drew sellout crowds across Japan. The movie depicts Tojo as a kindly grandfather and ends with one of the judges on the Allied War Crimes Tribunal for the Far East decrying the verdict followed by polite but subdued applause from the audience.
Tojo was the Japanese Prime Minister responsible for terrorizing Asia, using Chinese and Korean women as sex slaves for front-line troops, and germ-warfare experiments on live prisoners.
The Texas Supreme Court recently upheld (1997) a Texas school board student grooming policy prohibiting boys from wearing hair below their shirt collars.
Private Education Law Report - June '98
In a research study at Yale University it was found that 82% of those abused as children did not repeat the abuse with their own children.
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol. 57
The Gospel can no longer be preached in Russia publicly anywhere in Belarus or Minsk. It is now against the law and those doing so face arrest and expulsion if they are caught preaching.
Fundamental Baptist World Mission - p. 33 , May '98
Four Caribbean countries, frustrated by British pressure to ban capital punishment, will remove Britain from their legal systems and set up a Caribbean court of justice.
Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad believe in hanging convicts of capital crimes, despite opposition from Britain. Presently the final legal arbitrator for criminals in the current and former British colonies is the judicial committee of the privy council. The privy council ruled in 1993 that it was inhumane to execute people on death row over five years knowing appeals go on at least ten years. The privy council in London is anxious to get rid of their jurisdiction because of the cost.
The Disney Company is struggling according to Wall Street Key Reports. Several Wall Street analysis's have cut their profit forecasts for Disney Bloomberg Financial Market News reported June 19.
From the most respected media analysis on Wall Street, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs & Co., Paine Webber and Nations Blanc Montgomery SEC, Inc. came this cut for Disney profits forecasts.
Disney is also seeing some decline in its theme park attendance and the numbers of people viewing Disney movies.
As cited by the two major news reports, Bloomberg and Reuters, various analysts give several factors dogging Disney including:
- Weaker than expected box office sales
- Only modest gains in Disney World attendance
- Disney's ABC TV network continues its sharp decline in rating
- Softness in sales of consumer products
- Difficult international marketplace
- Brain drain of departing executives under company chairman Michael Eisner, according to Time.
(Let's keep up the boycott. This news says it is effective, that there is a voice. - RT)
New York's Board of Education, the nation's largest school system voted in March to unanimously approve a proposal requiring all elementary school students to wear uniforms beginning the fall of 1999.
This policy follows hundreds of other public schools across the U.S. which contend that there is a link between uniforms, good behavior and academic performance.
Washington Times - Mar. 29 '98
In 1997 Disney and Comcast made a deal giving them a 70% ownership of Entertainment Television. Now Disney is overseeing the decision-making for the entertainment channel, according to Daily Variety.
AMA Journal - Apr. '98
The ELC Lutheran Church youth will be pursuing an open interactive ministry with homosexual young people in the year 2000.
The Board passed a resolution to ask the church to investigate the feasibility of an event for homosexual youth.
The Christian News
In the past five years, military career opportunities for women dramatically increased partly as a result of the publicity. In a 1997 survey of youth attitudes about military however, the interest of women declined "significantly."
Army Times - Air Force Edition - Apr. 6, '98
Though surveys claim that 91% of all American households have a Bible, only 38% claim to read it in a typical week. Bookstores are overflowing with so many version choices and providing Bibles is such a good business that now supermarkets such as Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc. carry Bibles. Bibles are now being marketed with tough competition on packaging, personalizing, and related things.
Each of the multitudes of versions now come in choices to enable anyone "to build a Bible wardrobe for every age and stage of life." Tyndale, whose sales increased 41% in 1997, has more than 40 products just based on one of these versions. These "products" use today's technology and become "life application," "spiritual renewal," "the journey," "collegiate devotional Bible," and many scholarship reference Bibles. Each format comes with supplementary materials woven through the margins, footnotes, and interspersed among the verses.
One long-time Lutheran pastor said he wonders if this "plethora" of packaged Bibles is not an urge to remake God in our own image, fitting faith into our own niches of need and nature.
(I'd agree with him. I still hold that the old Authorized Version (KJV without helps or notes) is God's Word in English and is to be read daily -RT)
A recent Barna Research Group Survey finds that "In spite of intense interest of Americans in spirituality, the lack of numerical growth in Protestant congregations suggests the need of new and creative approaches to penetrating communities "with practical Christianity."
(What about the New Testament and not Barna Research telling how to reach communities? How about "go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee." Mark 5:19 Also, could this be the days of Noah wherein only eight souls were saved? - RT)
Battle Cry - May/June '98
Kennesaw, Georgia voted sixteen years ago in March to require each head of household to keep at least one firearm in their homes. Now after these sixteen years there have only been three murders. Crimes against persons have fallen 74% compared to 1981. In addition to virtually non-existent homicide statistics in Kennesaw, the annual number of armed robberies, burglaries, and rapes, have averaged exceptionally low also.
The New American - May 17, '98
On October 4, 1998 four churches representing the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church of America, the Reformed church in America, and the United Church of Christ celebrated communion together in a quest for Christian unity.
Each of the denominations had earlier approved the bold "full communion" (not the Biblical Lord's Supper - RT) that will enable each to share ministers, sacraments and members and operate joint ministries without merging, but still retaining their individual denominational identities.
The procession began from four-ways leading to a central "baptismal" font - the symbol of the basic sacrament. The centerpiece of the service was "Holy Communion" and a free-standing altar presided over by a woman minister.
(I well remember when I was a young preacher this was prophesied-predicted and we just could not truly believe it could be so - RT)