The Lion of Judah (Volume VII, Issue 9)
August 2002
By Betty Freauf
Ever since our animals have been microchipped to prevent them from being stolen or remaining lost, astute people have known it would not be long before the same technology would be applied to babies, then teenagers and ultimately the whole population.
But even before the animals in America were being protected by this means, in the 1970s, Sweden was stunned to hear that microchips were being implanted into hospital patients without their knowledge as part of a mind control experiment. While many people find this hard to accept, it has been a reality for more than 30 years.
Through numerous publications, we’ve been gradually desensitized to accept this new technology. The most recent article was an April 2, 2002, Associated Press release that a young man with medical problems will be volunteering to have a chip planted under his skin to help him in emergencies.
Whatever happened to the medical bracelet idea? The dog tags have taken a back seat in the military to such implants with some U. S. army volunteers, which, of course, would also allow them to be monitored off duty and have their privacy invaded.
The young man is having his fears set at ease thanks to a tiny computer chip the size of a grain of rice that will be implanted in his body and scanned for personal and medical information "in an emergency." The FDA approval is probably several months away at the earliest.
The April 2, 2002, article says the cost will be $200 and the scanner will cost between $1,000 and $3,000 but Applied Digital Solutions plans to give away chip readers to hospitals and ambulance companies in hopes they will become standard equipment. Inasmuch we all know there is no free lunch, from where do you suppose the profit will come? Perhaps a government-subsidized contract? In other words, "Your taxes."
Other publications have indicated the device is powered electromechanically through the movement of muscles and can be activated either by the "wearer" or by a monitoring facility. The Global Positioning System – that great eye in the sky – will monitor wearers of the device called the VeriChip, made by Applied Digital Solutions in Palm Beach County.
On his Feb. 4, 2002, Fox network show, Bill O’Reilly featured two guests from Applied Digital Solutions. One told about the microchip he had implanted in him within a short time after the 9/11 attack for identification purposes.
Reader’s Digest in July 2001 said the original inventor of the microchip, Jack St. Clair Kilby, was turned down by MIT because his math scores were too low. He never had much formal physics training but he received the Nobel Prize in physics.
Time magazine (August 1999) told how the University of Virginia Hospital planned to begin microchipping all newborns in their bellybuttons to prevent baby snatching. Would parents who balk at this procedure or attempt to forbid it be the subject of child protective services charging them with "failure to offer the child necessary safety and security?"
Currently in Oregon, a groundswell of support has arisen to try to find two missing teenage girls from Oregon City who lived in the same apartment complex.
They were friends and were kidnapped within two months of each other. Children have been disappearing for years. Remember all the pictures on the milk cartons? But never can I remember such prolonged, significant national coverage being given to any of them. Is this a precursor to all children being microchipped for their "safety and security?"
With all the media hype, will parents gladly stand in line to have their kids microchipped? You bet they will. They have voluntarily been having their children fingerprinted for many years. People will give up their freedom for an "illusion" called security. (Read famous quote by Julius Caesar.)
We are being micromanaged with one so-called crisis after another. The public must be persuaded to accept these ideas or better yet, to demand it. And the one sure way to accomplish this is to suddenly highlight missing children stories more than ever before.
And then we have the fear of identity theft being reported regularly. In order to help stop this, would the aim naturally be to have physical money replaced entirely by credit card electronic money and then to replace credit cards and identity cards with a microchip just under the skin?
And let’s really allow our imagination to run wild. Where could this technology lead us? Once the computer knows everything about us, what would the possibility be to have messages received by us from the computer thereby programming our consciousness? Would we then be called mental robots? There was a time I wouldn’t believe we’d ever go to the moon, have microchip implants in our animals, etc. But, baby, look at us now! We’ve come a long way from the horse and buggy and the simple life.
Second Amendment Rights
People believe so long as we have our guns, no one will ever conquer the great United States. We might just be fooling ourselves. I’m sure those who wish to have total control over us have something rather sinister in mind and as they continue to move rapidly from one crisis to another, more and more people will innocently succumb to their tactics.v
About the author: Betty Freauf has been a GOP activist for many years. She has previously served as elected county chairman, state party secretary, congressional district chairman, candidate for Governor of Oregon in 1986, the House of Representatives in 1988 and 1990. She published a weekly "Legislative Action" newsletter for five Oregon Legislative sessions, and is an excommunicated citizen Review Board Member to "WATCHDOG," Oregon’s Child Protective Agency. (She was fired for asking too many questions).
By April Shenandoah
Johnny is in trouble – not because he is playing hooky from school, but because he is attending school. Some of the most negative influences that young people can face today are found in public schools. In the past few decades this has clearly worsened. In 1940 the top offenses in public schools were chewing gum, talking in class, unfinished homework and running in the halls. Today the top offenses are drugs, drunkenness, assault, murder and rape.
While at school, Johnny not only is confronted with drugs, immorality and violence, but he is also receiving a second rate education. From 1963, Scholastic Aptitude Test scores dropped consistently each year.
As a result of decreasing literary skills, college textbooks are being rewritten at a lower grade level so that the students can understand them. Most newspapers and magazines are written at about a sixth grade level, which is now the reading level of the average American (of which I’m one). If you aren’t buying this – compare the literacy of today with early America, read the Federalist Papers, which were written for farmers and other common citizens in New York. Today’s college graduates find them difficult.
You may say, "but Johnny is getting better grades than ever." This is true, which makes the problem even worse, for many young people do not know how little they are actually learning. I’ve just come to that conclusion in my own life. I am just now educating myself on subject matter that I should have been taught many years ago.
Take for example, the young man who graduated as valedictorian from his Washington, D.C. high school, yet was refused admission to George Washington University because his SAT scores were so low. Due to his excellent grades in high school, he considered himself a superior student. However, in the words of the dean of admissions of George Washington University, "He’s been deluded into thinking he’s gotten an education."
What is the problem?
Most educational leaders acknowledge that there are problems with our public schools, and most of their suggested solutions involve spending more money. However, in the past few decades the public education system has dramatically increased its expenditures. In 1950, $8.8 billion was spent; in 1985, $261 billion; in 1990, $353 billion; in 1992, $445 billion. Washington, D.C. schools spend more than $10,000 per student, but are near the bottom of all cities nationally in academics. Increased spending is on the way, yet with all this spending, educational skills have decreased.
Lack of money is not the problem in our public schools. First of all, where there are no absolutes or discipline, there will be confusion and chaos. Secondly, there has been an agenda in place for many years to turn the tide of education towards a socialist creed. As early as 1932, Dr. George Counts wrote a 56-page booklet entitled, "Dare the Schools Build a New Social Order?" In 1948, Dwight Eisenhower appointed Dr. Manfred Kridl, a well-known Marxist, to oversee a "Chair of Polish Studies" made possible by an endowment from the Communist government of Poland.
As the years went by, and your children passed through the grades, you may have noticed that subject matter changed. Teaching methods, types of study and government programs were added, everything changed. It is a documented fact that for many years American schools have been infiltrated with a steady stream of amorality and humanism. For many years, both parents and teachers have sensed the heavily financed anti-American influences in the classrooms. How about this statement from the 1970 book, The Naked Capitalist – if "they" have their way we will develop a prospective nightmare in our schools – schools without grades, without discipline, without prayers, without the Pledge of Allegiance, without Christmas, without Easter, without patriotism, without morals, without standards of speech or standards of dress." Hello! Already, wherever "they" have taken over the educational system, we see the worst of their products. Surely the nation deserves something better than this for the billions it is spending.
The basic problem is with the philosophy that forms the foundation of education in America. Colossians 2:8 is very insightful in this matter: "See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ." [See footnote]. It has been said that the philosophy of education in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
Noah Webster & Early America
Noah Webster would not recognize the dictionary that bears his name today. Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language defines education as: "1. the process of educating especially by formal schooling; teaching; training. 2. knowledge, ability, etc. thus developed. 3. a) formal schooling. b) a kind or stage of this: as, a medical education. 4. systematic study of the methods and theories of teaching and learning."
In Webster’s original dictionary published in 1828, his definition was: "Education – The bringing up, as a child, instruction; formation of manners. Education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations. To give children a good education in manners, arts and science, is important; to give them a religious education is indispensable; and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties."
To Webster, the central goal of education was to train youth in the precepts of Christianity. He stated, "In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children under a free government, ought to be instructed ... No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people."
In Webster’s United States History Book, he has a chapter on the U. S. Constitution. In there is a section with the heading, Origin of Civil Liberty, which contains this: "Almost all the civil liberty now enjoyed in the world owes its origin to the principles of the Christian religion… The religion which has introduced civil liberty, is the religion of Christ and His apostles, which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence; which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and a citizen with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our free constitutions of government…"
Education in Early America
Education in early America was much different than that of today, in form and results. Most education was done by the home or church. This is where the ideas and character were implanted in our founders. Such training produced one of the greatest groups of men – in thought and character – of all time.
Samuel Blumenfield says: "Of the 117 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, one out of three had had only a few months of formal schooling, and only one in four had gone to college. They were educated by parents, church schools, tutors, academies, apprenticeships, and by themselves.
Almost every child in America was educated. At the time of the Revolution, the literacy level was virtually 100 percent (even on the frontier it was greater than 70 percent). John Adams said to find someone who couldn’t read was as rare as a comet. When tutors were hired, they were most often ministers and those that went to college, were instructed by ministers.
The first school in New England was the Boston Latin School. It was started in 1636 by Rev. John Cotton to provide education for those who were not able to receive it at home. The first common (public) schools were thoroughly Christian. In 1642, the General Court enacted legislation requiring each town to see that children were taught, especially "to read and understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of this country…"
As time went on private schools flourished more than common schools (especially as the Puritan influence in common schools decreased). The Christian community saw the private schools were more reliable. By 1720 Boston had far more private schools than public ones, and by the close of the American Revolution many towns had no common schools at all." There were no public schools in the Southern colonies until 1730 and only five by 1776.
History repeats itself, as today the issue of public schools versus private is a hot button. As far as home schooling goes, we are just returning to the days of old. Statistics show that home-schooled children are above average in SAT scores, and best of all, they can read.
Universities, Textbooks and Our Founders
Bill Maher, of Politically Incorrect, said, "America has never been a Christian nation." However, as we read about the founding of our universities and the first textbooks that were used in this country, we can not dispute our Christian foundation.
One hundred six of the first 108 colleges were started on the Christian faith. By the close of 1860, there were 246 colleges in America. Seventeen of these were state institutions; almost every other one was founded by Christian denominations or by individuals who avowed a religious purpose.
Harvard College, 1636 – An Original Rule of Harvard College: "Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life, (John 17:3), and therefore to lay Christ in the bottom, as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning."
William and Mary, 1691 – The College of William and Mary was started mainly due to the efforts of Rev. James Blair in order, according to its charter of 1691, "that the Church of Virginia may be furnished with a seminary of ministers of the gospel, and that the youth may be piously educated in good letters and manners, and that the Christian religion may be propagated among the Western Indians to the glory of Almighty God."
Yale University, 1701 – Yale University was started by congregational ministers in 1701, "for the liberal and religious education of suitable youth … to propagate in this wilderness, the blessed reformed Protestant religion…"
Princeton, 1746 – Associated with the Great Awakening, Princeton was founded by the Presbyterians in 1746. Rev. Jonathan Dickinson became its first president, declaring, "cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ."
University of Pennsylvania, 1751 – Ben Franklin had much to do with the beginning of the University of Pennsylvania. It was not started by a denomination, but its laws reflect its Christian character. Consider the first two Laws, relating to Moral Conduct (from 1801): "1. None of the students or scholars, belonging to this seminary, shall make use of any indecent or immoral language: whether it consist in immodest expressions; in cursing and swearing; or in exclamations which introduce the name of God, without reverence, and without necessity. 2. None of them shall, without a good and sufficient reason, be absent from school, or late in his attendance; more particularly at the time of prayers, and of the reading of the Holy Scriptures."
Some other colleges started before America’s Independence include: Columbia founded in 1754 (called King’s College up until 1784); Dartmouth, 1770; Brown started by the Baptists in 1764; Rutgers, 1766, by the Dutch Reformed Church; Washington and Lee, 1749; and Hampton-Sydney, 1776, by the Presbyterians.
It may surprise many to know that the Bible was truly the first textbook. The New Haven Code of 1655 required that children be made "able duly to read the Scriptures … and in some competent measure to understand the main grounds and principles of Christian Religion necessary to salvation."
a. The Bible was the central text – John Adams reflected the view of the of the founders in regard to the place of Bible in society when he wrote: "Suppose a nation in some distant region, should take the Bible for their only law-book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited!… What a Utopia; what a Paradise would this region be!" John Adams, Feb. 22, 1756.
b. Hornbooks – Hornbooks were brought to America, from Europe, by the colonists and were common from the 1500s to 1700s. A hornbook was a flat piece of wood with a handle, upon which a sheet of printed paper was attached and covered with transparent animal horn to protect it. A typical hornbook had the alphabet, the vowels, a list of syllables, the invocation of the Trinity, and the Lord’s Prayer.
c. Catechisms – There were over 500 different catechisms used in early education. Later, the Westminster Catechism became the prominent one.
d. The New England Primer – It was the most prominent schoolbook for about 100 years and was used through the 1800s. It sold over three million copies in 150 years.
e. Webster’s Blue-Backed Speller – First published in 1783, it sold over 100 million copies. It was one of the most influential textbooks and was based on "God’s Word."
f. The McGuffey Readers – Written by minister and university professor William Holmes McGuffey, the McGuffey Readers "represent the most significant force in the framing of our national morals and tastes" other than the Bible.
While there were many other textbooks (especially in the 1800s), the ones just mentioned were some of the most important.
Education in Religion was central to our Founders: Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote, "…the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this, there can be no virtue, and without virtue, there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments." The type of education that shaped our Founders character and ideas were thoroughly Christian. It imparted Christian character and produced honest, industrious, compassionate, respectful and law-abiding men. It imparted a Biblical world-view and produced people who were principled thinkers.v
About the author: "History of Education" is an excerpt from April Shenandoah’s book So…Help Me God!, an Inspired Letter/Book Addressed to President Clinton. Since serving as the Los Angeles press contact for Pat Robertson’s presidential campaign, Shenandoah has researched and gathered material pertinent to the "changing" world we live in. Her weekly column, Politics & Religion" appears in the Tolucan Times in Los Angeles and her political commentary is posted throughout the Internet. Shenandoah conducts Freedom Tea Party forums and wears the unofficial title Ambassador of Prayer. She sits on the board of the National Council for Bible Curriculum in Public Schools, headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, and ABC-Learn, Inc., in San Fernando, Calif.
[The Lion of Judah stands firmly on the King James Version of 1611. However, due to restrictions, we are unable to change from the original text]
AROUND 1981, US jazz critic Gene Lees warned: "Years ago, having caught the reference to drugs -- indeed, the exhortation to their use -- buried in a lot of rock lyrics, I wrote an article that, if this continues, the country would face a wave of drug use that would shake it to its foundations."
Around the same time, Kingsbury Smith, national editor of America’s Hearst newspaper empire, wrote: "What can parents expect ... as rock music advocates sadism, masochism, incest, necrophilia, homosexuality, bestiality, rape and violence in addition to the ever-present rebellion, drug abuse and promiscuity? The answer, for our civilisation, is stupefying."
This month the Queen, to universal shock, bestowed a knighthood on Mick Jagger. Formerly, Knighthoods were conferred in recognition of some outstanding accomplishment of special service to the national society. It should be emphasised that it is not the Queen who draws up the honours list; but the ruling party, in this case, New Labour. Jagger, apparently, was a boyhood hero of Tony Blair, which makes sense.
We should, then, not be surprised that he chooses to raise Jagger to the English Establishment. It perfectly demonstrates Blair’s own contempt for traditional British standards of culture, decency and probity, for its customs and history.
Whatever Jagger’s contribution to pop music (such as that may be) one would think that this truly awful creature’s association with drugs and his incessant womanising – seven children by four women that we know about, and still chasing girls young enough to be his granddaughters – would make him an unsuitable role model by any definition.
Almost two entire generations have now been immersed in rock’s barbarous, screeching, throbbing cacophony. The legacy we suffer must now be clear to all. All educated people in the West today know very well that the whole purpose of rock from the start was to negate established moral order and destroy tradition fundamental values: that it was (and is) a cultural battle ground of prime importance.
But it goes deeper than that. Inexplicably, the media has published almost nothing about the motives behind all this. The degenerative influence of Jagger, the Beatles and their like have represented one of the most manifest aspects of the West’s decline. The late Professor Alan Bloom once propounded the theory that rock "rots the brain." Jagger was one of the giants behind such mind-rotting and this was no accident.
In those early days many parents painted Jagger as "nothing but a long-haired, thick-lipped layabout." But I doubt Jagger was ever thick-headed. In his book, Up & Down With the Rolling Stones, Tony Sanchez, who spent some years with the Stones, was adamant that Jagger viewed rock as a key instrument of social change. That view was apparently kindled during his time as a student at the London School of Economics.
The LSE then – I don’t know what it’s like today – was a hotbed of student unrest, revolutionary Fabian socialism and anti-capitalism, of demands that the old order be overthrown and a new, "freer" society be brought in. The student slogan in January 1969 was a straight-forward "Kill the Bourgeoisie."
Jagger talked about Marx and Lenin. "Although he disagreed with their doctrines, he understood the fundamental wrongness of capitalism." Sanchez also states that Jagger became a "committed revolutionary after his conviction and three month sentence for narcotic possession."
He saw the Stones as the vanguard of an historical period of change. He leapt at the chance of joining the revolution when tens of thousands of angry young people stormed into Grosvenor Square to demonstrate their hatred of American imperialism and the Vietnam War.
"There should be no such thing as private property," declaimed the future multi-millionaire Jagger. "Anybody should be able to go where he likes and what he likes." To fan the flames of revolution, Jagger wrote Street Fighting Man which said, in part, "Now is the time for violent revolution."
Sanchez wrote: "Mick wasn’t playing at revolution. I realized then he genuinely wanted to see society overthrown, that he really felt a revolution coming; and he saw that rock music could do much to set the cultural climate for drugs, degradation and social irresponsibility." Parents who have seen their children on drugs and finally commit suicide or overdose would probably not disagree.
Very early on Jagger spelt it out very clearly. He said: "We are moving after the minds, and so are most of the groups." Another rock star, David Crosby, elaborated: "We are after the kids. I’m not talking about kidnapping. I am talking about changing their value systems, removing them from their parent’s world."
Jagger was not slow to put his philosophies to the test. The message he delivered to his young fans came in songs of homage to the antichrist, world government, atheism, socialism, violence and drugs. When Jagger found that Satanism sells records, he went deeper and deeper into it. He would appear as Satan and the Antichrist on stage and his Sympathy for the Devil and Dancing With Mr D (the devil) reflected his theology.
He later wrote the music for a projected film, glorifying the devil and to be called Lucifer Rising. This finally emerged as under the title Invocation to My Demon Brother. Along with Sympathy for the Devil came a controversial album whose jacket design called for a toilet, a roll of toilet paper, some select four-letter words on the wall and the title, God Rolls His Own. Jagger might have approved that. Decca did not. The album eventually appeared in a plain white jacket.
Jagger is famously gifted at creating audience hysteria, this done consciously and deliberately. During one U. S. concert the Stones performed the song, Sympathy for the Devil. Jagger’s Hells Angels "bodyguards" went on the rampage, with several in the audience severely injured, a couple killed. Jagger refused to go to court to help identify the murderers. Music for "moving after the minds," music for the instigation of violence...
Drug usage is a very real part of the rock world. There is no doubt that Jagger, his contemporaries, the Beatles, and many of their like set the stage for drugs. Here the Beatles got in a jump ahead of him, with their Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That started the revolution, a revolution now in full flower.
Describing a typical Rolling Stones concert, Sanchez said: "Drugs were everywhere. Jars of cocaine, uppers and downers." Jagger, he said, was snorting quantities of cocaine before every show. "He felt he couldn’t get up there to dance and scream without the high of the drug tearing through his body … the rocket fuel burst of a snort of cocaine."
A pamphlet issued some years ago by the U. S. Department of Health said: "The rock scene is permeated by the value and practices of the drug culture."
Don’t think that, for Jagger, the corruption of youth has not paid off. Though often referred to in the British media as "the stingiest man in Britain," the fact remains that today he is sitting on a fortune in excess of R2 billion. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that the name "Mick" rhymes with a word that describes the action of a pin.
As the London Daily Mail put it … all in all, Jagger has the perfect credentials for a Blair honour.
In 1980, Malcolm Muggeridge wrote, "In the cycle of a great civilization, the artist begins as a priest and ends as a clown or a buffoon." Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote: "The human soul longs for things higher, warmer and purer than that offered by today’s intolerable music."
Alas, Jagger has never seen likewise. As he himself remarked, "There is no such thing as a secure, family-oriented rock song." Don’t we know.v
–Aida Parker Newsletter
P O Box 91059
Auckland Park 2006, South Africa
By Thomas Williamson
3131 S Archer Avenue
Chicago IL 60608
ILLINOIS AND INDIANA MISSIONARY BAPTIST
Baptist Missionary Association of Illinois and Indiana (December 2001)
Over the years, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have distinguished themselves for setting dates for the Second Coming of Christ. None of these predictions have come true, but the JW denomination has managed to survive, and even thrive, in spite of its 100% failure rate in predicting Christ’s return.
THE 1914 COMING OF CHRIST. Originally, Christ was supposed to return in 1914. The Watchtower proclaimed in 1889 that "The ‘battle of the great day of God Almighty’ ... which will end in AD 1914 ... is already commenced."
In 1894 the Watchtower predicted that the "end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble." In 1904, the faithful were told that "The stress of the great time of trouble will be on us soon, somewhere between 1910 and 1912 – culminating … October 1914."
When Christ failed to return in 1914, the JW leadership explained that the Great War that had started that year in Europe was the Battle of Armageddon.
THE 1925 COMING OF ABRAHAM: MAJESTY Or TRAVESTY? Starting in 1917, the JW leaders began to proclaim that Christ would return in 1925. This teaching, and the excitement produced by the soon coming of the Lord, resulted in rapid numerical growth for the JW’s.
JW leader Judge Rutherford prepared an extravagant mansion in San Diego, California, called Beth Sarim, to provide housing for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who were expected to rise from the dead in 1925. As it turned out, Christ did not return that year, no Old Testament worthies showed up looking for a place to stay, and Judge Rutherford moved into Beth Sarim himself.
ARMAGEDDON DURING WORLD WAR II? In 1941, the JW’s believed that the end of the world would come in a matter of months. In view of the closeness of the Millennium, Judge Rutherford advised JW’s not to get married, saying, "Why, then, should a man who has the prospect before him of being of the great multitude now tie himself up to a stack of bones and hank of hair?"
JW’S ARE REQUIRED TO ACCEPT FALSE PROPHECIES WITHOUT QUESTION. In the 1954 Walsh court case, JW attorney H.G. Covington admitted under oath that it was the policy of the JW’s to require its membership to accept false predictions regarding the date of Christ’s return as a matter of faith:
Question: A false prophecy was promulgated;
Covington: I agree to that.
Question: It had to be accepted by Jehovah’s Witnesses?
Covington: That is correct.
Question: If a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses took the view himself that the prophecy was wrong and said so, he could be disfellowshipped?
Covington: Yes, if he said so and kept persisting in creating troubles, because if the whole organization believes one thing, even though it be erroneous, and somebody else starts on his own trying to put his ideas across, then there is disunity and trouble, there cannot be harmony, there cannot be marching … Our purpose is to have unity.
Question: Unity at all costs?
Covington: Unity at all costs.
Question: And unity based upon an enforced acceptance of false prophecy?
Covington: That is conceded to be true.
In the same court proceedings, JW Vice President Frederick Franz admitted that his members had been taught "error."
Question: So that what is published as the truth today by the Society may have to be admitted to be wrong in a few years?
Franz: We have to wait and see.
Question: And in the meantime the body of Jehovah’s Witnesses have been following error?
Franz: No. They have been following misconstructions of the Scriptures.
Question: Error?
Franz: Well, error.
Franz’ amazing public admission that the JW’s were forcing their followers to adhere to error did not hinder him from succeeding to the Presidency of the JW denomination in 1977.
THE 1975 COMING OF CHRIST. The lure of building up membership by making sensational prophetic predictions proved too strong for the JW leadership to resist, and in 1966, the JW’s started to teach that Christ would return in 1975. Sure enough, this teaching resulted in massive membership gains for the JW’s during the period from 1968-1975.
At first the 1975 date was only suggested as a probable date, but many faithful JW’s took it as a certainty that Christ would return in 1975. Awake magazine on October 8, 1968, printed a chart showing "6000 Years of Human History Ending in 1975."
The 1975 date was based on the assumption that the Creation had occurred in 4026 B. C. and that Christ would return 6000 years after Creation. This is an ancient tradition that goes back to the early Church Fathers, and that has been borrowed by various evangelical groups over the years.
There are 2 big problems with the tradition that Christ will return 6000 years after Creation:
1. The Bible does not teach or hint of any such doctrine.
2. We cannot count 6000 years from the date of Creation, because we do not know that date. Young-earth creationists have proposed hundreds of conflicting dates. According to most of these dates, the world is already over 6000 years old. The JW’s adopted an official Creation date of 4026 B. C., but this date was disputed even within JW circles.
Meanwhile, the JW "Kingdom Ministry" magazine in 1974 gushed approvingly that "reports were heard of brothers selling their homes and property and planning to finish out the rest of their days in this old system in the pioneer service. Certainly this is a fine way to spend the short time remaining before the wicked world’s end."
When Christ failed to return in 1975, many JW’s grumbled about the failed prediction, and some left the JW organization or were booted out. After a slight dip in membership, the JW’s soon began to add members again, as the false 1975 prediction was forgotten. Many newer JW converts are totally unaware of the false prophecy that Christ would come in 1975.
ARMAGEDDON ALWAYS AROUND THE CORNER. Since the 1975 embarrassment, the JW leadership has for the most part avoided specific date-setting, although there was some speculation about a 1984 return for Christ.
However, JW’s have been kept in a high state of expectation that the world is just about to come to an end. JW’s are discouraged from voting or taking part in any political or social activity for the improvement of society, since they believe that everything is going to be destroyed any day now.
This belief in the imminent end of the current world-system, and of the collapse of all Christian denominations other than the JW’s, is appealing to many people who prefer not to face up to the future. However, in the light of the lengthy trail of broken promises and failed prophecies that has characterized the JW movement from the beginning, the JW vision of "Armageddon Now" must be rejected as a delusion.
Dr. David C. Bennett, Editor (DCB)
P O Box 1241, Dubbo, NSW 2830
Phone/Fax (02) 6884-2846
Email: bennettatdubbo@aol.com www.westernplainsbaptist.com
Purpose: To inform and warn God’s people of religious, social, and political events in today’s world.
Anglican Communion News Service (ACNS hereafter) 3020 – Australia – 12 June 2002 – Rowan Williams On Prayer, Life Today and September 11 (Edited by DCB).
This is quite lengthy but informative, and worth reading. "On his recent visit to Melbourne, Dr. Rowan Williams, the Primate of Wales and possible successor to Dr. George Carey as Archbishop of Canterbury" "was interviewed for The Melbourne Anglican by Roland Ashby."
Q: "Can you give some idea of your typical day and how you approach prayer in your busy life? How do you integrate a life of prayer and contemplation into that?"
A: "Normally in the morning ... what I try to do is to take about half an hour to say the Jesus Prayer which is what I use most regularly, the orthodox form of prayer. That is simply repeating ‘O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner,’ using the prayer rope that eastern monks use. Then when my chaplain arrives, we say Morning Prayer together."
Q: "Is the prayer rope something like rosary beads?"
A: "Yes. There are a hundred knots on the rope and you simply say the Jesus Prayer once for each knot. And there are various ways of punctuating it — you could pause at 25 and say the Gloria or something like that, which is what I normally do. By repeating the Jesus Prayer the mind is stilled and the heart beat and the breath slow down, and you become more present to the place you are in. It’s really an anchorage in time."
Q: "Is there a sense in which you become aware of the presence of the Spirit?"
A: "It’s very hard to answer that. I think you can only say there can be an awareness of a presence. The way I most often express it is that there comes a level of prayer where it is no longer a question of, ‘Are you seeing something?’ Rather, ‘Are you aware of being seen?’ If you like, sitting in the light and of just being and becoming aware of who you really are. By this we simply become what we are and just sit there being a creature in the hand of God."
Q: "Who have been some of the key influences in your spiritual and contemplative formation? You have written extensively on St. John of the Cross.
A: "With St. John of the Cross, I think what went deep was precisely an understanding of prayer as more than feelings. He was simply one of the people who always made sense whenever I picked him up, and two modern interpreters of St. John of the Cross have also helped. One was John Chapman, another Abbot of Downside, whose spiritual letters I think were probably the single most influential book for me in my twenties, and still are to some extent. The other one is an English Carmelite nun called Ruth Burrows, who in the seventies published a number of short books on the Carmelite tradition, including one called Guidelines to Mystical Prayer which for me made the same kind of sense as Abbot Chapman."
Q: "How do you see yourself in relation to the reformed and evangelical side of our tradition?"
A: "It is something that I think became very important to me at one or two points when I needed it as a kind of corrective to what can be a slightly precious and elitist anglo-Catholicism. Sometimes you just need to sing Blessed Assurance and hit a tambourine. You just need to know that there is something profoundly simple about what an evangelical would rightly call a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and that nothing substitutes for that. Particularly in the last ten years, having more and more contact with charismatic renewal in Wales, I find it’s a liberation. I’ve got some questions of course, some reservations, but again it is a real freeing of the Spirit."v
DCB’s comment: Religious gobbledygook!
Friday Church News Notes, May 10, 2002, (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P O Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, (866) 295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) -- A recent survey of church members in Australia found that only one-fourth "believe God created the world in six days and that the anti-christ is coming." As those are very basic teachings of the Bible, this means that perhaps a whopping three-fourths of Australians church members are unbelievers. This further means that most pastors in Australia are apostate, because they are responsible for such gross unbelief. The large survey involved 435,000 Australians from 19 denominations. "Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8).