Cave of Adullam
Mutterings on the Regnant Follies
The Editors
Three Cheers for the New World Order
Normally we don't comment on breaking news stories because they are dated by the
time our magazine appears. Still, it looks as though the story in Bosnia is going
to be pretty much the same for the next twenty years, so it may be safe to comment
on the situation there.
The United States, NATO, the UN, and assorted European countries have all banded
together to do a nostalgic dance in the former Yugoslavia. They put the left
foot in, they take the left foot out, they do the Hokey Pokey, and they turn
themselves about.
Welcome to the Hotel Cambodiana
An alert reader e-mailed us an AP report on the trials and tribulations of one
Mike Evans in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and we quote. "A Texas evangelist fled Cambodia
today after a mob angry over his failure to perform faith-healing miracles rioted
outside his hotel . . . Only the arrival of 20 armed police on Friday night kept
the more than 100 violent protesters from storming the luxury Hotel Cambodiana
. . . " Seems that the crusade had advertised his coming with the modest promise"Blind
eyes will open, the paralyzed will walk." But then things didn't work out somehow.
The problem is not that we had this riot in Cambodia. The wonder is that we
haven't had them in Oklahoma.
Government Aid for AIDS
Wake-Up Call America let us know about a small but noisy contingent of scientists
who are maintaining that the entire war on AIDS is misdirected, misdefined, and
misinformed. "U.S. government AIDS programs are now receiving $6 billion per year
and are based entirely upon the hypothesis that the HIV virus causes AIDS." The
problem is that attempts to cause AIDS experimentally with HIV have failed completely,
there are thousands of AIDS victims who do not have the HIV virus, and the virus
itself shows none of the classical characteristics of a disease-producing organism.
It sounds to us like HIV actually causes well-funded research grants.
We Didn't Get the Joke
In a recent Chalcedon Report , Andrew Sandlin reports on the "laughing revival" that
is sweeping certain sections of the Canadian and American charismatic churches.
Led by Rodney Howard-Browne, the revival was described (glowingly) in the August
issue of Charisma magazine. Howard-Browne said, "You can't understand what God
is doing in these meetings with an analytical mind . . . The only way you're going
to understand what God is doing is with your heart." As Charisma described it,
"Many people lie on the floor giggling, sometimes for hours, after he has touched
them on the forehead." Howard-Browne identifies himself as "a Holy Ghost bartender," and
is apparently quite a gifted dispenser of celestial hooch.
And if this keeps up and spreads, it will probably lead to a laughing revival
among non-Christians as well.
Okay
National Review reports that at the twenty California State University campuses,
"out-of-state students who are U.S. citizens pay $7,380 in annual tution. Illegal
immigrants pay $1,584."
But as the system demonstrates, non-Californian Americans are the real aliens.
So why shouldn't they pay more?
Just Say No to Drugs
In a recent cover story, Life magazine asked this question about Jesus"Who Was
He?" In the best democratic tradition, they asked a whole bunch of people, who
said a whole bunch of things. One of them, given space by Life for some reason,
was Barbara Thiering. She said, "It's in the scrolls if you really study the codes.
It was not a resurrection. He was put on the cross. Those within his own party,
trying to help him commit suicide, gave him poisonthe sponge dipped in vinegar.
He was unconscious but not dead. His side was pierced, blood came out. A dead
body does not bleed, so his followers knew he was not dead. He put him in the
cave. He lived until his seventies, and it was heJesus acting behind Paulwho
led their party out of Judaism and to Rome. He married Mary Magdalen and had
four children."
We would like to ask our non-Christian readers to consider how much faith it
requires not to believe in the resurrection.
Oh So Modern
The well-respected, conservative evangelical scholar Alister McGrath recently
nodded off when reviewing the new Roman Catholic Catechism in the pages of Christianity
Today, when he began this important task by objecting to the catechism's lack
of female pronouns: "The problem is that the catechism uses the term 'men' generically
to denote humankind. . . . [I]t could be expressed just as well by replacing
'men' with 'men and women.' It would no doubt be reassuring to the catechism's female
readers to know that they, too, can be saved."
Now maybe Alister can help the God of Scripture get over the same hang-up.
We'll side with Rome on pronouns!
Not a Prayer
The first big push in the new conservative Congress will apparently be to restore
the socialist government schools through school prayer, and we are just beside
ourselves! The editors of Credenda regret to say that our patience with the
new Republican majority is exhausted.
Credenda/Agenda Vol. 7, No. 1
