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"Take
Heed" Ministries
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Cecil Andrews, PO BOX 13, Ballynahinch, BT24 8AL, Northern Ireland. Telephone/Fax 028 9756 5511. E-MAIL - takeheed@aol.com WEB-SITE - http://www.takeheed.net |
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Operation Mobilisation purge
MV Doulos of ‘Passion’ books promoting Roman Catholicism |
On 21 May I posted an
article after I received a phone call from a very concerned Christian lady who
had visited the MV Doulos [one of 2 ships that form O. M’s floating ‘book
ministry’ fleet] that is currently visiting
100 Questions About
and when she asked how much
it would cost she was told that it was ‘free’ and she was given a copy. She
subsequently rang me to express her horror at what was contained in the book.
For
those who don’t know, this book is produced by an organisation called ‘Catholic
Exchange’ and its purpose is to explain
the Roman Catholic dimension and teachings depicted in Mel Gibson’s movie ‘The
Passion of The Christ’. It’s aim and
purpose is to promote the religion of Roman Catholicism. Let me quote a few
sections from the ‘Introduction’ that was written by Tom Allen, Editor and President of Catholic
Exchange. Mr Allen wrote –
‘As someone involved in the distribution and marketing of the film, I
noticed early on the fervour with which many Protestant communities were
preparing to use the film for evangelistic purposes…the irony is that our Protestant
brothers and sisters cannot adequately speak to many of the issues and
questions the film evokes because the film is so distinctly Marian, so
obviously eucharistic, so quintessentially Catholic…can their theology
adequately or honestly mine such cinematic gems as the Last Supper flashbacks?’
To
understand this reference to ‘Last Supper flashbacks’ let me quote question
83 that reads – ‘Why does the movie show a flashback to the Last Supper
during the crucifixion?’ Part of the answer reads as follows
‘He [Jesus]
required that this new ritual be practiced in memory of Him. We know this
today as the Eucharist or Holy Communion…The once-and-for-all sacrifice of His
body on the cross is represented tangibly on earth by the sacrifice on the
altar, the bread and the wine that become His Body and Blood…The Son of God
– the spotless, sinless Lamb – has become the sacrifice. Consuming the Passover
meal in its new form – the Eucharist – is made the requirement to
have life within you’
The
‘flashback’ is inserted to teach that The Mass is the perpetuation of
Christ’s Calvary Sacrifice and in The Mass the bread and wine of ‘the
sacrifice on the altar’ are miraculously transubstantiated into ‘His [Christ’s]
body and blood’. Tom Allen wrote in his ‘Introduction’ –
‘The film quite accurately links the sacrifice of the
cross with the sacrifice of the Mass. In doing so, it faithfully depicts
biblical and Catholic teaching’.
Well,
the film certainly ‘accurately depicts Catholic teaching’ in this area
but such teaching is most definitely not ‘biblical’. It is
totally foreign to the meaning of Scripture and repugnant to the Son of God who
triumphantly declared on the cross that His once-and-for-all sacrifice of
Himself was FINISHED!
Why
was this book written – Tom Allen answered that in his ‘Introduction’
when he wrote –
‘the Eucharistic connections between the Passion and
the Mass are not obvious to many Catholics today…so many people have not
received an education in the Faith [Roman Catholicism] that equips them to see those
connections, which are quite real and are, in fact, delineated for us in the
teaching of the Church [Roman Catholic]. Therefore we at Catholic
Exchange see a need for this book to provide…a full understanding of authentic
Christianity [Roman Catholicism]’
Dear Mr Andrews,
Let me introduce myself. My name is Dennie Capell and I am the book fair manager on board the MV
Doulos. Thank you very much for your letter expressing your
concern. Sadly, your information is correct and we did start giving away
the booklets you are talking about. I am not totally sure of where they
came from but all I can assume is that they were brought on board by someone
and given to one of my leaders who, in good faith, was offering them to
visitors. Once I noticed these booklets [after] several hours, they were
immediately removed and have now been disposed of. My calculation is that only
a small number of booklets were
distributed during this time.
I would welcome your visit to the ship as I am sure you know that we are here
until the 31st of May and if you do come, please feel free to contact me.
Yours sincerely
Dennie Capell
Book Fair Manager - MV Doulos
Let me at once
say that the swift action taken by Dennie Capell to remove these ‘Passion
Guide’ books is very much welcomed and to be commended. However, this incident has once again
brought into focus OM’s past links with ‘things ecumenical and Roman’ – links
that were highlighted in the following articles published in our New Year &
March 2003 editions of NEWS FROM THE FRONT that stated the following
[March 2003 newsletter article ]
‘OPERATION
MOBILISATION’ [OM] AND
THE ‘ALL INDIA
CHRISTIAN COUNCIL’ [AICC]
On pages
14-15 of my ‘New Year 2003’ newsletter I drew attention to the questionable
‘Christian’ books distributed by STL who claimed that the views of
authors like ‘Mother’ Teresa, ‘Father’ Henri Nouwen and ‘Cardinal’
Basil Hume [all now deceased] were ‘in full agreement with the
OPERATION MOBILISATION statement of faith’.
This is what I wrote in that ‘New Year 2003’
newsletter –
Many other
so-called ‘evangelicals’ such as Philip Yancey and Brennan
Manning are mentioned in ‘A Time Of Departing’ as is the late ‘Father’
Henri Nouwen whose books are found in ‘Christian’
bookstores and whose books are supplied by STL [Send
The Light] – the book publishing company that states in its ‘Stock
Policy’ – ‘STL is a distribution organisation for Christian products operating
on biblical principles and IN FULL AGREEMENT WITH THE OPERATION MOBILISATION
statement of faith’. Other ‘Christian’ authors listed in
the STL catalogue include the late ‘Cardinal’ Basil Hume,
the late ‘Mother’ Teresa, USA ‘convert’ to Roman
Catholicism Scott Hahn, the heretic Benny Hinn, Richard
Holloway who according to The Guardian [G2 supplement of 18 August 1999
published during his tenure as Scottish Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh]
reportedly ‘didn’t
have any hang-ups about young people experimenting with casual sex or soft
drugs’,
stated in relation to the Bible that ‘obviously it is not meant
to be taken literally’ and gave his view on Jesus as follows – ‘He was a sacred person. He
had an encounter with the transcendent meaning we call God…My own preaching of
the resurrection is evolving. I preach it as symbol, not necessarily as a brute
physical fact. I’m agnostic on that’. Other ‘Christian’ authors
listed include Ken Gott and Claudio Freidzon who
played significant roles in the ‘Toronto Blessing’ debacle and
finally Richard Foster whose dangerous and unscriptural teaching
is identified in ‘A Time Of Departing’. Are the published views
of all these so-called ‘Christian’ authors ‘IN FULL
AGREEMENT WITH THE OPERATION MOBILISATION statement of faith’ as
STL claim? If so, should
evangelical Christians really continue to support OPERATION MOBILISATION?
[March 2003 newsletter article continued]
I recently
received a copy of an ‘appeal leaflet’ issued by OM entitled ‘INDIA
APPEAL’. On the leaflet it stated “Through the recent happenings
amongst the Dalit people in India, God has provided the biggest open door since
the Reformation happened in Europe” and this statement is credited to Joseph
D’Souza: Executive Director OM India. Later in the leaflet we read, “As
part of an initiative by the All India Christian Council, OM India is setting
up Dalit Education Centres’. An examination of the web site of the ‘All
India Christian Council’ revealed the following information
The AICC
is built around 2 commitments – The commitment to the unique person of the Lord
Jesus Christ and his compassion to a needy humanity and the commitment to
secular, pluralistic and democratic India…the
AICC is fully committed to the Church's mission of demonstrating the love of
Christ in society through Word and deed.
I think it’s interesting to note
that these commitments are directed at ‘social’ and
‘political’ activity rather than at ‘spiritual’ activity. There
is no formal commitment to ‘proclaiming the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ’
– could it be that there are parties involved in the AICC who
would not be agreed as to what constitutes ’the gospel’? Well, from the
web site we learn who is President of the AICC – ‘Dr. Joseph D'Souza,
president of the All India Christian Council’ [who as we have already seen is stated on the
‘appeal leaflet’ to be Executive
Director OM India] and we also learn who is the Secretary General of
the AICC – ‘the fact-finding report authored by AICC
secretary general John Dayal who is also the spokesman for the ALL INDIA CATHOLIC
UNION’. An example of AICC ‘commitment’ reads as follows
– ‘Expressing concern at Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi…The Christian Council takes particular exception
to his uncalled for attack on Pope
John Paul II, spiritual head of the worldwide
Catholic community’. I spoke by phone to faithful believers in
India who confirmed large ecumenical compromise by OM.
Despite
this apparent distancing from the Roman Catholic church, OM still saw fit to
include in a “Fuel Appeal ‘97” leaflet, that contained a personal
message from George Verwer, a photograph of 2 men [one in naval uniform] along
with ‘Mother Teresa and the caption below the photograph stated “‘Mother’
Teresa welcomes Doulos crew to Calcutta”.
Today [26 May 2004] I drove
up to Londonderry and spent almost 2 hours browsing through the bookshop on the
MV Doulos. There are certainly a number of doctrinally sound authors and books
on sale but sadly the majority of books would reflect the charismatic,
doctrinally unsound age that we are living in.
The pseudo-evangelicals and
ecumenists, Max Lucado and Charles Colson were well represented on the shelves
as were Billy Graham, Philip Yancey, George Carey, James Dobson, C S Lewis and
many others of similar ilk. Many books by the ‘face’ of ALPHA, Nicky Gumbel,
were on sale as were books by the ‘user-friendly’ mega-church promoters Bill
Hybels and Rick Warren.
There
were books on sale by those actively involved in and promoters of the so-called
‘Toronto Blessing’ such as John Arnott [Pastor of the Airport Vineyard Church
where the so-called ‘blessing’ manifested itself] and Guy Chevreau whose book
‘Share The Fire’ [referring to events at Toronto] was on sale. The unscriptural
‘Prayer of Jabez’ was available as was a book by Richard Harries, the
creation-denying Bishop of Oxford.
Whilst
there were books defending the truth of God’s creation as found in Genesis I
was able to buy ‘In The Beginning – A New reading of the Book of Genesis’ written
by former nun but now lecturer and regular broadcaster, Karen Armstrong.
On
pages 18-19 in a chapter entitled ‘Fact of Fiction’? we read the following – ‘The first chapter
of Genesis therefore was not intended to be a historical account of the
beginning of life but a meditation upon the nature of being itself…There were
obviously no eyewitnesses to God’s creative activity…Some Jews and
Christians…have insisted that God himself dictated the text to Moses. Yet the
editors of the Bible did not seem concerned with the literal viability of the
creation account since they placed immediately after it an earlier story which
contradicts…in several significant respects…by presenting us at the outset with
two obviously conflicting creation stories the editors were demonstrating the
basic religious principle that no one human account can ever comprise the whole
of divine truth’.
COMMENT
[1] Both The
Lord Jesus in Luke 24:27 and also Abraham [in an incident related by the Lord
Jesus] in Luke 16:29 place absolute reliability in the inspired Scriptures
penned by Moses.
[2] The psalmist David writes in Psalm 103:7 “He
[The Lord] made known his ways unto Moses” – C H Spurgeon, commenting on this
verse wrote, ‘To him [Moses] the Lord gave specially clear manifestations of
his dispensations and modes of ruling among mankind, granting to him to see
more of God than had before been seen by mortal man, while he communed with him
upon the mount’.
[3] These arguments of Karen Armstrong have a very
familiar ‘ring’ to them as they parallel arguments used by the Pastor referred
to in my June 2003 newsletter article entitled “Partial” Agreement to
“Plenary” Inspiration. I wonder did that Pastor ever read this book and use
it as a source for his ‘sermon’.
The printed endorsements on
the back cover of this book, referring to other books written by Karen
Armstrong really speak volumes about her reliability –
‘A brilliantly lucid,
splendidly readable book’ – Sister
Wendy Beckett on ‘A History of God’
‘Strongly worded and
fascinating’ – The Times on ‘The
Gospel According to Woman’.
1. Doubleday Bible
Commentary on 1 Corinthians by JEROME MURPHY-O’CONNOR. On the back cover we read ‘FATHER Jerome Murphy O’Connor has been teaching New
Testament at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem since 1967. On the following web
site [http://ebaf.op.org/wsw/en/connor.html] it states – ‘Jerome MURPHY O'CONNOR - Born in Cork, Ireland, on 10 April 1935. After
primary and secondary education at Christian Brothers College, Cork, and
Castleknock College, Dublin, entered the Irish Province of the Dominican Order
in September 1953, and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on 10 July 1960’.
2. ‘Anne Maguire – Why Me – One woman’s
Fight For Justice and Dignity’.
On the back cover we read
this about the book ‘As she spends her first days in Durham high security
prison, she knows a terrible mistake has been made and cries herself to sleep
every night. Other prisoners and warders are kind to her and her strong
Christian faith sustains her’. The true nature of her ‘Christian
faith’ is evident through the identity of following endorsement also found
on the back cover - ‘this book will make a profound impression on
readers…Anne Maguire was caught up in a terrible situation not of her making, accused
unjustly of a crime she never committed…she is a very exceptional woman whom it
has been a privilege to know’. This endorsement was written by the late
Cardinal Basil Hume, former head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and
Wales, whose help along with that of many other Roman Catholic priests is
acknowledged by Anne Maguire in the preface.
3. Doubleday Bible
Commentary – Genesis by Henry Wansborough On the back cover we read the following – ‘HENRY
WANSBOROUGH O. S. B. is Master of St Benet’s Hall in Oxford, England where he
lives. In 1996 Pope John Paul 11 nominated him to join the prestigious
Pontifical Biblical Commission, made up of twenty select international
scholars.
Just in passing, in
relation to creation, Mr Wansborough wrote this on pages 2-3 ‘The story is
attempting to represent not the order in which things happened but their
scientific structure. Sun and moon are not created until the fourth day and it
is hard to envisage what can be meant by a day without sun and moon. The gap
between the creation of light and darkness on the first day and the sun and
moon on the fourth is also odd’.
The purging of ‘The Guide To The Passion’ from MV
Doulos was very welcome but there still remains much ‘spring-cleaning’ to be
done!