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"Take
Heed" Ministries
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Cecil Andrews, 29 Edengrove Park, Ballynahinch, BT24 8AZ, Northern Ireland Telephone/Fax 028 9756 5511. E-MAIL - takeheed@aol.com WEBSITE - http://www.takeheed.net Quick Links - Home - Assorted Articles - Audio/Video - Ministry Newsletters - Words of Wisdom |
June 2009
"Be not afraid or dismayed by reason of this great multitude for the battle is not yours but God's" (2nd Chronicles 20v15)
I mentioned in my last newsletter how the BBC was ‘singing
the praises’ of Charles Darwin and his [still] theory of Evolution. I happened
to catch coverage of a March debate in the House of Lords the aim of which was also
to extol the praises and merits of
CECIL ANDREWS
Page 2: Gearóid Marley
conference report: Standing for Creation.
Page 3: The Cruelties of Atheism:
Pages 4-5: President Obama – Missing The Point.
Pages 6-13: The nature of Islam by Magdi Allam. Page 14:
Mark Driscoll & MANDATE. Pages 15-16: ‘Saints’ of God or
The Pope?
I am pleased to report that the
Lord richly blessed this conference on Saturday morning 18th April.
There was a very good attendance and our guest speaker, Gearóid
Marley, spoke well of the Saviour in the two sessions. The
first session dealt with his conversion by and to Christ, a spiritual journey
that began when he started to read the Bible whilst studying for the Roman
Catholic priesthood at Maynooth Seminary in
On
In my covering letter on page 1 I
wrote ‘Evolution has also been a “godsend” to outright atheists’ and the
stark reality is that we live in a society that is more and more
governed/influenced by people [just think of the stories of
sleaze and corruption emerging regularly from the British Parliament at
Westminster and the obscene pranks of over-rated and overpaid so-called media
“stars”] whom Paul referred to in Romans 1:28 in these
terms “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God
gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not
convenient”. Vine’s expository dictionary says this about “reprobate” –
‘a mind of which God cannot approve and which must be rejected by Him, the
effect of refusing “to have God in their knowledge”’. Such people God “gives
over” [a bit like letting a dog off the leash] to do
things that are not “convenient” [‘seemly’ or ‘befitting civilised
behaviour’] – we find illustrations of what God gives such people over
to in Romans 1: - verse 24 “to uncleanness through the lusts of their own
hearts” – verse 26 “unto vile affections”.
Earlier this year whilst we were
attending a church anniversary service in Dundalk Baptist Church, Margaret
obtained a copy of a short A5-sized booklet
[16 pages] by Dr Peter Masters of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in
London called ‘The Cruelties of Atheism’. Although written back in 1993
it still has total application for today’s generation and I want to quote some
relevant extracts from it –
I understand from the Tabernacle Bookshop in London that this little booklet is unfortunately currently out of print but that it may be reprinted– if so I would certainly encourage readers to obtain a copy.
President Obama – ‘Missing
the point’ on Islam
On 6th April 2009 whilst visiting the overwhelmingly Muslim country of Turkey, President Obama in a speech said ‘The USA is not at war with Islam’. For an evidently intelligent man Barack Obama has sadly ‘missed the point’ – the point is that Islam is at war with the USA and indeed with the whole of the non-Muslim world. In response to this declaration, one American commentator wrote –
‘Mr. President, first and foremost, you made a fool out of
yourself again. Your ill-advised cosiness with the Muslim nations will bring
down our nation faster than any foreign enemy. America has never been at war
with Islam. On the contrary, it is Islam that has waged a war with the infidels
and wants to conquer the world. Below are some quotes from Islamists and
academic or educational sources:
[4]
“Islam is a revolutionary doctrine and
system that overturns governments. It seeks to overturn the whole universal
social order...and establish its structure anew...Islam seeks the world. It is
not satisfied by a piece of land but demands the whole universe...Islamic Jihad
is at the same time offensive and defensive...The Islamic party does not
hesitate to utilize the means of war to implement its goal.” (Quoted by Yvonne
Haddad, "Islamists and the Challenge of Pluralism," Washington, D.C.:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, 1995, p. 10.)
“Islam wants the whole earth and does not
content itself with only a part thereof. It wants and requires the entire
inhabited world. It does not want this in order that one nation dominates the
earth and monopolizes its sources of wealth, after having taken them away from
one or more other nations. No, Islam wants and requires the earth in order that
the human race altogether can enjoy the concept and practical program of human
happiness, by means of which Allah has honoured Islam and put it above the
other religions and laws. In order to realize this lofty desire, Islam wants to
employ all forces and means that can be employed for bringing about a universal
all-embracing revolution. It will spare no efforts for the achievement of this
supreme objective. This far-reaching struggle that continuously exhausts all
forces and this employment of all possible means are called jihad.” (Quoted by Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam,
Marcus Wiener Publishers, Princeton, N.J., p. 128).
The Arabs who sallied out of the Arabian deserts did not
fan out to the outside world with the Quran in one hand and flowers in the
other, preaching love and peace from street corner to street corner, thereby
capturing the hearts and minds of the people. Islam was forced upon every
people at the point of the sword and the imposition of backbreaking Jazyyeh
(special taxes) levied on those who were spared death and allowed to retain
their religious beliefs. In spite of paying heavy Jazyyeh, the non-Muslims were
treated, at best, as second-class citizens in their own homelands… Mr.
President, fourteen hundred years of Islamic terrorism is far too long for any
people.’
In December 2006 I posted an article to our ministry website entitled –
‘WWIII is raging – has anybody
noticed?’ and in it I wrote – ‘What appears to be totally missed
in this present 21st century day and age is that a third [WWIII] world war has been ongoing for
some time but those politicians charged with the responsibility of protecting
the lives of the citizens of ‘the free world’ appear to have totally misread
the reality of who and what it is that is seeking to destroy their democratic
and, for the most part, their Judeo-Christian way of life.’ Sadly Mr
Obama appears likewise to have missed this very obvious point. [5]
The intrinsic nature of Islam
by former Muslim, Magdi Allam.
On Monday 12th March 2007 I gave a
talk to an assembled meeting of Presbyterian Ruling Elders from various
congregations in Co Antrim in Northern Ireland. I chose to speak to them on the
subject of ‘Islam’ as of course the Islamic presence in Northern Ireland
is growing steadily. In November 2008 I was once more in the company of one of
the elders who had organised the invitation for me to speak and he told me that
in the wake of my talk he had received a phone call from a female ‘ruling
elder’ that had been in attendance at the meeting. She wanted to express her
concern at the approach I had taken in my talk and felt that I was suffering
from and promoting Islamophobia.
Perhaps she based her judgment on
a view that I both hold and express to this effect – ‘Any religion that
sanctions and uses violence to promote and spread its power and influence
should be severely curtailed by legislation’.
Leaving aside this lady’s obvious
lack of Biblical knowledge and understanding as evidenced by her occupying a
role [‘ruling elder’] that God’s Word makes abundantly
clear is reserved for suitable men only she obviously has a similar lack of
knowledge and understanding on the ‘intrinsic’ [According
to ‘The Handy Dictionary’ this means ‘inherent, essential, real, genuine’] nature of
the religion of Islam. This ‘intrinsic nature’ has been clearly revealed and
expressed by a former Muslim-born journalist called Magdi Allam.
I first became aware of Magdi
Allam around Easter 2008 when it was reported by the Roman Catholic ZENIT news
agency [Sunday 23rd March 2008] that on
Saturday 22nd March 2008 he had been baptised into the Roman
Catholic Church by no less a person than Pope Benedict XVI himself.
That report included details of a
letter that Magdi Allam had written to the Director of an Italian newspaper
called Corriere della Sera of
which Magdi Allam was a deputy director. Herewith are some revealing and
informative extracts from that letter
Dear
Director,
[6]
That
which I am about to relate to you concerns my choice of religious faith and
personal life…Yesterday evening I converted to the Christian Catholic religion,
renouncing my previous Islamic faith…I am especially grateful to his holiness
Pope Benedict XVI, who imparted the sacraments of Christian initiation to me,
baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, in the Basilica of St. Peter’s during the
course of the solemn celebration of the Easter Vigil. And I took the simplest
and most explicit Christian name: “Cristiano.” Since yesterday evening
therefore my name is Magdi Cristiano Allam…
At
almost 56 […], it is a historical, exceptional and unforgettable event, which
marks a radical and definitive turn with respect to the past… My conversion to
Catholicism is the touching down of a gradual and profound interior meditation
from which I could not pull myself away, given that for five
years I have been confined to a life under guard, with permanent surveillance
at home and a police escort for my every movement, because of death threats and
death sentences from Islamic extremists and terrorists,
both those in and outside of Italy.
I
had to ask myself about the attitude of those who publicly declared fatwas,
Islamic juridical verdicts, against me…I asked myself how it was
possible that those who, like me, sincerely and boldly called for a “moderate
Islam…ended up being sentenced to death in the name of Islam on the basis of
the Quran. I was forced to see that…the root of evil is inherent in an Islam
that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive…
Mine
was a journey that began when at four years old, my mother Safeya -- a
believing and practicing Muslim…entrusted me to the loving care of Sister
Lavinia of the Comboni Missionary Sisters… The long years at school allowed me
to know Catholicism well… and I was especially fascinated by the human and
divine figure of Jesus… on my arrival in Italy at the beginning of the 1970s… I
went through a period of atheism… conversion to Christianity will certainly
procure for me yet another, and much more grave, death sentence for apostasy…
but I face my destiny with my head held high… I say that it is time to put
an end to the abuse and the violence of Muslims who do not respect the freedom
of religious choice. In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who
live their new faith in peace. But there are also thousands of Muslim converts
to Christianity who are forced to hide their faith out of fear of being
assassinated by Islamic extremists who lurk among us… let us go forward on the
way of truth, of life and of freedom…
Magdi Allam
[7]
The Asia Times carried
a report of these events in their issue of 26th March 2008 and
herewith are some extracts from that report –
‘A self-described revolution in world
affairs has begun in the heart of one man. He is the Italian journalist and
author Magdi Cristiano Allam, whom Pope Benedict XVI baptized during the Easter
Vigil at St Peter's. Allam's renunciation of Islam as a religion of violence
and his embrace of Christianity denotes the point at which the so-called global
"war on terror" becomes a divergence of two irreconcilable modes of
life: the Western way of faith supported by reason, against the Muslim world of
fatalism and submission… Magdi Allam tells us
that he has found the true God and forsaken an Islam that he regards as
inherently violent… For years he was the exemplar of "moderate Islam"
in Europe, and now he has decided that Islam cannot be "moderate"…
Since September 2001, the would-be wizards of Western
strategy have tried to conjure an "Islamic reformation", or a
"moderate Islam", or "Islamic democracy". None of this
matters now, for as Magdi Allam tells us, the matter on the agenda is not to
persuade Muslims to act like liberal Westerners, but instead to convince them
to cease to be Muslims… There is no deference to mutual respect and
multi-culturalism. Magdi Allam forsook Islam because he considers it to be
"inherently evil"… “I was forced to see that… the root
of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and
historically conflictive… For my part, I say that it is time to put an end to the
abuse and the violence of Muslims who do not respect the freedom of religious
choice”… the global
agenda has changed, not through the machinations of statesmen or the
word-mincing of public intellectuals, but through the soul of a single man’.
It would be interesting to know if
the female ‘ruling elder’ who criticised me of suffering from and promoting
Islamophobia would level the same accusations against Magdi Allam. It is
authoritatively revealing to read this assessment from one who was an insider
as far as Islam is concerned and who has experienced at first hand the
repercussions of what he describes as ‘the root of evil (that) is
inherent in Islam’.
A few weeks after I gave this talk
on Islam in Ballymena I attended a public meeting in Belfast on Thursday 29th
March 2007 hosted by the Northern Ireland Interfaith Forum. This was how
Alf McCreary referred to it in his Saturday column in the Belfast Telegraph of
24th March 2007 –
[8]
Dr Mamoun Mobayed, the chairman of the Northern Ireland Interfaith
Forum will give a Queens University public lecture on Thursday at 7.15pm…His
topic is titled – ‘No matter who you are Islam is already in your life’.
Right
at the outset of his talk, Dr Mobayed [a
psychiatrist] stated
that he would not be dealing with the doctrinal and practical out-workings of
the religion of Islam but would rather be seeking to counter what he referred
to as the ‘negative image of Islam’ that according to him had been portrayed in
the Western world in recent years.
By way
of example he displayed an overhead showing an advertisement for a series of
talks that had been given by Pastor David Legge, the then pastor of the Iron
Hall in Belfast in which he had spoken on various cults and non-Christian
religions and he had quite rightly included Islam in his series. On our website
there is a link to enable people to listen to these talks - Mr Mobayed’s
discomfort was occasioned by the title of the series – ‘Strongholds of Satan’.
Mr
Mobayed then proceeded for an overly long period of time to cite examples under
various headings where the lives and ways of many in the world have been
influenced by discoveries made by and practices introduced by people who have
been adherents of the religion of Islam. The reality is that whilst many in the
world do feel an impact in daily living in areas such as in the home, in
school, in hospital, in science, in art etc due to past discoveries of people
who have been Muslims that does not equate to saying as the title of the
lecture stated ‘No matter who you are
Islam is already in your life’. Such a title was in effect quite disingenuous.
This
reality was not lost on a Hindu gentleman in the audience for in the ‘Question
and Answer/Feedback’ time at the end of the lecture he stated that he could have
given a similar lecture highlighting the contribution to everyday living made
in times past by knowledgeable Hindus but that did not mean ‘No matter who you are Hinduism is already in
your life’. Another
professedly Christian lady stated that she was very disappointed that Mr
Mobayed had deliberately avoided addressing any Islamic doctrinal and practice
issues and had in effect been engaged in a damage-limitation, whitewash
exercise.
[9]
Near
the end of the ‘feedback’ section another member of the Northern Ireland
Interfaith Forum council, retired former Presbyterian [Crossgar] Minister and former Stranmillis
College lecturer, Maurice Ryan, asked this question of Mr Mobayed – ‘When can we expect to see the Northern Ireland
skyline be-graced with a Mosque?’ Mr Mobayed’s response to the question was that it was not a
matter of ‘if’ but simply a matter of ‘when’ and that of course would depend
very much on planning permissions and economics. Such naïveté and blindness
from Mr Ryan and so, next day, having tracked down a telephone number for him,
I rang him and had quite a lengthy conversation with him. I then wrote to him
next day [31st
March 2007] and herewith is the text of that
letter –
Dear Mr Ryan,
Following on from our
telephone conversation I would just like to make a few additional comments on a
couple of points that you made.
You stated that tolerance
was a ‘Christian virtue’. I would state, in the light of God’s Word, that
Christians should never exercise tolerance, which is at the expense of God’s
glory. Our God is never ‘tolerant’ when His glory is at stake.
The first commandment is
‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’ – literally ‘in my presence or
sight’ – and interfaith activity by professing Christians, whereby they
‘respect’ other faiths and claim that they contain divine truth, violates this
first commandment. God’s ‘truth’ could be summed up by the old saying – ‘Ruined
by the fall and redeemed by the blood’ and that truth is anathema to all the
false religious cults and non-Christian religions that truly are, as the Iron
Hall correctly advertised, ‘Strongholds of Satan’.
The Lord Jesus could say to
His Father in John 17 that He had glorified Him on earth and that included
incidents such as using a whip to drive out the money-changers from the temple
and publicly identifying the false religious leaders of the day as being “of
your father, the devil”. When it came to God’s glory Christ was totally
intolerant and of course asserted that He alone was the way, the truth and the
life and that no one could come to God except by Him. He pronounced that it was
the strait and narrow way that led to life and not some broad interfaith highway
that led to God.
[10]
God says in Isaiah “I am
the Lord, that is my name, and my glory will I not give to another”. Professing
Christians who participate in ‘the mutual-respect interfaith movement’ are
giving God’s glory to other ‘gods’. They are affording divine ‘credibility’ to
visible or mental dumb idol ‘gods’ and the Lord passes His verdict on such in
Psalm 115. The only incarnate ‘truth’ was Jesus Christ and the only
inscripturated ‘truth’ is the bible. There is a great gulf fixed between the
‘biblical gospel’ and the ‘Robert Runcie gospel’ that you have favourably
quoted in times past and that I personally rebutted many years ago in the
enclosed little booklet called ‘Syncretism’. Christians are not to ‘cultivate
interfaith’ but to ‘contend earnestly for the faith’.
The second point is your obvious hope that
Islam will establish and expand its presence in Northern Ireland, even to the
point where in your own words ‘a mosque will be-grace the skyline of Northern
Ireland’. You claim that you have been greatly influenced over many years by
the moderation of the speaker at the recent lecture, Dr Mamoun Mobayed. On this
matter of moderate Muslims, former Muslims, some of who have been gloriously
converted to Christ would warn against such naïve and dangerous aspirations.
In 2006, in a letter that I had published in
the Belfast Telegraph, I wrote the following
In his book "Why I Am Not a Muslim",
former Muslim Ibn Warraq wrote "There may be moderate Muslims,
but Islam itself is not moderate. There is no difference between (the
aims of) Islam and Islamic fundamentalism...Islamic fundamentalism has global
aspirations (namely) the submission of the entire world to the
all-embracing Shari’a, Islamic Law...designed to control every single act of
all individuals.'
Honest public expression
of this aspiration was voiced when Omar
M. Ahmed, chairman of the board of CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations]
said at a banquet, “I urge Muslims not to shirk their duty of sharing the
Islamic faith with those who are on the wrong side....if you choose to live
here [America], you have a responsibility to deliver the message of Islam.
Islam isn’t here to be equal to any other faith but to become dominant".
In
a recently produced documentary one section deals with 'The House of War' and
states "Islamic theology divides the world into two spheres locked in
perpetual combat, dar al-Islam, House of Islam - where Islamic law
predominates, and dar al-harb, House of War - the rest of the world. It is
incumbent on dar al-Islam to fight and conquer dar al-harb and permanently
assimilate it".
[11]
The reality is that
fundamentalist Islam is true Islam and, as regards Christians, the Koran is
quite clear that those who believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God are
‘liars’ [Sura 18:4-5] and that those who believe in The Trinity are not
destined for ‘the garden’ [paradise/heaven] but for ‘the fire’ [hell] [Sura
5:72].
In 1980, the Islamic
Council of Europe published a book called ‘Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim
States’. The book set out very clearly the Islamic agenda for Europe. The
strategy was that Muslims in European Nations should organise themselves into
communities, setting up mosques, schools and Islamic centres. This would occur
little by little until eventually entire European Nations would be turned into
Islamic republics. This is clearly at
the embryonic stage in Northern Ireland but is being aided greatly by groups
such as your Interfaith Forum.
When that happens rest assured that the
‘role-models’ of the likes of Saudi Arabia, Indonesia or Uzbekistan will become
nightmarish realities and ‘the troubles’ that [God willing] we have just passed
through will seem like a ‘teddy-bear’s picnic’ in comparison to what will
happen when Islam seeks to impose Shari’a law – if you don’t believe me just
look at what is happening in Northern Nigeria, in the Darfur region of Sudan,
in Egypt, in Somalia and in countless other places where ‘true’ Islam has grown
in numbers, strength and influence.
Robert Spencer in his book
on Islam wrote correctly that when Islam gains control in an area, the choices
for unbelievers are either [1] Accept Islam or [2] Pay the jizya tax or [3] War
against Islam – he then astutely and again correctly added ‘peaceful
coexistence as equals in a pluralistic society isn’t one of the choices’.
In closing I would refer to our brief discussion on Romanism and it has been responsible, more than any other so-called ‘Christian’ grouping, for failing to inform Muslims of the truth of the glorious Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I sought to redress that deception by publishing a special leaflet for Muslims and a copy [Dear Muslim Neighbour] is enclosed herewith for your consideration.
My closing wish is that the
Spirit of truth will touch your heart and mind and understanding for the good
of yourself, those taken captive by Satan in false religions and cults and
supremely for the glory of the One true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Cecil Andrews
‘Take Heed’ Ministries
Ballynahinch
[12]
In this letter I made reference to a ‘documentary’ – it
is a DVD called ‘Islam: What the West Needs to Know’ and I would
encourage as many people as possible to obtain and view this DVD. One of the producers of this documentary
was Gregory Davis and in a book that he subsequently wrote called ‘Religion
of Peace? Islam’s War Against The World’ he wrote the following on pages
130-131
‘The West must awaken to the fact that it is facing
nothing less than the resurgence of the greatest war machine in world history;
an ideology that holds the killing of others, the plundering of their wealth,
the conquering of their lands, the enslavement of their people, and the
destruction of their institutions to be amongst the highest virtues and the
stepping stones to salvation…Yet it seems that the secular West today is
determined not to hear the bad news…It is hoping that the myriad acts of
violence around the world done in the name of Allah are somehow not indicative
of “real” Islam…It is hoping that Islam – a religion founded by one of
history’s great warlords; a religion that waged wars of aggression and conquest
for a thousand years, that slaughtered and enslaved untold millions and
invented modern genocide, and that today is the only force in the world that
produces terrorism, suicide bombings, hostage-taking, organised rape and
massacres on a global scale – that this strange, seething, violent mass is
somehow “a religion of peace”. Rejecting this fiction and standing up to be
counted will determine whether or not we [Non-Muslim/Infidels] survive the twenty-first century’.
In the light of the testimony
of former Muslim, Magdi Allam, in the light of the many warnings issued by
former Muslims in the DVD documentary ‘Islam: What the West Needs to Know’ and
in the light of the stark, realistic warning issued by Gregory Davis in his
book ‘Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against The World’ I most certainly
reject the accusation of being one who is ‘suffering from and promoting Islamophobia’ and I
would encourage God’s people to seek to alert those with influence in our
nation to the true nature of Islam and to urge them to take action to ensure
the peace and security of the non-Muslim peoples of these lands. In conclusion I would also
say that whilst these honest revelations by Magdi Allam on the intrinsic nature
of Islam are most welcome and informative it is nonetheless a matter of the
utmost tragedy that having recognised the evil nature of one totalitarian
religious ideology, Islam, and having separated himself from it he has now
ensnared himself with another equally totalitarian and soul-damning religious
system, that of Roman Catholicism. I did send an email to a website linked with
Mr Allam, but whether it ever arrived with him, or whether he was able to read
it or have it translated into Italian I don’t know but we should pray that God
in His grace and mercy might bring Mr Allam to a true saving knowledge of the
real Jesus Christ of the Bible.
[13]
Mark Driscoll’s deviant teachings and MANDATE
2010
In
my March newsletter, in the article on Mark Driscoll, I wrote
I am conscious
that these extracts include language that God’s people would undoubtedly prefer
not to be confronted with but for the sake of correctly addressing the concerns
about ‘Mark Driscoll’s approach to preaching’ I do feel it is necessary
to present the relevant “evidence”
Regrettably it has been announced
that Mark Driscoll has been lined up to speak at the MANDATE 2010 conference
in Belfast and so I have been compelled to address what I consider to be ‘deviant
teachings’ being put forth by Mark Driscoll. This I have done and an
article bearing the same title as above is posted to our ministry website.
In the titles I have used the word
‘deviant’ and it is defined in the ‘Collins English Dictionary and
Thesaurus’ as ‘deviating from what is considered acceptable behaviour’. In the website article I considered what I
believe would be viewed as ‘acceptable behaviour’ by God, the Creator
and not ‘acceptable behaviour’ as advocated by Mark Driscoll or
any other ‘creature’. God created the human bodies, male and female, so that
they could be wonderfully united physically. By the very divine design of the
human bodies it is or should be plain for all to recognise how this oneness of
the flesh is perfectly consummated and that for me would constitute ‘acceptable
behaviour’ in the sight of God, the Creator. Sadly and very worryingly Mark
Driscoll sees and teaches very differently.
My website article addresses and
challenges his supposed biblical basis for what he teaches. It also includes a
series of email exchanges I have had with a supporter of Mark Driscoll and it
also includes messages of support I received from both pastoral and lay
sources. Unlike the ‘boxed’ quote above I do not intend to reproduce in this
newsletter my website article as that would include more references to
‘disturbing’ language. However if anyone cannot access the article on our
ministry website but would like a photocopy of what I wrote then I will gladly
post out a photocopy of the same upon request.
[14]
SAINTS:
Chosen by God or selected by the Pope?
The Belfast Telegraph carried an
article entitled ‘Speculation grows over possibility of a visit by the Pope’
in its issue of Monday 16th March 2009. The opening paragraphs
of the article read as follows –
‘A well-known priest last
night said the Catholic Church in Northern Ireland would welcome any visit from
Pope Benedict XVI as speculation mounted over whether the pontiff was planning
to make a historic trip. Father John McManus said the Diocese of Down and
Connor would be “delighted” to receive the Pope after news reports yesterday
suggested the 265th head of the Roman Catholic Church was
considering travelling to the British Isles to coincide with the
beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman – who could become Britain’s
first saint in 40 years’.
Just by
way of a little background to John Henry Newman let me first quote some
extracts from a short article written back in 1990 by Pastor David Carson of
Chester
In another little booklet called ‘The
Legacy of John Henry Newman’ written by Rev Maurice G Bowler, we read
‘Newman’s legacy in our day is a nightmare reversal of
values in the understanding of religious history. Roman Catholicism, the most
bigoted and cruel regime of corruption and terror that the world has ever seen,
is presented as the champion of tolerance and righteousness…Rome is said to be
a lamb in adversity, a fox in equality and a wolf in supremacy…in our day we
are dealing with a changeling – a fox turning into a wolf…Also we are facing an
enemy whose image is falsely fair and attractive. A large part of this
attractiveness is due I believe to the afterglow of Newman’s charisma, the
legacy of his meretricious (deceitful,
alluring) saintliness’
It’s interesting that both
authors highlight the absence of true ‘saintliness’ or ‘saintly qualities’
in their assessment of the life of Mr Newman and this of course
contrasts starkly with the ‘process’ currently being pursued by
Rome in relation to Newman – the [15] process referred to in the Belfast Telegraph article –
that of ‘beatification’. This is how ‘beatification’ is defined
in the officially approved ‘Pocket Catholic Dictionary’ by Jesuit
priest, John A Hardon –
‘A declaration by the Pope as head of the
Church (Cecil
– contrast that with Colossians 1:18 “And he [Christ] is the head of the
church”) that one of the deceased faithful lived a holy life and/or died a
martyr’s death and is now dwelling in heaven. As a process, the beatification
consists of a years-long examination of the life, virtues, writings and
reputation for holiness of the servant of God under consideration. This is
ordinarily conducted by the Bishop of the place where he or she resided or
died. For a martyr, miracles worked through the person’s intercession need not
be considered in the primary process. The second, or Apostolic process is
instituted by the Holy See when the first process reveals that the servant of
God practiced virtue in a heroic degree or died a martyr for the faith.
Beatified persons are called “Blessed” and may be venerated by the faithful…’
So, the Pope selects ‘Saints’ after an earthly process of
investigation. Contrast this supposed prerogative of the Pope with these
scriptures –
“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to
be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God…To all that be in Rome, beloved
of God, called to be saints” [Romans 1:1&7]
“Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus
Christ, through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother. Unto the
Church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ
Jesus, called to be saints, WITH ALL that in every place call upon the
name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours”. [1st
Corinthians 1:1-2]
John MacArthur in his Study Bible comments on verse 2 - ‘Saints: Not referring to a specifically pious or revered person canonized by an ecclesiastical body but a reference to everyone who by salvation has been sanctified, that is, set apart from sin in Christ Jesus’.
These are just two examples of numerous scriptures that identify that it is GOD who chooses those that are viewed by Him as “saints” – it is a term that He applies to every truly saved person. Some years ago a 25-minute TV debate that took place involving my good brother in Christ, ex-Catholic, Rob Zins. As well as the presumably Roman Catholic chairperson, Miriam O’Callaghan, the other panellists were ‘Father’ Joseph Pius, ‘Father’ Hugh McKenzie and an ecumenical Church Times journalist called Andrew Brown and not surprisingly it was very much a case of Rob v the rest. I have that debate on DVD.
If you would like a
copy then it is available at a cost of £3.00 [includes p&p]. Simply send your order and payment
to me. [16]