DOCSLIB.ORG

What's the Difference Series

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

What’s the Difference? An examination of the differences between … Christianity & the cults Christianity & world religions and Baptists & denominations Table of Contents Primary Resources Consulted for This Study ........................................2 Part 1: Examining the Differences Between Christianity and the Cults Lesson 1: What Makes a Cult a Cult?.......................................................................... 3 Lesson 2: The Jehovah’s Witnesses ........................................................................... 8 Lesson 3: Mormonism ................................................................................................ 21 Lesson 4: Christian Science....................................................................................... 32 Lesson 5: Seventh-day Adventism ............................................................................ 44 Lesson 6: Combatting the Cults ................................................................................ 53 Review Quiz ................................................................................................................. 58 Part 2: Examining the Differences Between Christianity and World Religions Lesson 1: Islam ........................................................................................................... 59 Lesson 2: Hinduism .................................................................................................... 74 Lesson 3: Buddhism ................................................................................................... 80 Lesson 4: Judaism ...................................................................................................... 87 Review Quiz ................................................................................................................. 98 Part 3: Examining the Differences Between Baptists and Denominations Lesson 1: Catholicism ................................................................................................ 99 Lesson 2: Orthodoxy................................................................................................. 113 Lesson 3: Anglicanism/Episcopalianism ................................................................ 121 Lesson 4: Lutheranism ............................................................................................. 127 Lesson 5: Presbyterianism (and Reformed Churches) ................................................... 134 Lesson 6: Methodism................................................................................................ 140 Lesson 7: Pentecostalism (including the charismatic movement) ...................................... 145 Lesson 8: Baptists..................................................................................................... 152 Review Quiz ............................................................................................................... 159 Review of 4 Key Doctrines Covered in This Study.............................160 1 What’s the Difference? Primary Resources Consulted for This Study On the differences between Christianity and the cults The Chaos of Cults by J. K. van Baalen (1962) The Four Major Cults by Anthony Hoekema (1963) Confronting the Cults by Gordon Lewis (1966) Handbook of Today’s Religions by Josh McDowell & Don Stewart (1983) The Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin (1985 & 1997) “The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error” pamphlet by Moody Press (1985) Fast Facts on False Teachings by Ron Carlson & Ed Decker (1994) Handbook of Denominations in the United States (10th ed.) by Frank Mead & Samuel Hill (1995) Mormonism: Changes, Contradictions, and Errors by John Farkas & David Reed (1995) Charts of Cults, Sects, & Religious Movements by H. Wayne House (2000) So What’s the Difference? by Fritz Ridenour (2001) “So What’s the Difference?” Sunday School series by Ken Brown (2002) “10 Questions & Answers on Jehovah’s Witnesses” pamphlet by Rose Publishing (2006) “10 Questions & Answers on Mormonism” pamphlet by Rose Publishing (2006) “10 Questions & Answers on Seventh-day Adventism” pamphlet by Rose Publishing (2010) “Christianity, Cults & Religions” pamphlet by Rose Publishing (2010) On the differences between Christianity and world religions Handbook of Today’s Religions by Josh McDowell & Don Stewart (1983) The Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin (1985 & 1997) Reaching Muslims for Christ by William Saal (1991) Fast Facts on False Teachings by Ron Carlson & Ed Decker (1994) Handbook of Denominations in the United States (10th ed.) by Frank Mead & Samuel Hill (1995) The Compact Guide to World Religions edited by Dean Halverson (1996) So What’s the Difference? by Fritz Ridenour (2001) Unveiling Islam by Ergun Mehmet Caner & Emir Fethi Caner (2002) “So What’s the Difference?” Sunday School series by Ken Brown (2002) “Christianity, Cults & Religions” pamphlet by Rose Publishing (2004) “Islam & Christianity” pamphlet by Rose Publishing (2004) Hinduism and Other Eastern Religions by Trevor Barnes (2005) “Christianity & Eastern Religions” pamphlet by Rose Publishing (2008) On the differences between Baptists and denominations The Marks of a Methodist by Gerald Kennedy (1960) Charismatic Chaos by John MacArthur (1992) The Gospel According to Rome by James McCarthy (1995) Handbook of Denominations in the United States (10th ed.) by Frank Mead & Samuel Hill (1995) The Roman Catholic Controversy by James White (1996) So What’s the Difference? by Fritz Ridenour (2001) “So What’s the Difference?” Sunday School series by Ken Brown (2002) “Denominations Comparison” pamphlet by Rose Publishing (2003) The Unauthorized Guide to Choosing a Church by Carmen Renee Berry (2003) “What’s the Difference?” Sunday School series by Ken Brown (2003) Fast Facts on False Teachings by Ron Carlson & Ed Decker (1994) Christianity for Dummies by Richard Wagner (2004) Charismatic Confusion by Ernest Pickering and Myron Houghton (2006) 2 What’s the Difference? Part 1: Examining the Differences Between Christianity and the Cults Lesson 1: What Makes a Cult a Cult? Before we begin studying four of the more renowned American cults 1 of today (the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Christian Science, and Seventh-day Adventism), we must first answer the question, What makes a cult a cult? The aim of this lesson is to define what a cult is, identifying the characteristics that make a cult a cult. I. Definitions and Distinctives A. A cult is “a group that claims to have exclusive possession of the truth that is necessary for salvation” (Brown, “So What’s the Difference?,” p. 57). B. Cults are “quasi-Christian groups whose doctrine deviates from the fundamental tenets of historic Christianity—particularly in the area of Christology 2” (Phil Johnson, www.spurgeon.org/~phil/cultists.htm). C. "A cult, then, is any religious movement which claims the backing of Christ or the Bible, but distorts the central message of Christianity by (1) an additional revelation, and (2) by displacing a fundamental tenet of the faith with a secondary matter 3" (Lewis, p. 4). D. “... [A] cult may be defined as a group of people who, though claiming to be Christian, accept one or more central tenets of belief that run contrary to historic Christianity” (House, p. 9). 1The English word “cult” comes from the Latin word for worship, cultus . 2 “The sure mark of a cult is what it does with the person of Jesus Christ. All cults ultimately deny the fact that Jesus Christ is God the Son, second Person of the Holy Trinity, and mankind’s only hope” (McDowell & Stewart, p. 25). 3”We may further note that the cults have a tendency to major in minors. That is to say, cults tend to take certain peripheral truths (or teachings which are held to be truths) and to elevate them to a prominence far greater than they deserve, whereas matters of major importance are played down. The result is that the theology of the cult becomes lopsided and distorted” (Hoekema, p. 375). 3 E. “A cult, then, is a group of people polarized around someone’s interpretation of the Bible and is characterized by maJor deviations from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, particularly the fact that God became man in Jesus Christ” (Walter Martin, quoted in McDowell & Stewart, p. 19). F. Hoekema (pp. 377-388) identifies five “distinctive traits” of a cult: (1) an extra-Scriptural source of authority; 2) the denial of Justification by grace alone 4; 3) the devaluation of Christ; 4) the group as the exclusive community of the saved; and 5) the group’s central role in eschatology 5 G. Ridenour (pp. 111-112) identifies five “maJor characteristics” of cultists: 1) they reJect the Trinity; 2) they usually believe that all Christian churches are wrong and that their group has the only real truth about God; 3) they claim to believe the Bible but they distort its teachings; 4) they deny that people can be saved by faith in Christ alone; and 5) they are skillful at using Christian terminology, but they are not talking the same language as biblical Christians H. McDowell & Stewart identify eleven characteristics of cults: 1) new truth; 2) new interpretations of Scripture; 3) a non-biblical source of authority; 4) another Jesus; 5) reJection of orthodox Christianity; 6) double-talk; 7) non- biblical teaching on the nature of God (Trinity); 8) changing theology; 9) strong leadership; 10) salvation by works; and 11) false prophecy I. My definition: A cult is a religious group that claims to be Christian but contradicts
Recommended publications
  • Bredesen, Harald: Collection

    Bredesen, Harald: Collection

    http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8c829vc No online items Guide to the Bredesen, Harald: Collection Finding Aid Authors: Nancy Sanders Gower. © Copyright 2012 David Allan Hubbard Library Archives. All rights reserved. 135 N. Oakland Avenue Pasadena, CA, 91182-0002 URL: http://library.fuller.edu/archives/ Email: [email protected] Phone: (626) 584-5311 Fax: (626) 584-5613 Guide to the Bredesen, Harald: CFT00049 1 Collection Guide to the Bredesen, Harald: Collection 1962/2007 David Allan Hubbard Library Archives Overview of the Collection Collection Title: Bredesen, Harald: Collection Dates: 1962-2007 Identification: CFT00049 Creator: Bredesen, Harald, 1918-2006 Physical Description: 1.00 Language of Materials: English Repository: David Allan Hubbard Library Archives 135 N. Oakland Avenue Pasadena, CA, 91182-0002 URL: http://library.fuller.edu/archives/ Email: [email protected] Phone: (626) 584-5311 Fax: (626) 584-5613 Administrative History: Harald Bredesen (1918-2006) was a leader in the Charismatic Renewal of the 1960’s. A Lutheran pastor, he was baptized in the Spirit at a Pentecostal summer camp in 1946. Though he offered his resignation from the Lutheran pastorate, this was not accepted by the authorities; he took this to be God’s call to stay in his church. He was encouraged in this challenging position by David du Plessis and the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship. In 1957 he accepted a call to the Mount Vernon Dutch Reformed Church in New York City where he began a charismatic prayer meeting. Pat Boone, John Sherrill, Bob Slosser and Pat Robertson all speak of Harald Bredesen’s role in their Spirit baptism.
  • Seventh-Day Adventism

    Seventh-Day Adventism

    CHRISTIAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE P.O. Box 8500, Charlotte, NC 28271 / www.equip.org / tel.704.887.8200 / fax.704.887.8299 STATEMENT DS410 SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISM The main emphasis of ministry at the Christian Research Institute is to provide inform ation which will help those who are evangelizing the millions of people presently entangled in cults, the occult, and various false religions. Because of this, and because Dr. Walter Martin did some pioneer research on Adventism in the late 1950's, we are frequently asked what our position is on the subject of Seventh-day Adventism (hereafter "SDA" for short). Though several capable Christian scholars (e.g., Anthony Hoekema, J.K. Van Baalen, John Gerstner) have concluded that SDA is a non-Christian cult system, CRI has continued to assert that this is not the case. We take this position based on the content of the doctrine which was stated in an official SDA publication (1957) entitled Questions on Doctrine. It should be noted that in 1983 W. Richard Lesher, vice-president of the General Conference, affirmed that SDA stood behind the publication Questions on Doctrine. Since SDA does accept the foundational doctrines of historic Christianity (the Trinity, Christ's true deity, His bodily resurrection, etc.) we do not believe that it should be classified as a non-Christian cult. It is our conviction that one cannot be a true Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, Christian Scientist, etc., and be a practicing Christian in the biblical sense of the word; but it is possible to be a Seventh-day Adventist and a true follower of Jesus, despite certain distinctive Adventist doctrines which we consider to be unbiblical.
  • John Wimber • Door Peter Van Beugen En De Derde Golf

    John Wimber • Door Peter Van Beugen En De Derde Golf

    N T T O IE N U N U E D E W M P H E TESTAM E TESTA RAKTISC THEMA John Wimber • door Peter van Beugen en de Derde Golf B O G E I N PA L JO K K STORAA ACTUEEL NGEREN BESPRE ‘Van een veilige afstand van honderden jaren ziet een opwekking er ver- kwikkend uit: wat is er heerlijker dan het machtige werk van God zelf in ons midden? En als we ons er middenin bevinden, vinden we het allesbehal- ve verkwikkend en zijn we misschien vol met scepsis, afkeer en angst … waarom verloopt een opwekking soms zo rommelig? De ironie van opwek- king is: terwijl we er soms zo hunkerend naar verlangen, veranderen we licht in tegenstanders op het moment dat deze zich aandient. De vijandig- heid richt zich niet op het idee van opwekking, waar zo vurig voor gebeden is, maar op de manier waarop deze gebeden worden beantwoord en die een totaal onverwachte vorm aannemen’ (John White: 1988). 16 | focus John Wimber Dit een-na-laatste artikel over sleutelfiguren in de kerkge- zuidelijke staten in Amerika. De omgangsvormen binnen schiedenis voert ons zo goed als naar de tijd waarin wij le- de familie waren ongepolijst. Het huwelijk tussen zijn ou- ven. Dat de Gemeente van God een van de grootste omwen- ders had slechts enkele maanden standgehouden en zijn telingen uit de geschiedenis doormaakt kan ons nauwelijks vader en diens familie heeft hij nooit gekend, met uitzon- nog ontgaan. Ik bespreek nu de levens van mannen die dering van zijn oom Curly die zo goed en zo kwaad als daar mijns inziens een sleutelrol in hebben gespeeld.
  • PHAUSI STUDIES NMSU Christian Challenge Freshman Ministry

    PHAUSI STUDIES NMSU Christian Challenge Freshman Ministry

    PHAUSI STUDIES NMSU Christian Challenge Freshman Ministry VALIDITY OF GOD’S WORD The Trustworthiness of the Bible Each section contains one type of evidence that testifies to the trustworthiness of the Bible. The sections are intended to compliment each other, and verify the Bible from different views. Amazing Prophecy “It has been computed that over one fourth of scripture is taken up with prophecy, and if any of the prophecies can be proven false, the claims of the Bible as a divine revelation are seriously impaired.”1 To date no Bible prophecy can be proven false. o These prophecies concern events in the life of Jesus Christ; specifically, prophecies which He Himself could not cause to be fulfilled by being aware of them. In all cases, the first scripture quoted is the prophecy and the second is the fulfillment.2 . Place of birth Micah 5:2 – “But you, Bethlehem…out of you will come one who will be ruler…” Matthew 2:1 – “After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea…” . Born of a Virgin Isaiah 7:14 – “…the Lord Himself will give you a sign; the virgin will be with child.” Matthew 1:18 – “Before they came together, she was found to be with child.” . Crucified with Sinners Isaiah 53:12 – “…because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors…” Mark 15:27 – “They crucified two robbers with him…” . Hands and Feet Pierced Psalm 22:16 – “…they have pierced my hands and my feet.” Luke 23:33 – “When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him…” .
  • Developments in the Relationship Between Seventh Day Baptists and Seventh-Day Adventists, 1844•Fi1884

    Developments in the Relationship Between Seventh Day Baptists and Seventh-Day Adventists, 1844•Fi1884

    Andrews University Seminary Studies, Vol. 55, No. 2, 195–212. Copyright © 2017 Andrews University Seminary Studies. DEVELOPMENTS IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS AND SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS, 1844–1884 Michael W. Campbell Adventist International Institute of Advanced Studies Silang, Cavite, Philippines Abstract This paper reviews the complex relationship between two Sabbatarian denominations: Seventh Day Baptists and Seventh-day Adventists. The primary point of contact was through the Seventh Day Baptist, Rachel Oaks Preston, who shared her Sabbatarian views during the heyday of the Millerite revival. Later, after the Great Disappointment, one such post-disappointment group emerged with a distinctive emphasis upon the seventh-day Sabbath. These Sabbath-keeping Adventists, organized in 1863 as the Seventh-day Adventist Church, established formal relations with Seventh Day Baptists between 1868 and 1879 through the exchange of delegates who identified both commonalities as well as differences. Their shared interest in the seventh-day Sabbath was a strong bond that, during this time, helped each group to look beyond their differences. Keywords: Seventh Day Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, Adventists, interfaith dialogue Introduction1 Seventh Day Baptists and Seventh-day Adventists share a fundamental conviction that the seventh-day Sabbath is the true biblical Sabbath. Each tradition, although spawned two centuries apart, argues that, soon after the New Testament period, the Christian church began to worship on Sunday rather than continue to observe the Jewish Sabbath. Both groups teach that the original Sabbath was the seventh day, instituted at Creation and affirmed when God gave the Ten Commandments. Each tradition developed their view of the Sabbath during a time of chaos in which religious figures sought to return to what they believed was an earlier, purer form of Christianity.
  • Regional Conferences in the Seventh-Day Adventist

    Regional Conferences in the Seventh-Day Adventist

    Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2009 [Black] Regional Conferences in the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Church Compared with United Methodist [Black] Central Jurisdiction/Annual Conferences with White SDA Conferences, From 1940 - 2001 Alfonzo Greene, Jr. Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Greene, Jr., Alfonzo, "[Black] Regional Conferences in the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Church Compared with United Methodist [Black] Central Jurisdiction/Annual Conferences with White SDA Conferences, From 1940 - 2001" (2009). Dissertations. 160. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/160 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2009 Alfonzo Greene, Jr. LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO [BLACK] REGIONAL CONFERENCES IN THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH (SDA) COMPARED WITH UNITED METHODIST [BLACK] CENTRAL JURISDICTION/ANNUAL CONFERENCES WITH WHITE S.D.A. CONFERENCES, FROM 1940-2001 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN HISTORY BY ALFONZO GREENE, JR. CHICAGO, ILLINOIS DECEMBER
  • Non-Fiction Books by Author

    Non-Fiction Books by Author

    Trace Creek Baptist Church Non-Fiction Books by Author Call # Author Title 236.8 IF "If Christ be not risen--" : essays in resurrection and survival / editors, John Greenhalgh, Elizabeth Russell. 230.992 MAK "Make sure of all things." A compilation of Scriptures from the Holy Bible under seventy main headings ... 306.81 WIL 101 most important things you need to know before you get married : life lessons you're going to learn sooner or later-- / [compiled by] Renae Willis. 248.845 101 101 questions children ask about God / written by David R. Veerman ... [et al.]. 248.845 102 102 questions children ask about the Bible / written by David R. Veerman ... [et al.]. 248.845 103 103 questions children ask about right from wrong / written by David R. Veerman ... [et al.]. 248.845 104 104 questions children ask about heaven & angels / general editor, Daryl J. Lucas ; written by David R. Veerman ... [et al.] ; illustrated by Lil Crump. 082 MEA 12,000 religious quotations / edited and compiled by Frank S. Mead. 248.4 WIL 30 days to discovering personal victory through holiness / compiled by Bruce Wilkinson. 226 FOR 40 days with Jesus / scripture selections by Judy Mitchell ; scripture translations by Randy Hurst. 248.83 THE The A to Z guide to Bible application. 248.83 ATO The A to Z guide to Bible application. 242.643 ALO Alone with God / Ardis Dick Stenbakken, editor. 618.92 AME American Academy of Pediatrics guide to your child's symptoms : the official home reference, birth through adolescence / editors, Donald Schiff, Steven P. Shelov. 252.08 ANE Anecdotes illustrative of New Testament texts.
  • The Puritan Roots of Seventh-Day Adventist Belief

    The Puritan Roots of Seventh-Day Adventist Belief

    BOOK REVIEWS Ball, Bryan W. The English Connection: The Puritan Roots of Seventh- day Adventist Belief. Cambridge, Eng. : James Clarke/Greenwood, S.C.: Attic Press. 1981. 252 pp. $15.95 (in England, £7.50). The English Connection is an excellent analysis of "Puritan religious thought, in its broadest sense," which Ball believes "gave to the English- speaking world all the essentials of contemporary Adventist belief" (p. 3). Although treating a complex subject in an encyclopedic fashion, it is a very well-organized and lucid work that not only allows the Puritans of the late sixteenth through early eighteenth century to speak for themselves by drawing upon numerous quotations from Puritan divines, preachers, and polemicists, but also synthesizes and interprets for the general reader the more difficult aspects of Puritan theology. After a brief survey of the history of Puritanism, the study concentrates on specific key doctrines, each discussed thematically rather than chrono- logically, in the light of specific Puritan writings and in association with related beliefs. These key beliefs are encapsulated in the book's chapter titles: "The Sufficiency of Scripture," "This Incomparable Jesus," "The Lord Our Righteousness," "The New Man," "Believer's Baptism," "A High Priest in Heaven," "Gospel Obedience," "The Seventh-Day Sab- bath," "The Whole Man," "The Return of Christ," "The Great Almanack of Prophecy," and "The World to Come." In his introduction, Ball states that his purpose is "to examine specific doctrines" that show how "in its essentials, Seventh-day Adventist belief had been preached and practised in England during the Puritan era" (p. 2). A related purpose is to disprove those who see Adventism as "deviant" and to "demonstrate Adventism's essential affinity with historic, biblical Protestantism as opposed to any superficial relationship to nineteenth-century pseudo-Christian sectarianism" (p.
  • 05-Fanning the Flames of LGT: 1957 to the Historic Church Movement

    05-Fanning the Flames of LGT: 1957 to the Historic Church Movement

    From Crisis to Victory: Putting the Gospel back into the Three Angels Messages 05-Fanning the Flames of LGT: 1957 to the Historic Church Movement Karl Wagner November 7, 2020; 4:00 PM, Sabbath Afternoon I-The Evangelicals Seek Out the Adventists 1. A Radio Program on the way to the 1955/1956 Evangelical Meetings with the Adventists. a. Donald Grey Barnhouse (March 28, 1895 – November 5, 1960), Editor of Eternity Magazine (1950) and pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1927 to his death in 1960. As a pioneer in radio broadcasting, his program, The Bible Study Hour, continues today and is now known as Dr. Barnhouse & the Bible. b. Walter Ralston Martin (September 10, 1928 – June 26, 1989), was an American Baptist Christian minister and author who founded the Christian Research Institute in 1960 as a para-church ministry specializing as a clearing-house of information in both general Christian apologetics and in counter-cult apologetics. As the author of the influential The Kingdom of the Cults (1965), he has been dubbed the "godfather of the anti-cult movement". c. T. E. Unruh ( ) When these events took place, Unruh was president of the East Pennsylvania Conference. He was driving home listening to Barnhouse’s program on his car radio. He was speaking on Righteousness by Faith from the book of Romans. Unruh wrote him a letter on Nov. 28, 1949 to compliment him and express how much he had enjoyed the program. 2. The Heresy of Steps to Christ a. “Barnhouse was surprised to get a glowing review from an Adventist regarding Righteousness by Faith because he knew they were legalists.
  • Human Cloning and the Raelians in the Spanish Newspaper El País

    Human Cloning and the Raelians in the Spanish Newspaper El País

    Science Communication Volume 30 Number 2 December 2008 236-265 © 2008 Sage Publications Human Cloning and 10.1177/1075547008324429 http://scx.sagepub.com hosted at the Raelians http://online.sagepub.com Media Coverage and the Rhetoric of Science Miguel Alcíbar University of Seville, Spain In this article, the author analyzes the reported coverage on human cloning and the Raelians in the Spanish newspaper El País. On December 27, 2002, Brigitte Boisselier, the director of the biotechnology company Clonaid, part of the International Raelian Movement, announced they had successfully cloned a baby girl. This news report enlivened the controversy on human cloning, which originated in February 1997 with the news of Dolly’s birth. El País constructed the controversy as a fundamental problem of scientific policy. This study sug- gests that El País wants to persuade policy makers to establish limited regula- tions on experimentation with embryo stem cells for therapeutic purposes. To achieve this goal, this newspaper used scientific sources selected ad hoc and a series of well-defined rhetorical strategies. Keywords: human cloning; newspaper coverage; Raelians; El País; actor network theory; framing n December 27, 2002, Brigitte Boisselier, the director of the Obiotechnology company Clonaid, run by the International Raelian Movement (IRM), announced they had successfully cloned a baby girl who they called Eve. The claims of the IRM members not only enlivened the ethical debate surrounding human cloning but also provoked the reaction of the “scientific community,”1 calling for science as the legitimate repository of knowledge and source of future development of research using human embryos (Table 1).
  • THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL TEST D R

    THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL TEST D R

    THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL TEST D r . J o s h D. McDowell & D r . C l a y J o n e s U p d a t e d 0 8 . 1 3 . 1 4 (Adapted from an earlier article by Clay Jones, The Bibliographical Test Updated, Christian Research Journal, vol. 35, no. 3 (2012). Available at www.equip.org/articles/the-bibliographical-test-updated/) SYNOPSIS The bibliographical test examines manuscript reliability and for more than a generation, Christian apologists have employed it to substantiate the transmissional reliability of the Bible. The bibliographical test compares the closeness of the Old and New Testament’s oldest extant manuscripts to its autographs (the date each book was originally penned) and the sheer number of the Biblical extant manuscripts with the number and earliness of extant manuscripts or other ancient documents like Homer, Aristotle, Herodotus and so on. Since the Bible outstrips every other ancient manuscript in sheer number and earliness to the autograph, then the Old and New Testaments have a solid basis to evaluate how accurately they have been transmitted. However, although apologists have stayed abreast of the dates of the earliest extant manuscripts and latest New Testament Greek manuscript counts, we haven’t kept up with the increasing numbers of manuscripts for other ancient authors that classical scholars now recognize. For example, although apologists rightly claim that there are well over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, they have reported the number of manuscripts for Homer’s Iliad to be 643, but the real number of Iliad manuscripts now is actually more than 1,800.
  • Faith Is Spelled R-I-S-K: a Motto for Kingdom Life

    Faith Is Spelled R-I-S-K: a Motto for Kingdom Life

    FAITH IS SPELLED R-I-S-KA MOTTO FOR KINGDOM LIFE 1 FAITH IS SPELLED R-I-S-KA MOTTO FOR KINGDOM LIFE INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 3 WEEK 1: A MOTTO FOR THE KINGDOM LIFE ....................................... 4 WEEK 2 : FAITH ON FIRE ..................................................................... 5 WEEK 3 : DOING WHAT THE FATHER IS DOING .................................. 8 WEEK 4: PERMISSION TO TRY .......................................................... 10 WEEK 5: THE GREAT EQUALIZER ...................................................... 12 WEEK 6: RISK STORIES TO ENCOURAGE YOU .................................. 13 CONCLUSION: FAITH IS SPELLED R-I-S-K ......................................... 19 © 2020 Vineyard Resources All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. TM Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc. TM 2 INTRODUCTION John Wimber, the late founder of the Vineyard Movement, popularized a phrase that has rocked the church world for almost a half-century. “Faith is spelled R-I-S-K.” When it came to the Christian life, John’s forte was to live at the intersection of the profound and the practical. He wasn’t content to just read about Jesus doing miracles, casting out demons, and healing the sick. He believed that Jesus had come to do something more – to invite us to do the work of the Kingdom alongside Him.