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An International Missionary Outreach Dedicated to Evangelizing the Lost and Equipping the Church for Discernment

Weekly News In Review

April 3 - 9, 2006

Other items of interest

Roger's Blogs
"Personal Update From Roger Oakland"
"Exposing The Emerging Church"

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The following articles were posted at www.understandthetimes.org this past week:

The Emerging Church And Bible Prophecy
Cost of clergy sex abuse now exceeds $1.5 billion
Russia's Putin Reclaiming Dominant Role in Former Soviet Union
Russia's Former PM Kasyanov Warns Kremlin Builds Dictatorship
Doctors grow organs from patients' own cells
Evolution study denied cash
Jesus Could Have Walked on Ice, Scientist Says
Fossil shows how fish made the leap to land - 375 million-year-old remains look like a cross between fish and crocodile
Broadest-Ever U.S. Church Unity Group Launches
Ties with China forged to offset Western clout
Peres Meets With Pope in Vatican
Israel Company Unveils New PDA/Cellular Email Technology
Hamas: No More Arrests or Security Cooperation with Israel
Researchers Regenerate Tendons, Ligaments With Stem Cells
Tornado, Sand-Storms and Oversized Hail Strike Israel
Renowned Writers and Artists Retell the Story of the Bible with Words, Art and Music
Expert says changing Islamic mentality requires enormous educational effort

Commentary: Social Gospel

April 5, 2006 - The Emerging Church And Bible Prophecy

“The Emerging Church!” Perhaps the term is meaningless to you. If this is the case, it won’t be for long. Bible-believing Christians are facing an onslaught of ideas and experiences redefining the meaning of Christianity in this post-modern world.

The Word of God is under attack. Biblical truths are being replaced by the word of Christian leaders who are claiming the time has come “to do whatever it takes to establish the Kingdom of God here on earth”.

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Article: Roman Catholic Church and the Last Days

March 31, 2006 - Cost of clergy sex abuse now exceeds $1.5 billion

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The cumulative financial cost to the U.S. Catholic Church for clerical sexual abuse of minors is now more than $1.5 billion and still climbing.

A new report released March 30 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said U.S. dioceses, eparchies (Eastern-rite dioceses) and religious orders spent $467 million last year in settlements, therapy for victims and abusers, attorney fees and other costs related to sexual abuse of minors by priests or deacons.

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Article: Wars and Rumors of Wars

March 21, 2006 - Russia's Putin Reclaiming Dominant Role in Former Soviet Union

The Kremlin may be reclaiming a dominant role in its former Soviet backyard. In Belarus, Moscow-allied strongman Alexander Lukashenko just won re-election by a landslide - at least by the official count. And President Vladimir Putin's allies could return to government in Sunday's Ukranian parliamentary election, just over a year after the Orange Revolution.

Such developments set back Western hopes of a democratic tidal wave in the former Soviet sphere and could further tarnish Putin's democratic credentials as he tries to cast himself as a statesman capable of brokering deals with Iran and Hamas.

For Putin, however, asserting dominance over Belarus and Ukraine appears to be part of his strategy to re-establish Moscow as a global player during his year of the G-8 presidency.

"Russia wants to restore its superpower status, and that includes putting these countries back into its orbit," said Yevgeny Volk, Moscow director of the conservative U.S think tank Heritage Foundation.

"It is seeking to reclaim its influence over the former Soviet Union, and remove that of the United States and European Union," he added.

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Article: Wars and Rumors of Wars

April 4, 2006 - Russia's Former PM Kasyanov Warns Kremlin Builds Dictatorship

A former Russian prime minister has warned that his country is slipping into a dictatorship similar to the harsh regime in neighboring Belarus, The Sunday Times reported.

Mikhail Kasyanov, 48, sacked by President Vladimir Putin in 2004 for questioning his commitment to democracy, said the Kremlin had become so despotic that people increasingly lived in fear.

"If Russia continues along the current course it will end up like the regime of Alexander Lukashenko," he said, referring to the hardline president of Belarus, widely condemned in the West as Europe's last dictator. "An atmosphere of fear is being created and a sense that everyone is under the state's control. These are the first steps towards a totalitarian system.
There is practically no press freedom, the judiciary is no longer independent and public opinion is manipulated."

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Article: Cloning and Genetic Engineering

April 4, 2006 - Doctors grow organs from patients' own cells

HADDAM NECK, Connecticut (CNN) -- Kaitlyne McNamara no longer worries about feeling different at school. The 16-year-old was born with spina bifida, a congenital birth defect that stunts brain and spinal cord development. The disease left her with a crippling jumble of nerves jutting out from the base of her spine.

Kaitlyne had dozens of major surgeries as a child, but then another problem surfaced: Her bladder was not functioning properly.

"If she drank a cup of water or a cup of juice, her bladder's pressures were at such an intense point she would have something called a bladder burst," recalled her mother, Tracy McNamara.

A new procedure pioneered at Wake Forest University in North Carolina has apparently solved the problem for Kaitlyne and six other patients.

Scientists grew new bladders from the patients' own cells, which were then transplanted back into the patients' bodies.

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Article: Evolution/Creation - Debate

April 5, 2006 - Evolution study denied cash

The university is urging the Ottawa-based Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to reconsider its rejection of a funding bid from prominent McGill Prof. Brian Alters, who claims he was turned down on the basis that his proposed study assumed evolution to be a scientific fact.

...In denying his request, the research council's peer-review committee recently sent Alters a letter explaining he'd failed to "substantiate the premise" of his study and hadn't provided "adequate justification for the assumption in the proposal that the theory of evolution, and not intelligent-design theory, was correct."

Alters told CanWest News Service on Tuesday that he was "shocked" at the council's response and it offers "ironic" proof that his premise about intelligent design gaining a foothold in Canada is correct.

"Evolution is not an assumption, and intelligent design is pseudo-science," said Alters.

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Article: Apostasy

April 4, 2006 - Jesus Could Have Walked on Ice, Scientist Says

Rare conditions could have conspired to create hard-to-see ice on the Sea of Galilee that a person could have walked on back when Jesus is said to have walked on water, a scientist said today.

The study, which examines a combination of favorable water and environmental conditions, proposes that Jesus could have walked on an isolated patch of floating ice on what is now known as Lake Kinneret in northern Israel.

...Nof figures that in the last 120 centuries, the odds of such conditions on the low latitude Lake Kinneret are most likely 1-in-1,000. But during the time period when Jesus lived, such "spring ice" may have formed once every 30 to 60 years.

..."In today's climate, the chance of springs ice forming in northern Israel is effectively zero, or about once in more than 10,000 years," Nof said.

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Article: Evolution / Creation - Misc.

April 5, 2006 - Fossil shows how fish made the leap to land - 375 million-year-old remains look like a cross between fish and crocodile

NEW YORK - Scientists have caught a fossil fish in the act of adapting toward a life on land, a discovery that sheds new light on one of the greatest transformations in the history of animals.

Researchers have long known that fish evolved into the first creatures on land with four legs and backbones more than 365 million years ago, but they've had precious little fossil evidence to document how it happened.

The new find of several specimens looks more like a land-dweller than the few other fossil fish known from the transitional period, and researchers speculate that it may have taken brief excursions out of the water.

...Experts said the discovery, with its unusually well-preserved and complete skeletons, reveals significant new information about how the water-to-land evolution took place.

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Article: Ecumenical Movement - Other Religions Uniting with Roman Catholics

April, 2006 - Broadest-Ever U.S. Church Unity Group Launches

Leaders of 34 U.S. church bodies have officially launched the broadest-ever Christian unity organization in American history, and said fighting poverty will be its first priority.
Christian Churches Together in the USA was formally inaugurated on Friday (March 31) after a three-day meeting outside Atlanta. A public kickoff is scheduled at the group's scheduled meeting next February.

The looseknit group brings together five Christian "families" who have long been divided by historical and theological differences, including Catholics, mainline Protestants, evangelicals and Pentecostals, historically black churches and Orthodox churches.

..."We finally found the courage to confront our obvious and longstanding divisions and to build a new expression of unity ... that will strengthen our mission in the world," said the Rev. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, the general secretary of the Reformed Church of America and an early architect of the new group.

..."We've got all the major groups and all the best thinking represented (in CCT), and this is a place where they can all be together," he said. "We're finding around an issue like poverty an awful amount of common ground."

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Article: Wars and Rumors of Wars

April 6, 2006 - Ties with China forged to offset Western clout

MOSCOW -- Amid worsening relations with the West, the Kremlin is boosting its political, economic and military ties with China as both countries look to counterbalance U.S. global influence, analysts said.

On a recent visit to Beijing, Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the burgeoning relationship as a model of international cooperation.

"Russia and China are two of the largest powers in the world, and our relations are more than just a factor of geopolitical stability. They are an example of an open international partnership that is not directed against any third country and that helps develop a better and more just world order," Mr. Putin said in a March 21 speech broadcast live on Chinese television.

"As relations with the West have worsened, Mr. Putin started pursuing this idea of a Eurasian strategic alliance between Russia and China," ... "He's become obsessed with pushing an anti-Western, and especially anti-American, foreign policy."

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Article: Pope Meets With Peres and Discuss Solution for Peace

April 6, 2006 - Peres Meets With Pope in Vatican

The two met for 40 minutes in the Vatican, and the Pope said he hopes to visit Israel sometime in the first half of next year. They said afterwards that they had discussed Middle East matters. "I definitely believe that a visit by the Pope can influence the peace process," Peres told reporters. Peres is reported, in 1994, to have promised the Vatican official status in Jerusalem.

In February 2000, the Vatican and the Palestinian Authority signed an agreement calling for an internationally guaranteed special status for Jerusalem. The agreement stated that a special statute would protect "equality before the law of the three monotheistic religions [in Jerusalem], the proper identity and sacred character of the city, [and] freedom of access" to the city's holy sites.

The current pope has been following in the footsteps of his predecessor John Paul in trying to improve Jewish-Catholic relations.

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Article: Israel and the Last Days

April 6, 2006 - Israel Company Unveils New PDA/Cellular Email Technology

Israeli company Emblaze launched the world's first free and secure "push" email and PIM service.

The service, called "emoze" allows anyone with a mobile phone, Palm Pilot or Pocket PC to receive their email for free - in a similar fashion to the popular but expensive Blackberry device. The technology allows people to receive their work or home emails, as well as their Personal Information Manager (PIM) data - such as contacts and diary scheduling - on their mobile phone or PDA.

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Article: Wars and Rumors of Wars

April 3, 2006 - Hamas: No More Arrests or Security Cooperation with Israel

A Hamas Authority minister told the French AFP news agency that Hamas will no longer cooperate with Israel on security matters or arrest terrorists.

Sa'id Siyam, the Palestinian Authority's interior minister, essentially closed the door on one of the critical aspects of the Oslo Accords - the very agreement that created the Palestinian Authority in 1993.

...Siyam said that Hamas would no longer exchange security information with Israel, nor make arrests based on Israeli intelligence. Even Al-Qaeda terrorists are now officially welcome into PA-controlled areas, HaLevy explains.

As Hamas becomes a terrorist state and repudiates the agreements previously signed with Israel, Army Radio reports that France has been holding low-level talks with Hamas over the past few weeks, and that concern is growing that India, Japan and China will soon publicly recognize the terrorist organization.

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Article: Cloning and Genetic Engineering

April 6, 2006 - Researchers Regenerate Tendons, Ligaments With Stem Cells

Israeli researchers are using adult stem cells to regenerate torn tendon and ligament tissue at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Adult stem cells are being used by an Israeli research team to create a new orthopedic solution to a difficult and common problem: how to heal torn ligaments and tendons.

The research team, led by Professor Dan Gazit, is working to change this by using stem cells taken from bone marrow and genetically engineering them to become different cells altogether.

"With this in mind, we can genetically engineer new skeletal tissue - ligaments, cartilage, tendons," explained Dr. Gadi Peled, a senior scientist at the lab.

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Article: Signs of the Times

April 5, 2006 - Tornado, Sand-Storms and Oversized Hail Strike Israel

A small tornado ripped across the western Galilee Tuesday evening. Hail the size of golf balls also fell in the region. Scores were hospitalized. Freak stormy weather across Israel continues.

The tornado touched down during a hailstorm in the Acco region,...Hail as big as ping-pong balls was reported as far away as Nahariya. In southern Israel, sandstorms reduced visibility to less than three feet.

Nine foot waves were reported on the Red Sea in Eilat, with telephone and cellular service knocked out for the entire city. The highways through the Negev were also covered completely by several inches of sand.

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Article: Social Gospel

April 3, 2006 - Renowned Writers and Artists Retell the Story of the Bible with Words, Art and Music

April 3, 2006 (Nashville, Tenn.)-Imagine experiencing the Bible as a collection of stories, poems and songs. Imagine the Bible being translated not by scholars, but by poets, writers, musicians, artists and historians. What would the Bible look and sound like then?

The Voice is a new project from a team of renowned writers and artists-people like Erwin McManus, Leonard Sweet, Don Miller, Lauren Winner and Brian McLaren. The goal: Retell the Bible the way it was originally told-through art, poetry, history, and song. And retell it in ways that are contemporary, ancient, literary, challenging and beautiful.

..."Much like the Jews at the time of the New Testament, emerging generations today connect with stories rather than isolated facts. Too often, preaching is reduced to articulating truth statements," Seay said.

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Article: Ecumenical Movement - Misc.

April 7, 2006 - Expert says changing Islamic mentality requires enormous educational effort

MADRID, April 7 (CNA) - Father Khalil Samir, a professor at the Oriental Pontifical Institute of Rome and St. Joseph's University of Beirut, said this week that in order to change the Islamic mentality, "which is fearful of reality," an "enormous educational effort" is needed at schools and universities, while paying special attention to textbooks and teacher formation.

In statements made to the Italian daily "Avvenire," Father Samir, an expert in Islamic issues, said, "The enlightened West should help the most liberal Muslims to be heard in their countries and contribute to the spread of their ideas by fostering the circulation and translation of their works, inviting them to speak in Europe."

"Above all," he stressed, "an enormous educational effort needs to be initiated at schools and universities," with special attention to textbooks and teacher formation.
"This is a task that would require generations to slowly change a mentality that is fearful of reality. As Christianity teaches us, reason is not an enemy, but rather an ally of faith," he added.

Father Samir explained that in Islamic schools, "the teaching methods are based on repetition and memorization more than on logical reasoning. In the family, parents do not give their children motives for obedience; rather, it is imposed, sometimes through violence."

The Koran, he continued, "is learned by heart and applied in a mechanical and literal way since, according to Islam, the text has been revealed directly by God to Mohammed and contains all that is necessary for life, and no interpretation is allowed."

"If somebody says an effort is needed to find a better application of it to today's world, he is accused of being a traitor of the most authentic spirit of Islam and even deserves death for apostasy." The result, he said, is world that is "fearful of modernity."

Father Samir explained that such a mentality is "easily manipulated by the statements and orders of radicals, who use religious sentiments for political purposes and identify the West with the Great Satan."

The recent controversy over comics depicting Mohammed, he pointed out, was an example of this situation in which reprisals were carried out not only against the authors, but also "against the governments of those countries in which they were published and, by extension, against the West or Christians, with the tragic consequences which we have seen, such as the assassination of Father Santoro."

"This type of mentality neglects the value of the person, drowning him in the group. Reason must be exercised rather than letting oneself be led by emotions. Unfortunately, reason is asleep in Islamic countries," Father Samir stated.

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