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A Lesson From U.S. Election FeverHas the media focus on the U.S. election kept people from being aware of even more important issues? World News and Prophecy is committed to providing a dimension you do not readily find elsewhere.by Cecil E. MaranvilleThe United States is just completing the exhausting exercise of selecting its president-a process over which the U.S. media, if not its citizenry, obsesses. For many months, the hourly radio news updates, nightly TV news broadcasts, the Internet news sites, newsmagazines, newspapers and talk shows have been bloated with talk of the race for the presidency. It began long before actual candidates clashed in the New Hampshire primary and continued past Election Day. It's what people want, what they expect. There isn't any point in debating whether the producers of the media set out to cultivate this craving in the U.S. population, or whether the citizens demanded this political saturation diet of the media. Either way, the result is the same: people have been listening to and reading an endless stream of election-speak. What have they missed in the meantime? Some World News and Prophecy articles over the past several months have referred to the 2000 election, for who leads the only superpower in the world at the beginning of the new millennium (which starts on January 1, 2001) is unquestionably newsworthy. However, we have not based most articles on that theme or even necessarily mentioned it in every publication. Why not? The focus of our publisher, the United Church of God, an International Association (UCGIA), is nonpolitical-neither for, nor against the political process. That doesn't mean its members are not involved. UCGIA members are encouraged to regularly ask God's intervention in the selection of national leaders and His blessing on them in their tasks. Paul urged Timothy to teach, "that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way" (1 Timothy 2:1-2, RSV). But World News and Prophecy has sidestepped the media frenzy about the U.S. election. The focus of this publication and of the UCGIA is on announcing and encouraging people to prepare for an entirely different type of government, the Kingdom of God on earth. In doing so, our articles concentrate on themes that illustrate that God's Kingdom is needed, as well as on how His Kingdom will bring about lasting solutions. Two dimensions in WNP World News and Prophecy seeks to offer our readers a worldview with a difference, staying abreast of world news, but framed in a two-dimensional context based on the Bible. We demonstrate that this present world system is not working, and show how the system God promised to bring will accomplish what human systems have not. I lived and worked in Canada for nearly 17 years, although I am a U.S. citizen. Typically, I always welcomed news of my country of origin. With ready access to all of the U.S. networks, that was easy to obtain. At the same time, I needed to be aware of my adopted home, and listened to Canadian broadcast news. The difference was remarkable. At the time, in the 1970s and 1980s, Canadian news had a worldview. U.S. news sources offered a much narrower view, which included some international news (mostly as it related directly to U.S. interests) and much local area coverage. One could argue that Canada was a much smaller country, with less newsworthy material, but that wouldn't do justice to the reality behind what I witnessed on a daily basis. Actually, Canadians, as a rule, were preferred over other nationals for international work, for they were generally knowledgeable about other cultures-a natural outgrowth of the perspective their news sources gave to them. That's part of the outlook that we all need to have. General U.S. media vs. WNP Within the last year, while the U.S. media has myopically reported on and analyzed the participants and the process heading into the presidential election, World News and Prophecy published several articles on developments in Europe. The EU is arguably one of the most powerful economic blocks in today's world, with ever more marked signs of evolving into a loosely woven political entity. We have reported on month-by-month developments, analyzing them in the light of biblical prophecies that call out more than the facts alone reveal. Our articles have drawn your attention to China and Russia several times, as we have noted shifts in international alliances against the broad backdrop of the outline of Bible prophecy. Crises of apocalyptic proportions-including the threat of bioterrorism, the world population bomb and the tragedy of AIDS in Africa-have been brought to your attention, so that you would be aware of these serious developments. They are harbingers of the fact that neither this present world's assortment of governments, nor the altruism of individuals, are able to bring about the utopia that all men crave. Who writes or thinks in terms of strategic choke points in our everyday media sources? World News and Prophecy has called your attention to those land and waterways that potentially control commerce and the flow of military materiel. As we reported these significant events, our perspective was guided by God's promise to give and then to remove the control of those choke points from the modern descendants of ancient Israel shortly before the transfer from the human age to God's Kingdom. Other articles have reported social trends, analyzing them from the point of view of the way of life God reveals in His Word. While democratic governments think in terms of what their populace prefers or finds acceptable, and set their standards accordingly, we have taken a hard look at topics such as morality, same-sex marriages and drug abuse from the point of view of the one firm moral standard. That standard is what the Creator God says about them, showing us what brings disastrous consequences and what would bring blessings. Religion that delivers and religions that don't One more significant theme that you have read in these pages in the past year is that of religion. To the average citizen of the United States, religion may well be thought of as merely a ceremonial part in his or her life. Yet, whether realized or not, our relationship with God-or the lack thereof-has much to do with whether or not life works. In these heydays of economic prosperity, the people of Uncle Sam's house may be lulled into thinking that "life works just great!" But, as we have striven to make clear, there is more to life than money. When the latter is gone, the former will become more evident. To citizens of the Middle East, the peoples of the Catholic countries of Europe and Latin America, the inhabitants of the Muslim republics of the former U.S.S.R. and the Indonesians whose lives were torn asunder by religious-based violence in the past year, religion has everything to do with life. World News and Prophecy has published articles about major doctrinal trends and reported on international incidents from the point of view of their religious base, recognizing that present-day religions are often the driving force behind politics. An additional aspect confronts the perceptive: these religious-based actions have not been able to deliver the peace, harmony and prosperity that their adherents desire. So, we again have pointed to the promised Kingdom that will deliver. Of course, all of these themes are also scrutinized in shorter articles in our "In Brief" segments included in each issue. In addition, we have featured a regular column, "This Is the Way." Looking at all of the serious angles of the news is necessary, for the overall message is that this world's systems (whether in the free world or in the part of the world that labors along under dictators) have failed, are failing and will continue to fail to produce the quality of life that mankind wants-and needs. "This Is the Way" articles deliver the same message, but from a different perspective. They focus on a unique, positive example, which, when amplified, helps to illustrate the system that will succeed in accomplishing all that human schemes have not accomplished. "Watch" UCGIA publications convey the same theme that the biblical servants of God wrote and spoke about. They're also the same as the message brought by Jesus Christ-that this world's systems don't work, and that the system from above, God's Kingdom, will. Prophecy conveys to many the meaning of "revealing the details-the what, when, why, where and how of future events." Actually, the Revealer, Christ Himself, said that's not true. He said that we're going to have to pay close attention to what happens in our world, that there's no such detailed disclosure, as most expect. He told us to stay alert to what's going on around us, to avoid being so caught up in the routine of day-to-day life that we miss what are subtle signs of the unfolding of events foretold long ago. "But of that day and hour [when the Kingdom will arrive, and the world's systems will collapse] no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage [absorbed in and by the routines of life], until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of man" (Matthew 24:36-39, RSV). They were so very engrossed in "normal" life that they missed the signs of momentous and cataclysmic change. It'll happen again. People will be caught off guard. "Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left" (verses 40-41). Two people who appear to live their lives in similar ways, even work at the same job, will perceive the changes in the world differently. One will see clearly, while the view of the other will be obscured. Which describes you? What should we do? "Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.… For the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect" (verses 42,44). An invaluable tool in achieving the kind of watching we must be doing is what you now hold in your hands. We are committed to helping you know and understand what is happening around you. WNP |
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