Information Related to "An Overview of Conditions Around the World - Sep/Oct 2002"
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An OverView of Conditions Around the World
New Archbishop will begin his reign amid controversy
Recently Queen Elizabeth II, supreme governor of the Church of England, formally approved the nomination of Dr. Rowan Williams, 52, as the new archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Church of England after a meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair. When he is enthroned (probably early next year) as the 104th archbishop, it will be at a time when secularism threatens the spirituality of Britain as never before. Public interest in mainstream Christianity has fallen to an all-time low.
Although Dr. Williams (currently archbishop of Wales) is said to "read Scripture seriously" and to be orthodox in his basic beliefs, some of his public statements seem to run contrary to Scripture. Fellow Church of England clergyman William Taylor, rector of St. Helens Bishopgate in London, takes public issue with him. He said of the newly appointed archbishop: "Some of his views in the area of gender and sexuality are in conflict with the Bible. He has labelled those who disagree with him as adopting an ‘abstract fundamentalist’ use of scripture and of applying ‘narrow and crude’ criteria ... My hope is he will make a clear statement to the effect that his previous statements were ill-advised."
According to the same newspaper article, Mr. Taylor’s congregation "represents a strain of evangelical belief that has been openly critical of Dr. Williams’s support for the gay clergy."
Christians around the world may find some of Dr. Williams’ previous public declarations disturbing. Consider his lecture principally about homosexuality titled "The Body’s Grace" (1989):
"The worst thing we can do with the notion of sexual fidelity ... is to ‘legalise’ it in such a way that it stands quite apart from the ventures and dangers of growth and is simply a public bond, enforceable by religious sanctions ... An absolute declaration that every sexual partnership must conform to the pattern of commitment or else have the nature of sin and nothing else is unreal and silly ... If we are looking for a sexual ethic that can be seriously informed by our Bible, there is a good deal to steer us away from assuming reproductive sex is a norm, however important and theologically significant it may be" (quoted in The Guardian).
The new archbishop faces several challenges within the Church of England itself. Two publicly acknowledged, practicing homosexual clergymen say they want to see a significant increase in the numbers of clergymen with similar beliefs and practices. But those in the conservative Anglo-Catholic wing of the Anglican Church makes statements such as "We may have to walk" when they hear serious talk of the possible proliferation of gay clergy and women priests. Also, the Church of England has almost lost £1 billion on ill-advised stock-market investments and may face a radical financial restructuring when Dr. Williams assumes office.
The words of Times columnist William Rees-Mogg ring in English ears: "Will this be the man to bring us to our knees?" (Sources: The Times, The Sunday Times, The Independent on Sunday, The Guardian (all London).)
(back to top)This June, the 14th annual international AIDS conference, in Barcelona, Spain, led to the usual calls for the United States and other wealthy nations to spend more to fight AIDS.
One area of concern is education–on how to avoid AIDS. It is clear that many people throughout the world are still unaware of how AIDS is transmitted. Ignorance is widespread.
On the BBC World Service’s "Newshour," July 14, a doctor from the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases was asked about diarrhea, the world’s foremost killer of children, which leads to gastrointestinal problems as well as diseases of the respiratory tract.
Explaining that diarrhea is mostly caused by polluted water and a general lack of hygiene, the doctor pointed out that educational programs have not worked. Even something as simple as washing one’s hands after going to the toilet, a primary preventer of this problem, proves difficult to accomplish in most cultures. So why would spending millions more on AIDS education programs work?
It’s difficult for anybody to fully understand another culture. However, definite cultural factors do contribute to the growing AIDS toll in Africa. These will not be overcome easily, if at all.
The best and most effective message is simple: Abstain from sex before marriage; be faithful within marriage. God put it differently in the Old Testament, but the meaning is the same: "You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14). Sex is for marriage only.
Some countries have
already realized the need to emphasize this, particularly with young people,
who need to be encouraged to wait until marriage before they have sex. A few
billboards and regular ads on television and radio cost little and can easily
be afforded by most governments, especially those that already control the media
in their country.
Any other message only confuses people and encourages promiscuous behavior.
If the world embraced God’s simple message, there would be no need for more AIDS conferences because the disease would die out within 20 years. Failure to follow God’s command will lead only to increasing demands for cash as the situation worsens and Western countries are pressured for yet more help. (Source: BBC World Service.)
(back to top)U.S. intentions concerning Iraq command the news media’s attention, but Iran is never off America’s mind for long. According to Randal Lurie, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., future chroniclers "will emphasize the massive, well-organized, state subsidized terror that stemmed from and flourished in Iran. That country, history will record, was overtaken by a religion that incorporated itself into a so-called legitimate state for one strategic purpose: The Islamization of the world as the endgame."
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American strategists estimate that Iran will be able to develop a nuclear-tipped missile within two or three years. But even more worrying is the prospect that Iranian leadership may have no qualms about using weapons of mass destruction against countries and peoples they deem as infidels.
Mr. Lurie continued: "Iran is much stronger than Iraq, and its religious fanaticism cements its mission to eliminate nonbelievers wherever they are. You can read nowadays open analysis by military pundits in the Iranian press debating whether two Hiroshima-size bombs could be more than enough to destroy Israel, or whether one would be sufficient."
Indeed we live in
a world where such frightening thinking is common. You need to know what the
Bible says about the trends that characterize our dangerous age. Please request
our free booklet Are We Living in the Time of the End? (Source: The
Los Angeles Times.)
A rash of newspaper
articles in July reported that England and Wales top the Western world’s
crime tables. Even more worrying, more- accurate methods of counting crime are
expected to reveal in the coming months that the true level of crime is as much
as 40 percent higher than
official figures have previously shown.
Crime is not just traumatic for its victims. It affects other aspects of everyday life. It is a political issue that threatens the reputations of government leaders if crime figures are not brought under control. Crime is a significant design-and-engineering issue, with high-tech consumer items, from the mobile phone to the family car, incorporating several layers of security as deterrents against theft.
Society struggles
with the anything-goes attitude towards morality as it comes to terms with new
statistics showing that one in 20 women in England and Wales say they have been
raped at least once since age 16. Most of the victims say the attack was carried
out by someone they knew, and most incidents went unreported. (Sources: Independent
on Sunday, Daily Mail (both London).)
Although drought is officially blamed for the famine expected to take millions of lives across Southern Africa in the coming months, many Africans realize there is far more to it than that.
Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda, in a BBC interview, blamed the famine on governmental corruption, a perennial African problem. He quite bluntly said that African leaders do not care about their own people. In spite of numerous warnings over recent months of impending famine, nobody did anything to prepare. Even now the former president, affectionately referred to as "K.K." by Zambians, warned that leaders would not distribute foreign aid unless they could see something in it for themselves.
An additional cause of the famine is the forcible seizure of land owned by white farmers whose ancestors settled the region in colonial times. Whatever wrongs may or may not have been committed during the colonial period, the fact remains that these farmers are highly productive, as are their American and European counterparts. Most indigenous African farmers remain subsistence farmers, which means they grow only enough food to feed themselves. The descendants of the original settlers are commercial farmers who grow vast amounts of food for sale, ensuring that the entire population has enough to eat and leaving enough left over for export to pay for essential imports like oil.
The compulsory seizure of farmland has not been just an African problem. The communists took control of all private land in Russia after they came to power. Famine was the immediate result. Only this year have Russians finally been able to own land again. After 70 years of communism and a decade of postcommunist confusion, Russian agricultural production is nowhere near what it was in the last years of czarist Russia before World War I, in spite of the technological innovations that have boosted production elsewhere.
In America and other Western nations, family farms are going out of business at an alarming rate. They are not the victims of compulsory governmental seizures of land, but faulty economic policies that encourage big agribusinesses at the expense of family farms.
The Bible speaks of a time when families will once again be able to settle their land and farm without the fear of government stealing their land or introducing policies that make life more difficult. It will also be a time when there will be no more war, another major factor in declining agricultural production in Africa.
In Micah 4:3-4 we read of the coming Kingdom of God, which Jesus Christ will rule: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. But everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid ..." (Source: BBC.)
(back to top)Recent dramatic losses on Wall Street are having an effect in an unusual quarter, discouraging many from going ahead with divorce. Says a Wall Street Journal headline, "Matrimonial Lawyers Say Many Clients Can No Longer Afford to Get Divorced; There’s Not Enough Money Left to Split" (The Wall Street Journal, July 24, "To Hold and No Longer Have: Stocks’ Decline Roils Marriages").
More encouraging
in the long term is a new study that shows that "splitting up doesn’t
increase happiness." A piece by syndicated columnist Mona Charen reported
the results of a study by the Institute for American Values that showed that
most unhappy couples do not become happier by going their
separate ways.
"According to the survey conducted by a team of family researchers, unhappily married adults who divorced were no happier five years after the divorce than were equally unhappy marrieds who remained together. And two-thirds of unhappily married people who remained married reported that their marriages were happy five years later.
"Even among those who had rated their marriages as ‘very unhappy,’ nearly 80 percent said they were happily married five years later." The conclusion? Staying together and working through marital problems is the best way to go.
The study also included the surprising discovery that "unhappy spouses who divorced actually showed slightly more depressive symptoms five years later than those who didn’t."
The study highlighted three ways in which couples can turn their marriages around.
"The first was endurance. Many couples do not so much solve their problems as transcend them. Moreover, these couples maintained a negative view of the effects of divorce. ‘The grass is always greener,’ explained one husband, ‘but it’s Astroturf.’
"Others were more aggressive. Those the researchers labeled the ‘marital work-ethic’ types (who) tackled their problems by arranging for more private time with one another, seeking counseling (from clergy or professionals), receiving help from in-laws or other relatives, or in some cases, threatening divorce or consulting a divorce lawyer.
"In the third category were the ‘personal happiness seekers’ who found other ways to improve their overall contentment even if they could not markedly improve their marital happiness."
Speaking of divorce, Jesus said, "what God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matthew 19:6). He makes it clear that God never intended that people divorce: "... From the beginning it was not so" (verse 8). It’s been only 30 years since no-fault-divorce laws became the norm in the Western world, with the resultant unhappiness that accompanies the breakdown of family life. This is not the way God intended things to be.
Couples should commit to working through their marital problems and not follow the ways of this world. Follow God’s law, not man’s loopholes. (Sources: The Wall Street Journal, Lansing State Journal.
(back to top)Pope John Paul II came out in August in favor of an international peacekeeping force to quell the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The pope said the international community must take "a more determined role on the ground." International mediation, he continued, was required to create "the conditions for a fruitful dialogue between the two sides." The Palestinians have long sought international protection, but the Israelis have rejected such proposals, saying that outside peacekeeping forces would not stop Palestinian attacks.
This comes on the heels of a proposal at the July meeting of the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe that Jerusalem be put under the control of an international consortium. Italian parliamentarian Marcello Pacini put forward the resolution out of fears that the Israelis, under international pressure, may eventually cede control of Christian holy sites to Muslim authorities. Yasir Arafat has already claimed guardianship of both Muslim and Christian holy sites in Old Jerusalem. The Israeli observer delegation at the OSCE meeting convinced Mr. Pacini to withdraw the resolution because they saw it as "problematic for Israel."
Keep watching Jerusalem, which is destined to become the center of world conflict (Zechariah 12:1-3). Major involvement by Europe, the Vatican and the Muslim world are all prophesied for the Holy City. (Sources: BBC.com, CNSNews.com.)
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Table of Contents that includes "An Overview of Conditions Around the World - Sep/Oct 2002"
Other Articles by John Ross Schroeder
Other Articles by Melvin Rhodes
Other Articles by Tom Robinson
Origin of article "An Overview of Conditions Around the World - Sep/Oct 2002"
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