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Apologia Report 13:2
January 16, 2008
Subject: Are New Apostles undergoing a major shift?
In this issue:
DISPENSATIONALISM - "a stunning glimpse of American evangelicalism"
MORMONISM - evangelical problems with Romney, "bigotry and religious intolerance"?
NEW APOSTOLIC CHURCH - cracks in the hard-core movement?
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DISPENSATIONALISM
Reasons to Believe: One Man's Journey Among the Evangelicals and the Faith He Left Behind, byÊJohn Marks [2] -- Publishers Weekly (Dec 10 '07, p52) notes that "Marks's first work of nonfiction began as a segment that he produced for 60 Minutes on the Left Behind phenomenon. During the research, a devout evangelical Christian couple made a deep impression on him, leaving him with the question of whether he would be left behind when Christ returns on judgment day. The problem gnawed at him. After getting laid off from 60 Minutes, the novelist ... embarked on a two-year quest to uncover the wellsprings of America's most popular religion. While this memoir of longing and doubt treads some of the same territory explored by atheists such as Sam Harris, it is the first that doesn't simply reject the evangelical worldview. Marks discovers much that is positive, especially in the way churches rallied to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina. What makes this book most compelling, however, are the ways in which Marks allows his interviewees to engage him as a potential convert. He is so sympathetic to them that until the very last page it is uncertain whether he will decide to abandon his secular life. In the end, Marks gives us a stunning glimpse of American evangelicalism in all its variety."
In its first Nov '07 edition, Kirkus adds: "The author logged a few intense teenage years as an evangelical before reading Enlightenment philosophy and moving on. Taking another look as an adult, he spotlights popular evangelical writers like Brennan Manning, sits through an endless sermon about salvation (if you don't know Jesus, you're sunk), examines hot-button issues and explores what evangelicals mean when they say they have a 'personal' relationship with Jesus. Along the way, Marks makes many perceptive points. The term 'fundamentalist' is falling out of fashion even among the most conservative Christians, he points out; they prefer the term 'evangelical,' mostly because they are trying to distance themselves from 'Islamic fundamentalism.' But the divide between evangelicals and the more defensive, antagonistic fundies still exists, avers the author, and over the next two decades it will become 'far sharper, far deeper.' Marks notes American evangelicals' obsession with C.S. Lewis, who lends some intellectual bona fides to evangelical preaching and teaching. Evangelicals feel that other Americans look down on them, he suggests; they are thrilled to meet 'a nonbeliever who doesn't consider them de facto idiots or dullards.' Occasionally, Marks strikes a false note. His mystifyingly out-of-date insistence that evangelicals still shun everything 'worldly' fails to take into account the many ways in which today's evangelicals - as opposed to those of, say, the 1940s - ceaselessly strive to be relevant to, and partake freely of, American consumer culture. In a somewhat banal conclusion to his 'journey,' the author rejects evangelicalism because he can't believe a god could have presided over all the violence of the 20th century."
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MORMONISM
It is said that politics is all about compromise and that "It isn't who you vote for, it's who you vote against." In this sense, the specter of a possible Hillary vs. Mitt choice is daunting for many conservatives.
The most insightful and concise analysis that we've seen which explains why many evangelicals are loathe to vote for Romney was penned by political commentator Stuart Rothenberg who finds [1] that "many observers still don't fully understand why evangelical Christian voters are having a problem with Romney's Mormon religion. It's not merely that they disagree with his church on matters of theology or, as some may believe, that they are intolerant. The issue is far more fundamental than that.
"Many evangelicals won't vote for a Mormon for president of the United States for the same reason that almost all Jews would not vote for a candidate (for any office, I expect) who is a member of Jews for Jesus. For Jews, the Jews for Jesus movement is a deceptive attempt to woo Jews to Christianity under the guise of remaining true to Judaism.
"Likewise, for evangelicals, Mormons are not 'Christians' in the sense that evangelicals understand the term, and by portraying themselves as 'Christians,' The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is deceptively wooing evangelicals or potential adherents away from Christianity.
"Evangelicals see Mormons as trying to blur the line between Christianity and Mormonism, just as Jews see Jews for Jesus as trying to blur the lines between Judaism and Christianity.
"In each case, Mormons and Jews would not want to elevate to high office someone who might give legitimacy to a group that passes itself off as something that it is not, and that threatens their own group." In sum, Romney's election "would help erase the lines between what they [evangelicals] view as the two very different religions. ...
"Many in the media portray evangelical attitudes toward Mormonism as a form of bigotry and religious intolerance akin to the anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic sentiment that was once so prevalent in this country and is much rarer these days. But it is a very different kind of concern, a concern about the meaning of Christianity."
Related and well worth noting:
* "The Crux of Romney's Evangelical Problem" by Biola prof Kevin Alan Lewis
<http://www.lawandjustice.org/news/kalblog.php>
* "What Is It About Mormonism?" by Noah Feldman in the New York Times Magazine
<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/magazine/06mormonism-t.html>
* "The Mormons still haven't settled their race problem" by Jason L. Riley in the Wall Street Journal
<http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110011023>
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NEW APOSTOLIC CHURCH
Citing the work of Andreas Fincke in EZW Studien No. 193 (available only in German via www.ekd.de/ezw), social science academic Jean-Francois Mayer believes the NAC is experiencing "winds of change" that he describes as "ecumenical." The staunchly exclusivist NAC, providing salvation only for those upon whom the NAC's apostles physically lay their hands, and which "has been given relatively little attention by scholars, ... is the third largest Christian denomination in Germany (385,000 members), after Roman Catholics and Protestants. While its stronghold long remained in German-speaking countries of Europe, the church has developed rapidly in new territories during the last decades: only 5 percent of New Apostolic Christians live in Central Europe today. Membership worldwide has doubled between 1988 and 1998.
"The NAC now has 11 million followers worldwide (led by 360 apostles, under a Chief Apostle), with an amazing growth in Central Africa and India." (Editor's note: This means that the NAC remains roughly equivalent in size to each of the other largest organized cultic [as opposed to occultic, e.g., the New Age] worldwide movements derived from Christianity, namely: Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, and Oneness Pentecostalism. Curiously these five have been continued to be comparable in size and growth over the past several decades.)
Mayer's point is that "Since 1998, the NAC has refrained from calling its Chief Apostle 'the Lord's representative on Earth,' while retaining an elevated status for that role, including the possibility of delivering new revelations. In recent NAC documents, the presence of many elements of truth in other Christian denominations is also acknowledged, and salvation for other Christians is not excluded anymore." Religion Watch, Dec '07, p5.
This edition of RW announces [p1] that, due to financial difficulties, Religioscope <religion.info>, "recently founded" by Mayer, has become the newsletter's new publisher.
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Sources, Digital:
1 - <http://tinyurl.com/32g5ts>
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Sources, Monographs:
2 - Reasons to Believe: One Man's Journey Among the Evangelicals and the Faith He Left Behind, by John Marks (Ecco, February 2008, hardcover, 384 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060832762/apologiareport>
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