FRIDAY NEWS ROUND-UP

The following news stories touched a nerve in me today.

First, read this:
Scientists: Time Itself May Be Slowing Down
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/scientists-time.html

"A group of scientists from the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao, and Spain's University of Salamanca have offered a different idea. Maybe it's the passage of time itself that's slowing down, they say. The distant galaxies only look like they're accelerating because our deep-space telescopes are essentially looking back in time to see them, to when time was going faster. "

and then read this:
The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/Science-God-Convergence-Scientific-Biblical/dp/076790303X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198861969&sr=8-3

Schroeder is an Israeli physicist and scholar of Genesis who maintains that a properly understood Bible and a properly understood science provide consistent sets of data. In recent decades, scientific discoveries in cosmology, paleontology, and quantum physics do not demonstrate or prove the activity of God, but they do remove conflict with that activity.

Schroeder is very lucid in explaining difficult scientific concepts, such as the passage of time according to the theory of relativity, and religious data, such as the original Hebrew words. Schroeder's careful and responsible handling of the data on origins from science and Genesis 1, combined with a fresh, judicious correlation between the two, is compelling.
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NEXT:


`Gospel of wealth' facing scrutiny
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071227/ap_on_re_us/prosperity_preachers
By ERIC GORSKI, AP Religion WriterThu Dec 27, 2:56 PM ET

The message flickered into Cindy Fleenor's living room each night: Be faithful in how you live and how you give, the television preachers said, and God will shower you with material riches.
And so the 53-year-old accountant from the Tampa, Fla., area pledged $500 a year to Joyce Meyer, the evangelist whose frank talk about recovering from childhood sexual abuse was so inspirational. She wrote checks to flamboyant faith healer Benny Hinn and a local preacher-made-good, Paula White.

Only the blessings didn't come. Fleenor ended up borrowing money from friends and payday loan companies just to buy groceries. At first she believed the explanation given on television: Her faith wasn't strong enough.

"I wanted to believe God wanted to do something great with me like he was doing with them," she said. "I'm angry and bitter about it. Right now, I don't watch anyone on TV hardly."

(more in link above)

COMMENTARY:
I cannot tell you how much this sort of thing pisses me off. I know more than one elderly woman who has to live on hand-outs because she sends checks for hundreds of dollars to these hucksters and charlatans. Then they call us in tears wondering why God hasn't healed their illness or pain. They have been so deluded into believing this Gospel of Gain and it makes me sick.

If you read the entire story linked above you'll see where one of the Televangelists says that their brand of theology must work because they themselves are filthy rich. All that proves is that if you're the person telling others to believe your bullsh*t and mail you checks for hundreds of dollars you can get rich. It doesn't work for those poor saps who believe your twisted doctrines and go broke supporting your 20 million dollar spending habit.

This theology doesn't work for the millions of poor and diseased in India, Africa, Bangledesh, Nepal, etc. It only seems to work in capitalist, materialistic USA where the Gospel of Jesus has been hijacked and perverted into the most anti-Kingdom message you could possibly imagine.

Jesus was poor. He was born into poverty. The Scriptures could not be more clear on this. Jesus was homeless. Paul was homeless. The Gospel is about giving things away, not hoarding wealth for yourself. The early church sold property and liquidated wealth to care for the poorest of the poor around them; not just the Christians. The leaders of the Church took the money laid at their feet and distributed it to the poor and the orphan and the widow and the leper. They did not keep it and purchase goodies for themselves or enrich their lives here with the offerings of their flock.

In America we say, "Come to Jesus and you'll get a better job, you'll have a happier family and you'll make more money." In the rest of the World the Gospel is communicated as, "Come to Jesus and you may lose your job. Your family may be imprisoned. You may be tortured. Your life here may be difficult."

Excuse me, I'm going to go puke now.

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