We routinely, from time to time, get uncomplimentary responses to our ministry efforts. Of course, it is the norm in the Christian endtime ministry that your teeming friends affirm you by merely nodding their heads while your few foes do far more than that. Often, they don’t spare funds, time, or spiritual efforts in making their points clear. But it is all part of basic ministry!
So whether it is threat letters from legal chambers abroad or verbal snipes from local folks, we simply take these in our strides and keep our focus on our Christ-given mandate. However an email received just before press time from one Peter Osikwemhe addresses a major point in our ministry and we take the opportunity to once again restate our perspectives and position on these issues. First the mail (without any editing):
“I read your article, but why cant we just preach the word and stop condemning one another? what has the catholic church done that you all keep striking hard and forgot to impart the true meaning of Gods Words. let stop all this feud and condemnation of priest and face the true meaning of christainity. God will judge us one day, you too may not be 100% holy. we all need prayers, that is why we have to pray for one another in times of trouble. not telling the whole word the negative side of priest, destroying there image when u were suppose to pray for them. everyone have sinned.
a life of celibacy is difficult, paul in the bible lived that. when most pastors fall out of lust, i pray for them, stop this. it wont lead us anywhere. even falsifying stories to gain your purpose.
pray for forgiveness and stop condenming. leave it to God.Dont fall a victim, avoid insulting men of God, there are implications!
Peter”
Our response: CA! is not about condemning people. What do we gain from that? On the contrary we have a great deal of sympathy towards those most of society despise or (ab)use. Our position and concern is that the great deceiver and enemy of our soul (using largely religion and social tools) is keeping people in bondage away from their destiny and potentials in Christ.
Just look at the facts in these sexual abuse cases:
(1) It is plain wrong, and unfair that young children who trust in a religious institution get abused and scarred and corrupted. Wrong is wrong, no matter who is involved or the institutions that sponsor them!
(2) It is sad that ordinarily sincere people, seeking to serve God (as priests, for instance), should get ensnared in unbiblical situations that turn them into fiends and abusers of children – doing satan’s work for him. Of course each individual is accountable before the great Judge. But while we refrain from the futile and unfruitful efforts to judge people, we have the mandate to judge institutions and practices, using the yardstick of God’s eternally-settled word .(eg, Acts 4:19, 1 Cor 14:29, Phil 1:9, etc) God Himself affirms that He has some of His people (trapped/blinded?) even in unimaginable places (e.g. see Rev 3:4). Church Arise! mandate includes attempting to reach out to such people. Anyone who fits into this category needs to urgently heed God’s clear instructions in the Bible (see e.g. Rev 18:4, 2 Cor 6:17, Cor. Etc) – TODAY!
Yes, it’s tough living in the world, especially in these perilous end-time days. But we affirm that the Lord Jesus has made more than adequate provisions for our victory (See 1 John 5:4-5). We report these issues hoping that people will see that there is a glorious alternative provided for them through Jesus Christ the Truth. If only they would be bold enough to take the right steps, seeking the honour that comes from God alone and not that from men and their institutions (see John 5:44, John 12:42-43)
And of course, we don’t CREATE the news. We only report them. And we go to great length to always cite the sources of our news. Deliberately, most of our news and commentaries are taken from reliable sources that others can easily check out. For instance, all the news and commentaries we published on the catholic church in the last edition (vol 13 no 2) were all in the public domain, authored by catholics themselves. We only direct the attention of people (engaged by several other man-made problems in society) to these facts!
Finally, as any regular reader of CA! can attest, events in the catholic institution are only a fraction of the issues we routinely report on. We devote at least as much space to unedifying situations in non-catholic churches too. And, especially where persecution of Christians is involved, we do report extensively on Islam and other religions also. Of course reports on religion is only about a half of what we publish. The other half involves politics and governance, technology, economy, education and ethics, etc. The whole point is to alert the Church that “the time is short” and there might be better ways to use whatever time is left than what most of us are currently doing.
We seize this opportunity to sincerely thank all who have steadfastly encouraged us along, all these 12 years plus.
Worthy News now syndicated on our website.
You can now have up-to-date news on subjects relevant to our ministry by visiting our website anytime. This is because Worthy News (www.worthynews.com) now feeds our site directly. This is in addition to links to an enormous amount of resources (many of them free) from other Christian ministries and websites. See what we mean by checking out www.churcharise.org.
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