Hi to all my Forum Friends,
Best to cut the head off the snake right away. So, I will post this before our non-believing Friends have a chance to wrap it in their anti-Christian rhetoric. This man, Terry Jones, of Dove World Outreach Center, Gainesville, Florida -- is the bookend counterpart to Fred Phelps of Kansas.
According to the ABC News web site: "Jones' plan to set ablaze thousands of copies of the Muslim holy book on Sept. 11, a day he's dubbed International Burn a Koran Day, has become a flashpoint. What has been seen for weeks as a strange front in the culture wars, this weekend became a front in America's real war, with Gen. David Patraeus weighing in to say he believed the display would be detrimental and dangerous to U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan."
What he is doing is not only dumb; but, it is also very dangerous. No matter how much we disagree with any of the world religions -- we do not burn the book the consider to be holy in their religion. This man needs to be arrested and prosecuted as a national security threat. The end result of this insult to all Muslims can only be to intensify Radical Islamist Terrorist activity -- and to take more military and innocent civilian lives.
By the way, the Islamic holy book is properly called the Qur'an, not Koran. That is the way it is spelled on my Qur'an which is distributed by the Islamic organization CAIR.
As I have often said, when I hear or read about a ministry which is new to me -- the first thing I do is to go to their web site and look at their Doctrinal Beliefs. This church ministry, Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Florida, does not have any beliefs posted. In lieu of Biblical Doctrines, they post videos of Mel Gibson's movie Braveheart.
This church shows no affiliation. So, we must assume them to be non-denominational. From what I do see on their web site, this church is part of the Five-Fold Pentecostal Ministry (Kingdom Now) -- and is not typical of all Pentecostal churches. So, our non-believing Friends cannot paint all Pentecostals, all Evangelicals, and all Conservative Christians with the same broad, lame paint brush.
Below is a good description of the Five-Fold Ministry churches, written by Dr. Robert Bowman, Jr. of Apologetics Index Ministry:
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THE FAULTY FOUNDATION OF THE FIVE-FOLD MINISTRY
by Robert Bowman, Apologetics Index Ministry
ttp://www.apologeticsindex.org/f09.html
It has recently become popular to speak of "the five-fold ministry," a system of church government with apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. The neo-Pentecostal "Restoration" movement and its offshoot, "kingdom now" teaching, claims that one of the things which God is "restoring" to the church is this five-fold ministry.
The sole proof text used to support this concept is Ephesians 4:11-13 , which states that Christ gave "some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,...until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the full knowledge of the Son of God."
The word "until," it is argued, proves that the church today needs apostles and prophets as much as evangelists, pastors, and teachers. However, it is the "building up" of the church (v.12) which must continue until the church is mature, not all five of the offices listed in verse 11.
This is clear when the whole text is read as follows: "And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers; [these offices were given] to equip the saints for the work of service, [which work has as its goal] to build up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith..." The offices of apostle and prophet would naturally cease in the church once their role in "equipping the saints" was completed; that is, once the New Testament canon was completed.
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Once again, this is solid proof that no person or church can take one or two Scripture verses or passages -- and build a theology upon them. A Christian theology MUST be built upon the entire Bible, God's full written message and revelation to mankind. Any time someone tries to build a theology upon selected Scripture passages -- it will never be a full Christian theology; but, instead an aberration of, or deviation from, true Christian theology.
And, the extremes of creating such a theology from just a few selected verses or passages are the likes of this Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center of Gainesville, Florida -- and Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas.
Every group within our society has its extremists who blacken the name and the work of those within that societal group. And Christianity is no different. Christianity is made up of normal, flawed human Christian believers -- and once in a while some of the apples in the bushel do tend to spoil and become rancid. Yet, no one in their right mind would throw away or condemn the whole bushel of apples because one or two have begun to show signs of decay.
So, to my Christian Friends, pray that whatever common sense is left in this Dove World Outreach Center church will come to the forefront and prevent this drastic, detrimental action. And, to our non-believing Friends -- since you do not pray, cross your fingers that God hears our prayers and puts a stop to this foolishness before it causes more deaths and destruction.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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