30 March 2011
Presbyterians Week Headlines
[1] U.S. Foreign Aid Being Given to Refurbish Muslim Mosques Overseas
[3] Jerusalem Bomb Kills Scottish Bible Translator In Israel to Study Hebrew
[4] Former URCNA Pastor Charged with Multiple Rapes and Other Sexual Crimes
[6] Resolved: Ten Hours of Debate Competition and Banqueting Keeps the Sabbath Holy?
[7] English Translation Error Discovered in the 2nd Helvetic Confession
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[1] U.S. Foreign Aid Being Given to Refurbish Muslim Mosques Overseas
A WSBTV.com video report by Justin Farmer titled “Muslim Mosque Makeovers with Your Tax Dollars” reports that the U.S. Department of State has spent hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars overseas in countries including Egypt, Cyprus, Tajikistan, and Mali to refurbish Islamic mosques. The U.S. Department of State sent an email to WSBTV.com saying that the mosque makeover money is being used to fight Islamic extremism by building relationships with Muslim leaders.
Former Muslim and now Christian Nani Darwish, an Egyptian-American human rights activist, says that trying to buy respect in the Middle East just shows American weakness and appeasement. Darwish says the Muslims are “laughing all the way to the bank”. Darwish is a former Muslim from Egypt, where she says most of the mosques are run by radical Islamists that have ordered those like her that speak out against radical Islam to be killed.
U.S. foreign aid has additionally been used by radical Islamists to buy computers and Internet access in some mosques, which Darwish believes are being used by the radical Muslims to fight against what the mosque members call the “Great Satan”, the United States.
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+ WSBTV.com, 1601 West Peachtree Street Northeast, Atlanta, Georgia 30309, 404-897-7000, talk2us@wsbtv.com
+ U.S. Department of State, 2201 C Street Northwest, Washington DC 20520, 202-647-6575
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A 24 March 2011 RedState article titled “The Racist Revolt in Libya” reports that the U.S.-Backed and al Qaeda-supported Libyan rebels currently fighting to overthrow Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi are killing, raping, stealing the identification papers and property of, and exiling to sub-Saharan Africa the black Africans living in the cities under rebel control.
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+ RedState, 1 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest, Suite 600, Washington DC 20001, contact@redstate.com
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[3] Jerusalem Bomb Kills Scottish Bible Translator In Israel to Study Hebrew
The 23 March 2011 bomb blast in Jerusalem, Israel, attributed to Palestinian militants, injured fifty people and killed 59-year-old Mary Gardner from Orkney, Scotland, who was studying Hebrew for six months at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University in preparation for returning to Togo and working on translation of the Old Testament into the Togolese language Ife.
Mary Gardner had worked in Togo since 1989 under the auspices of Wycliffe Bible Translators, translating the New Testament into the Ife language.
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+ Assist USA, Post Office Box 609, Lake Forest, California 92609, 949-380-1558, danjuma1@aol.com
+ Wycliffe Bible Translators, 11221 John Wycliffe Boulevard, Orlando, Florida 32832, 407-852-3600, Fax: 407-852-3601, Info_USA@wycliffe.org
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[4] Former URCNA Pastor Charged with Multiple Rapes and Other Sexual Crimes
A 26 March 2011 article by Adam Belz in the Des Moines Register titled “Rape Allegations against Former Pella Pastor Leave ‘Lifetime of Hurt’” reports that Patrick Edouard, former pastor of Covenant United Reformed Church (United Reformed Churches in North America) (URCNA) in Pella, Iowa, has been arrested and charged with the rape of three different women from the church, and with three counts of sexual exploitation for two of the rapes and a two-year sexual relationship with another woman from the church – the three women being in a counseling relationships with the pastor.
Edouard resigned as Covenant’s pastor in December 2011 after being confronted by church officers with allegations of sexual infidelity. The URCNA subsequently rescinded Edouard’s ministerial credentials.
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+ Des Moines Register, 715 Locust Street, Des Moines, Iowa 50309, 515-284-8000, publisher@dmreg.com
+ United Reformed Churches in North America, c/o the Rev. Bradd Nymeyer, 227 1st Avenue Southeast, Sioux Center, Iowa 51250, 712-722-1965, statedclerk@urcna.org
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A 25 March 2011 article by Linda B. Blackford in the Lexington Herald-Leader titled “Founder of Creation Museum Banned from Convention” reports that Creation Museum and Answers in Genesis founder Ken Ham has been disinvited from the 2011 and future Cincinnati Home School Conventions because Ham criticized another convention speaker, Peter Enns of the Biologos Foundation.
The Biologos Foundation avers that the fall of Adam and Eve can be construed as a symbolic story of Israel’s beginnings, rather than a literal description of human beginnings.
Enns left a faculty position at Westminster Theological Seminary in July 2008 before a scheduled dismissal hearing. Enns had been suspended because of theological issues in his book, Inspiration and Incarnation, and questions as to whether it fell within the bounds of the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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+ Lexington Herald-Leader, 100 Midland Avenue, Lexington, Kentucky 40508, 859-231-3221, laustin@herald-leader.com
+ Answers in Genesis, 2800 Bullittsburg Church Road, Petersburg, Kentucky 41080, 859-727-2222
+ The BioLogos Foundation, 6549 Mission Gorge Road, Box 251, San Diego, California 92120, 619-849-2205, info@biologos.org
+ Westminster Theological Seminary, 2960 West Church Road, Glenside, Pennsylvania 19038, 215-887-5511, Fax: 215-887-5404, communications@wts.edu
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[6] Resolved: Ten Hours of Debate Competition and Banqueting Keeps the Sabbath Holy?
A correspondent directed the editor to the Schedule of Events of the National Christian College Forensics Invitational 2011, which was held 11-13 March 2011, at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California, and to the schedule of events for Sunday, 13 March 2011.
That particular Sabbath day began at 8:00 a.m. with a forty-five minute worship service, followed by almost ten hours of debate competition before an awards banquet was held at 7:45 p.m. that evening.
Covenant College’s forensics team was one of twenty-six Christian institutions of higher education enrolled in the competition.
The correspondent’s concern can be succinctly summarized with the question: “What is wrong with this picture?”
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+ National Christian College Forensics Association, 619-849-2391, SkipRutledge@pointloma.edu
+ Covenant College, 14049 Scenic Highway, Lookout Mountain, Georgia 30750, 706-820-1560, info@covenant.edu
+ Presbyterian Church in America, 1700 North Brown Road, Suite 105, Lawrenceville, Georgia 30043, 678-825-1000, Fax: 678-825-1001, ac@pcanet.org
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[7] English Translation Error Discovered in the 2nd Helvetic Confession
Robert C. Davis writes:
“If you use the 2nd Helvetic Confession, the English translations condemn the “Novatians” in Chapter Three. This translation is in error. The translation of this section should be “Noaetus” not “Novatians”. The original Latin is “Noetiani” in Chapter Three, where as in Chapter Fourteen, “Novatians” is spelled “Novatianos”. The Novatians were never known to be heretics in regards to the trinity. Noaetus was a follower of Praxeas which held to the Modalistic Monarchianism view of the trinity. The editio princeps confirms this. Hall, Cochrane, and numerous English translations pass on the misreading, which stems from a late 16th century copy. There is a footnote on this in the E. F. K. Mueller ed., Die Bekenntnisschriften der Reformierten Kirche, 5.1, p. 174, a text-criticism problem. Apparently, some later editions of the 2nd Helvetic Confession have “Novatiani” instead of “Noetiani”. I guess that the latter were unfamiliar, and thus someone substituted “Novatiani”.
Robert C. Davis holds the M.Div. degree from Westminster Theological Seminary and serves as an Elder and Sunday school teacher at St. John’s Reformed Church Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS) in Lincoln, Nebraska. Mr. Davis additionally served in the RCUS as a Pastor of the Odessa Charge for five years, which included Artas Reformed Church in Artas, South Dakota, and First Reformed Church of Herreid, South Dakota. Mr. Davis also pastored the then-independent and now Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) Bethlehem Reformed Church in Freeman, South Dakota. Mr. Davis is currently employed in Lincoln, Nebraska, at Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway as a Licensed Telecommunications Tech.
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+ Reformed Church in the United States, Post Office Box 486, Eureka, South Dakota 57437
+ The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 607 North Easton Road, Building E, Box P, Willow Grove, Pennsylvania 19090, 215-830-0900, Fax: 215-830-0350
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