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"Gambling: A Bad Bet" is a new position paper released by Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. It argues that gambliing has an especially negative impact on families and the economy and denounces the dependency of governments, charities and community groups on gambling as a revenue source. The paper provides a detailed perspective of biblical and theoligical views on gambling identifying, among other things, that gambling is a matter of the heart in that it promotes greed and covetousness.
-Evangelical Fellowship of Canada</P>
Mennonite Central Committee has a free 1997-98 Resource Catalog available. The catalog lists audiovisuals, posters, photo exhibits and printed material about lifestyle, peacemaking, care of God's creation, mission of MCC and more. One of the new videos being offered highlights MCC thrift stores. "Thrift Shops: No End in Sight" is an 18-minute look at how thrift shops work, who the customers are and how persons can get involved. The MCC thrift shops provide low-cost quality clothing in North American communities and raise money for MCC's relief and development work. The resource catalog also offers a wide selection of children's materials.
- Mennonite Central Committee [photo]
Over 15 million people listen to Dr. Laura Schlessinger, a radio-based psychotherapist, daily. She is a conservative Jew who gives strict moral advice and makes no excuses for her brusqueness or sarcasm. Dr. Laura concentrates on communicating values and bringing listeners back to a black- and-white, right-and-wrong understanding of the problem. Her three-hour call-in show can be heard on 290 radio stations in Canada and the US with as many as 75,000 trying to contact her daily.
-Current Thoughts and Trends
John Gray, author of the six million copy bestseller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, says he got his inspiration for the Mars/Venus concept from the movie E.T. and thinks it is his destiny to negotiate world peace. The widely popular writer and lecturer earned his M.A. in Creative Intelligence from Maharishi International University (founded by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi) and his Ph.D. in Psychology via correspondence from Columbia Pacific University, in San Rafael, Calif. He has sold over 9 million books, 3 million videotapes and 1.5 million audiotapes.
-Current Thoughts and Trends
Christianity Online and Christianity.Net have joined with the leading online book provider, Amazon.com Books to create the Books & Culture Store. This electronic shop will be a quick and easy place for Christian intellectuals to purchase books reviewed in Books & Culture magazine. The store is located at http://www.christianity.net/bcstore and allows one to read a book review from the magazine or purchase books immediately through Amazon.com at discounts of up to 40 percent. Christianity Online is America Online's top religious partner and has received AOL's Members' Choice designation.
-Christianity Today, Inc.
Bethany Bible Institute has gone online. With a calendar of events, alumni/ae chatline, ministry teams, course and program information and a faculty e-ail system, www.bethany.sk.ca is a comprehensive look at the vibrant life of BBI. -Bethany Bible Institute
Over 80% of Americans polled believe that federal obscenity laws against hard-core pornography should be strictly enforced. Sixty-eight percent believe that the government is not doing enough to make that a reality.
Evangelical Press News Service
Statues of 20th century martyrs, including Martin Luther King Jr. and assassinated Archbishop of El Salvador Oscar Romero, will fill a long un-used wing of Westminster Abbey. The ten statues to be unveiled in July 1998 will be housed in a section of the Abbey that has not been in use since the Middle Ages. -EPNS
Singer-songwriter Rich Mullins was killed in a traffic accident September 19th. Mullins and his drummer, Mitchell McVicker were on their way to a benefit concert in Kansas when they lost control of their vehicle. After being thrown from the vehicle, Mullins was struck by a tractor trailer swerving to avoid McVicker and their vehicle. Mullins was well-loved and respected throughout the Christian music industry and considered by some to be the best songwriter of our time. Best known for his song "Our God is an Awesome God", he wrote songs for many top performers and recorded nine albums over the past eleven years. -EPNS
The controversial TV drama "Nothing Sacred" has been stirring up a lot of discussion but has so far failed to attract many viewers. Despite the outrage expressed by the Catholic League and other conservative religious groups, the show, which depicts a priest who questions the existence of God and is ambivalent on church doctrines ranging from abortion to homosexuality, has yet to catch on with the public. -EPNS
Inspired by the creative energies unleashed in the making of 1992's Hymnal: A Worship Book, a new Hymnal Subscription Service was formed. Headed up by Ken Nafziger of Eastern Mennonite University, the service is committed to providing new tunes, texts and worship materials on an ongoing basis. The service will release two issues per year with the first issue including a new accompaniment to Andre Crouch's "Soon and very soon" by Alice Parker, some new hymns by Mennonites and a Spanish creed for Christian worship. Contact Levi Miller at Herald Press for more information.
"Of all the needs a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied if there is going to be a hope of wholeness is the unshakng need for an unshakable God" - poet Maya Angelou (quoted in Emerging Trends, June 1997, page 3)
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