The following article reports on the latest debate surrounding the Shroud of Turin and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Art historian Thomas de Wesselow claims the ressurection was an optical illusion.
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Church Screening of ‘Jesus Film’ Attacked in Pakistan
Muslim villagers injure seven Christians, two seriously; police refuse to register case.
SARGODHA, Pakistan, December 14 (CDN) — Some 50 Muslim villagers armed with clubs and axes attacked a showing of the “Jesus Film” near this city in Punjab Province on Wednesday night (Dec. 9), injuring three part-time evangelists and four Christians in attendance.
Two of the evangelists were said to be seriously injured. The Muslim hardliners also damaged a movie projector, burned reels of the film and absconded with the public address system and donations from Christian viewers in Chak village, about 10 kilometers northeast of Sargodha, at 7 p.m.
Officers at the Saddr police station refused to register a case against the Muslim assailants, sources said.
Compass observed three part-time evangelists – Ishtiaq Bhatti, Imtiaz Ghauri and Kaleem Ghulam – screening the film within the premises of the Catholic Church of Chak, which sits within the police precincts of Saddr police station-Sargodha. Bhatti said the church compound was crammed with Christian villagers clapping as the film showed Jesus Christ performing miracles, raising the dead, casting out evil spirits and healing ailments.
Injured Christians were taken to the Basic Health Unit (BHU) of Chak village. Bhatti was treated for minor injuries, while Ghauri and Ghulam sustained serious injuries for which they received treatment at another hospital.
The evangelists who were screening the film said from their clinic beds that a Muslim cleric instigated the Muslim villagers, who were armed with clubs, spades and axes.
“They charged on us deadly and swiftly and left us injured and broke all our appliances and took away funds collected by congregants to help us,” Bhatti said. “Muslim men also injured those Christian villagers who tried to intervene and stop them.”
The intervention of Chaudhary Nassar-Ullah Cheema, headman of the village, resulted in the rescue of the Christian evangelists and the surrender of the Muslim mob, sources told Compass. The Muslim hardliners were forced to evacuate the church grounds, but only after a stand-off of nearly two hours.
Eyewitnesses who requested anonymity told Compass that numerous Muslim villagers and their clerics had gathered outside the church compound as the film played, with some of them climbing trees to get a clearer view of the screen. The eyewitnesses said that as soon as the Muslim attackers watched the resurrection and ascension of Christ, they became enraged because their version of Islam forbids portraying an image of a living thing and especially that of a prophet.
The sources added that although Muslims hold Christ as a prophet, they believe he was never crucified, having been replaced by a man identical to him.
No doctor was initially available for the four injured Christian viewers and three preachers who were taken to the BHU of Chak, but a male nurse treated their wounds and allowed them to go home. Ghauri and Ghulam sustained critical injuries and were transferred to District Headquarters Hospital in Sargodha.
Asad Masih, a local Christian leader, told Compass that they tried to register a case against Muslim villagers for thrashing (Article 337 of the Pakistan Penal Code) stealing (Article 380), recovery of the stolen items (411) and desecrating the church building, but police scornfully rejected their application. Officers peremptorily told them to settle the dispute in a local jury of village elders, he said.
Inspector Azeem Warriach of Saddr police station told Compass that registration of a case against a large number of Muslim villagers would further create a break-down of law and order.
“Therefore, I’ve directed them to solve the problem at the local level so that they might reconcile and live in perfect peace and harmony,” he said.
Report from Compass Direct News
EVANGELICAL CHURCH MAY BE ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE IN THE U.S.
Some believe the United States is on the verge of a major collapse of the evangelical church. That’s according to an article published by Michael Spencer in the Christian Science Monitor. He says this breakdown could also be the beginning of the marginalization of Christians as a whole in a country founded on the Judeo-Christian Ethic, reports MNN.
Warren Smith, author of the new book, Lovers Quarrel with the Evangelical Church, agrees. He says the reason it may collapse is because it’s forgotten about the true foundations of the faith. Smith says one pastor of the largest mega-church in the U.S. avoids the basics. “He doesn’t like to focus on sin. He doesn’t like to focus on the bloody cross, on the crucifixion of Jesus, on the need that we have as humans to have our sins atoned for. He likes to focus on the positive, on the upbeat.”
Spencer agrees as he outlines reasons why the evangelical church is on the verge of collapse. He says, “Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically the billions of dollar we’ve spent on youth ministries, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their faith.”
Many churches have followed that pattern which is why, Smith says, “It has become a church that really focuses on therapy rather than redemption.”
As a result, Smith says the evangelical church in decline. “There are all kinds of data that says we actually have fewer Christians today than we did 50 years ago.”
Smith says it’s because evangelicals have gotten away from their calling. “It’s not to make decisions, not to make converts, not to get people to raise hands at an evangelistic rally or a youth rally, but rather to make disciples and ‘teach all things I’ve commanded.’ That’s what the Great Commission really says. That’s what we’ve forgotten.”
There are more mega churches in the United States than ever before, but Smith says it’s not because there are more Christians. He says the data suggests that more Christians are flocking to mega churches and abandoning small churches.
The sad thing is, says Smith, “Mega churches provide an opportunity for people to come and be spectators rather than come and be participants or engage in true disciple-building activity.”
When Christians fail to participate, “They’re less apt to share their faith, less apt, for example, to believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. They’re less likely to believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God,” says Smith.
Smith became convicted of where he was spiritually when he realized he had been attending a church for 15 years and didn’t know how to communicate the Gospel to his kids. He says, “If you are going to a church that hasn’t, after three or four or five years, prepared you for leadership by its teaching and providing opportunities for leadership, then I would suggest there is something flawed about that church.”
There is good news, says Smith. “God is faithful. God is sovereign. God is not going to let the gates of hell prevail against His church, and we can experience the joy of being a part of that.”
As we get back to God Word, Smith says, we’ll have the desire to make disciples through church planting and other means, we’ll want to be involved in our community, and we’ll instruct our children to be followers of Christ.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
AUSTRALIAN PRO GAY “MARRIAGE” PRIEST DENIES JESUS IS GOD
Controversial Australian priest Fr. Peter Dresser, of Coonamble in the Diocese of Bathurst, has published a booklet where he insists that Jesus was not God, and did not think he was God, and also claims that the Blessed Virgin Mary had as many as six children, Joseph was the father of Jesus, and the bodily Resurrection is not to be taken literally, reports Thaddeus M. Baklinski, LifeSiteNews.com.
In his booklet titled “God is Big. Real Big!” Fr. Dresser says, “This whole matter regarding Jesus being God … not only does violence to my own intelligence, but must be a sticking point for millions of people trying to make some kind of sense of the Christian religion … No human being can ever be God, and Jesus was a human being. It is as simple as that.”
Fr. Dresser’s restatement of the old Arian heresy that denies the divinity of Christ has elicited a comment from Fr. Anthony Robbie, who has degrees in Arts and Law from Sydney University and in Theology from the Catholic Institute of Sydney as well as a Licentiate in Ecclesiastical History from the Gregorian University in Rome.
Fr. Robbie told The Australian that Fr. Dresser’s claims defied all scriptural evidence.
“What a breathtaking know-all, to claim he knows the mind of Christ contrary to scripture and tradition. His words rob Christianity entirely of its meaning and purpose,” Father Robbie said.
“The Council of Nicaea settled the question that Christ was God in 325, so he is 1700 years out of date. The rest is a regurgitation of every discredited 19th-century liberal Protestant German cliche in the book.”
Canon lawyer Dr. Edward Peters, JD, JCD, offered his thoughts on Fr. Dresser and the dissident church in Australia in his blog.
“The more modernistic the liberal clerical cohort in Australia tries to become, the older are the heresies that they promote. Lately, one Fr Peter Dresser is promoting his own brand of Arianism, a heresy that basically denied the divinity of Christ, and which was solemnly rejected by the Council of Nicaea (325). “No human being can ever be God,” writes Fr. Dresser in a booklet distributed to the faithful, “and Jesus was a human being. It is as simple as that.”
“Okay, here’s my version of simple: “No Catholic priest may deny the divinity of Christ, and Dresser is a Catholic priest. It’s as simple as that.” If Fr. Dresser really denies the divinity of Christ (among several other things!), declare his formal excommunication and expel him from the clerical state. Do it quickly, do it cleanly, and do it without rancor. But do it,” write Fr. Peters.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
SCIENTISTS FIND ANCIENT BOWL THAT MAY CALL JESUS A MAGICIAN
The report below comes from the Christian Telegraph and describes the discovery of a bowl that ‘scientists’ so called are speculating all manner of theories on. It seems the discovery of any object can be used to push an agenda of any type – in this case an agenda that will stop at nothing to nullify the claims of Christ.
The footage below was found on YouTube regarding the discovery of this bowl:
The report from the Christian Telegraph now follows:
Scientists find ancient bowl that may call Jesus a magician
In what is certainly to be a controversial speculation too hard for many Evangelical Christians to swallow, scientists claim they have found an ancient bowl that refers to Jesus Christ as a magician, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service.
A team of scientists led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio recently announced that they have found the bowl, dating to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D., that is engraved with what they believe could be the world’s first known reference to Christ.
In an online article by Jennifer Viegas of the Discovery Channel posted to the MSNBC website, scientists say the engraving reads, “DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS,” which has been interpreted to mean either, “by Christ the magician” or, “the magician by Christ.”
The MSNBC article says that if the word “Christ” refers to the Biblical Jesus Christ, as is speculated, then the discovery may provide evidence that Christianity and paganism at times intertwined in the ancient world.
“It could very well be a reference to Jesus Christ, in that he was once the primary exponent of white magic,” said archaeologist Goddio, who is co-founder of the Oxford Center of Maritime Archaeology.
In her article, Viegas says that Goddio and his colleagues found the object during an excavation of the underwater ruins of Alexandria’s ancient great harbor. The Egyptian site also includes the now submerged island of Antirhodos, where Cleopatra’s palace may have been located.
Viegas says that both Goddio and Egyptologist David Fabre, a member of the European Institute of Submarine Archaeology, think a “magus” could have practiced fortune telling rituals using the bowl. The Book of Matthew refers to “wisemen,” or Magi, believed to have been prevalent in the ancient world.
According to Fabre, the bowl is also very similar to one depicted in two early Egyptian earthenware statuettes that are thought to show a soothsaying ritual.
“It has been known in Mesopotamia probably since the 3rd millennium B.C.,” Fabre said. “The soothsayer interprets the forms taken by the oil poured into a cup of water in an interpretation guided by manuals.”
Fabre added that the individual, or “medium,” then goes into a hallucinatory trance when studying the oil in the cup.
“They therefore see the divinities, or supernatural beings appear that they call to answer their questions with regard to the future,” he said.
Viegas writes that scientists theorize the magus might then have used the engraving on the bowl to legitimize his supernatural powers by invoking the name of Christ.
Goddio said, “It is very probable that in Alexandria they were aware of the existence of Jesus” and of his associated legendary miracles, such as transforming water into wine, multiplying loaves of bread, conducting miraculous health cures, and the story of the resurrection itself.
Viegas explains that while not discounting the Jesus Christ interpretation, other researchers have offered different possible interpretations for the engraving, which was made on the thin-walled ceramic bowl after it was fired, since slip was removed during the process.
Bert Smith, a professor of classical archaeology and art at Oxford University, suggests the engraving might be a dedication, or present, made by a certain “Chrestos” belonging to a possible religious association called Ogoistais.
Klaus Hallof, director of the Institute of Greek inscriptions at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy, added that if Smith’s interpretation proves valid, the word “Ogoistais” could then be connected to known religious groups that worshipped early Greek and Egyptian gods and goddesses, such as Hermes, Athena and Isis.
Hallof additionally pointed out that historians working at around, or just after, the time of the bowl, such as Strabon and Pausanias, refer to the god “Osogo” or “Ogoa,” so a variation of this might be what’s on the bowl. It is even possible that the bowl refers to both Jesus Christ and Osogo.
Fabre concluded: “It should be remembered that in Alexandria, paganism, Judaism and Christianity never evolved in isolation. All of these forms of religion (evolved) magical practices that seduced both the humble members of the population and the most well-off classes.”
“It was in Alexandria where new religious constructions were made to propose solutions to the problem of man, of God’s world,” he added. “Cults of Isis, mysteries of Mithra, and early Christianity bear witness to this.”
The bowl is currently on public display in the exhibit “Egypt’s Sunken Treasures” at the Matadero Cultural Center in Madrid, Spain, until November 15.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
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