MORE ROUNDUP: Kingdom News (7 March 2006)

... mostly worthy of notice.

EVOLUTION / ID DEBATE

Creation ministry's public grows as does intelligent design debate

The lights dimmed inside Parkway Pentecostal Church's sanctuary Sunday evening as Steve Grohman directed his laser pointer to an excerpt from a biology textbook projected onto a jumbo screen.

"The whole reason they came up with these ideas was to come up with an alternative to the Bible," he said, speaking about evolution. "They think there's a disagreement between the Bible and science."

The leader of a traveling ministry called the Creation Seminar, Grohman is part of the growing creation evangelism industry, which seeks to undo secular teaching about the origin of the world.

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PRO-LIFE / EUTHANASIA

We can always find heartbreaking anecdotal stories which tug and pull at our spirits of compassion, especially here in the Christian West. But the painful reality is that the giving and taking of life is God's alone.

Holland to allow "baby euthanasia"

When Frank and Anita’s daughter Chanou was born with an extremely rare, incurable illness in August 2000, they knew that her life would be short and battled against the odds to make it happy.

They struggled around the clock against their baby's pain. "We tried all sorts of things," said Anita, a 37-year-old local government worker. "She cried all the time. Every time I touched her it hurt." [...]

Frank and Anita began to believe that their daughter would be better off dead. ... "She seemed to be saying, 'Mummy, I don't want to live any more. Let me go'."

Eventually, doctors agreed to help the baby die at seven months. The feeding was stopped. Chanou was given morphine. ... "It was so peaceful. It made me feel at peace inside to know that she wasn’t suffering any more."

Even so, they felt that the suffering had gone on too long. Child euthanasia is illegal in Holland and doctors were afraid of being prosecuted. "It was a long road to find the humane solution that we reluctantly decided we wanted," said Frank... .

Each year in Holland at least 15 seriously ill babies, most of them with severe spina bifida or chromosomal abnormalities, are helped to die by doctors acting with the parents' consent. But only a fraction of those cases are reported to the authorities because of the doctors' fears of being charged with murder.

Things are about to change, however, making it much easier for parents and doctors to end the suffering of an infant.

Doctors, there's an authority far higher that those you fear, you best fear Him.

Chanou, you rest in the arms of your Creator, rest sweetly, rest confidently, rest securely ... He loves you more than this world does!

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TITHING

And church members everywhere ask, "Why don't the churches do more?" or even worse, "All they ever want is money. This should put the lie to both of those myths.

Clergy & Laity Study Reveals Differing Opinions on Tithing

Most Protestant clergy say Christians are biblically mandated to tithe to the local church, but less than half of the laity in Protestant churches agree, a new research study released Thursday revealed.

Ellison Research conducted two studies on Protestant church ministers nationwide and people who attend Protestant churches at least once a month. Released for the first time on Facts & Trends magazine, findings showed some clergy believe in the 10 percent mandate to the local church, others believe in the mandate but not necessarily to the local church, and still others believe Christians are under no mandate to give anything. People in the pews largely do not believe in giving the 10 percent.

Among all Protestant ministers, 56 percent believe Christians have to tithe to the local church. On a denominational level, 92 percent of Pentecostal clergy agree along with over half of Southern Baptist and Baptist leaders. Less than half of the ministers in other denominational groups agree.

Similar but smaller proportions were seen in laity attitudes on tithing to the local church with 55 percent of Pentecostals, 51 percent of Southern Baptists, 30 percent of Presbyterians agreeing and 25 percent of Methodists agreeing.

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HT: Christian Headlines

TAGS: Christianity, Church, Church decay, Creationism,
Euthanasia, Evolution, ID, Intelligent Design,
Pro-life, Religon, Tithing