Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: cc5h+@andrew.cmu.edu (Charles Robert Claydon) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Piercing the Darkness Message-ID: Date: 11 May 91 03:05:32 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 120 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Hmmm, Sorry to be contrary in a first post to the bboard, but I really tend to disagree with some of what you say/interpet the book to say. 1) ABout the local church... I don't really see the implications you see. Just because he never mentions missions work doesn't mean they don't actively support it...this is a book, remember, and it may very well not have fit the story line to bring that in. I also didn't pick him up as being as derragatory about "national churches" as you seem to pick up. (After all, if memory serves me right, the small, "real" church in the first book was affiliated with a national denomination, albeit a ficticious one). I think what he was implying is that denomination is in no way really indicative of what really happens at each, individual church. Personal experince tends to back this up for me. I grew up in an un-named midwestern city, and went to a Methodist church for a long time before becoming a Christian, and it was DEAD with a capital "D". But, one of my friends (from college) went to an incredible Methodist chruch in high school in another city. Wouldn't say much about the Catholic Church in my home town, but I have been rather impressed with what they do here in Pittsburgh. Conversely, probably the most exciting, alive, sound doctrinly churhces in my area of my hometown is Lutheran; I went to a Lutheran church a couple times upon arriving in the Pittsburgh area, and was rather turned off.... etc, etc, etc. I really don't think the point he was making was all that controversal nor attacking in its intent. 2) About colleges. Again, I think you mis-interpet what he is saying here. There are an awful lot of professors at state and secular private institutions who use their position to pull students into their rather anti-Christian viewpoints. I'm not trying to say (and, I think, neither is Parretti) that colleges and universities are the "cause" of this--these people were either already running away from God, or didn't really have a firm foundation for their faith (ie: did they really have a relationship with Christ, or were they just along for the ride?). However, I don't think this dimishes the power that these professors have over students, and the extent to which Satan uses their position for his deceiving of people... for example, I just had a professor who rather nicely framed his class to use it as a platform to show a rather one-sided view of his political views on things such as birth control, abortion, drug-abuse, and society in general. My guess is that you are SKOE (some kind of engineer) or computer science or other technilogical type of person and haven't really run into much in the way of social sciences classes. I used to be (an engineer), and myself really never saw what people thought was so bad (gee, I mean like they never have done anything all that controversal in Calculus 121, you know?). But then I transferred to Psychology and Technical Writing (two majors--the second is an english one), which really doesn't matter to the argument except the fact that all of the sudden I found myself taking humanities classes that most definately discussed values, and gave rather one sided views on them... The thing is, it is all too easy for a professor to get his students to think like him. First of all, he, as professor, is raised up to a position where students are forced to ingest all that he says and sound like they not only understand, but agree, with what he has to say... (if you tell your professor his theory on how people decide things is BS, are you naive enough to think your grade won't suffer? If not, I have some rather attractive swampland property I'd like to show you... :-). On top of that, he can frame the whole courses to either only argue those points of view he agrees with or make the other sides' arguments look incredibly inane. To be honest and fair, social sciences is not the only "culprit"--I have experienced this to some extent in everything from literature courses (in discussin the theory of culture reflected in lit.--ie Marx and Freud seem to be really popular :-) to Cognitive Psych courses (what really _is_ the source of sentience? ie: how did, in both a personal (ie human developmental) and widespread (ie evolution vs creation) sense did people develop their thinking processes) to Philosophy courses. 3) about the ACLU... I actually tend to agree with Parretti, to an extent. The ALCU (I used to rather strongly subscribe to their philosophy before becoming a Christian, being an aspiring journalist/Bob Woodward :-), as I see it, is rather anti-Christian in their scope, in a manner of speaking. This primarily arises fromthe fact that they see freedom as the all-encompasing "thing" to which all things should not be compromised, even if that freedom produces something that is "amoral"/"wrong". This, in itself, is a rather anti Christian viewpoint to start with--Christ taught that freedom was of about the last consideration (ie: be His servants, follow Him first), and many things should not be compromised. Thus, as a Christian, I see myself in a very anit-ALCU position, in at least the sense of many things that they support. (eg: the right of NAZIS to spread hatred, the right of people to kill unborn children) because in supporting freedom, they support things which the Bible tells me I should not compromise in standing against. Now, as far as the ALCU actively working against Christians, as Parretti seems to suggest, hmmmmmm--this is a rather touchy subject. There is considerable evidence to support such a position, however. My above argument stated how the ALCU maintains they are unswervingly committed to upholding rights, and state they do their upmost to fight things such as police brutality abuses, freedom to demonstrate, etc, etc. _However_, as the October issue of US News & World Report (I believe, don't quote me on it--I am sure you can find the article if you do a periodical search, though) pointed out in an editorial rather slamming the ALCU, the ALCU sometimes lets personal convictions stand in the way of this.... namely, in the case of an abortion protest rally broken up in Conneticut (sp?) last year. This was a rather peaceful pro-life demonstration broken up rather brutally by police (many people had seious injuries they maintained were caused by police beetings, one woman even sufferring loss of sensation in her legs she was beaten so severely) The protesters went to the ALCU to ask for help. Now the ALCU generally tends to support police brutality cases (btw, especially ones where there is considerable evidence and many witnesses), but in this case, rather strangely :-), they upmostly refused any legal counsel or support, at any cost (ALCU generally represents such people free of charge...). Why is this? Well, the article tended to hint that it was because of a rather long standing anti-pro-life policy upheld by the ALCU. Thus, the article charged, the ALCU was falling from its prescribed position of defender of liberty, and moving into defending a moral position. What I think Parretti was hinting at was that the ALCU rather curiously (cough, cough, wink, wink :-) ends up on the opposite side as Christians on an awful lot of issues that involve morality/ethics more than they do Constituional freedoms. And, I think he used some creative liscence, as you said, to "show" the spiritual side of their rebellion from God on these issues. I really don't think he was out of line at all. If you consider that these people, in general, are not Christians (and thus rebelling from God and deceived by Satan and his cohorts) and in general seem to doing things Christians would rather not seen done, such as work for effectively atheistic schools (thus being used by satan to accomplish things...), and throw in a little creative liscence for the discription of the spiritual happenings (ie the demons "working" inthese folk) along with a little "hollywood" (eg cult sacrafice, fast cars, big business), you end up with Parretti's book's description of the ALCU :-) Rob