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From: rjb@akgua.UUCP (R.J. Brown [Bob])
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.religion.christian
Subject: We Are the World
Message-ID: <1393@akgua.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Apr-85 12:22:23 EST
Article-I.D.: akgua.1393
Posted: Tue Apr 16 12:22:23 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 17-Apr-85 00:58:13 EST
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Xref: watmath net.religion:6653 net.religion.christian:637

I recently bought a copy of the Album "We Are the World"
for the USA for Africa campaign.  Of course, the lead song
is the title cut and is getting most of the air-play.

I noticed the lyric that Willy Nelson sings

"God has shown us by turning stone to bread..."

and the cut that Prince has on the Album has the same reference
of turning stone to bread.  

The first time I heard WATW the words kind of half registered
and I thought "Yeah.. that's right He did.....uh wait a minute"
Then I realized that "turning stone to bread" was one of the
things that satan tempted Jesus with when He was in the wilderness.

The next step was to play the album backwards to see if there
were any satanic messages :-)

No, the next step was to do an index study of both the Jewish
Scriptures and the Christian New Testament on the various key
words like stone(s), bread, miracles, rock, and a few others.
There were no positive references other than the temptation
story.

Did I miss a story along the way somewhere or did the writers
err ?  (Or is this notion of other than Jewish or Christian
origin ?)  Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie are credited with
writing "We Are the World" and from what little I know directly
have some Chrisitan or "Christian" background (Michael is a JW).
Prince also has Christian influences in his background.  Were all
these guys not paying attention in Sunday School?? What gives ??

Minor theological differnces aside, the WATW album has earned an
estimated (net) $27 Million for the USA for Africa charity.
I have seen no criticism on the net from Christians about this
whole project but i have heard some locally.

I urge Christians to be very careful about being critical of a work
that has a great potential.  Remember, that caring for the sick,
hungry, and naked is God's kind of work.  Although most Christians
don't accept works justification (and I'm not arguing for it) we
must take every opportunity to encourage humanitarian good works
in ALL people.



Bob Brown {...ihnp4!akgua!rjb}