BOOKS

Changing the World Through Kindness
By Steve Sjogren, Regal, hardcover,
224 pages, $.

With a simple but powerful message, author Steve Sjogren challenges Christians to use the oft-forgotten weapon of kindness to win unbelievers to Christ and help transform lives. In his latest book, Changing the World Through Kindness, Sjogren puts a practical handle on this spiritual principle.

Using colorful illustrations and vivid examples, Sjogren, who founded the Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati, writes that kindness is every bit as important in spiritual warfare as casting out demons or praying earnestly for others. Kindness can penetrate the spiritually darkened hearts of people with God’s love.

The author leads Christians to witness to nonbelievers in unconventional ways such as cleaning toilets at bars and stores, feeding expired parking meters and washing cars. “By serving in kindness we’re building bridges to the unchurched that will transport them toward a relationship with God,” Sjogren writes.

This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever thought they “weren’t spiritual enough” to engage in spiritual warfare, or for those who are looking for ways to influence others with their faith. The author is simply challenging Christians to be available to be used by Christ in word and in deeds.
Tracee N. Mason

Launching Your Kids for Life
By Bob and Cheryl Reccord,
W Publishing Group, softcover,

240 pages, $.

All good parents want their children to grow up to be happy, productive and effective adults. And for Christian parents, they add to this determination the desire to see their children bringing glory to God by fulfilling His purposes for their lives. A daunting task, but with God’s grace and wisdom–and with the insights Bob and Cheryl Reccord offer in their newest book, Launching Your Kids for Life–families can have more direction, vision and success.

The Reccords offer mental pictures, poignant parallels and practical steps to help parents create childhoods that lead to meaningful adulthoods. Consulting with NASA executives and astronauts, the authors weave an inspiring comparison between child “launching” and space-shuttle launching–both “launches” have similarities–from mission control (parents) to ground crews (grandparents, teachers, church staff and others).

The authors challenge parents to have the humility and the spiritual fortitude to “abort” a mission; in other words re-evaluate situations and begin again. For example, if extracurricular activities are distracting children from school or causing negative attitudes, parents need to stop the activities, decide what is best and then start again on a new, adjusted course.

These are tough decisions, but “it comes down to [parents] having the guts to make judgment calls, regardless of the criticism and hurt feelings that may result,” the authors write. It’s not easy to “abort” a mission. But regrouping can help parents learn what they did right, how to do better and what has to change in order to help their children become all that God created them to be!
Kristi D. Shores

MUSIC

Great River Road
By Jason Upton, Gotee Records.

Worship leader Jason Upton’s new release, Great River Road, is a collection of introspective acoustic worship tunes. Upton’s voice blends well with the low-key musical experience, which mixes elements of folk, pop and world music.

Upton fuses many flavors of international music on songs such as the orchestral “King’s Way,” “Chop Down the Tree,” which features spoken-word Scripture, and the melodic title track. “When It Thunders” speaks lovingly of a paternal relationship with God, and the romance of “Return to Me” parallels the far-reaching love of Christ. “Trust Again” is a solemn message of healing for the hurting.

Because Upton has been compared to music pioneer Keith Green, a fitting track to end on is a new pop version of the late singer’s “You Are the One.”

Great River Road is an intimate journey that will help create a unique, relaxed time of personal worship.
DeWayne Hamby

It’s My Time
By LaShun Pace, EMI Gospel.

LaShun Pace, a former member of the Anointed Pace Sisters, has provided inspiring gospel music for years. With an unbelievable vocal range and a powerful delivery, she has released a number of independent, top-five-charting albums.

She now offers her EMI Gospel debut, It’s My Time, her first project in four years. During her absence, she endured the sudden death of her daughter Xenia, a divorce and illness. Songs such as the power ballad “For My Good,” the catchy up-tempo “Hey” and the urban-touched title tune carry a special poignancy in light of her recent trials.

Other great church tracks include the traditional “Emotions” and the choir-backed “I Trust You.” She also includes a tasteful remake of the church classic “The Lord Will Make a Way.” One of gospel’s best voices is back.
René Williams

Pressing On
By various artists,
Discovery House Music.

The apostle Paul receives a musical homage with the release Pressing On: Songs Inspired By the Journey of the Apostle Paul. This album features songs rooted deeply in scriptural references and a lineup of skilled vocalists, including Larnelle Harris, Michael O’Brien (NewSong), Travis Cottrell and a reunion of the original First Call lineup: Bonnie Keen, Marty McCall and Melodie Tunney.

First Corinthians 13 gets a musical retelling courtesy of Harris, who belts out an inspiring call for brotherly love on “The Greatest of These.” The title song displays O’Brien’s vocals with a message of faithful determination. First Call fans will be thrilled to hear the trio’s return on “Living Sacrifices” and “Nothing Can Separate Us.”

Though the inclusion of musical pioneers and an “easy-listening” soundtrack make this release sound somewhat dated musically, it still proclaims timeless truths.
DeWayne Hamby

NEWS

Filming of Left Behind: World War III Wraps Up

Cloud Ten Pictures is in post-production of Left Behind: World War III. The movie, which is based on the popular Left Behind series by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, is the third installment in the film series and stars Kirk Cameron (Growing Pains), Lou Gossett Jr. (An Officer and a Gentleman) and Gordon Currie (Left Behind II: Tribulation Force).

Directed by Craig P. Baxley (Storm of the Century), the film is based on the last part of the book Tribulation Force. It follows the story of the U.S. President (Gossett) who works against those who oppose the self-proclaimed messiah (Currie) until a surprising discovery forces him to change sides.

“There are two reasons I came back [and one] is that the script was really good,” said Cameron, who plays the role of Buck Williams. “It got better as we began working on it together. The second reason is that I’ve gotten so much positive response from normal, everyday people on the streets who like the Left Behind movies and say [the films] really brought some of the things from their childhood faith back to life. If the third movie can plant more seeds along those lines, then I think it’s worth it to give it our best shot.”

At press time, Cloud Ten Pictures was still in discussions regarding the film’s theatrical release date. Left Behind: World War III will be distributed on DVD and video by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment this fall or next spring.
Margaret Feinberg

When worship leader Paul Wilbur travels overseas, he often brings doctors, dentists and medicine–but not because he’s a hypochondriac. Wilbur believes that ministry to the poor is an integral part of true worship, and he makes sure his outreaches include not only music but also mercy.

On recent tours to Ghana, Nigeria, Nicaragua and El Salvador, for example, Wilbur’s team examined the sick, counseled with them and prescribed medicine. At each clinic 1,200-1,500 people were treated and had an opportunity to hear the gospel.

“We work with local pastors and leaders who meet with each person individually and share a salvation message,” Wilbur explains. “As a result, there is a huge number of salvations. If we could double the number of doctors, we could double the number of salvations. … We’re believing God for an increase of $50,000 a month so we can do six outreaches this year.”

Wilbur, who is a Messianic Jew, recorded his latest CD, The Watchman (Hosanna! Music), live on Yom Kippur at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio. “The timing is significant,” Wilbur says. “Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, was the one day of the year that the high priest was allowed to come into the presence of God with blood, making atonement for himself and all Israel.

“I believe this recording will carry that anointing in a very special way and will sweep many into the kingdom of God.”
Elisabeth Farrell

I fear that charismatics are fitting in more and emphasizing the Holy Spirit less.
When my son Cameron graduated from Oral Roberts University in 1998, the speaker was Atlanta pastor Creflo Dollar. His topic was unusual for a commencement address–he talked about the importance of praying in tongues and interpreting the message.

It wasn’t unusual to hear someone talk about speaking in tongues at ORU. Oral Roberts has testified that when his campus was just a pasture he prayed in tongues and God showed him how to build a great university.

In the early days of the charismatic movement it seemed that every week I heard another story about someone being baptized in the Spirit and speaking in tongues. The joke back then was that after someone was filled with the Spirit we needed to lock them up for months because they were so crazy for God!

The late Jamie Buckingham, my longtime mentor, described the first time he spoke in tongues. In his 1976 book Risky Living he wrote: “From the very depths of my inner being, I heard the Holy Spirit Himself beginning to speak. … I was speaking the language of the angels. It was an unforgettable moment. Sheer ecstasy.”

Jamie often joked that trouble was the evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. That’s because entire congregations were being swept up in the charismatic renewal during the 1960s and 1970s, and many churches split over it. Today, churches that once opposed the gifts of the Spirit are open to renewal.

The charismatic experience was also a bridge builder. Christians who argued about how to take communion or perform water baptism were swept up in this renewal movement. As more and more Christians experienced the intoxicating power Jamie described, it became more difficult for us to argue about secondary doctrines.

One of the most surprising bridges between denominations was built when charismatic renewal erupted in the Roman Catholic Church. Before the 1962 Vatican II reforms, Catholics believed anyone outside their church was lost. But after Pope John XXIII called for a “new Pentecost,” they began viewing Protestants as “separated brethren.”

A few years later, in 1967, a group of Catholics at Duquesne University received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The fervor spread to Notre Dame, where my colleague Bert Ghezzi was then a graduate student. I’ve enjoyed listening to Bert’s stories of how a group of Catholic students spoke in tongues and prophesied for hours after some businessmen prayed for them in South Bend, Indiana. The renewal in the Catholic Church has now touched an estimated 60 million Catholics worldwide.

One of the first leaders of the Catholic charismatic renewal, Ralph Martin, wrote a feature in this issue on Pope John Paul II, who endorsed the renewal (see page 46). Martin and others believe the pope himself was charismatic.

Catholics, in fact, were the first to use the term “charismatic”–deriving it from the Greek word charism, or spiritual gift. The word was mentioned in a Vatican II document, which called on the church to “embrace charismatic gifts … with thanksgiving.” When we chose to name this magazine Charisma in 1975, the term had become widely used by Protestants.

The charismatic movement has evolved and changed since then. Charismatic churches are growing. The entire evangelical church seems more open to charismatic worship styles.

But at a time when the media pays more attention to evangelicals, I fear that charismatics are fitting in more and emphasizing the Holy Spirit less. Many people are still baptized in the Holy Spirit, but hardly anyone talks about it. It seems our fervor has waned.

God poured out His Spirit at Pentecost to empower the church. He did it again during the Azusa Street Revival in 1906, and again during the charismatic movement, to renew and empower us all.

I believe we need to heed the words of Pope John Paul II, who said these words in 2004, less than a year before he died: “Whenever the Spirit intervenes, He leaves people astonished. He brings about events of amazing newness; he radically changes persons and history.”

Let’s pray that the Holy Spirit will again intervene in our lives, empower us afresh and astonish our generation.

Two Atlanta ministers hope to unite clergy who disagree on which issues should take priority
An Atlanta pastor and the daughter of a slain civil rights leader are seeking to build bridges between black ministers who have expressed divergent views on the overall agenda for black America and how vocal African-American clergy should be in opposition to gay marriage.

Bishop Eddie Long, senior pastor of New Birth Baptist Church, and the Rev. Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and a member of New Birth, are taking active steps to build open communication in the black church. In April the pair hosted the first Kingdom Summit, a closed-door, invitation-only meeting aimed at fostering honest dialogue between veteran, civil-rights-era pastors and prominent charismatic ministers in hopes of bringing unity between the two groups. A second meeting was to be held in May.

Long declined to name the summit participants in hopes of keeping the dialogue confidential. Since the November presidential election, there has been increased public disagreement among black religious and civic leaders about which issues are most critical to the African-American community.

Some younger leaders–the majority of whom are charismatic or Pentecostal–have expressed opposition to gay marriage, many supporting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions. Other veteran, mostly mainline clergy say arguing about amending the Constitution draws attention away from more pressing moral issues, such as ending the Iraq war and creating a more equitable health-care system.

In January the four oldest black Baptist denominations–the National Baptist Convention USA Inc., the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America and the National Baptist Convention of America–held a first-ever joint meeting in Nashville, Tenn. Though they expressed opposition to gay marriage, they said ending the Iraq war, reforming President Bush’s education plan and calling for more funding to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean were more urgent concerns.

Days later, the newly formed High Impact Leadership Coalition unveiled its Black Contract With America on Moral Values, which expresses support for a federal marriage amendment alongside calls for education, health-care and prison reform, and small-business development.

Affiliated with the conservative Traditional Values Coalition, the group is hosting a series of summits aimed at mobilizing black clergy to support a ban on same-sex marriage. The first was held in January at Crenshaw Christian Center in Los Angeles. A second was held at The King’s College in New York in April.

The Rev. Eugene F. Rivers III of Azusa Christian Community in Boston said the divergent views represent a larger trend in which Pentecostals and charismatics are emerging as the dominant political force in the black church.

“We’re coming to the end of an intellectual age,” said Rivers, who supports an amendment banning gay marriage and plans to announce his own document, God’s Gift: A Christian Vision of Marriage and the Black Family, during a Washington, D.C., press conference this month.

“The paleo-liberal civil rights industry leadership has come to an end,” he said. “They no longer have political, moral or intellectual traction. Rev. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are good men who represent a philosophically and intellectually exhausted political paradigm.”

Though he represents the emerging leadership, Long hopes his summits will help build a bridge. He said honest dialogue could benefit everyone involved. “That’s a good thing because now we’re stirring each other to search the Scriptures and to really dig into why they believe what they believe,” he said.

In December Long and King led a march in downtown Atlanta to advance a moral agenda for the nation. Media coverage targeted their opposition to gay marriage, but Long said his purpose for the march was to mobilize the church.

“The church has been silent for so long and not really giving a clear voice in the community about what we stand for and why we stand for it,” he said. “So often we stay in our sanctuaries and … never really [get] out in the main conversation of what [is] really going on in the world, and we become irrelevant.”

Neither Long nor King supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. They say changing the Constitution should rarely be done and that other legal remedies exist to ensure gay marriage is not legalized.

Though Coretta Scott King has been an advocate for gay and lesbian rights, Bernice King said her mother also does not support same-sex marriage. “Her view has been twisted by the majority media,” King said. “My mother does not believe in same-sex marriage. However, she is very concerned and is an advocate for preserving the Constitution and not tampering with it.”

Long said he and Coretta Scott King communicate regularly, adding that she, Bernice King and Martin Luther King III visited New Birth for a prayer meeting in 2002. “They laid hands on me in reference to moving forward in that which her husband had started,” Long said.

Since then, Long has appeared more outspoken on sociopolitical matters. He said the December march was a means of issuing a challenge to African-American Christians. “When we put the call out, they were able to break camp from their groups, break camp from their associations because they knew in their spirits it was God calling them to this move,” he said. “I believe it is a time now that people are drawing a line and God is saying ‘choose this day who you’re going to serve.’ At least you have to come out and say something.”

The Republican Party has made strides in wooing black voters, with President Bush getting 2 percent more of the black vote in 2004 than he did in 2000. But King says neither party truly connects with the black church or the church in general.

“Because you take a biblically based stance does not mean you are necessarily Republican; that’s the tragedy of our times,” King said. “At the end of the day, morality is not just confined to homosexuality and abortion. The Republican Party has been able to hone in on these two things and get the support of those in churches across America.”

King said a pastor from New Zealand has begun an alternative political party in his country. “I believe this is something we need to look at in the body of Christ in America,” she said. “Honestly, there are truths that come out of both parties.”

Long said there will always be people who choose homosexuality, but he believes a nation cannot avoid consequences when it promotes this lifestyle. “History has proven that that route will destroy a nation,” he said. “The issue really grabs us at our foundation of being in the very image of Christ.”

Long said he knows there are practicing homosexuals in his and other churches. Many are coming to church because they don’t want to remain in the lifestyle, he said, but even if they don’t change their ways his message to them centers on God’s love, not man’s hate.
Richard Daigle in Atlanta

Detroit pastor Keith Butler announced April 12 that he will run for U.S. Senate in Michigan’s 2006 election.

“With all that I have seen, heard and felt in my soul, running for the United States Senate at this time and place in Michigan’s history is not a mere opportunity,” said Butler, founding pastor and bishop of 21,000-member Word of Faith International Christian Center, the Associated Press (AP) reported. “It is something much more important: a responsibility.”

A longtime Republican and former Detroit city councilman, Butler said he believed he had a moral obligation to oppose Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, citing such issues as gay marriage and challenges to religious freedom as motivation for his run, the AP said.

Republican state Sen. Alan Cropsey is endorsing Butler and said he believes his chances of winning are strong, though the primary will likely be a tough race. “He’s a staunch conservative on fiscal issues; he’s a staunch conservative on moral issues,” Cropsey said. “But he’s more than a conservative. He’s a spokesman. He’s a leader.”

Butler is not as well known among Michigan Republicans outside the Detroit area, and Cropsey said white conservatives might not immediately see why they should vote for a black man from a densely urban part of the state. But he says Butler will win their support when they realize he shares their values. They also will likely be impressed with his business acumen, Cropsey said, as Butler has built the state’s largest church, which has 15 branches in the U.S. and abroad.

He added that Christian voters–a block that Cropsey said “will swing any [Republican] primary”–likely will not be deterred by Butler’s affiliation with the Word-Faith movement. “I take a look at Keith Butler, and I say, ‘This man holds my values. On the key issues, this man believes as I believe,'” said Cropsey, a Christian who has known Butler since the early 1980s. “I may disagree on some of the charismatic issues, but I know this is a man of God.”

Observers say if Butler wins the Republican primary, he could unseat Stabenow if he gains the typical percentage of Republican votes and at least 20 percent of the black vote. Butler supporters from Cropsey to Traditional Values Coalition founder Lou Sheldon to former National Religious Broadcasters chairman Glenn Plummer say he could win at least that percentage.

Cropsey said he believes Butler is called to this race. “In my spirit I sense there is a strong anointing from God on Keith Butler,” he said.
Adrienne S. Gaines

Thousands of Christians across the nation are supporting pastor Dino Gentile’s appeal for clemency
Thousands of Christians nationwide have written letters expressing support for a Pentecostal pastor serving a 41-year sentence for a crime he said he was coerced into committing.

Pastor Dino M. Gentile of Chatsworth, Calif., is seeking clemency from President Bush for his role in a 1998 bank robbery in Pensacola, Fla.

The 49-year-old former pastor of The Ark, a Chatsworth congregation affiliated with the Apostolic World Christian Fellowship Inc., said he was forced to drive the getaway car at the threat of harm to his wife and two children in California.

“Dino was in terrible fear [that] he and his family [would be] executed,” said his mother, Emila Gentile Medeiros.

Gentile said he became involved in the robbery when Jeffrey Durham, now serving time for the Monsanto Employees Credit Union robbery, asked if he could accompany Gentile on a cross-country evangelism and fundraising trip.

Durham, who first represented himself as a mild-mannered Christian man and an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was eager to participate in church activities and interacted closely with the Gentile family. By the time Durham revealed his plan to rob the Pensacola bank, Gentile trusted him.

“Gentile embraced society’s throwaways, an aspect of his personality that spilled into his ministry,” said Jennifer Elise Chase in a master’s thesis she wrote about Gentile’s case, which she titled “The Preacher Who Trusted Too Much.” “Dino believes everyone has redeeming value.”

But as he sat outside in Durham’s getaway car with a bomb on the seat behind him and a threat of death if he did not cooperate, Gentile said he was forced to make a decision. “He turned from a model saint in my church for eight months to this absolutely possessed young man,” Gentile told Charisma.

So instead of running to the police the minute he got the opportunity, Gentile drove Durham back to California. “He was screaming at me the whole time we drove back to Los Angeles,” Gentile said. “I had to wonder what he was capable of.”

Durham was arrested for the robbery in 1998, and FBI agents later linked Gentile to the crime, charging him with aiding and abetting. Gentile claims his attorney failed to introduce evidence that would have supported his version of the events. Within 15 minutes, a Pensacola jury convicted Gentile. He received 30 years for his alleged use of an automatic weapon, and 11 years for the abetting charge.

Since then, friends, relatives, former parishioners and members of his 3.2 million-member denomination have written some 3,000 letters and faxes requesting clemency. Supporters repeatedly describe Gentile as a man of integrity and devotion.

“This good and decent man has suffered enough,” wrote Bishop Samuel L. Smith of the Apostolic World Christian Fellowship. “His community work has been exemplary. Helping the poor, the down and out, was a particular passion of this humble man.”

Linda Oakland, senior pastor of The Well Foursquare Church in Northridge, Calif., agreed. “All of his life and his work reflect the testimonials, one after another, of people who came out of difficult circumstances, who now serve as vital people in our community,” she wrote. “…We are anxious to have Pastor Gentile back serving our community in Southern California where he is so desperately needed.”

Among those who received letters and petitions are California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senators Mark Montigny and Bob Dole, the U.S. Department of Justice, former President Clinton and now President Bush.

In 2001, Justice Department pardon attorney Roger C. Adams sent a letter to Sen. Dole, saying Gentile’s request for a reduced sentence was being processed. Four years later, the process is still not complete. Gentile is praying for a miracle.

For several years, Durham, who is serving a 120-year sentence in a Colorado prison, has been promising to exonerate Gentile. “Don’t waive your right to an appeal, Brother,” Durham wrote in a 1999 letter to Gentile. “That’s what’s going to get you out of prison–that and a statement from me. I have to wait until after my trial before I make any statements. I will do what I said, Brother. Just be patient and know that the truth will set you free.”

Durham has not provided a statement to authorities yet.

Gentile said his appeal process has been exhausted, but a presidential pardon may still be available. White House officials won’t discuss Gentile’s case. “We do acknowledge when we receive a petition or application that is under review,” said Justice Department spokesman John Nowacki, “but we don’t discuss anything during the interim process.”

Gentile has seen dozens of men saved since his incarceration, but he hopes his prison ministry will soon end and has asked supporters to keep writing and faxing the president on his behalf.
Michelle Lovato in Lompoc, Calif.

Pharmacists Challenge Order to Give ‘Plan B’ Pill
The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) filed suit on behalf of two pharmacists challenging Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s order requiring pharmacists to dispense medication even if the drugs violate their religious beliefs or conscience. The move came after two pharmacists refused to dispense morning-after birth control pills, invoking their “right of conscience,” which they believed was protected by the state’s Health Care Right of Conscience Act, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The governor said the act does not cover the pharmacists and said refusing to dispense the pills denies a woman her right to health care. The ACLJ is asking a state court to declare Blagojevich’s emergency order null and void.

Lawsuit Against Jews For Jesus Dismissed

A second lawsuit filed against Jews for Jesus (JFJ) by a woman who claims she was wrongly said to have accepted Christ in a 2002 ministry newsletter has been dismissed. Liberty Counsel, which represented JFJ, said Florida Circuit Court Judge Catherine Brunson dismissed Edith Rapp’s claims that she had been defamed by the praise report her stepson wrote, in which he said she became a “Jewish believer.” A previous judge dismissed a lawsuit Rapp filed in May 2004, after her husband’s 2003 death. She later refiled portions of the suit. Those claims have also been dismissed. At press time Rapp had filed another lawsuit against JFJ. Liberty Counsel said it planned to file a motion to dismiss the third lawsuit.

School Board Sued for Praying at Meetings
The ACLU is suing members of a Delaware school board for opening monthly business meetings with prayer, AgapePress reported. The civil liberties group claims the actions of Reginald Helms, vice president of Indian River School District Board of Education, and his colleagues are unconstitutional. “I think there is Supreme Court precedent to say that these are legislative type prayers … so we’re hoping that in the end it will be upheld as constitutional,” John Whitehead, head of the Rutherford Institute, which is representing the board members, told AgapePress.

Founded by ‘the world’s oldest teenager,’ the Winkie Pratney Memorial Library will house works by trailblazing ministers
The man affectionately known as the world’s oldest teenager is looking to historic revival leaders for lessons in radical Christian living.

Winkie Pratney, a New Zealand-born evangelist who journeys hundreds of thousands of miles speaking to more than a half-million people each year, is preparing to open his unique collection of rare, handpicked books this summer as an extension of his ministry to young people and their leaders.

Located on Youth With a Mission’s Twin Oaks Ranch outside Lindale, Texas, and comprising more than 10,000 volumes, the Winkie Pratney Memorial Library will offer a unique look at the lives and teachings of historic revival leaders such as John Wesley, Charles Finney and William and Catherine Booth. Eventually, Pratney hopes to make many of the writings available online for free.

“The ultimate goal is to be a library that tracks evangelism, missions and spiritual awakening,” Pratney said, “one that chronicles the work of the Holy Spirit in history.”

Pratney, who celebrated his 60th birthday last year, said the library will be based on a Hebraic, rather than Greek, style of learning. Instead of packing the library with as many books and resources as he can acquire to help patrons accumulate knowledge, Pratney said he wants to highlight the works of leaders who can teach by example, who were known both for their evangelistic zeal and their Christian character.

“[When selecting a book] I ask: ‘Is the person who wrote this a soul winner? Are they doing what Jesus did, or are they merely theoretical?'” he said. “… The next thing I ask is, ‘What was the long-term fruit of their lives? What were the kinds of results they got when they pushed the truth God gave them? When you put these two meshes on a good chunk of the Christian life, a large number of things get left behind. What remains is a core of people who left a lasting legacy.”

Pratney said many of the authors in his collection have been omitted entirely from the racks of most Christian bookstores. And many of those who are included in anthologies have been edited to remove their emphasis on the supernatural.

“This is a unique sort of library because it follows the stream of the red-headed stepchildren of the Reformation,” Pratney said. “Many of these writers were neither Catholic nor Reformed, but were persecuted by both sides. They were of the stream that believed that a pure heart and unreserved love and obedience was what God required and that Jesus still worked miracles in their day.”

The library houses such original works as Butler’s Lives of the Saints, which John Wesley used extensively; the complete collected hymns of John and Charles Wesley; Charles Spurgeon’s 80 volumes of sermons from the Metropolitan Tabernacle and the Park Street pulpits; as well as books by such revivalists as Charles Finney and Catherine and William Booth.

The library will also house a natural healing library that includes books, videos and current research into alternative healing methods. Pratney plans to have a fully stocked kitchen where visitors will be able to prepare healthy alternatives to the burgers, fries, refined sugar and white flour that are staples of the American diet.

“Martyrdom is one thing … but death by stupidity is something else,” Pratney said. “I’m interested in Christians living long, productive lives so they can die old and happy serving Jesus.”

Plans are under way to make it possible for patrons to watch archival footage of revivals or teaching videos by such ministers as Campbell McAlpine, Leonard Ravenhill, Keith Green, Gordon Olson or even Winkie Pratney.

“Winkie is part of our spiritual heritage,” said Bob Weiner of Weiner Ministries International and former president of Maranatha Campus Ministries. “The world’s been changed because of the message he’s preached, and millions of young people have gotten saved.”

Weiner said Pratney has been teaching the truths he gleaned from the lives of the people represented in the library for more than 40 years. “Because of it, thousands of people are out there preaching the truth of the kingdom of God,” Weiner said.

“We need to study the works of [past great saints of God] to learn why they were so anointed and why God used them,” he added. “There’s something in the character of the people God chooses, and we need to line ourselves up with that.”

Vinson Synan, dean of the Regent University School of Divinity in Virginia Beach, Va., said a library of this sort can help provide a backdrop against which to judge present-day spiritual awakenings.

“No movement lasts very long unless it is buttressed by good thought and strong theology,” Synan said. “Experience is important, but it’s what you write down that affects future generations.”
Amado J. Bobadilla

Though Sarah Lui has been released, hundreds from the South China Church, including its pastor, remain in prison
A Christian woman imprisoned for years in China has exposed some of the abuses that occur in labor camps, describing her arrest and torture at a February press conference in Washington, D.C.

A Christian since 1989 and a leader in the South China Church, one of the largest unregistered churches in China, Sarah Liu was arrested May 27, 2001, on her 30th birthday, when Chinese military police broke up a worship service being held in a local Christian’s home.

The church’s pastor, Gong Shengliang, escaped, but Lui faced her third arrest. Previously she had been tortured and eventually released, but this time was different.

“I was interrogated in a bedroom,” she said. “Seven male policemen surrounded me. They started laughing at me and cursing me, then started touching my body and asked me what did I do. I said ‘I’m just a Christian believer.’ And one said sarcastically, ‘Why don’t you believe in the Communist Party [instead of] this foreign god?'”

As the night wore on, it became clear that the police wanted Lui to testify that Gong had raped her. She refused.

The police then shackled her feet and began beating her legs and back, she recalled. One officer whipped her toes with a metal coat hanger. When she fell, they bashed her head into the wall until she passed out.

“The pain was so great that I could hardly breathe,” she said. “They said I was only pretending to be dead. The shackles bit into my feet and ankles such that wherever I walked was covered with blood.”

Again they asked her to make a false confession against Gong, and again she refused.

Using an electric prod, the police shocked every part of her body. When she cried out, they shoved the prod in her mouth.

“Then they tried to take off my clothes, but I resisted,” she recalled. “They kicked me and shoved me into a corner and pulled off my clothes.”

In the end, two officers forced a weakened Lui to fingerprint some documents, one of which she said was otherwise blank. As a result of several similarly coerced accusations by women in the South China Church, pastor Gong and three church leaders were sentenced to death. The women, including Lui, were put in prison.

Wracked with guilt for playing a role in pastor Gong’s conviction, Lui said she wanted to die. “But in my heart there was a deep cry,” she said. “And in my heart I said, ‘No, I will not reject Jesus. I want to live. I want to live and tell the truth about what is really happening to the South China Church.'”

Due to an overwhelming international outcry coordinated by China Aid and other international organizations that work to assist persecuted Christians, the Chinese believers received a second trial. Pastor Gong and those condemned to death were instead given life sentences. Lui and four other women were declared innocent and released.

Though cleared of any crime, Lui was sentenced to three years of “re-education through labor.” She was sent to a labor camp, where she was forced to assemble electronics and work in the fields. Christians were forbidden from praying or reading the Bible. Lui said they were treated like members of an evil cult and assigned onerous tasks. Lui said she passed out from exhaustion twice.

Released in February 2004, Lui said her freedom came with the warning that she would be rearrested if she were ever to resume practicing Christianity. She said she lived in constant fear. Eventually, with the help of China Aid and other organizations, she received refugee status in the United States in January.

In the last 10 years more than 8,900 members of the South China Church have been arrested, and many are still in prison. According to the latest reports from China Aid, Gong continues to serve his life sentence and is dying in his prison cell.

Lui hopes to one day return to a China that honors religious freedom as government leaders have promised in multiple international covenants and its own constitution. In the meantime, she wants to draw attention to religious persecution in China and the suffering of Gong and others affiliated with the South China Church.
David Mundy in Washington, D.C.

Ministry leaders say confrontation over this issue will continue, but Christians must respond with love and kindness
Gay-rights activists converged on a historic downtown Chicago church in February, decrying it as a house of hate and protesting the pastor’s opposition to same-sex marriage. Christian observers say such confrontation will likely continue as believers become more vocal in opposition to homosexual unions.

Erwin Lutzer, pastor of The Moody Church, was one of two ministers targeted by the Gay Liberation Network (GLN) during a series of demonstrations Feb. 12, a date recognized as Freedom to Marry Day in the homosexual community.

Some 35 participants carried rainbow flags and held signs that read “Christians for Equal Rights” and “Marriage is a Human Right,” while chanting slogans such as “Separate church and state; Moody is a house of hate.”

“We’re at Moody because of Lutzer’s book titled The Truth About Same-Sex Marriage,” said Andy Thayer, protest organizer and a member of GLN, which was formed in 1998 as the Chicago Anti-Bashing Network in response to three violent attacks in Chicago against gays.

Protesters decried Lutzer’s view that same-sex marriage “is arguably the most damaging social experiment to ever be attempted in this country.” A proponent of gay-rights legislation, Thayer said GLN wants to protect homosexuals against violence. Comparing the experience of homosexuals to that of African-Americans during the civil rights era, he said violence against blacks was at its highest when legal discrimination reached its peak.

Other gay activists agree. In a message on GLN’s Web site, member Bob Schwartz said he believed “hate from the pulpit” could foster “an environment that gives rise to the violence.”

After staging a demonstration at Moody, activists including Deborah Mell, daughter of Alderman Dick Mell and sister-in-law of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich marched a few blocks east to the home of Cardinal Francis George, the highest-ranking Catholic clergy in Chicago, and shouted: “Shame on you! Shame on you!” George made headlines in January after the Chicago Sun-Times reported on a Vatican statement opposing legal recognition of same-sex unions.

Gay-rights organizations have been regrouping since November when voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage. GLN member Craig Teichen said he hopes to tear down institutions opposing same-sex marriage vocally, if not physically. “We have resources and passion they don’t have,” he told the crowd, “and our relationships are stronger than their corporate ties.”

While the demonstrations were not as provocative as they might have been had they been held on a Sunday, observers say Christians should expect more confrontation over gay marriage. “If they call Moody a house of hate, any church in America that believes the Bible could be called a house of hate,” said Peter LaBarbera, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute.

He said gay activists are targeting mainstream congregations that have been less vocal politically as part of an intimidation tactic. “The gay community is coming out of the closet, and they’re trying to push Christians into the closet,” he said.

He said Christians must not opt out of the culture war; if they do extreme groups will be the only ones offering a religious point of view. He said Lutzer’s book, released in July by Moody Publishers, and The Homosexual Agenda by the Alliance Defense Fund, can help believers understand the issue and craft a response.

Chad Thompson, founder of Loving , says that response must include a strategy for ministering to those in the gay lifestyle. “It’s true that as churches become more vocal on this issue, they will see more and more opposition from the gay and lesbian community,” said Thompson, author of Loving Homosexuals as Jesus Would (Brazos Press). “We must prepare for this by making sure our churches are a safe place for gay and lesbian people.”

“If God’s people are not equipped to give homosexuals the special kind of love they need in order to heal the wounds of their past and move into heterosexuality, then we have no right to oppose them politically,” he added. “No one has any business reading a single book about how to oppose homosexuals politically until they’ve read a book on how to love them personally.”

Alan Chambers, president of Exodus International, an ex-gay ministry based in Orlando, Fla., said Christians must not be intimidated by the gay-rights movement, but should respond in truth, love and grace. “Imbalance on either side is damaging to the cause of Christ, and fails to represent His heart accurately,” he said, noting that judgmental attitudes can cause a homosexual to reject Christ, while total acceptance can cause the person to avoid repentance.
Karen Tom in Chicago

Jeremy Reynalds believes God will protect him from radical Islamists looking to make good on recent death threats
A Christian journalist has been .targeted for murder because of his role in tracking and dismantling a terrorist site that was taken off line just hours before the Iraqi elections.

Jeremy Reynalds, a contributor to Charisma magazine, is known for his work as the founder of Joy Junction (), New Mexico’s largest emergency homeless shelter. But when he’s not ministering to the homeless, Reynalds says he “relaxes” by hunting Islamic terrorist Web sites.

Terrorist groups use these sites the bulk of which are hosted by American companies to issue messages, recruit followers and display the killing of hostages.

Reynalds began tracking such sites in 2002, when a friend told him about a terrorist site hosted by Everyone’s Internet, an American Internet service provider. “It was really sort of horrifying to me,” he said. “What grabbed me was that it was hosted in Houston.”

Reynalds said he contacts the service provider when he finds a terrorist site hosted by a U.S. company. If the host refuses to dismantle the site, he contacts the FBI.

His efforts led to the dismantling of the Al-Ansar Web site, which contained the death threat issued against Reynalds in February. A thread on the site blames him for the demise of another terrorist site, .

The threat against Reynalds was made after he confronted the owner of the Al-Ansar site and wrote an article describing his role in shutting it down. Posts divulged Reynalds’ home address so that he might be “visited,” cell phone number and a request for further information on him.

A follow-up discussion included Reynalds’ picture and prayers to Allah that he should deliver Reynalds’ “fatty neck” reference to decapitation. Despite three calls from Charisma, Everyone’s Internet could not be reached for comment.

The site eventually moved to Host for Web, a Chicago-based provider that currently hosts more than 50,000 domains. “We don’t monitor our clients’ Web sites because it is technologically not possible,” said Host for Web President Alex Korneyev in an e-mail statement. “In our experience, outside parties were always quick to point out an illegal Web site. Of course, when we ourselves find something illegal hosted on our servers we immediately take it off line and notify the appropriate authorities.”

Korneyev said his company no longer hosts the Al-Ansar site.

American hosting of terrorist sites is “the rule, not the exception,” said Aaron Weisburd, owner of Internet Haganah (), a Web site that describes itself as a “global open-source intelligence network dedicated to confronting Internet use by Islamist terrorist organizations, their supporters, enablers and apologists.”

“Of the close to 300 jihadist sites that we track, all but one or two are online thanks to the services of one American company or another,” Weisburd said in an e-mail interview.

“The Web sites of the global jihad are like the glue that holds the community of jihadists together,” Weisburd added. “That is why it is important to fight them, and that is why they respond with so much hostility when one does so. These are not just Web sites. They are a window into the dark souls of these people.”

After an undisclosed warning from the FBI, Reynalds said he is taking adequate precautions. “But I will not be intimidated by radical jihadi thugs,” he said.

FBI Special Agent Jeff Lanza said the government is monitoring terrorist sites, but he would not elaborate. “As part of our effort to prevent additional terrorist acts in this country, we do a broad range of things,” Lanza said. “It’s something that is certainly monitored, but at this point [we] are unwilling to talk on record about anything that [we’re] doing in that regard.”

Americans need to be aware, and they need to be involved, Reynalds said. “I really believe that unless all of us make some attempt to get more integrally involved in fighting the radical Islamic terrorists, it is ultimately going to overtake us.”

And by involvement, Reynalds means education, prayer and the monitoring of terrorist sites. What began as a simple hobby has become a passionate ministry, he said.

“I have hopefully given some comfort to those [terrorist victims’] families, hopefully at least drawn some attention to this,” Reynalds said. “The ultimate essence of what I’ve done will probably only be shown in heaven. If I thought the Lord was specifically directing me to not do it, I wouldn’t do it. All I can trust will take care of me.”
Suzy Richardson