HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Wed, 22 Jul 1992 01:54:32 EDT
From:         JEK@NIHCU.BITNET
Subject:      Ecclesiastes

Jordan Peacock (Greywolf) asks what he is to make of the book of
Ecclesiastes.

The writer says:

 Life is empty and pointless. It is the same meaningless round over
and over.
 We are born, we die.
 We plant, we pluck up.
 We kill, we heal.
 We hoard, we spend.
 And what is the point of it all? (3:1-9)

 I undertook to beautify Jerusalem.
 I completed the world's greatest Urban Renewal Project,
 and I looked and said, "So What!" (1:4-11)

 I devoted myself to learning,
 and I learned that fools and sages both die.
 "Well, then," I said to myself,
 "if fool and I must come to the same end at last,
 was not I the fool, that toiled to achieve wisdom more than he?"
(1:12-16)


In its opening verse, the book is attributed to a son (this may mean
descendant) of David who reigned in Jerusalem. The reference appears
to be to Solomon. On the other hand, Hebrew experts claim that the
language of the book is later than the Hebrew used in Solomon's day.
(One writer says: "If Solomon wrote this book, then there is no such
thing as a history of the Hebrew Language.")

Two possibilities:
     (1) Solomon wrote it, and said, "I have everything, and it
isn't enough." (We may suppose, if we like, that centuries later
someone rewrote it and modernized the language, just as various
scholars have published translations of Chaucer into modern English
-- I have seen a similar updating of Shakespeare).
     (2) Someone centuries after Solomon wrote a book saying,
"Having everything isn't enough," and for greater concreteness -- as
a literary convention rather than an attempt to deceive -- looked
around for the stock example of the man who has everything  --
health, wealth, brains, youth, good looks, women, power, you name it
-- everything except a right relationship with God, and then put his
words into Solomon's mouth and said: "Here am I, with everything,
and it isn't enough."

Throughout most of the book, I think you run into trouble if you try
to take what is said as true in isolation. It is not true that life
is meaningless.  It is true that, from the point of view of the man
who has not put his life in God's hands, life is meaningless, and
the more brains that man has, the harder it will be for him to
ignore the fact.  The last chapter or thereabouts takes a slightly
different tone, but whether this represents a conversion and
spiritual awakening on the part of the speaker, or simply a pious
conventional bow in the direction of orthodoxy, is doubtful.

The same author who wrote THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO PEANUTS, Frank
Shorter (Short?) has compiled a first-rate edition of Ecclesiastes
with photographs.  It is now out of print, but check your library.
It will give you a different perspective on the book.

 Yours,
 James Kiefer
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Date:         Wed, 29 Jul 1992 14:00:36 EDT
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From:         Brenda Curry-White <BSCURR01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
Subject:      You have to preach in church to be a REAL reverend

Hogwash!  I don't know Jesse Jackson's motives (nor do I particularly care,
but that is another matter) but I do know that there are hundreds of
ordained ministers who never preach in church.  They work in inner-city
missions, they work for civil rights, they work as counselors and on and
on and on.  Are their motives for political gain as well?  I think we always
end up coming to the point where we will take any little piece of information
and distort it to suggest something that it simply doesn't to try to confirm
our own prejudices against those we don't like.  If you don't like Jackson,
or agree with Jackson, Bill and/or Hillary, Gore, Bush, Quayle, etc fine.
Saying so is enough.  There is nothing positive that will come from
attacking their motives with evidence that really isn't a good indicator
of human motives anyway.

Brenda
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Date:         Thu, 23 Jul 1992 09:35:34 CDT
From:         Tom Brewer <NOTTMB@LSUVM.BITNET>
Subject:      In Defense of Theology

Original From:         zane of dhahran <FACN34B@SAUPM00.BITNET>
Subject:      theology

>"The danger of systematizing divine facts is that a man can understand
>without the help of the Holy Spirit.  It is only the immature Christian
>who demands always to have intellectually satisfying conclusions."

>                                                 Watchman Nee

>"Theology is words about the word about the Word."

>                                                 Richard Wurmbrand

>"Theology spelled backwards is 'ygoloeht.'"
>                                                 Alfred E. Newman

I'm not convinced a man can really understand without the help of the Holy
Spirit, as Nee says. And if intellectually satisfying conclusions are all
a man is interested in, then yes, he's not just immature, he's deceived in
thinking that his conclusions are all that's required. With the conclusions
must come obedience.

Jn 8:32 tells us the Truth will set us free, but we must KNOW the Truth.

A major weakness of commercial religion/professing church is its lack of
Truth.

People remain in bondage to sin because their lives never really change in
agreement with the Word. They have little or no spiritual understanding
because they have been given little or nothing to understand.

Knowledge and Truth are fruits of Light. Obviously, when Light gets shut out,
Darkness begins to grow. The powers of Darkness will fight to keep its
victims from the Light of Truth.

I Tim 4:1 seems to imply that even demons have their own brand of anti-
theology doctrine. And that shouldn't surprise anyone; after all, sin
begins with wrong thinking, and unbelief is rejection of Truth.
True Holy Spirit produced theology produces true Holy Spirit application.

Tom Brewer
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Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 03:21:58 EDT
From:         JEK@NIHCU.BITNET
Subject:      Widdershins

 > I'm just curious.  What are (is?) "widdershins"?
 >                                                   --Kerry

"Widdershins" (or "withershins") means "anti-clockwise."

"Widder" is related to "with" (to fight with someone sometimes means
to fight against him).

"Shins" is related to "send" and means "journey."

Hence, "widdershins" is a counter-journey, a trip or trek made
contrary to the "natural" motion of the planets, or of the shadow os
a sundial. Thus, counter-clockwise.

 Yours,
 James Kiefer
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Original_cc:  MARCHIBOLD
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 1992 22:07:00 MDT
From:         MARCHIBOLD@MSCD.BITNET
Subject:      thanks for prayer

Thank you for your prayers for my grandson David.  He came through his
surgery like a champ.

I've felt slightly alientated by this list up until this prayer request.
The response was phenomenol - thank you for the posts.  It is the
fellowship of prayer which powers our lives.

In His Love

Molly Archibold
MARCHIBOLD@MSCD (Denver, Colorado)
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Original_To:  BITNET%"CHRISTIA@ASUACAD.BITNET"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 15:49:00 CDT
From:         "Love does not subtract, it multiplies." <HOLZMAN@FNAL.BITNET>

<"Wife abuse doesn't occur in families in which husbands are unsaved or
<alcoholics, where mothers work outside the home or couples are only nominally
<Christian.  Many of the abused women with whom we talked are married to church
<leaders, deacons or pastors.  They all consider themselves to be committed
<Christians and for the most part would uphold traditional family values.  Few
<would label themselves feminists, and almost without exception they have
<worked hard at being submissive to thier husbands" (pg.16)

That statement should probably read "doesn't only occur."  Abuse occurs in
families of all types.

Dan
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Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 1992 00:14:26 EDT
From:         Marty Helgesen <MNHCC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Family Values and Arbitration
              25 Jul 1992 03:48:41 EDT from <AMZIMM01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU>

Angela,

I think you are unduly optimistic is thinking courts would take only
serious cases in which children tried to sue their parents as Hillary
Clinton says they should be free to do.  A lot of bureaucrats want to
interfere with the family even when there is no need.  Here is a
passage from a column by economist and columnist Thomas Sowell that
was printed in the New York Post on Friday, July 24:

     "A Minnesota mother, for example, ran afoul of the know-it-all
attitudes of the anointed in 'school-based clinics.'  Her teen-age
daughter had a falling out with her boyfriend and said, 'I might as
well be dead.'  That set in motion a chain of events that reveals
much about the attitudes in our schools.

     "The boyfriend, like other students, had been taught to take any
suggestion of suicide serious and to report it.  He phoned the girl's
mother to express her concern.

     "'I talked to my daughter,' the mother said, and 'everything was
fine.'  Who has ever known a teen-ager who did not make some extrava-
gant statement at some time or other?  But the boyfriend also report-
ed the possibility of suicide to the school officials.  The school
nurse then phoned the mother--and refused to back off when the mother
said that the situation was under control.

     "Over the mother's objections, and behind her back, the girl was
sent to a counselor.  The school busybodies now managed to convince
the girl that (1) she was suicidal and that (2) her mother didn't
really care about it--and _ they _ did.

     "Driving a wedge between parent and child is almost a reflex
with many of the busybodies in the educational establishment.  When
the mother complained to the counselor about the high-handed way
things had been done, she found the counselor 'smirky,' as she put
it."

I don't keep clipping files of such matters, but I have read of
children being taken from their parents for alleged abuse when the
children injured themselves in ordinary childhood accidents.

Incidentally, I have a question about Hillary Clinton's propos-
al.  As I recall, someone quoted something about it from the _ Ameri-
can Spectator _ article about her.  Darren, apparently assuming that
the quoted passage was all that the article said on the subject--I
have no idea whether it was or not--disputed the conclusion.  Does
anyone have easy access to the _ American Spectator _ article?  Can
anyone give the citation to the original article Hillary Clinton
wrote?

Marty Helgesen
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Thu, 30 Jul 1992 23:10:16 EDT
From:         MKLINE%VDH.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU
Subject:      Re SO-CALLED PRO-CHOICERS
X-To:         christia%asuacad.BITNET@VTVM2.CC.VT.EDU

Subject: Re SO-CALLED PRO-CHOICERS

Bill Plunkett
Congratulations on your baby.  But, the concept of requiring woman
to view an ultra-sound before contemplating abortion is absurd...
(...)
I doubt that a woman, who has decided to terminate, will be swayed by the
badly blurred image of a four week old fetus on a screen.

The following comes from my "ABORTION PART2" on the CHRISTIA LIBRARY.
I'd also like to comment that there is a woman who offers free sonograms
to those going into abortion clinics and about 90% or so of those that
have the sonograms are changing their minds. The article has been on
CBN several times and the success is so great that Pro-Life groups are
footing the bill to buy sonogram equipment and pay for someone to learn
how to use it.

From the article.....
ABORTION PART2                                 04/13/90
...about line 480...
    What about ultrasound? What does it do for the abortionist and the
staff? What about the pictures?

    McArthur Hill, MD, Denver, CO -  The technology of ultrasound has the
ability to open a window into the womb. When a woman sees her own baby
moving on the screen, it has a profound influence on her, and I believe
this is the technology which should be used as much as possible.
Abortionists also know that ultrasound can be an valuable tool in the
performance of an abortion for another reason. Dr. Sally Dorfman reported
on the use of ultrasound during abortion at the annual meeting of the
American Public Health Association of 1986. It is also interesting that she
has warned against letting the patient seeing the image on the screen as
"seeing a blown up, moving image of embryo she is carrying can be
distressing to a woman who is about to under go an abortion.

    Joseph Randall - The ultrasound or sound wave picture, which was moving
or "real time ultrasound" showed the baby really on TV. The baby really
came alive on TV and was moving. And that picture, bothered me more than
anything else, because I didn't know then, but you bond with that picture.
We lost 2 nurses, they couldn't take looking at it. Some other staff, the
turn over rate was greater when we started doing the D&E's.
    The women that are having the abortions are NEVER allowed to look at
the ultrasound. Because, even if they heard the heartbeat, many times they
wouldn't have the abortion, and we didn't want that. No money in that.

    John: How profitable is it? Is all money reported?
...end of the related portion.....

If "the badly blurred image" is of no significance than why the results
reported here?

I wonder if God cries...
Maks.
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Date:         Tue, 28 Jul 1992 10:04:31 CDT
From:         Yvette Traylor <YST1@DCCCDBIT.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: "Crossing over"

"But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation a
peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath
called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." 1 Peter 2:9

I turly believe that Christians should wake up and see what Satan is
doing to us. There is no such thing as cross over music, either it gives
praises to the one who has called us out of darkness into his marvellous
light, or it gives praises to the one who is in darkness (Satan
himself).  There is no middle area Yvette
From: FACN34B@SAUPM00.BITNET (zane of dhahran)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Subject: Book
Date: 27 Jul 92 08:19:59 GMT
Organization: King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, S.A.
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X-Acknowledge-To: <FACN34B@SAUPM00.BITNET>

Hi Daniel, I got the book yesterday and should be able to finish it up tonight.
One of the better books on the subject that I have seen.  Very practical.
I will pass it around here, when folks return. I hope it presents a delicious
alternative to the status quo to some I know.  Like wine vs. grape kool-aid.
                                      Peace in Christ, Zane.
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From: psyrobtw@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Robert Weiss)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Subject: Re: Fact?
Date: 28 Jul 92 05:31:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <CHRISTIA%92072321150483@ASUACAD.BITNET>, AMZIMM01@ULKYVM.LOUISVILLE.EDU (Angela Zimmerman) writes...

>fact: Something that actually exists; reality; truth
> 
>How can you know for a fact what God is thinking?  You can quote the
>bible all you want but how can you *know* as *fact*?  It's impossible,
>especially since God is not a being that exists beyond a shadow of a
>doubt.  

	I imagine that there is doubt to certain people that the 
holocaust existed. And I imagine that there is doubt to some that the 
earth is not flat. So the phrase, "beyond a shadow of a doubt," 
doesn't really play on the issue of the fact of an item.

	If we were to examine the evidence in a court of law, the 
burden of proof lies in that something is proven "beyond a reasonable 
doubt." Is there proof beyond a reasonable doubt that God exists?
I think so. We have creation which argues for a Creator. We have a 
certain age for a universe that is winding down. Without a Creator we 
would be arguing that nothing times nothing equals everything.

>It can't be fact that a being who hasn't even been proven has
>a specific thought about an action.  You can believe that God has this
>thought, and maybe he does, but it isn't fact.  Which leads me to something
>else.  How can a human know what God thinks?

	The New Testament is an historically reliable testimony of the 
words and actions of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught from the Old Testament 
and quoted from it, and he claimed to be fully human and fully God. 
The legitimacy of his claims are the basis of how we can know what God
has said.


 en agape,
 Bob 
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
From: billc@housing.msstate.edu (Bill Chapman)
Subject: US Politics/Family Values/Hillary Clinton
Organization: Housing Department, Mississippi State University
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 16:28:37 GMT

I saw this on another list and post it for your information.
--Bill 

From: shedevil@vix.com (Anne P. Mitchell JD)
Subject: Hillary Clinton - Family Values?
Date: 21 Jul 92 05:59:48 GMT
In The American Spectator, August 1992, there is a discussion of
Hillary Clinton's views on reform measures for children and the law.
One of her major points is that she believes that children from the
age of 12 on up should, when the interests of the parents and the
child diverge, be able to take their parents to court and testify
against them.  In addressing this element of her proposals in her
article "Children's Rights: A Legal Perspective", Hillary Clinton
says, in "answer" to the concerns of critics of these reforms:
        "I prefer that [court] intervention into an ongoing
        family be limited to decisions that could have long-term
        and possible irreparable effects if they are not resolved.
        Decisions about motherhood and abortion, schooling, cosmetic
        surgery, treatment of venereal disease, or employment,
        and others where the decision or lack of one will significantly
        affect the child's future should not be made unilaterally
        by parents.  Children should have a right to be permitted to
        decide their own future if they are competent."
As the author of the article says, "In other words: 'Don't worry,
we'll still leave mundane decisions to the discretion of parents, it's
just the important ones they can't be trusted with.'"
Give me a break!...is there a person among us who would have and
could have made informed and reasoned decisions with such far reaching
and permanent ramifications, when they were *12* years old?  Or even
13, or 14!
I've said it before [though maybe not here] and I'll say it
again... the #1 reason why I would not even *consider* Bill Clinton
for president, is Hillary Clinton.
-- 
   LOOKING FOR:  Stewart Woodward, Hobson Woodward, Lorna Taylor & JJ Lancey
I am: Anne Mitchell, mom, & founder of the Fathers' Rights & Equality Exchange
Ask me about FREE!  FREE files available via anonymous ftp 128.45.1.1; dir /pub
                        DE STELLA MARTIS VERE VENISTI

--
Bill Chapman <BillC@Housing.MSState.edu>   (601) 325-2042
Computing Consultant <wcc1@Msstate.bitnet> P.O. Box 1262
Dept. of Housing & Residence Life          Mississippi State, MS  39762
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Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Mon, 27 Jul 1992 20:35:42 CST
From:         "William M. Jordan" <IF20159@LATECH.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Louisiana Christians
              27 Jul 1992 13:08:07 EDT from <STR008@UKCC.UKY.EDU >

I am one of the Louisiana members of CHRISTIA.  I am a faculty member
at Louisiana Tech University.

I would also appreciate it if members would put their complete address
on their posts, for it is often impossible to tell where someone is
physically coming from.

I want to thank the listmembers who prayed for our vacation.  We travelled
over 3900 miles (by driving) in 17 days.  It was a great time of refreshment.
We had a chance to spend some time with the pastor who married us 10 years
ago.  We also had a chance for my wife and me to go away by ourselves for
two days.  This was also a very good time.  I praise God for bringing my wife
and me together.

In Christ, Bill

William M. Jordan            Voice       (318) 257-4304
Mechanical & Industrial      FAX         (318) 257-2562
     Engineering Dept.       Bitnet      IF20159@latech.bitnet
Louisiana Tech University    Internet    jordan@engr.latech.edu
Ruston, LA 71272
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Date:         Fri, 31 Jul 1992 10:35:05 EST
From:         Kerry Stephenson <KSTE@PURCCVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Marriage, annulment, and divorce

Marty:

Thank you for your thoughtful explanation regarding the Catholic positions
on marriage and divorce.  On question still puzzles me, though.  You say
that the RC Church recognizes Protestant marriages as sacramental; therefore
a Catholic can't marry a Protestant divorced person.  What if a Catholic
wants to marry someone who has never had a religion and was previously
married and divorced only under civil authority?  Since the first
marriage wasn't sacramental, can the divorced person re-marry a never
previously married Catholic?  Thanks,
                                     Love INC,
                                              --Kerry
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Date:         Tue, 21 Jul 1992 09:48:37 -0700
From:         DRAKE@ASUCHM.LA.ASU.EDU
Subject:      doubts
X-To:         christia@asuvm.inre.asu.edu

>However, I figure that if I've got some questions in my head (some doubts, some
>concerns), best to deal with them and see if I'm right, wrong or whatever
>rather than just leaving them bottled up.  Fire away!
>--
>-Jordan            ..      PEACOCK5293@iscsvax.uni.edu

	Your quite right, that is the best way to handle them.

	I really admire my pastor, and he gave me more reason Sunday night.
He said, from the pulpit, that he has doubts, in fact he had to deal with
doubts about the very existance of God just that week.  It takes a lot of
courage to say that I think.  I know it is a comfort to people like me to hear
that I'm not alone in dealing with such things.  He said that he was at lunch
with a number of very "big" christians, people we would recongnize if he said
their names, and he was overawed at getting to hear the wisdom and strength of
these great christian men.  Then one of them asked the others to pray for
him 'cause he was doubting his salvation.
	So, doubting about aspects of the bible is not a terrible thing.  If
anything it shows that you are thinking about the bible, and are open minded
enough to even entertain such thoughts.  Just don't allow yourself to go to far
one direction without making sure you study the other as well.  (ie look at
all the views, not just one.)

Mark
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