barrykind
Advanced Member
Member # 35
|
posted
Inter-Faith 'Ecumenism' Exalted Over Jesus at Methodist Youth Camp
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by Me. (John 14:6)
Everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 10: 32, 33)
By Jim Brown and Jody Brown
August 16, 2002
(AgapePress) - A conservative Protestant leader is disturbed by a recent United Methodist youth camp in North Carolina that embraced universalism and included Islamic prayers.
The ecumenical camp earlier this month included about 30 Christian, Jewish, and Muslim boys ages 9 to 11, and promoted the idea that there are many acceptable ways to God. According to the United Methodist News Service, some of the Christian and Jewish boys even participated in Muslim prayer time.
That same report quotes the camp's director, a United Methodist pastor, as saying, "We've got to stop the next generation from being tainted with the bigotry and prejudice that our parents fed us" -- that "we're all on a journey to God, or Allah, and sometimes things get in the way" -- and "these are not 'stand-alone' religions but are continuations of the same divine message."
Mark Tooley
Mark Tooley is with the Institute on Religion and Democracy, an alliance of American Christians working to reform their churches’ social witness, in accord with biblical and historic Christian teachings. Tooley says the camp's leaders have a typical secular mindset that says to lift up the unique truthfulness of Christianity would be innately prejudicial or bigoted.
"I think it's very amusing and peculiar that liberal church people and liberal secular people who are so harshly critical of what they call 'fundamentalist Christianity' at the same time ... seem so eager to embrace Islam, which is far more restrictive and far more hostile to what liberals believe in," Tooley says. "So it's very sad that this kind of camp was held."
He says the gathering of young Muslim, Jewish, and Christian boys promoted the false notion that everyone is a child of God. "It's in essence an effort to pretend that there's no real difference between Christianity and Islam," Tooley says. "[The camp] may have been even deferential to Islam, while lacking the courage and the honesty to lift up Christianity as a valid option for all people."
Tooley says the camp could have been a positive event if it were arranged for Christian boys to share their faith and talk about what Christianity stands for. In contrast, camp organizers say the most difficult part of the camp was conforming to the dietary restrictions of the Muslim and Jewish campers.
© 2002 AgapePress all rights reserved
--------------------
The HEART of the issue is truly the issue of the HEART!
John 3:3;Mark 8:34-38;James 1:27
Posts: 3529 | From: Orange, Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
| IP: Logged | 
|
Printer-friendly view of this topic
