Stanley Scism

The BBC had a report against Apostolic Christianity due to impressions British people had of Oneness Pentecost from the film, ‘Borat’.

Since media effect comes and goes in public consciousness as new things come up to hold attention, and because the UK is a religiously free society, I feel the UK is likely to pass a law against Oneness Pentecostalism specifically or against Pentecostalism generally, but, since the UK also loves order and bureaucratic red tape, they might well pass laws more closely scrutinizing:
a.  financial records of churches
b.  claims that churches cause psychological damage.

As an American who grew up in India under British influence, I am formed as much by Britain and India as by America.  As an apostolic Christian who holds to God’s love for humanity and his sacrifice as Jesus Christ for our sins, and having exprienced his Spirit’s presence in my life, I do want to see people in all three countries thrive Spiritually through God’s Spirit’s presence in their lives.

Having been for some weeks in the part of America where the segment was filmed and having spoken with people there about this, then having seen the segment of the film having to do with this, I have the following observations:

First, people filled with God’s Spirit worship God differently in different nations, states, even cities.  Apostolic churches in Britain aren’t necessarily the same as those in America, nor are all the churches in America the same, nor all the churches in Britain, nor even all the apostolic churches in London, as those of us who have visited more than one can attest.  And British people certainly has their own freedom to worship Jesus Christ as they please, as do Americans and, for that matter, Indians.  For instance, in Mizoram, NE India, apostolics dance in a circle during song services.  In South India, they usually sit on the floor.  In China, they even worship in Chinese!  And in secret because of government oppression.  Apostolics in Britain, America and India don’t do that because these are religiously free societies.’
2.  Remember ‘Borat’ is fiction–Cohen said he was providing a documentary, but it’s a movie.  ‘Borat’ is a fictional character.  It’s not more credible than ‘Braveheart’ showing medieval lowland Scots wearing paint and kilts.
3.  ‘Borat’ showed footage of one church service of one state in America,  and anecdotal examples are not exhaustive evidence of Pentecost as a whole, Oneness Pentecost as a whole, American Oneness Pentecost as a whole, or even that one state’s  practice generally.
4.  Cohen in his movie was good at faking his own conversion (and faking many things in the movie) and in deceiving honest, good, people who actually work for a living, but this is an indictment of him as being unreal and uncouth and untrustworthy, not them.’
5.  Also, ‘Cohen did not interview the people who actually received Spirit baptism, so the audience didn’t see what Pentecost is like on a day-to-day basis in people’s lives.  A ‘documentary’ not even interviewing people is not credible.’

Pakistan

The Pakistani government announced that Islam must be taught in all government-funded schools. The prime minister said, “”Pakistan was achieved to create a true Islamic society.”" Muslims have made use of a mandatory death sentence for “”disrespect to the Prophet”" to bring false charges against Christians.

Peru

One thousand buses in this South American nation carry “”Read the Bible”" signs by the Peruvian Bible Society. They have also printed these on the backs of one million bus tickets, and have distributed more than 200,000 Bibles, 200,000 Children’s Bible storybooks, and six million Scripture leaflets. Many of these were printed in other indigenous languages as well as in Spanish.

Sudan

Sudan will spend $100 million to spread Islam. Says Islamic ruler Lt. Gen. Omer Hassan el-Bashir, “”We will export Sudanese culture and values to the rest of the world.”" Fifty-five nations also in the Islamic Conference Organization are also backing this effort. Sudanese officials already impose Islamic law within Sudan by requiring all women, including nonMuslims, to wear a head scarf and a long robe or dress to cover their legs and arms. Also, all women entering Sudah, including tourists, who are not dressed accordingly, are provided with dresses and gowns. Most women in southern Sudan are Christian or animist and oppose this law.

Turkey

This is one of the most unreached nations in the world, with only about 1,000 evangelicals for sixty million people. Evangelical missionaries starting working in Istanbul in the 1960s, and today 400 foreign Christian workers live there. Turkey is 99.8% Islamic–many people feel that to be Turkish is to be Islamic. While Turkey officially grants freedom of religion, most Turkish Christians are harassed in their daily lives. Please pray for freedom in Turkey.

United Kingdom

200,000 people have enrolled in the ten-week Alpha courses, which introduce people to Christianity. The course begins with a meal and is follsed by talk about Christianity and small-grouyp discussions. Alpha graduates are taking their lively faith to declining congregations in England and so far have saved some churches from closing.

Venezuela

Evangelical churches have counded more than 3,500 congregations in the last five years, and evangelical growth has increased from 800,000 to 1.4 million. Evangelicals at a conference recently pledged to reach 15% of the population by 2015, and to start 15,000 churches. About 5.5% of the country’s 22 million people are evangelical.

A red cow named Melody chews a lot of grass in complete ignorance of the controversy she stirs up. She mainly worries about the flies. Melody, a red heifer, was born on an ordinary farm in northern Israel. Two millennia ago, the ashes of a red heifer, butchered in her third year, were mixed with water and used to purify Jews before they approach the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Now, many devout Jews greet red heifers as a wonderful sign that the Messiah is coming at the new millennium, and would like to burn Melody to cinders in a new, third, temple. Muslims and some less observant Jews fear that extremists might take Melody as a signal to destroy the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosques to clear the ground for to construct a new temple–and start a war. Journalist David Landau in the newspaper Ha’aretz recommends that someone quickly and casually kill Melody (as if this were all her fault). In the 1980s, a few Jewish militants were arrested and convicted of plotting to blow up the two mosques. Gershom Solomon founded the Temple Mount Faithful Movement thirty years ago to promote the hill’s liberation from “Muslim imperialist forces.” His followers periodically challenge the Israeli government’s longstanding rule against Jewish prayer anywhere on the Temple Mount, apart from the Western, “Wailing” Wall. Solomon says Melody is “another sign that we are very close the rebuilding of the temple.” Landau says, “The potential harm from this heifer is far greater than the destructive properties of a regular terrorist bomb,” as if killing one would prevent others from being born.

And maybe that’s the answer. Melody’s not really red, just auburn. And she’s going prematurely gray–white whiskers in the snout and white hairs in the tail and eyelashes–perhaps a trauma among women bovine as much as it is for the human variety. Her local rabbi, Shmaria Shore, doesn’t think she’ll pass inspection: “I’m very doubtful whether she is kosher. If I really thought she was, I’d send her away to an undisclosed location.” Melody, if informed about this, probably wouldn’t at first know whether to feel relieved or insulted. Then she’d probably decide on relieved. As long as everybody else knows it, too. Then she’ll have a lot more days to worry about nothing except flies.

In the midst of all this tension, Israeli tourist officials want to attract hordes of Christian tourists two years from now to Megiddo (Greek name = Armageddon), where the Tribulation ends. The Israeli National Parks Authority approved a multimedia reconstruction of Armageddon on the site of its ruins so that visitors can “contemplate the final showdown with the aid of virtual reality,” as Kendall Hamilton, Joseph Contreras and Mark Dennis said in their article, “The Strange Case…,” in Newsweek. Unwise, soon-to-be virtual visitors, perhaps, attending a Last Battle Bash.

Many people are turning to traditional faiths, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism. The current search to find God has never before been this wide or deep. Some people say the reasons for the interest are moral decay, financial disaster, and the emptiness of materialism. Islam has 1.1 billion followers worldwide and is growing rapidly: in 1950, one of every seven people on earth was Muslim; today, one in five. Christianity has 1.9 million adherents and has become a major religion outside the West.

Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing family of world Christianity. It has 410 million members and is, after Roman Catholicism, the second largest Christian tradition. It is also growing by 20 million a year, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Gaston Espinosa reports: Little Pentecostal templos and iglesias, often averaging only 60-100 members, are attracting 30,000-40,000 Latinos annually from Roman Catholicism. Their minister usually works in a factory. Many Pentecostals attend church every night for a two-hour service. Loud Bible readings and spontanesous testimonies are part of every service. The hymns usually fill with rhythmic clapping, accompanied by guitar, drums, tambourines, bass fiddle, piano. Their call to born again, Spirit-filled life has led to great conflict and persecution in families and neighborhoods, where other people mock them, calling them “Aleluyas.”

Today, Latin America has approximately 1 million Pentecostals in 10,000 congregations in 40 denominations or fellowship circles.

Because Pentecostals argue over almost any subject from prohibitions on pork to the correct doctrine on the Trinity, today there are 11,000 Pentecostal or charismatic denominations worldwide.