Truth Magazine

By Donald P. Ames

The Roman Catholic Church has long been famous (or should we say infamous) for the hoaxes which they have come up with. The interesting thing is that there are always so many people ready to believe them, and usually somewhere down the line, it adds to the treasury of local Catholic Churches. Consequently, when claims are made relative to “saint-hood” and “miracles,” most of us familiar with such a history have learned to take them with a grain of salt.

Teary, Bloody Statue

The latest hoax comes from Ste.- Marthe-aur-le-lac, Quebec. Here it seems a statue of the “Virgin Mary” was in the possession of one Jean-Guy Beauregard, a railroad worker in Montreal. On December 8, the statue was said to begin weeping (memories of similar events in Chicago and other cities in the U.S.). Word began to spread quickly, and soon crowds began to gather. Due to objections from the landlord, the statue was then moved to the home of Maurice and Claudette Girouard in Ste.-Marthe. In January, tears were not enough. The Girouards then reported to reporters that the tears on the statue began to mix with blood. Crowds continued to come. In less than a week over 12,000 people came to see the “miracle.” Newspapers and TV were brought in to spread the phenomenon.

However, like most hoaxes, sooner or later someone is going to catch on – and usually the “miracle” is moved elsewhere and passed off on another group of gullible people who want to believe such wild claims. Well, in this case, it seems the bubble burst early. The owner, when confronted with some scientific work done by the Canadian Broadcast Corp. on another tear-stained icon, broke down and admitted that the bloody tears were actually drops of oil that he had mixed with his own blood to produce the effect! Of course, the confession will likely be hidden from most Catholics, as the “miracle” is then moved to another city (or someone else tries to duplicate the act).

Those Tears

There was some other rather interesting work also discovered relative to the “tears” that had appeared as well. Since this has occurred in cities in the U.S., I thought some of our readers might like a little inside information on the probable source here as well. It seems, upon close examination, that the tears were not actual at all. In fact, what was found was that the face had been coated with pork and beef fat that would naturally liquefy in droplets and run like tears once the room was slightly warmed.

Such being the case, one is made to wonder if that is not what happened to the statues here in the U.S. that suddenly began “crying” in the past year. And also, one wonders why such an examination was not performed here to refute such a hoax?

Source

According to the article, which appeared in the Indianapolis Star (January 18, 1986), there was another interesting little side-light to this whole episode. It turned out the Maurice Girouard, who had spokesman for the “miracle,” had also been previously convicted twice of practicing medicine illegally. That ought to cast a real cloud of credibility over any further such claims.

My point is simply that most such “miracles,” as some may wish to call’ them, have an explanation if one really wants to took for it. But us the Catholic Church is too busy enjoying the publicity to try to truthfully find a solution. Oh yes, they will keep their distance (“We do not take a stand on it, do not know all the details, it may be an exaggeration of the marvelous,” etc.) but rarely will they deny it, decline the publicity, or pursue the practice and publicly expose the fraud. This way they get the glory – and if the fraud is discovered, they have covered their tracks. If not, they can move to another town and produce another “miracle.” And the public flock to the event for all the publicity they get out of it.

Well, let’s expose this thing as widely as we can, and maybe people will pause and ask a few questions first the next time. In the words of the apostle Paul, “Be not deceived.”

Guardian of Truth XXX: 5, p. 138
March 6, 1986

By Hoyt H. Houchen

Question: God did not allow the Israelites to eat blood. Is it scriptural for us to eat blood today? Please explain Acts 5:20, 29.

Reply: The question about circumcision had been raised at Antioch in Syria. Concerning this controversy, Luke wrote: “And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, saying, Except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved. And when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and questioning with them, the brethren appointed that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question” (Acts 15:1,2). It was the decision of the brethren at Jerusalem, confirming what the Holy Spirit had already revealed, that the Gentiles abstain from four things: things sacrificed to idols, blood, things strangled, and fornication (v. 251).

There has been some discussion as to what is meant by abstaining from blood. Some think that it means to abstain from murder. Others believe that it means to abstain from eating of blood as forbidden by the law of Moses. “The blood” here seems clearly to be the blood of animals which should not be eaten (Lev. 17:10-15). It was a heathen practice to catch the blood from an animal in a container and drink it. The Israelites were not allowed to do this, because God plainly said that “the life of all flesh is the blood” (see Lev. 17:13, 14; Deut. 12:23). God’s people were instructed to pour out the blood of the animal that had been killed (Lev. 17:13). God had already forbidden Noah and his descendants to eat blood (Gen. 9:4), so the prohibition was not confined to the law of Moses.

We must not presuppose that eating blood is permitted today. Some have thought that the decision at the Jerusalem conference was made as an expediency – that it was applied to the Gentiles, because if they failed to observe it, the Jews who had always refrained from the practice, would be offended. This, however, is an assumption without proof. Already we have shown that God had prohibited the act of eating blood even in the time of Noah, long before the law of Moses was given. The eating of blood is forbidden throughout the Scriptures. The same reason for not eating blood before and during the law of Moses prevails today. We cannot assume that the same reason that existed then does not exist today. In fact, there is no evidence that it ever was revoked. “The life of the flesh is in the blood.” This is the reason that God gives for not eating it, thus it remains true.

The blood of Christ atones for the sins of the world (Rom. 5:8-11). The death penalty was ordained by God and was imposed upon anyone who “sheddeth man’s blood” (Gen. 9:6). This should be reason enough that God has always forbidden the eating of blood.

Guardian of Truth XXX: 5, p. 133
March 6, 1986

By Fred Melton

It may not be a real big surprise to some brethren that Abilene “Christian” University has been teaching the theory of evolution in their science classes for years now but it certainly was a revelation to Dr. Bert Thompson, Professor of Bible and Science at Alabama Christian School of Religion – an alumnus of Abilene. Thompson, who heads up the Apologetics Press in Montgomery, Alabama and lectures on creation and evolution, was first alerted by an ACU student named Mark Scott. Scott sent Thompson a huge packet of class materials including the evolutionary notes of Dr. Archie Manis, Associate Professor of Biology at ACU and an elder of the Baker Heights Church of Christ in Abilene.

Among the items sent by Scott was class handout material by Manis entitled “Research in Genesis” which contained a marginal note in Manis’ own handwriting: “Creation, Hymn, Myth -I — 1:1-2:3 Hymn, Myth -2 — 2:4-24.” Other “evidences” of the evolutionary teachings were the required reading of Science & Creationism by Ashley Montagu, the famous evolutionist/humanist of Princeton; Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism by Kitcher and essays from Natural History by the infamous J. Gould, an evolutionist and committed Marxist. This was all done, according to Thompson’s investigations, “without any refutation whatsoever, ” and had evidently been going on for over fifteen years.

Thompson admits that he did not believe (indeed, did not want to believe) the charges at first, but was determined to follow “proper channels” in order to find out the truth about the matter. Thompson first wrote personal letters to Archie Manis and Kenneth Williams, another professor at Abilene, asking them to explain themselves concerning the teachings of evolution at the University. While waiting for some response from these two professors, a letter arrived from Perry C. Reeves, Dean of the College of Natural and Applied Sciences at ACU. Reeves praised Williams and Manis as “dedicated men” with the intent to “expose our students to the way in which evolutionists think and to ex pose them to evolutionists’ claims so that these students will be better equipped to face attacks on their faith when they leave ACU.”

As the controversy began to heat up, Thompson observes that a “cover up of significant proportions was beginning to take shape” from the two professors all the way to the President and the Board of Trustees, who had ordered them to completely ignore Thompson’s letters.

Meanwhile, Mark Scott, who had first alerted Thompson to this “rotten” business discovered that his biology grade had been lowered from an “A” or a “B” to a “C” and a Botany lab grade to a “D” which kept him from making the Dean’s list. When Mark confronted Manis about why his grades had been lowered, Manis replied (as told by Mark Scott), “The real reason I got a ‘C’ was because it was the only way he could get rid of his anger and keep him from taking me (Mark Scott), you (Bert Thompson), and your ‘outfit’ to court and suing us” (Mark’s grades were later raised back to a “B”).

As other students and parents began to be drawn into the fight, one Rowena Lobley wrote to Thompson that her daughter Brenda, a second year medical student out of San Antonio, had graduated magna cum laude from ACU and was “very confused about evolution.” When Brenda was asked if her instructors (Drs. Manis and Williams) ever refuted evolution, she replied, “quite the contrary, it was presented as fact” and she felt that ACU thinks that if it doesn’t teach evolution it will lose credibility which the “scientific community.”

Back in the sacred halls of Abilene, “Dr.” Manis waltzes into the room on the first day of the freshman biology class and proclaims, “There are some people ‘outside’ the university community who are trying to tell me what I can and cannot teach. But they won’t succeed. I’m an elder in the church, and I believe in evolution, I’m going to teach it to you, and you are going to believe it as well.” One of the students in the class, upset by Manis’ remarks, reported the situation to Robert Hunter, Vice President of the University as well as several others in the administration. Nothing was done.

After exhausting what he calls “chains of command” without any satisfactory results, Bert Thompson asks for and receives a face-to-face meeting with ACU officials which lasted about two and one-half hours. Thompson was accompanied to the meeting by James Williford, an elder of the 5th and Grape Street Church of Christ in Abilene as an “independent” witness. Neither Manis nor Williams was present at the meeting and when asked the reason for their absence, Dub Orr, representing the ACU Board of Trustees replied that Archie Manis was “red-headed and hottempered and might do something violent.” According to a signed statement by James Williford, the administrators present were confronted with a briefcase full of documentation that in fact Manis and Williams were teaching “either theistic or organic evolution as factual, true and to be accepted.”

Thompson promptly produced copies of “Evolution Notes” authored by Archie Manis some of which were as follows:

Evolution’s history and methodology will continue to feed debates for generations, but the fact of evolution is beyond dispute. The concept is rational, scientific, and supported by an overwhelming mass of evidence from past and present.

Evolution is a fact, not a theory. It once was a theory, but today, as a consequence of observations and testing it is probably the best authenticated actuality known to science. There are theories concerning the mechanisms of evolution, but no competent student doubts the reality of evolution.

. . . whatever the historical antecedent of Genesis, it represents but one of the innumerable creation myths which different people at different times have invented in order to account for the manner in which Earth and everything upon it came into being.

The god who is reputed to have created fleas to keep dogs from moping over their situation must also have created fundamentalists to keep rationalists from getting flabby. Let us be duly thankful for our blessings.

Such blasphemous materials were presented to students in the ACU biology classes “without any refutation whatsoever. ” When Dr. Fair, Dean of the College of Bible was shown the biology notes, he stated that in his opinion they were “rotten.”

Thompson then asked the administrators to request Manis and Williams to sign seven statements of belief in the Genesis account of creation and disbelief in evolution or fire the two professors. The officials “vehemently opposed” such a document because it would “insult the faculty members.” Thompson replied, “How could it be an insult to ask a Christian professor to sign a document in which he stated that he did not believe Genesis 1-11 to be a myth, that he did believe Genesis 1-11 to be literal and historical, that he did not believe in or advocate organic evolution or theistic evolution, and in which he stated that he did, and would refute such false concepts concerning evolution?”

The two professors finally sent Thompson letters to the effect that they believe in the Bible, Christianity, the biblical account of creation, and do not advocate organic evolution. Thompson replied, “That doesn’t tell me a thing. What I want to know is are you a theistic evolutionist? Any denominationalist could say the same thing.”

The bottom line seems to be that these men are theistic evolutionists and can, therefore, “state forthrightly” that they believe God created the earth and everything on it but did it by means of evolution. Manis was asked: “Do you believe that God created the heavens, earth, and everything in them in six literal days of approximately twenty-four hours each?” Manis replied, “I think he could have, if he had wanted to, but I don’t think that’s the way he did it. . . . ” He stated he does teach evolution and does not refute it. Furthermore, the University defended these professors, possibly fearing legal repercussions or loss of credibility with the “scientific community” if they dared to dismiss them.

If the once venerable Abilene “Christian” College (now a university) finds itself in this kind of turmoil as it advances toward “educational respectability,” what will the future hold for other such schools. As for Abilence – “you’ve gone a long way, baby.”

(For documentation of this material, see Is Genesis Myth? The Shocking Story of the Teaching of Evolution at A CU by Bert Thompson. This is available free from Apologetics Press, Inc., 230 Landmark Dr., Montgomery, AL 36117-2752.)

Guardian of Truth XXX: 5, pp. 129, 151
March 6, 1986

By David McClister

In the previous article by this same title it was shown that Jesus never did anything that was even morally questionable in the eyes of rational people. And if that is the example which Jesus has left for us, we must live that way also. We also said that we wish to consider three types of behavior in the light of Christ’s example. The first type was morally questionable behavior. Let us now consider the second type of behavior, again in the form of a question.

Would Jesus Ever Act So As To Lead Another Person To Sin, Whether In Word, Thought, Or Deed?

We know that Jesus kept His personal behavior above reproach at all times, but His concern for morality did not end with Himself. Jesus was always mindful of His influence upon others, and He never willfully did anything which caused others to stumble (sin). Here again the subject of morally neutral activities is important. There are many things which are permitted to the Christian which are neither right nor wrong in themselves. But if engaging in these things will influence a weaker person to practice them in excess and thus sin, or if our practice of them will lead another to do them and violate his conscience concerning them, then the Christian ought to have no part in them. We must be conscious of the influence and example we are setting before others, that we not allow it to cause another to sin.

A very good example of this attitude in action in the life of Christ is found in Matthew 17:24-27. It was asked whether Jesus would pay the temple tax which was collected from all Jews. Jesus, as the Son of God, was rightfully exempt from this temple support tax, and thus really was not obligated to pay it. However, lest His example of not paying should cause others to stumble (by refusing to pay the tax they owed), He told Peter to go to the sea and cast a hook. The fish he would catch would have a coin in its mouth sufficient to pay the tax for both Himself and Peter. It is important to notice that Jesus sacrificed His privilege so that others would not be led astray. This very same attitude is seen in the life of the apostle Paul. In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul shows us what privileges he gave up for the sake of preaching the gospel of Christ, and he exhorts the Corinthians (and us) to make similar sacrifices if they will help prevent some weaker one from sinning against his conscience or running into excess.

Some may object, however, on the ground of passages such as 1 Peter 2:8. There we are told that Christ is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense to some, particularly the Jews. Paul makes a similar claim about the Jews and the gospel in 1 Corinthians 2:23. Do not these passages teach us that Jesus is in a very real sense the reason why the Jews rejected the kingdom? We must realize that the Jews did indeed stumble at Christ and His gospel, but not because Jesus willfully wished it. Jesus focused the greater part of His ministry on earth upon the Jews, and the apostles were commissioned to preach to the Jews first. Jesus was a rock of offense to the Jews because they were stubborn and proud, unwilling to humble themselves to obey Him. Only in this sense did Jesus cause the Jews to sin; but it was not a deliberate or intentional result planned by the Lord. It was rather a sad consequence which the Jews brought upon themselves. See Matthew 23:37-39 and Romans 10:1-3. The fact remains thatJesus never intentionally or deliberately acted so as to cause another to sin.

Jesus was constantly aware of the kind of influence He should be leaving before others, and He never left a bad influence or example for anyone. He never did or said anything that might encourage someone to act recklessly or against his conscience. And so must His disciples be. Jesus described us, the citizens of His kingdom, as the light of the world and the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13-16). Both of these metaphors convey the idea of influence. We are to be influences for good in this world. It is our job to make this world a better place by our influence (which is molded by the gospel).

Now let us again examine some specific applications taken from the pool of activities which some try to justify as harmless or morally neutral. We could mention dancing again in this connection. Jesus would never have done it even if it were morally indifferent, simply because it would have left the wrong kind of influence: it would have led others to lust. We could also mention the wearing of immodest clothes again in this connection, and for the same reason. But let us look at two more activities which some defend, and ask, “Would Jesus do this?”

Drinking (Even Socially): Would Jesus Do That?

Is the picture we have of Jesus one of Him going up into the mountain to pray and carrying along a six-pack of beer? Can we picture Jesus talking to Nicodemus about the new birth while both are seated at the local bar sipping on martinis? Certainly not. Jesus would have refused to allow anyone to think that He in any way condoned the image that the world has of alcohol. The world equates drinking (and the world is not always so quick to make or acknowledge the difference between social drinking and drunkenness which some press) with carousing, reveling, rebellion, and lawlessness (and it is naive to think otherwise). Everyone – even the alcoholic – will admit that drinking kills thousands of people every year in one way or another, Certainly Jesus would never have let anyone suppose that He approved of it in any way. And if Jesus would not, neither should we.

“Stretching The Truth” or Hiding Part Of It: Would Jesus Do That?

There is a common saying, “What you do not know will not hurt you. ” It is often used to justify the practice of keeping back part of the truth when that truth may make one look bad in the eyes of others. Equally problematic is the practice of exaggerating or overemphasizing some parts of the truth in order to change the impression the truth may have upon others. Again we ask, would Jesus ever have done that? The answer is a flat “no.” Jesus always instructed me to speak honestly and truthfully with others. He denounced the Pharisaic system which allowed a man to make an oath and break it (Matt. 23:16-22). He and His apostles always stressed that whatever we say must be the honest truth (Matt. 5:37; Jas. 5:12). Thus as we live to copy Jesus’ example which never misled anyone, we must always speak and practice the truth. Anything else may cause others to sin.

Jesus was above reproach not only personally, but also in His contacts with and influence upon others. Not once do we ever observe Him doing or saying anything which was willfully designed to harm another spiritually. Moreover, He even sacrificed some privileges He had the right to enjoy out of a concern for how others would be influenced by His engaging in them. His influence was nothing but good. How about ours?

Guardian of Truth XXX: 5, pp. 136, 150
March 6, 1986