Our long-time subscriber Helen Knop reports on Martin Gardner‘s book New Age: Notes of a Fringe Watcher. “It consists of reprinted articles from The Skeptical Inquirer. Gardner is scientifically reliable, a materialist atheist, and a professional debunker of religion, phony spiritualists, ‘psi’ phenomena, and so on. He’s also a pretty good writer. If he only had the gift of faith!
“His book includes a chapter called ‘Give Me That Prime-Time Religion.’ It’s about televangelists, and he gives interesting information on their donation base. He reports that the donation lists of all televangelists combined total about five million names, most of them monthly donors. They overwhelmingly are women between 50 and 80, with 71 years of age the peak year for giving. The usual donation is $10 a month.
“These women are mostly alone–widows, divorced (dumped, usually), never-married, with some, but mostly with not a lot, of money. Some live in nursing homes or ‘leisure villages.’ Many are crippled with arthritis or other ailments, and they tend to keep their favorite religious station on all the time. They send eagerly for tapes and play them over and over again. They consider the televangelists their pastors. These women (Jan Crouch of TBN calls them `the grammas’) are quite a force; their money built TBN and Oral Roberts’ tower and D. James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge and Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University.”
Prometheus Books is an independent press devoted to publishing books on secular humanism and accompanying themes, including the empirical and social sciences, human sexuality, atheist and agnostic philosophy, and criticism of paranormal phenomena.
During the 1980s, dismayed that “secular humanism was being unduly attacked in the mass media” (hey–that’s our line), Prometheus began to promote “the rich literature of biblical criticism and the humanist alternatives.” Some choice titles from a recent catalogue:
On the Gods, by Robert Ingersoll. The squib for this book begins, “Ingersoll (1833-1899) was perhaps the most famous American of his day.” Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard of Robert Ingersoll.
Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies, by George H. Smith, who is best known for his book defending atheism. The Morse Press-News‘s promotional blurb for this book promises that “there should be something in this book to offend everyone.”
Half Straight: My Secret Bisexual Life, by “Tom Smith.”
The Destroying Angel: Fitness and Food in the Legacy of Degeneracy Theory: Graham Crackers, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, and American Health History, by John Money. You win a bun if you guess what it’s about.
The X-Rated Videotape Guide, by Robert H. Rimmer. Why is it in this catalogue? Maybe it’s indispensable for the true free-thinker.
Is Christianity True?, by Michael Arnheim. “A piercing analysis, showing that Christianity derived its essence from Judaism.” It takes the author only 198 pages of “piercing analysis” to figure that one out.
Maybe Yes, Maybe No: A Guide for Young Skeptics, by Dan Barker. For young folks. This one guarantees business for Prometheus Books well into the next generation.
Our advice: Invest in a used Baltimore Catechism instead.
Latin America has been flooded with Evangelical and Fundamentalist missionaries over the last 25 years. Many countries with rich Catholic cultural, historical, and spiritual traditions have lost significant chunks of their populations to “Bible Christianity.” California-based Dawn Ministries estimates, for example, that 38% of the population of Guatemala is Evangelical, with a projected growth to 57% by the year 2000.
Other traditionally Catholic nations don’t fare much better. Brazil, with the largest Catholic population of any country in the world, is said to be 16% Evangelical, jumping to 29% by 2000. In response, we’ve had Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth translated into Portuguese and hope to arrange funding for the first printing.
I am overwhelmed with emotion as I write you. My heart pounds with excitement. Never have I shared anything as shocking as the information I have uncovered and am about to reveal.”
So begins a flyer from Jack Van Impe Ministries, located in Troy, Michigan. The flyer purports to reveal “the most shocking information in 2,000 years of Christianity,” but it’s really an ad for the ministries new video, Startling Revelations: Pope John Paul II.
“It’s closing time, beloved,” writes Van Impe. “My video proves it.” Relying heavily on the writings of former Jesuit Malachi Martin, the video claims to document the “greatest defection within Christendom covering the past twenty centuries.” As if that weren’t tantalizing enough, the flyer lists several dozen “startling revelations,” including:
“The Marxist Infiltrator-Antonio Gramsci.”
“The Churches [sic] 600,000 Marxist Camps.”
“The Trouble Making Jesuits” (no kidding-when was the last time you tried to make a Jesuit?)
“The Mystery of Iniquity in high Gear” (sounds clever, but what could it mean?)
“The Judas Complex of the Clergy.”
If Catholics can’t match Fundamentalists in stirring up Last Days hysteria (and just as well), we’re closing the gap when it comes to active, dynamic youth evangelism.
A new Catholic apostolate has begun in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s called Say Yes to Jesus, and its purpose is to bring young Catholic men and women to a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. That doesn’t “sound” very Catholic, admits founder Bill Butler, but that’s just the point.
“The purpose of Say Yes to Jesus is to serve as a vehicle to make the Catholic faith come alive. In doing so, we not only hope to educate and ignite our Catholic youth on the beauty and richness of their faith, but we also hope to close some of the gaps of misunderstanding among our Christian brothers and sisters.”
Say Yes to Jesus conducts conferences all over the country, employing a rare combination of upbeat, contemporary presentation with solid orthodoxy and spiritual substance. The coordinators of Say Yes to Jesus consider orthodoxy the program’s trump card; it sets the organization apart from the “feel good” youth groups.
“We’re not doing this to be popular,” says Butler. “We’re doing this to follow what we truly believe in–the Roman Catholic truth handed down to us by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It’s cool to be Catholic, and that’s the message we’re hoping the youth pick up.”
For information about a session in your area, contact Say Yes to Jesus at 1-800-MY-JESUS.
Do you need something really short and illustrated to get a conversation going with a “non-reader”? We suggest you call the Catholic Information League at (313) 545-0485 and request samples of its cartoon tracts. You might call them Catholic versions of the tracts Chick Publications puts out, but even shorter. You won’t find any detailed arguments here (what do you expect from a sheet half the size of this page?), but you will find sensible explications of basic beliefs.
On page 11 of this issue is Patrick Madrid’s account of his debate with James White. The topic was sola scriptura, and we like to think our side had the better of the argument. But judge for yourself. Two-tape sets are available from This Rock for $11.95 postpaid. Ask for “Does the Bible Teach Sola Scriptura?“
Also available are two-tape sets from another debate–same topic, but quite a different “feel.” (We think it fair to say that everyone thought the Catholics routed the opposition. Even an Evangelical newsletter writer who was there said so.) This debate took place during World Youth Day and featured a two-on-two format. Karl Keating and Patrick Madrid were teamed against Bill Jackson, head of Christians Evangelizing Catholics, and Ron Nemec, another anti-Catholic. We title this The Bible Only Debate. It is available for $11.95 postpaid.
Which debate should you get? Admittedly there is some overlap, but the arguments from the anti-Catholcs are quite distinct. Put them together, and you’ll hear everything those people can say. Get both!