and preaching of Stephen, Peter, John, James, Paul, Barnabas, Apollos, et al. In short, it is exactly what the Jewish Sanhedrin tried to enforce against the early Christians. It is precisely what Saul by authority of that Sanhedrin was enforcing against the churches prior to his conversion to Jesus Christ!

This position paper not only has many contradictions, but it is an outright denial of the validity of the bulk of the New Testament. It is a unilateral "contract" between the Texas Conference of Churches and Judaism.

The Apostle Paul said of the Jews that they "... killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last." (1 Thess. 2': 15-16).

This same Paul wrote to the Corinthian church: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal." He wrote a complete explanation of love, with illustrations. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud ... It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs . . . Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth."

We believe that Paul, who was at times sharp with his tongue and pen, also practiced genuine love toward others. The problem with the ecumenical gushiness epitomized by the conferees in Dallas is that TRUTH somehow got lost in the shuffle. Doesn't the Bible teach that God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes on Him shall not perish but have everlasting life? But whoever does not believe is judged already and has no inheritance from God. (John 3:16-18).

GOD LOVES — YES, HE DOES! BUT HE ALSO REQUIRES BELIEF AND REPENTANCE WITHOUT WHICH HIS LOVE IS ULTIMATELY WITHDRAWN!

Locked in the core of contemporary ecumenical dialogue is the denial of sin and man's sinful nature. Inherent in this "oversight" is universalism, the belief that everyone will be saved in the end. And that is what the conference at Dallas promoted, according to reports.

In a telephone interview with Dr. Bernard Batto of Holy trinity seminary who was the registrar of the conference, he told us that he in fact is a universalist . . . he believes all will be saved. He also stated that the AP reporter who wrote the reproduced article above was correct in his representation of Dr. Paul Van Buren of Temple University. Dr. Van Buren said that the Jews do not need to be reconciled to God through Christ, that the covenant at Mt. Sinai is eternal and therefore "all Israel will be saved." This is not only a misunderstanding of Rom. 11:26 but contradictory to Hebrews 8:7-13.

It becomes crystal clear to many of us, then, that dispensationalism which has taken so many fundamentalists by storm is the connecting link between/among Judaism, liberal Catholics, liberal Protestants, many conservatives, many evangelicals and many fundamentalists. Some of the fundamentalists who "would not be caught dead" with the World Council of Churches are in fact linking up with it by this doctrine of universalism, tied up with it by this doctrine for the Jews. That's why Dr. Van Buren was able to say that churches have turned 180 degrees at their "stuffiest center". He asks, "If the covenant of Sinai is still in force, then what is the church?" What is the "stuffiest center" of Christianity? It is the belief that ALL PEOPLE

 

 

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