May 2004

A CAUTION: Although prior to posting the above piece I searched the web trying to find independent testimony concerning these accusations of Sister dos Santos and the Handmaids of Mary, I only found repetitions of their accusations--no contradictions.

Now, though, I've read material contradicting their testimony and Zenit's news piece, so I want to draw those contradictions to your attention.

Although it does not yet seem clear who's telling the truth--the Handmaids of Mary or the Mozambique government--this evidence calls into serious question the child-harvesting part of my piece and I believe that aspect of the international trade in organs ought not to be circulated further until it is independently corroborated or definitively debunked.

Lutheran and Roman Catholic missionaries in Mozambique report finding bodies abandoned in public places, "emptied of their organs." Nuns of the Handmaids of Mary living in a convent in the northern province of Nampula have been warned by local governing authorities not to continue publicizing this trafficking in human body parts in which donors are provided by kidnapping and murder. Often the victims are children.

In February, the Handmaids of Mary issued a written statement reporting that an airport and farm adjoining their convent are the scenes of the crimes. The victims' bodies are processed at the farm, after which boxes of organs are loaded into planes at night.

It's increasingly questionable whether Christianity Today retains the slightest remnant of historic Christianity.

Consider, for instance, the salvific power of portable sound systems in this excerpt from Christianity Today Online's website, Church Products and Services--helping you with the business of ministry (sic):

There are pastors who love the seat of preeminence and jealously guard it against any encroachment by the ruling elders--particularly in corporate worship; the platform's his stage and he shares it with no one.

However, ruling elders too love the seat of preeminence and this is the greater problem within evangelicalism.

For every church where one man, usually the pastor/teaching elder, largely bears the leadership of worship and the week-in, week-out preaching responsibility, there are fifty churches where a parade of men and women cross the stage, week after week, sharing the limelight and preening for the audience.

Imagine David requiring licensing fees for every use of each of his psalms. Imagine Jeremiah refusing other prophets the right to repeat his words. Imagine Paul taking Timothy before the Ephesian elders for choosing to "follow the pattern of sound words you have heard from me" in his preaching ministry. Imagine Bach's descendants maintaining control over and receiving royalties from his compositions a century after his death. Imagine Spurgeon refusing others the right to preach his sermons (for more on this, see below). Imagine Handel copyrighting the Messiah's libretto.

Which is the greater travesty: Christians downloading copyright music or Christian musicians and composers claiming inspiration from God to the glory of God, then slapping big, fat dollar signs before their offerings?

In the aftermath of the recent Death March on Washington where such stellar luminaries as Whoopi Goldberg, Rep. Barney Frank, Sen. Barbara Boxer, and presidential candidate John Kerry all joined together in taking a courageous stand in favor of the killing of defenseless babies hidden away in their mothers' wombs, let it be said that these people are neither naive nor ignorant of the fact that it is murder they support.

No one can, at this late date, be ignorant of the fact that doctors who sell abortions know they are being paid to kill babies. And occasionally, they admit it as, here, it is admitted by Dr. Stephen Chasen of Cornell University.

Chasen has killed 500 babies in the past few years, about seventy by the procedure commonly known as "partial-birth abortion." Plaintiff in a court case, Chasen "acknowledged wrapping babies in a towel after delivering them to the point of their head, then using his fingers to feel the base of the skull before puncturing it with scissors. 'I can usually see it as well as feel it,' he added."

"In an exchange with Judge Richard Casey, Chasen said he didn't care whether the abortion hurts the baby:

The Court: Does it hurt the baby?

The Witness: I don't know.

The Court: But you go ahead and do it anyway, is that right?

The Witness: I am taking care of my patients, and in that process, yes, I go ahead and do it.

The Court: Does that mean you take care of your patient and the baby be damned, is that the approach you have?

The Witness: These women who are having [abortions] at gestational ages they are legally entitled to it--

The Court: I didn't ask you that, Doctor. I asked you if you had any caring or concern for the fetus whose head you were crushing.

The Witness: No.

(The Wanderer, May 6, 2004, page 6.)