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Cannibalism complaint against CMI

A Miss D.A. wrote to CMI-Australia’s Dr Carl Wieland as follows:

Chinese wife and caucasian husband with their four children
A multi-ethnic Australian Christian family

Dear Mr Wieland

After reading your book ‘One Blood’, I find I no longer can support Creation Ministries.

Though acknowledging we are all descended from our very first parents, Adam and Eve, the book contains what seems blatantly obvious to me, grave errors from what God’s holy Word clearly says.

  1. The book approves cannibalism (the transplanting of human-corpses’ body-parts to living humans) – the eating up of our dead! (refer the book’s ‘Foreword’), a modern-world humanistic, unscriptural heresy!
  2. The book encourages the mixing of the races by intermarriage – though God Himself made it clear in ‘Genesis’ at Babel, that He separated and dispersed mankind into races of similarity, to control mankind’s mislead powers; a modern-world humanistic, unscriptural heresy!
  3. The book approves and encourages globalization, which breaks down the practice of the living God’s divisions of mankind into separate (similar) races; a modern-world humanistic, unscriptural heresy!

    One of the obvious dire consequences of this heresy being the rapid, vast spreading of the anti-Christ Muslims into the heart of the Western world, which had been Christian until the humanistic rebellious 1960’s, which brought in other dire humanistic practices too.

  4. The book does not teach the valid means of entry into Christianity, for it does not include Holy Baptism, which Christ Jesus taught (at the end of St Matthew’s Gospel), a modern-world humanistic, unscriptural heresy!

I am very disappointed in Creation Ministries, for being a long-time believer in Genesis’ creation, and all God’s holy Word (since childhood), and witnessing the horrible disintegration (from the 1960’s) of my local community, country, and the whole Western world – into unchristian, unscriptural Godlessness,

I had joyfully hoped that Creation Ministries would help turn us back to (in Christ Jesus) God and His life-giving Word.

Who is wiser than God?

Absolutely no one!!

The Lord’s clearly spoken, pure, unchanging Word contains all we need to be saved, and to live Godly, orderly lives, unto eternal life!

God’s holy Word only saves mankind, and His world — God’s Word only, without omissions or additions.

Photo of twins by Gary Roberts,

<www.worldwidefeatures.com>.

Family

Yours sincerely,

In Christ Jesus

(Miss) D.A.

References (K.J.V.):

1. Job 2:4, Ezekiel 5:9 –11, Micah 3:1–5, II Kings 6:25–30 (and many others)

2/3. Genesis 11:1–9

4. Matthew 28:18–20 Mark 16:15–16 Acts 2:38 Acts 2:17 ‘your sons and your daughters shall prophesy … ’

Carl Wieland replies

Dear Miss A

Thank you for your letter. I will attempt to respond to the points you raise, below, interspersed with yours.

After reading your book ‘One Blood’, I find I no longer can support Creation Ministries.

Though acknowledging we are all descended from our very first parents, Adam and Eve, the book contains what seems blatantly obvious to me, grave errors from what God’s holy Word clearly says.

1. The book approves cannibalism (the transplanting of human-corpses’ body-parts to living humans) – the eating up of our dead! (refer the book’s ‘Foreword’), a modern-world humanistic, unscriptural heresy!

Far be it from CMI to approve cannibalism in any shape or form. I presume you are referring to where the book in question highlights the genetic closeness of so-called ‘races’ by stating that if in need of a kidney transplant, one might well find that someone from a different ‘race’ is the best match available. This was part of the book’s argument opposing racism in general, as well as opposing the very notion of ‘races’ as it is used today; a notion foreign to the Bible. I would gently suggest that one has to draw a very long bow indeed to equate modern transplant surgery with ‘cannibalism’. Use of this emotive term unfairly associates this compassionately motivated, often lifesaving procedure, with practices involving terror, violence, killing enemies, superstition and worse. I searched the biblical references you provided below and could find nothing which justified the association, or even referred to it. I sincerely hope that you never find yourself in the position of requiring such a procedure, but in the event that you do, I would urge you to carefully work through the relevant biblical passages with the aid of your pastor, who I would hope would assure you that such is not forbidden in the Word any more than are blood transfusions, as some cults claim.1

2. The book encourages the mixing of the races by intermarriage – though God Himself made it clear in ‘Genesis’ at Babel, that He separated and dispersed mankind into races of similarity, to control mankind’s mislead powers; a modern-world humanistic, unscriptural heresy!

Photo by Gary Roberts,

<www.worldwidefeatures.com>.

Twins

Actually, the Genesis account of Babel makes no mention of races, let alone God intending to do that. Humanity had been instructed to spread out and fill the earth. They chose not to do that, so God scattered them via the language confusion. Once they had been suitably scattered to form nations across the globe (which well and truly happened, many centuries ago already) there is nothing in Scripture to even remotely indicate that intermarriage between any ethnic groups of people is forbidden for racial reasons. (Passages in the OT concerning Hebrews and foreign wives clearly are for religious reasons.) The modern-world humanistic heresy is racism based on evolutionism; it is the Bible’s insistence that we are all descendants of Adam and Eve which makes it clear that a believer from any people group marrying another believer from any other is in no way sinning. See Separation from the nations.

3. The book approves and encourages globalization, which breaks down the practice of the living God’s divisions of mankind into separate (similar) races; a modern-world humanistic, unscriptural heresy!

Once again, the same argument applies. Whatever the evils, problems or benefits of globalization, the bottom line is that the Bible does not speak either for or against this phenomenon. See Conspiracy and doomsday scenarios. The straightforward Babel account you cite in your references below is as I have lain it out above, the rest has (with gentleness and respect) been read into it, I submit.

One of the obvious dire consequences of this heresy being the rapid, vast spreading of the anti-Christ Muslims into the heart of the Western world,

I personally believe that the weakening of Christianity in the West in general, this last 50 years or so in particular, bears a grave responsibility for many of the failures of Western nations to stand in the face of radical Islam.

which had been Christian until the humanistic rebellious 1960’s, which brought in other dire humanistic practices too.

You have a point about the 1960s. In this country (Australia), graph after graph of things like marriage breakups, and various types of crime, show a massive upswing after 1960. See the graph on page 10 of The Creation Answers Book This includes male youth suicides, and at the same time a huge decline in childhood church attendance. Although there are many factors at work in a complex world, such a consistent pattern causes one powerful factor to rate a strong mention—the fact that Western curricula around the world began for the first time evolution-pushing as never before.2 Leading evolutionist and Harvard Professor Richard Lewontin said this:

‘Evolution … was barely mentioned in school textbooks as late as 1954 … after Sputnik [1957] … the study of evolution was suddenly in all the schools.’

He was referring to US schools—other Western countries adopted many of the same textbooks and followed suit hot on the heels of the late 1950s.

If people are more and more led to believe that the Bible can’t be trusted on origins, and that we are probably just evolved animals—reorganized pond scum—then the logical consequences are that the culture will see morality as simply another opinion, rather than God’s unalterable rules. (Nobody made me, nobody owns me, why not do as I please if I don’t get caught?) Further, there is then no hope of life after death, no ultimate meaning and purpose to life, thus the upswing of youth suicides which has been consistent whether the economy has been good or bad.

4. The book does not teach the valid means of entry into Christianity, for it does not include Holy Baptism, which Christ Jesus taught (at the end of St Matthew’s Gospel), a modern-world humanistic, unscriptural heresy!

This concerns me greatly, as I fear you may have unwittingly bought into a serious antiscriptural error by seemingly promoting the idea that baptism is essential for salvation. The orthodox teaching of the church through the centuries since the Reformation has not been to downplay the importance of baptism, but to insist that salvation is not ‘Christ plus’ anything. Just as the well-meaning Judaizers to whom Paul referred in his epistle to the Galatians tried to add something to God’s grace, it is easy to fall into the trap of adding baptism as a ‘work’. As clause C6 of our Statement of Faith puts it:

‘Salvation is a gift received by faith alone in Christ alone and expressed in the individual’s repentance, recognition of the death of Christ as full payment for sin, and acceptance of the risen Christ as Saviour, Lord and God.’

That is not some modern-day comment, that is the sort of position held by the overwhelming majority of denominations and ministries that hold fast to the ‘faith once delivered unto the saints’, to historic, Bible-believing Christianity.

I can understand how this might puzzle you, when you read e.g. Mark 16:16, where Jesus says: ‘Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.’ How come that for centuries, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc. have clearly taught that baptism, while important, is not essential to salvation? The answer is not that difficult, but it requires carefully considering the passage (and the related ones)—what it says and what it does not say.

My colleague Dr Jonathan Sarfati wrote a powerful article called ‘Loving God with all your mind: logic and creation.’ The article touches upon this particular error, as an example of the logical fallacy formally known as ‘denying the antecedent’. The big words are not essential to the issue, but note when he says that this fallacy is …

‘ … committed by some groups that teach the error of baptismal regeneration by citing the following statement of Christ according to the Majority Text of Mark 16:16:

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

The first part of the verse is an implication: if a person believes and is baptized then he will be saved. It is invalid to argue from this that anyone who is not baptized will not be saved. The second part is an explicit statement that unbelief results in condemnation.

To demonstrate the fallacy, examine the following statement which is in the same logical form: ‘Whatever has feathers and flies is a bird, but whatever does not have feathers is not a bird.’ This statement does not teach that there are no flightless birds.’

I hope that makes it clear. This is not just about winning an argument, but it is a very serious thing to add something to the biblical prescription for salvation which the Bible does not. Paul uses some very strong language in Galatians to stress that teaching that adds rules that the Bible doesn’t to the Gospel is anathema. The same Paul says very clearly in Ephesians 2:8–9 (emphasis in italics is mine):

‘For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.’

I am very disappointed in Creation Ministries, for being a long-time believer in Genesis’ creation, and all God’s holy Word (since childhood), and witnessing the horrible disintegration (from the 1960’s) of my local community, country, and the whole Western world – into unchristian, unscriptural Godlessness,

I can well understand, as can most believers born about mid-last century or earlier, like you and I, who have experienced this serious descent of our western cultures. That is part of what motivates us to keep pressing on.

I had joyfully hoped that Creation Ministries would help turn us back to (in Christ Jesus) God and His life-giving Word.

We don’t claim to be other than imperfect, fallible servants to God’s church, i.e. the local communities of believers, helping to arm and equip them to stand fast in this evil day, and to witness more effectively against the onslaughts of humanism, which is directly fuelled by evolutionary thinking (see the Humanist Manifestoes I and II). By God’s grace, many, many folk have become Christians as the resources have increasingly gotten into the hands of unbelievers—through the local church making use of the ministry of CMI. (Some of their testimonies can be found on our website).

Who is wiser than God?

Absolutely no one!!

The Lord’s clearly spoken, pure, unchanging Word contains all we need to be saved, and to live Godly, orderly lives, unto eternal life!

God’s holy Word only saves mankind, and His world — God’s Word only, without omissions or additions.

My dear sister, we are in total agreement on this last section.

Yours sincerely,

In Christ Jesus

(Miss) D.A.

May God bless your zeal for Him and His Word.

Yours in Christ,

Dr Carl Wieland

Managing Director,

Creation Ministries International (Australia).

References (K.J.V.):

1. Job 2:4, Ezekiel 5:9 –11, Micah 3:1–5, II Kings 6:25–30 (and many others)

2/3. Genesis 11:1–9

4. Matthew 28:18–20 Mark 16:15–16 Acts 2:38 Acts 2:17 ‘your sons and your daughters shall prophesy … ’

Published: 31 January 2009

References and notes

  1. Ed. note: Of course, blood transfusions and organ transplants are not “eating”. In the former, the blood and organs function as blood and organs in the recipient. In cannibalizing blood or organs, they would be digested into their monomers (amino acids etc), which are used to build up the cannibal’s own tissues, which may not have the slightest relationship to the organs they came from. Return to text.
  2. One of the best treatments of these issues comes from the book The Vision of the Anointed by Dr Thomas Sowell — see our summary. Return to text.