MAY GOD HELP US

Since the beginning of his work as the Pope, Benedict 16, has worked a lot to reunify the Christianity and to go beyond, bringing together all religions. In his recent visit to the Middle East, he showed clearly that in a meeting with a "variety of Christian leaders", where he declared that while we preach to others "we experience the shame of our division" (http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0902238.htm) This was the first pope to visit two Muslim worship places. At the end of his visit:“Of the visit's many remarkable moments, one stood out: At an interfaith encounter in Nazareth, the pope and other Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Druze leaders held hands in prayer as a psalm of peace was sung -- a small but significant achievement on his pilgrim's path.” (http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0902237.htm) Together with this news from the pope, three things grabbed my attention these days in Germany. First was an outdoor that I saw in Mainz about the marketing campaign of the new soccer stadium, that apparently has nothing to do with religion, but in fact shows a clear picture (literally) of what will happen soon in the religious world. See the attached picture! The text says: 103 churches, 7 religions, 1 cathedral. “Time for one temple”. In the picture we have a mixture of symbols of different religions with the cathedral of Mainz in the centre. For those who don’t remember, Mainz was one of the most important catholic centres, and its bishop was the first important catholic cleric to be challenged by Luther with his 95 thesis. Moreover Mainz is the only city after Rome to receive the title of Holy See (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archbishop_of_Mainz) The nowadays bishop is Kalr Lehmann who was between 1971 and 1983 professor of ecumenism at the Arbert Ludwig University… maybe it is just a bunch of coincidences!(?)Back to the soccer stadium marketing campaign. Apparently It didn’t have a religious background, but shows exactly what is happening today in Germany and spreading over to the whole world: ECUMENISM! Which has a nice message of love, fraternity and understanding among the religions, but it brings alongside a potential problem of leaving behind some doctrines we have as holy in order make the ecumenical idea work. To accept everyone under the banner of ecumenism, we will have to compromise or even give up some basic points of our faith. We know for example that the Sabbath is a big barrier for the other Christians to accept us and there will be pressure on this point, and as we know from the Spirit of Prophecy, it will be a very strong pressure! As an example of an event that is been organized by the ecumenical movement in Germany is the “festivity of the churches” www.fest-der-kirchen.de where 35 churches will get together to offer the best of its cuisine!!?? (Adventist is also there and hopefully will represent us well) This is a great opportunity to present our health message without (hopefully) compromising, but it is no easy to be free from compromising as I will show right now. This month (June) there will be in Darmstadt a program called “the night of the churches” (http://www.nacht-der-kirchen-in-darmstadt.de) Where many churches (including one of ours) will be having services at the same time from 18:00 from Friday (19/June) to 1am of the Sabbath, in order for the people to experience in one night different ways of worship, in this way a Roman Catholic, or an Adventist for example will have the opportunity of in the same night take part of a service in a Russian Orthodox church and then visit a celebration with a Lutheran church and finish the night having a Lord’s supper with the Greek Orthodoxies. None of these programs are bad by itself, and there is no evil in praying together with people of other religions, or having a meal with people who believe differently from us, it can be even a constructive experience, but we shouldn’t forget that we live in the middle of a great controversy and the enemy doesn’t sleep!The group which is organizing this night of the churches is an ecumenical association called ACK (our church here in Darmstadt is also member of!) that has the goal of promoting the ecumenism, which is a praiseworthy goal, but when I looked at their basic points I was shocked to see that they follow the “Charta Oecumenica” signed by more than 300 churches.This “Charta-Oecumenica” has as the title of its first paragraph the following phrase: ‘WE BELIEVE IN "ONE HOLY CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH"’ (http://www.cec-kek.org/content/charta.shtml) http://www.oekumene-ack.de/uploads/media/charta-oecumenica.pdf) (The German version is here: http://www.cec-kek..org/content/pr-cq0913e.shtml And continues saying: ”Fundamental differences in faith are still barriers to visible unity. There are different views of the church and its oneness, of the sacraments and ministries. We must not be satisfied with this situation.” Some people could argue that the term catholic doesn’t mean the Roman Catholic church, but why it was not chosen another word? And what about the expression: “We must not be satisfied with this situation.”?But now comes the most interesting part of all these! Among the many projects that these ecumenical associations support one is: “Protect Sunday as a weekly day of rest” http://www.oekumeneack.de/Meldung.49.0.html?&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[backPid]=1&tx_ttnews[pointer]=5&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=203&cHash=14c2503fa2 http://www.oekumeneack.de/Meldung.49.0.html?&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[backPid]=1&tx_ttnews[pointer]=4&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=203&cHash=1be98e897e To reinforce the idea that resting on Sunday (and not any other day) is essential, it was prepared a semi-scientific study to prove that keeping the Sunday (rather than other day) as the day of rest is the best for the mental and physical health of people. http://www.cec-kek.org/pdf/CSCProtectionofSunday_EN.pdf With this document, such associations are pushing the European politicians to pass a law to secure Sunday as the day of rest (in other words a SUNDAY LAW). Then I asked myself, what are we Seventh Day Adventists doing in the middle of a group which is fighting to make sure we have a Sunday law? We are either naïve or running to a state of apostasy! As it was shown in the outdoor about the soccer stadium, 103 religions, but ‘one Cathedral’… The Catholic Church is working hard to be again the only cathedral… We better wake up before it is too late. May God help us!