[The following material is from O Timothy magazine, Volume 11, Issue 3, 1994. David W. Cloud, Editor. All rights are reserved. O Timothy is a monthly magazine. Annual subscription is US$20 FOR THE UNITED STATES. Send to Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, Michigan 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org. FOR CANADA the subscription is $20 Canadian. Send to Bethel Baptist Church, P.O. Box 9075, London, Ontario N6E 1V0.]

In this issue we are featuring a number of articles on the World Council of Churches from past issues of O Timothy. One goal is to show that the events at the Re-imaging conference reported on in the feature article this month is not a new thing. The ecumenical world has long danced with pagan deities.

Though most fundamental Christians have little or no dealings with the World Council of Churches, we must be reminded that this is no small, unimportant group. The WCC is sponsored by more than 300 denominations and groups representing roughly 500,000 professing Christians. The WCC is very influential, not only among the denominations which support it, but through its vast network of political and social connections.

Paganism is becoming widely accepted within the World Council. The last two general assemblies of the WCC (in 1983 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and in 1991 in Canberra, Australia,) featured speakers from heathen religions. Both meetings were opened, in fact, by animists who lit fires upon heathen altars, then danced around them!

In the opening of the Vancouver assembly, North American Indians were invited to build an altar. They tossed offerings of fish and tobacco into a fire for their nature gods, and danced around the altar. Candles that were used in the worship services of this conference were lit from that pagan fire which was kept burning throughout the Assembly.

The meeting in Canberra was opened by almost-naked Australian aborigines who built a heathen fire and danced around it. Those who attended this WCC conference walked through the smoke from that idolatrous altar as a purification rite before they entered the "worship" tent for the opening assembly.

One of the key speakers in Canberra was Korean professor Chung Hyun-Kyung, who exalted pagan concepts of God, as we have already noted in this issue of O Timothy. For her unspeakable blasphemies Chung received a standing ovation from the WCC delegates!

A similar thing happened at the "Ecumenical Moment '88," jointly sponsored by the National Council of Churches in America and the World Council of Churches. Held in New York state from June 20--July 1, 1988, this meeting also began with a heathen ritual. Consider this description by one who attended:

"OUR FIRST WORSHIP `CELEBRATION' FOUND US OUTDOORS AT A GARDEN POND OFFERING PRAYERS AND WATER LIBATIONS TO THE SEVEN SPIRITS OF THE SEVEN DIRECTIONS OF THE UNIVERSE (`O Spirit of the North, blow upon us... O Spirit of the East... West... South... Above... Below... Center...'). What to any objective observer was sheer paganism, we were told, was simply an exercise in discovering the ecumenical variety of spiritual expression and experience that we must learn to share if we are to be truly one" (Mark E. Chapman, "A State of the Church Report: Ecumenical Paganism," Lutheran Forum, Advent, 1988).

In May 1988, the National Council of Churches in America held a meeting in Arlington, Texas, called "A Gathering of Christians." A 25-member team assisted the NCC in planning this event, including representatives of Protestant, Orthodox, Evangelical and Roman Catholic churches. Here, again, heathen practices were emphasized and there was worship of one of the popular deities of ecumenism: the female god--

"WHILE ONE GROUP PRACTICED PRINCIPLES OF BUDDHIST MEDITATION, ANOTHER WAS INTRODUCED TO ASIAN SPIRITUAL EXERCISES. IN ANOTHER WORKSHOP, A GROUP OF PEOPLE WERE CELEBRATING FEMININE... IMAGES OF GOD. ... through prayer, song, mime, and dance. ... There was no acknowledgement by the NCC that some of the forms of prayer and spiritual exercises, being from non- Christian sources, might be unbiblical and unchristian" (Christian Research Journal, Summer, 1988).

We will give many more examples of this in this month's Digging in the Walls, but even this is sufficient to show the frightful direction of the ecumenical movement--toward paganism and Rome. This, of course, is exactly what we would expect from Bible prophecy. "Watch, therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come" (Mt. 24:42).