Asian nations discussed plans at a major summit Saturday to “lead the world” by boosting economic and political cooperation and possibly forming an EU-style community.

The prime ministers of regional giants China and India also looked to foster unity on the sidelines of the summit in Thailand after months of trading barbs over long-standing territorial issues.

But nuclear-armed North Korea and military-ruled Myanmar were also set to top the agenda in the royal beach resort of Hua Hin, underscoring the challenges still facing the region.

The summit groups the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with regional partners China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.

Japan’s new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said a proposed East Asian community involving all 16 countries should aspire to take a leading role as the region makes an early rebound from the global economic crisis.

“It would be meaningful for us to have the aspiration that East Asia is going to lead the world and with the various countries with different regimes cooperating with each other towards that perspective,” Hatoyama, who took office last month, told the Bangkok Post newspaper.

He described Japan’s alliance with the United States as the cornerstone of its foreign policy, but said the region should “try to reduce as much as possible the gaps, the disparities that exist amongst the Asian countries”.

China would “doubtless” grow further, particularly economically, “but I do not necessarily regard that as a threat,” Hatoyama said.

Officials said separately that East Asian nations would carry out a feasibility study for a huge free trade zone covering ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea and a larger group involving India, Australia and New Zealand.

Increased integration has been a recurring theme of the meetings in Thailand, as the rapidly changing region seeks to capitalise on the fact that it has recovered more quickly from the recession than the West.

ASEAN leaders have been discussing plans to create their own political and economic community by 2015.

But cross-border spats have continued to dog the summit, with host nation Thailand dragged into a war of words with Cambodia and India and China seeking to resolve their differences.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh held “productive” talks on the sidelines of the summit Saturday but did not discuss their spat over territorial issues, officials said.

“We have reached important consensus on promoting bilateral ties,” Wen was quoted as saying by the Chinese state news agency Xinhua as the talks opened.

Beijing has voiced its opposition to a recent visit by Singh to Arunachal Pradesh, an Indian border state at the core of the dispute, and to a planned visit there next month by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

Arunachal Pradesh and the Dalai Lama were not discussed at Saturday’s meeting, an Indian delegation official said. The two nations fought a border war in 1962.

Human rights issues have also marred the summit. A widely criticised rights body officially launched by ASEAN on Friday was due to have its first ever meeting on Saturday.

The bloc was caught up in a row on Friday when leaders barred several activists from meeting them as previously arranged.

Meanwhile Thailand and Cambodia remained at loggerheads over the fate of fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra, after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen bizarrely offered him a job as his economic adviser.

Around 18,000 troops and dozens of armoured vehicles have been deployed in Hua Hin after it was twice postponed by anti-government protests, with another 18,000 on standby or on duty in Bangkok.

The leaders are expected to sign a host of agreements this weekend on economic and other issues including climate change, disaster management, communications and food security in the rapidly changing region.

- From Prophecy News Watch

The Internet is not only useful for churches in communicating with seekers, but it can also be harnessed to reach people not actively looking for answers, says a Danish scholar.

Peter Fischer-Nielsen, a Ph.D Fellow at the Faculty of Theology at Aarhus University in Denmark, recognizes the difficulty churches have in reaching non-seekers in real life and on the World Wide Web. Non-seekers are often not interested in visiting Christian Web sites, but churches can still meet them by going to their Web turf.

“The church must not isolate itself on its own Web sites; instead, it must take part in the fluent online traffic and develop initiatives on various platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia,” says Fischer-Nielsen in an article entitled, “Online Mission,” in the latest issue of Lausanne World Pulse.

Fischer-Nielsen, who is researching church communication on the Internet, wrote that the mission of the Church is to reach the world with the Gospel message. The Internet allows the Church to enlarge its reach to anywhere in the world where there is Internet, including in countries hostile to Christianity, he said.

So churches need to be technologically savvy and create Web sites that can be found through popular search engines such as Google, as well as create an online presence on growingly popular social networking sites.

Some Christian ministries have reported much evangelism success after using the Internet to find seekers. Campus Crusade for Christ’s Global Media Outreach is among the success stories, having harnessed the Internet to create a volunteer force of thousands of online missionaries.

In July, GMO announced that over 1 million people indicated a first-time decision to follow Jesus or a decision to recommit their life to Christ through one of more than 90 GMO-hosted Gospel Web sites since its inception in 2004.

The media ministry estimates that 1 in 1,000 Internet searchers is looking for information about God. On a daily basis, around two million people look for God.

“This is an historic event only possible by God’s power,” said GMO founder and chair Walt Wilson.

But both Fischer-Nielsen and GMO agree that the Internet does not take the place of church communities. The scholar and ministry support connecting people who make the decision for Christ to discipleship programs or to local churches.

“These online communities are not a replacement to traditional physical congregations, but a supplement,” says Fischer-Nielsen, who also acknowledges that in some cases they are the only Christian communities for people who would be in danger if others knew of their faith commitment.

The Danish scholar concluded, “The Internet has come to stay and the Church must continually be in dialogue concerning how the Internet can be used to serve its mission.”

- From Prophecy News Watch

Xerox researchers have invented a kind of ink that can conduct electricity and be used to put electronic circuits on top of plastics, film, and textiles. That means in the coming years we’ll be able to wear or bend our electronics. You could even print out your electronic gadget on plastic sheets, as if you were printing a document.

Silicon chips have long been too expensive or heavy to use in devices that are extremely lightweight. The Xerox team solved this fundamental problem with lighter materials, and it plans to sell the new materials to other businesses that could make wearable electronics.

With plastics, you can unroll a sheet and then deposit electronic circuitry on top of it, building it up layer after layer. It helps to have conductive ink. That is, you need something that contains metal but that you can print with or spray on. The Xerox team created what they call a “silver bullet.” It’s a silver ink that melts at 140 degrees celsius.

Normally, metals melt at 1,000 degrees or so. But plastic itself melts at 150 degrees. So an ink laid on top of plastic can’t melt at a higher temperature or it will melt the plastic, said Paul Smith, lab manager at Xerox Research Toronto, Canada.

“This opens a whole new world for electronics,” said Angele Boyd, an analyst at IDC. “With printable electronics, the future of electronics will include plastics and fabric. The Xerox technology opens up opportunities for lower cost applications in traditional electronics and for new applications around plastics and fabric.”

The applications include plastic circuits could be used to build plastic electronic book readers, such as one being built by Plastic Logic, that are flexible enough to bend and can withstand damage. They would also be very lightweight. The plastic circuits could be used to weave a computer into your clothing or make intelligent boxes for pills that could tell you whether they’ve been tampered with during shipping.

Scientists have dreamed of this for a long time, and Xerox has been researching it since 2001. Hewlett-Packard has also been working on plastic electronics for a decade. Xerox says it has now been able to fabricate cheap and lightweight components that are necessary to print circuits on plastic: a semiconductor, a conductor and a dielectric element.

The fabrication plants for these kinds of plastic chips will be cool. The circuits can be printed by printers, just like a document, without the need for an elaborate clean room as is used in current chip factories. Xerox has research samples available now and is in discussions with manufacturers who could use the plastic electronics.

Beyond the applications we’ve mentioned already, Xerox says the printed plastic circuits could be used in low-cost radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, light and flexible signs, sensors, solar cells and novelty fashions.

- From Prophecy News Watch

Here’s the latest salvo in the battle for ultimate control over our children. Best Buy is selling a GPS device that will tell you where your child is every minute of the day.

In a sign that child-tracking devices have gone mass-market, it’s the first store brand with such an offer. Best Buy is marketing it under its house brand name, Insignia.

It is designed to fit into a backpack and will send a text message back to parents whenever the child has moved outside a “designated” area, such as their school, after-school program, or babysitter’s backyard.

The device surely is being aimed at parents with school aged and older kids, since they’re the ones presumably who can wander out of eyesight. I can’t imagine there being much of a concern of babies escaping, although you never know with parents these days.

The price for this false sense of control? Only $99. Cheap, considering some of the other options out there. That’s a house brand for you.

Child-tracking devices are fast becoming what you’d expect when you’re expecting. Best Buy’s product joins a list of similar tracking devices, from Google’s offering to the $600 Worldtracker GPRS. The Amber Alert GPS 2G costs $380, not including monthly texting plan. GPS Magazine has a review — albeit more than a year old now — of many child-tracking devices.

I suppose if you’re the sort of parent who lives in fear that your child is certain to be kidnapped, or if you feel your teen isn’t to be trusted on their own to walk straight home after school, this kind of device might be something you’d pop for. But considering the actual rarity of violent child-abductions of the sort we see in the movies, this seems to me more a case of “Parenting by gizmo.”

This is just another in a long line of products meant to protect our kids from themselves, along the lines of shellacking your oven with protective gear so your toddler won’t touch it, instead of teaching your toddler why he shouldn’t touch the oven.

If you do the actual work of parenting, teaching values and safety and responsibility, you”ll find that normal kids are, in fact, teachable. Even toddlers. And by they time they’re in school and gaining more independence, you should be able to trust them to be where they say they are and to be home when you’ve agreed for them to be. If you feel you need to track their every movement via satellite, I’d say you’ve got more serious issues than an electronic device will be able to fix.

And let’s admit it: if for some reason you can’t trust your teenager, no electronic device short of a locked ankle monitor is going to stop them from thwarting your attempts at controlling them. Just watch any spy movie for a laundry list of how to throw the coppers, er, Mom and Pop, off your trail.

- From Prophecy News Watch

The White House Friday highlighted a new multi-million-dollar technology fund for Muslim nations, following a pledge made by President Barack Obama in his landmark speech to the Islamic world.

The White House said the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) had issued a call for proposals for the fund, which will provide financing of between 25 and 150 million dollars for selected projects and funds.

The Global Technology and Innovation Fund will “catalyze and facilitate private sector investments” throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa, the White House said in a statement.

Eligible projects would advance economic opportunity and create jobs in areas like technology, education, telecoms, media, business services and clean technology, the White House said.

OPIC said sample projects could help foster the development of new computer technology or telecommunications businesses, or widen access to broadband Internet services.

Proposals must be submitted by the end of November, and managers of funds that make a final short list will make presentations in Washington in January.

Final selections will be announced next June.

In his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo last June, Obama argued that “education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century” and that under-investment was rife in many Muslim nations.

As well as the fund, Obama also said he will host a summit on entrepreneurship this year to deepen ties between business leaders in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.

In his speech on June 4, Obama vowed to forge a “new beginning” for Islam and America, promising to purge years of “suspicion and discord.”

In what may be one of the defining moments of his presidency, Obama laid out a new blueprint for US Middle East policy, pledged to end mistrust, forge a state for Palestinians and defuse a nuclear showdown with Iran.

- From Prophecy News Watch

In 2005, the National Intelligence Council, or NIC, produced a report called, “Mapping the Global Future: Project 2020.” According to this report, within the next several years, we may expect to see the emergence of a fledgling caliphate, or revived Islamic empire.

For those unfamiliar with the NIC, below is a self-description from its website:

The NIC is a center of strategic thinking within the U.S. Government, reporting to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and providing the president and senior policymakers with analyses of foreign policy issues that have been reviewed and coordinated throughout the Intelligence Community. Our work ranges from brief analyses of current issues to “over the horizon” estimates of broader trends at work in the world.

What is interesting about the NIC’s “over the horizon” assessment is that the coming caliphate would not be built on acts of terrorism, but instead would be established through peaceful means. By claiming to provide the Middle East with stability, peace and security, the emergence of the coming caliphate will be viewed positively by much of the world. Yet the conclusion of the 2020 report states that even a limited and moderate Islamic caliphate would pose problems for the United States and her global interests of immense proportions.

Understand the significance of the Muslim’s Mahdi ‘messiah’ in Joel Richardson’s new book, “The Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth about the Real Nature of the Beast.” Note: The book is also available in electronic form at reduced price through Scribd.

The truth is, even if al-Qaida succeeded in its dream of reviving a caliphate, it would only give the U.S. military a clearly defined target. But how would the U.S. to respond if Turkey, one of our historically greatest allies in the region, emerges as an Islamist superpower? What will our relationship be with a neo-Ottoman caliphate? Now, it is doubtful of course that such a historically loaded term would ever be used. Far more likely, we will see the use of a far less threatening term, such as the title championed by Adnan Oktar, a Turkish Muslim intellectual who has been calling for a “Turkish-led Islamic Union.” Oktar, although a controversial figure, is highly respected in many circles and is the most published author in the Islamic world, with over 65 million of his works in circulation. I recently travelled to Istanbul to speak with Mr. Oktar about his vision for a Turkish-led Islamic Union. According to Oktar, the revival of a Turkish led-Islamic empire will be the defining development that will bring peace not only to the Middle East, but to the world:

We should not take Mr. Oktar’s vision lightly. For the past several years, I have been highlighting the merging of two very significant developments in the nation of Turkey – the first issue being the rapid Islamization of the nation. Much has been written concerning this development in recent months. But the second issue, perhaps of even greater significance, is Turkey’s re-emergence as leader of the region. For over 500 years, the Turkish Ottomans ruled the Middle East, and in the years to come, they will arise once again as a regional superpower. And much of the world will welcome this as a positive development.

I also believe that a Turkish-led Islamic empire is clearly prophesied in the Bible. In my book “The Islamic Antichrist” (which was originally written in 2004), I walk through the biblical basis for such a claim. Five years later, despite Turkey’s rapid ascension in the region and in the world, some still look with skepticism on such claims. Of course, time will either confirm or put to rest this idea. But for now, I want to bring to light some important voices that are confirming my predictions.

George Friedman is the CEO and founder of STRATFOR, the world’s leading private intelligence and forecasting company. In his recent book, “The Next 100 Years,” Friedman agrees in no uncertain terms that Turkey will soon emerge as a regional superpower: “Turkey will soon re-emerge in its old role, as the dominant force in the region.” Speaking specifically of Turkey’s coming leadership of a revived caliphate, Friedman makes the following very powerful observation and prediction:

The Islamic World is incapable of uniting voluntarily. It is, however, capable of being dominated by a Muslim power. Throughout history, Turkey has been the Muslim power most often able to create an empire out of … the Islamic world. …
According to Friedman, the past 80 or so years that Turkey has only controlled Asia Minor has been an anomaly. Soon we will see “Turkish power – the Ottoman Empire … begin to re-emerge.”

In recent times, the world has been shocked to see Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reveal his true feelings toward Israel. In a fit or rage, in Davos, Switzerland, Erdogan shouted at the Israeli president: “You are old and your voice is loud out of a guilty conscience. When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill! I know well how you hit and kill children on beaches!” This is the same Erdogan who actually spent time in jail for the writing the following overtly radical poem:

The Mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, the believers our soldiers. This holy army guards my religion. Almighty our journey is our destiny, the end is martyrdom.

This was not written by Osmam bin Laden. It was written by a man who is being taken seriously by much the world as one of the co-founders of the United Nations “Alliance of Civilizations,” an intercultural dialogue, the purpose of which is to “overcome … prejudice, misperceptions and polarization that militate against [unity between the East and the West]. … The Alliance seeks to … establish a paradigm of mutual respect between civilizations and cultures.”

Despite Erdogan’s obvious bias, as well as his anti-Semitic streak and history of radicalism, many, including our own president, still view him as an honest broker and mediator between Israel and the Middle East. And Obama is not alone.

In February of this year, the famous Orthodox Rabbi Menachem Fromen made the following statements in the Turkish Press:

It is an irrefutable fact that Turkey is the most natural mediator between Israel and Palestinian society. Turkish President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Erdoğan are the only two who can bring regional peace about.

Rabbi Fromen has also expressed his strong support for Mr. Oktar’s vision of the Turkish-led Islamic Union.

And recently another very significant event took place that entirely escaped notice in the Western press. During a visit to Istanbul, Iranian President Ahmadinejad stood inside the Sultanahmet Mosque and prayed behind a Turkish Sunni imam. Ahmadinejad then stated, “The political meaning of this act is immense.” Many within Turkey and the broader Islamic world took notice. According to Oktar, this was a sign that Ahmadinejad and the Iranian government are supporting the emerging Turkish-led Islamic Union. In an interview with the Iranian Press, Mr. Oktar said:

This act of Mr. Ahmadinejad, performing his prayers behind a Sunni imam, is very, very meaningful. Above all it means “if a Turkish-Islamic Union is to be formed, I will abide a Sunni imam, I will accept him as an imam.” … This is what it means. … I mean it has a highly important significance.

So, has Iran truly expressed its support of Turkey’s emerging regional power? Will more gullible Israelis believe as Rabbi Fromen does, that Turkey and Prime Minister Erdogan represent the only hope for the Middle East? Will STRATFOR and the NIC’s vision of a revived Turkish Empire come to pass? Again, only time will tell. Next month, Prime Minister Erdogan will travel to Washington to meet with President Obama. As always, I’ll be paying very close attention.

- From Prophecy News Watch

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that as long as Israel was in possession of atomic weapons, Iran would not halt its nuclear program.

“When an illegal regime possesses nuclear weapons, the other countries’ rights for peaceful nuclear energy cannot be denied,” the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNR quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Israel has never confirmed or denied foreign reports that it has a nuclear arsenal.

Ahmadinejad’s remarks were the first since a United Nations-backed draft was put forth aimed at easing tensions with the West over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

He was speaking during a meeting in Tehran the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom he thanked for Turkey’s stance toward Israel.

“Zionist regime is a threat to all nations and if it finds any opportunity, it wants to include all regional nations in its territory,” he was quoted as telling Erdogan.

The Turkish leader, for his part, called for further bilateral cooperation.

He was quoted as telling Ahmadinejad that, “Those who claim they are after nuclear disarmament in the world should start the measure in their own country.”
Relations between Ankara and Jerusalem have recently been strained, ever since after Turkey banned Israel from participating in a NATO air force drill earlier in the month.

The Iranian president’s comments came as UN inspectors visited a formerly secret uranium enrichment site in Iran.

Meanwhile, Iran’s al Alam state television reported cited an unnamed official as saying that Iran would present its response to the proposed agreement within 48 hours.

It did not give details on what kind of changes Tehran would seek to the draft agreement hammered out by UN nuclear agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei in consultations with Iran, Russia, France and the United States in Vienna last week.

The draft pact calls for Iran to transfer some 80 percent of its known 1.5 tonnes of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for further enrichment by the end of this year, then to France for conversion into fuel plates.

These would be returned to Tehran to fuel a research reactor that produces radio-isotopes for cancer treatment.

- From Prophecy News Watch

“There is no doubt he is our friend,” Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, says of Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, even as he accuses Israel’s foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman of threatening to use nuclear weapons against Gaza. These outrageous assertions point to the profound change of orientation by Turkey’s government, for six decades the West’s closest Muslim ally, since Erdoğan’s AK party came to power in 2002.

Three events this past month reveal the extent of that change. The first came on October 11 with the news that the Turkish military – a long-time bastion of secularism and advocate of cooperation with Israel – abruptly asked Israeli forces not to participate in the annual “Anatolian Eagle” air force exercise.

Erdoğan cited “diplomatic sensitivities” for the cancelation and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu spoke of “sensitivity on Gaza, East Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa mosque.” The Turks specifically rejected Israeli planes that may have attacked Hamas (an Islamist terrorist organization) during last winter’s Gaza Strip operation. While Damascus applauded the disinvitation, it prompted the U.S. and Italian governments to withdraw their forces from Anatolian Eagle, which in turn meant canceling the international exercise.

As for the Israelis, this “sudden and unexpected” shift shook to the core their military alignment with Turkey, in place since 1996. Former air force chief Eytan Ben-Eliyahu, for example, called the cancelation “a seriously worrying development.” Jerusalem immediately responded by reviewing Israel’s practice of supplying Turkey with advanced weapons, such as the recent $140 million sale to the Turkish Air Force of targeting pods. The idea also arose to stop helping the Turks defeat the Armenian genocide resolutions that regularly appear before the U.S. Congress.

Barry Rubin of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya not only argues that “The Israel-Turkey alliance is over” but concludes that Turkey’s armed forces no longer guard the secular republic and can no longer intervene when the government becomes too Islamist.

The second event took place two days later, on October 13, when Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem announced that Turkish and Syrian forces had just “carried out maneuvers near Ankara.” Moallem rightly called this an important development “because it refutes reports of poor relations between the military and political institutions in Turkey over strategic relations with Syria.” Translation: Turkey’s armed forces lost out to its politicians.

Thirdly, ten Turkish ministers, led by Davutoğlu, joined their Syrian counterparts on October 13 for talks under the auspices of the just-established “Turkey-Syria High Level Strategic Cooperation Council.” The ministers announced having signed almost 40 agreements to be implemented within 10 days; that “a more comprehensive, a bigger” joint land military exercise would be held than the first one in April; and that the two countries’ leaders would sign a strategic agreement in November.

The council’s concluding joint statement announced the formation of “a long-term strategic partnership” between the two sides “to bolster and expand their cooperation in a wide spectrum of issues of mutual benefit and interest and strengthen the cultural bonds and solidarity among their peoples.” The council’s spirit, Davutoğlu explained, “is common destiny, history and future; we will build the future together,” while Moallem called the get-together a “festival to celebrate” the two peoples.

Bilateral relations have indeed been dramatically reversed from a decade earlier, when Ankara came perilously close to war with Syria. But improved ties with Damascus are only one part of a much larger effort by Ankara to enhance relations with regional and Muslim states, a strategy enunciated by Davutoğlu in his influential 2000 book, Stratejik derinlik: Türkiye’nin uluslararası konumu (“Strategic Depth: Turkey’s International Position”).

In brief, Davutoğlu envisions reduced conflict with neighbors and Turkey emerging as a regional power, a sort-of modernized Ottoman Empire. Implicit in this strategy is a distancing of Turkey from the West in general and Israel in particular. Although not presented in Islamist terms, “strategic depth” closely fits the AK party’s Islamist world view.

As Barry Rubin notes, “the Turkish government is closer politically to Iran and Syria than to the United States and Israel.” Caroline Glick, a Jerusalem Post columnist, goes further: Ankara already “left the Western alliance and became a full member of the Iranian axis.” But official circles in the West seem nearly oblivious to this momentous change in Turkey’s allegiance or its implications.

The cost of their error will soon become evident.

- From Prophecy News Watch

“It wasn’t primarily about sex.” With those words, Lutheran theologian Robert Benne explained that the actions recently taken by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to normalize homosexuality were not primarily about sex at all, but about theological identity. “The ELCA has formally left the great tradition for liberal Protestantism,” Benne declared.

Taking its stand with the radical theological revisionism of the Protestant Left, the ELCA “left the Great Tradition of moral teaching to identify with United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church,” Benne lamented.

Writing in Christianity Today, Benne argued that his denomination had abandoned the Gospel for a social gospel. “The liberating movements fueled by militant feminism, multiculturalism, anti-racism, anti-heterosexism, anti-imperialism, and now ecologism have been moved to the center while the classic gospel and its missional imperatives have been pushed to the periphery.”

Benne, director of the Roanoke College Center for Religion and Society, offers a first-hand account of what took place in Minneapolis in August as the ELCA met for its Church Wide Assembly. The actions were sweeping in scope and effect. The ELCA voted to allow churches to call partnered homosexuals as ministers and then adopted a Social Statement on Sexuality (which passed by one vote) which insists that the Bible offers no clear teaching on homosexuality.

As the smoke now begins to clear from the votes in Minneapolis, a larger issue comes clearly into focus – the authority of the “bound conscience.”

As Robert Benne explains, the ELCA’s authority-smashing actions were made possible by the denomination’s adoption of a “bound conscience” principle that, in effect, means that anyone can believe almost anything and demand a place at the table, if they claim that their belief is rooted in a “bound conscience.”

Mark Hanson, the ELCA’s Presiding Bishop, explained that the “bound conscience” principle calls upon all Lutherans to respect the “bound consciences” of those with whom they disagree. Documents released or adopted by the ELCA explained in multiple ways that a conflict of interpretations concerning the Bible should not lead to a break in fellowship. For example:

The very fact that several different positions may be bound to Scripture means that we cannot assert one interpretation of Scripture over another but are called to respect consciences in the community of faith on this matter. The emphasis of “conscience-bound” is not on declaring oneself to be conscience-bound; rather it is that we recognize the conscience-bound nature of the convictions of others in the community of Christ.

In the case of the ELCA, the “several different positions” included the entire spectrum of positions on an issue as controversial and important as same-sex unions. The Social Statement on Sexuality affirmed no less than four “conscience-bound” positions within the church. The positions, all claimed as “conscience-bound,” ranged from the rejection of same-sex marriage to its outright acceptance. This affirms Robert Benne’s judgment that the church now has “no authoritative biblical or theological guidance” on a crucial theological and pastoral issue.

Though the issue of sexuality garnered media attention, the theological issue of “bound-conscience” is more fundamental. In accepting this principle, these Lutherans effectively abandoned any claim of normative instruction from the Bible. On an issue of such crucial pastoral and moral importance, the ELCA offers an entire range of contradictory positions, each of which is now to be “respected” because someone holding it claims to be bound by conscience.

Of course, any serious person declaring a position on any important issue will (and should) claim to be bound by conscience. The alternative to this is to suggest or to admit one’s position to be both baseless and insincere. All sides in a theological controversy claim to be bound by conscience. This claim settles nothing and, on its own, leads to ecclesiastical disaster. The church simply surrenders to the autonomous individualism so prized by the larger culture and abdicates any authority to speak the truth.

The concept of being bound by conscience goes directly back to Martin Luther, the great Reformer who established what became known as the Lutheran tradition. On more than one famous occasion, Luther publicly took his stand and held his ground, claiming that his conscience was bound by the Word of God. He most famously made this case as he stood on trial before the Diet of Worms on April 18, 1521. Before the impaneled church leaders and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Luther declared:

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason …, I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted, and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience.”

Of course, Luther was not merely claiming to be bound by conscience. He was specifically claiming that his conscience was bound by the word of God. Luther, unlike the ELCA, believed that the Scriptures offer a very clear presentation of the Gospel and of moral and theological teachings. Luther affirmed the inspiration, authority, sufficiency, and clarity of the word of God and he took his stand on the authority of Scripture alone. The Word of God bound his conscience by its clear teaching.

Indeed, Luther was very suspicious of the human conscience. In the main, he was convinced that sin had so warped the capacity of conscience that it actually functions in most persons to foster a works religion which is the very opposite of the Gospel. The conscience makes the sinner aware of doing wrong, but then suggests works as a way of earning God’s good pleasure. As Randall C. Zachman documents in his important work, The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin, Luther was convinced that the conscience uncorrected by Scripture would lead to “the idolatrous religion of conscience.”

In Luther’s own words: “God wants our conscience to be certain and sure that it is pleasing to Him. This cannot be done if the conscience is led by its own feelings, but only if it relies on the Word of God.”

Thus, the ELCA’s new principle of “bound-conscience” actually embraces and leads to what Martin Luther most feared – a burlesque of conflicting consciences without accountability to the Scriptures.

The point was not lost on many Lutheran observers. Retired ELCA Bishop Paull Spring of State College, PA, chairman of the Lutheran CORE Steering Committee, a group opposed to the ELCA’s radically liberal direction, noted: “In its emphasis on conscience, the task force forgot that Luther was not talking about his own right to his own opinion. He was declaring his commitment and allegiance to the Word of God.” He added: “It is exactly the opposite of the task force’s idea of conscience as one’s personal beliefs. They are encouraging the strange notion of a bound conscience as nothing more than individualism.”

The idea of a bound conscience is deadly dangerous unless the conscience is bound by the Word of God. Those who would claim a bound conscience but pervert, deny, subvert, or relativize the Word may indeed be bound by conscience. But a conscience bound by anything other than the Word of God is a conscience given over to idolatry.

This is a Lutheran lesson we all desperately need to learn. And Martin Luther himself deserves the last word:

“It is the nature of all hypocrites and false prophets to create a conscience where there is none, and to cause conscience to disappear where it does exist.”

- From Prophecy News Watch

Tony Blair was on his knees on Sunday, deep in thought, in the pews of the Roman Catholic church at Great Missenden where he worshipped when he was at Chequers. As prayers were offered up for Pope Benedict and world peace, the former Prime Minister may well have had his thoughts focused on subjects closer to his own heart.

At the same time as he was in church, his close friend David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, was making the most direct case to date in public by a British minister for Mr Blair to become the first President of Europe. It was the culmination of a two-month campaign by the Foreign Office to put Britain at the heart of Europe once and for all.

Mr Blair, who scaled unheard of heights in popularity and unpopularity as Prime Minister, is now a front-runner to become the second most powerful man on the planet after President Obama. Officially, Mr Blair is saying nothing but in private he talks about it all the time. It is inconceivable that the last time he spoke to Gordon Brown – it was for 45 minutes on the telephone 10 days ago – the subject did not surface.

“Oh, he wants it,” said one trusted Blair ally. “He will be more powerful than he was when he was Prime Minister.” Does he still hanker after power? “Of course he does,” said the ally. But not at any price.

If, as Mr Miliband suggested on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday, the EU wants someone who has the charisma and recognition factor to “stop the traffic” in Beijing, Moscow or Washington, Mr Blair is almost certain to get it.

But first Vaclav Havel, the Czech president, has to ratify the Lisbon treaty and in his latest attempt to derail the agreement he has suggested there should be a referendum. The Czech constitutional court will hold a one-day hearing into the idea of a referendum today; it is expected this will be rejected, clearing the final legal obstacle to the treaty being ratified by the entire EU. The verdict is expected next week.

Even before then, the horse trading over whether they want a “traffic stopper” or a more low-profile, committee-style chairman, and indeed the nuts and bolts of the job description, will begin in earnest on Thursday at a two-day EU summit in Brussels.

When it comes to the actual choice of EU president, it is the French and German leaders who will make the crucial decision, along with Mr Brown. If they don’t want to be upstaged by someone better known across the globe than they are, the job may well go to a relatively unknown from somewhere like Finland, Holland or Luxembourg.

Unofficially, Mr Blair is “really excited” about the prospect of having a big full-time job once more, which would thrust him back into the spotlight that he misses, potentially keep him in employment until retirement age, and of course enable the former Prime Minister – who is fond of making money – to take the front seat on the lucrative EU gravy train.

It’s why over the last eight weeks government ministers attending Brussels meetings or G20 negotiations have mobilised an impressive campaign to harness enthusiasm across the continent for Mr Blair as Britain’s candidate.

The pitch presents him as an international statesman with the “prestige, stature and character” to raise the EU’s presence on the world stage. Photographs of him with Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, just two weeks ago will have played to that description.

Mr Miliband, who Mr Blair still hopes one day will lead the Labour Party, is repaying his confidence by playing the role of campaign manager. He he has deployed Britain’s formidable network of ambassadors and diplomatic contacts to push the cause of his mentor. Jonathan Powell, who was Mr Blair’s chief of staff and is a seasoned former diplomat, is also using his connections.

But one person who Mr Blair has yet to persuade is his wife Cherie, who accompanied him to church on Sunday. Were they praying for the same thing? Contrary to reports that she wants to be the new Cherie Antoinette, his wife would prefer him not to take the job because it would mean a huge pay cut.

Mr Blair has earned a reputed £15 million since he left Downing Street in 2007. His annual salary would be a comparatively trifling £250,000 by comparison, although there would be a grace and favour house and of course the EU’s legendary expenses.

“Cherie has got used to the millionaire lifestyle and does not want to give it up for a job which will thrust them back into the hostile glare of the media for a fraction of what he is earning now,” said one friend of the former Prime Minister.

But would Mrs Blair be able to embrace the lifestyle of chauffeur-driven cars, clothing allowances, and domestic staff? “I think she would pretty quickly get used to the idea of people calling her husband Mr President,” added the friend.

One vital ally in the cause is said to be Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France. But is he? His public support for Mr Blair as the “most European” of British politicians, and their regular telephone communication, are huge factors in Mr Blair’s position as front-runner.

The former British PM’s speech, delivered in fluent French, to the January conference of President Sarkozy’s centre-right Union pour un Mouvemenet Populaire was a clinching factor.

But that was the pragmatic President Sarkozy, a man keen to raise France’s profile by having a President who would improve the EU’s global credibility. In his weaker moments, however, wrapped in his emperor’s clothes, he might not like the idea that President Obama telephones President Blair before President Sarkozy.

It’s why some EU diplomats suspect he might have changed his mind about his old friend who failed to take Britain into the single currency and divided Europe over the Iraq war. “Can Sarkozy be trusted? Will he switch and swing behind Germany at the final hour,” said one diplomat with experience of Paris putting the Franco-German alliance first.

The most crucial figure will be Angela Merkel, whose position has been made stronger by her electoral success as Chancellor in Germany last month. She “can live with him,” said one source, but would prefer a low profile candidate chairing EU summits rather than a colossus bestriding the globe.

Chancellor Merkel, though agnostic, is thought to favour Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch Prime Minister little known outside his own country.

William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, has also intervened. arguing that an incoming Conservative government would regard the elevation of Mr Blair to European president as a “hostile act”.

The tactic may well have backfired. Mrs Merkel is not only angry with David Cameron’s Conservatives for threatening some as yet unspecified act again the Lisbon Treaty if they win the election, but also for withdrawing his MEPs from the mainstream centre-right People’s Party in the European parliament. “It might well be that Merkel will see Blair as a check on Cameron,” said one official.

José Manuel Barroso, the commission president, has also backed the ideas of the president being more of a committee chairman rather than a world leader. Only yesterday John Bruton, the Commission’s outgoing “ambassador” to Washington, made a similar point. He said: “My own sense of it is that it’s going to be more a job for someone working behind the scenes to forge consensus, bearing in mind that the decisions of the European Council are all taken on the basis of consensus.”

Behind the scenes fighting the British corner is Sir Kim Darroch, who was appointed by Mr Blair shortly before he stood down, as ambassador to the EU. It was a shrewd appointment. Sir Kim, who was Mr Blair’s Europe adviser for three years, has forged such good contacts he is seen in Brussels as Blair’s “secret weapon”.

“If anyone can make sure this job sounds harmless but projects a global role for the right personality it is Darroch,” said one diplomat from another EU state. Another official recalled dining with Mr Blair. “He got used to being British leader in the front rank and was clear he would not take the European job if it meant standing behind heads of government when summit photographs are taken.”

So, the final countdown has begun in earnest. Will we be seeing a magisterial motorcade for a statesman of Mr Blair’s international stature, or a more modest form of transport befitting a politician who could not stop the traffic in his own back yard?

Or, as one Blairite ally puts it: “Do they want a president who has the red carpet rolled out in Beijing or one who waits in the queue at immigration because no one recognises him? That is the test.”

- From Prophecy News Watch