This read is a little long, but good, as it applies to many areas.

Text of forwarded message follows:

>SIN MANAGEMENT IS BIG BUSINESS
>
>
>By Paul Proctor
>August 23, 2006
>http://www.newswithviews.com/PaulProctor/proctor98.htm
>
>I caught an interesting article last week from 
>LifeSiteNews.com that highlighted the 
>frustrations of a disgruntled AIDS activist by 
>the name of Martin Sempa, who was commenting on 
>the absurdity of a recent international AIDS 
>conference held in Toronto. As I read his rant I 
>discovered some rather disturbing parallels 
>between the AIDS movement and the church growth 
>movement in how they both handle "disease."
>
>Here's just some of what he had to say:
>
>"The 'AIDS industry,' is a multi-billion dollar 
>international enterprise now, and those who 
>gather to enjoy lavish meals and hotels in 
>Toronto this week, are more interested in 
>'managing the disease' than in curing it or 
>stopping its spread, says Martin Sempa, a leading AIDS fighter from Uganda.
>'Most of these guys don't care about stopping 
>HIV/AIDS but just about managing the disease, 
>keeping it going so they can continue to profit,' Sempa said.
>'It's a multi-billion dollar industry,' he said. 
>'Pharmaceuticals, condoms, counsellors, 
>distributors, advertising executives, grants for 
>fake human rights groups and celebrity status. 
>If you have AIDS you can be a star if you 
>promote their agenda. It's become a disease of 
>opportunity. If AIDS stopped today there would 
>be millions of people who would stop getting an income.'
>'I wouldn't waste my time.' Sempa said when 
>asked why he had not attended the Conference. 'I 
>didn't want to spend good money on fancy hotels 
>and expensive meals to have no one listen to me. 
>In Bangkok {2004}, the president of Uganda was 
>booed {for promoting his country's abstinence 
>program}. It was a hostile social environment 
>and not conducive to a free exchange of ideas. A 
>single mention of abstinence makes them become rabid.'
>Our programs are under attack by human rights 
>groups who claim that in trying to turn people 
>away from sexual promiscuity, we are violating 
>human rights. Human rights to them means condoms.'"
>
>Well, since the "church" closely follows the 
>culture these days and imitates it for the sake 
>of the "Kingdom," it should come as no real 
>surprise that "disease" is quickly becoming big 
>business for the brethren as well, thanks to all 
>of the hard work and dedication of Pastors Rick 
>Warren from Saddleback Community Church, Lake 
>Forest, California and Bill Hybels, Willow Creek 
>Community Church, Barrington, Illinois, who 
>co-sponsored their own AIDS conference at 
>Warren's church last year called: "Disturbing Voices."
>
>"'The only thing growing faster than the 
>HIV/AIDS pandemic is the Church,' said Rick 
>Warren, echoing the same conclusion reached by other conference speakers."
>
>Well, I submit to you that AIDS and the 
>"church," as Warren defines it, are both growing 
>exponentially for much the same reason: There is 
>no clear call for repentance - only a call for 
>"love" and "compassion" - which, in reality, 
>perverts the Gospel of repentance and faith in 
>Jesus Christ into an irresistible, permissible, 
>unaccountable, compromising, gratifying, 
>no-fault, humanistic faith and practice that not 
>only allows open rebellion against God and His 
>Word into the church, but also welcomes it, as 
>evidenced by the following quote, taken from a 
>Pastors.com article covering a recent two-day 
>Ecumenical and Interfaith pre-conference gathering in Toronto:
>
>"Dr. Warren stressed that it is not a sin to be 
>sick. 'We need to move from asking, How did you get HIV? to How can I help?'"
>
>Now where do you suppose Pastor Warren came up 
>with this dialectical diversion away from 
>biblical truth? Well, in an another article 
>chronicling Saddleback's 2005 "Disturbing 
>Voices" conference, written by Whitney Kelley, 
>entitled: HIV/AIDS Conference Shifts Focus From 
>Education To Action, Rick's wife, Kay Warren reportedly said this:
>
>"Jesus never asked anyone how he or she got sick 
>- only the Pharisees did. Do you want to be a 
>Pharisee? Or do you want to be like Jesus? If 
>your compassion level goes up when you know it 
>wasn't someone's fault, then there is something wrong."
>
>First of all, Jesus Christ is God incarnate and 
>is therefore omniscient; so, He "never asked 
>anyone how he or she got sick" because He already knew!
>
>Secondly, is Kay Warren suggesting here that 
>AIDS really isn't anyone's fault? - Or that 
>holding people accountable for their behavior is 
>somehow wrong? And is she also saying if 
>Christians so much as suggest that AIDS IS 
>someone's fault, and teach that each of us ARE 
>accountable for our behavior, that we are not 
>being compassionate and are therefore "Pharisees?"
>
>What about the "go, and sin no more" command 
>from Jesus Christ to the woman caught in 
>adultery in John 8:11? Does that make Him an 
>uncompassionate "Pharisee" as well?
>
>"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good 
>evil; that put darkness for light, and light for 
>darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20
>
>And we wonder why the fire is gone from today's 
>pulpits and the church is looking more and more 
>like the fallen world around us with its 
>lukewarm Laodicean "love" and "compassion." You 
>see, if there's no sinful behavior at work, 
>there's no need to repent; and if there's no 
>need to repent, then there's no need to change 
>our ways or our ways of thinking; so the seeker 
>sensitive, Purpose Driven, church growth 
>"Christian" simply carries on unconcerned, 
>unfettered and unrepentant in the name of Jesus. 
>That's why today's "church growth" looks more like a cancer than a cure.
>
>Willow Creek's senior facilitator, Bill Hybels 
>obviously agrees with the Warrens, judging by 
>these following remarks taken from a 
>PurposeDriven.com article by Shannon Baker 
>entitled: Saddleback Hosts Historic Church-Based 
>HIV/AIDS Conference - a report on that same 
>"Disturbing Voices" symposium in 2005:
>
>"Bill and Lynne Hybels of Willow Creek Community 
>Church shared that the Church must be the safe 
>place where people can come to for healing and 
>acceptance…'It's not our place to ask how or why 
>people contracted the disease…It is our place to love them.'"
>
>Again, no mention of sin and no call for repentance - just acceptance.
>
>So, by "lovingly" focusing only on the symptoms 
>and side effects of sin rather than on the cause 
>and cure, the "church" not only sustains it, 
>they capitalize on it to grow their numbers 
>while Hell retains the reservations of the 
>unrepentant, leaving them to conclude that 
>because sin is merely a "disease," it's not 
>really their fault - that they're just a good 
>person with a bad problem who, by joining the 
>co-opted and camouflaged liberal UN agenda of 
>tolerance, diversity and unity, via the 
>"Christian conservative" church growth movement, 
>they miraculously find a "purpose" in life 
>("transformation") and a people who will 
>generously stroke their self-esteem while 
>"compassionately" strolling them into spiritual 
>ruin by telling them exactly what they want to hear.
>
>Considering the eternal consequences, just how 
>is that being loving and compassionate?
>
>Certainly not everyone who contracts AIDS 
>engages in sexually promiscuous or deviant 
>behavior; but the overwhelming majority of those 
>that spread it, DO. Moreover, according to 
>scripture, "…all have sinned and come short of 
>the glory of God" (Romans 3:23) leaving no 
>excuse for preachers of the Gospel to sit silent 
>about "the wages of sin" (Romans 6:23) even for the sake of church growth.
>
>Mega-churches, para-church organizations and 
>their many ministries, affiliates and support 
>groups now seem to have programs for almost 
>every psychological ailment, addiction, 
>disorder, disease and distress known to man. But 
>the one thing that is noticeably absent is the biblical call to repentance.
>
>Could it be that those in sin management don't 
>really want such a message preached? After all, 
>if their prospects and participants actually 
>turned to Jesus Christ in true repentance and 
>faith and experienced His healing, deliverance 
>and life-transforming power, many of their 
>popular programs would be rendered irrelevant; 
>and that would spell disaster for the sin 
>management industry called the "church growth 
>movement" and subsequently put a lot of people 
>out of work or, if you prefer, out of "ministry."
>
>At that same pre-conference gathering in 
>Toronto, "The People's Pastor" went on to say this:
>
>"The solution to eliminating the threat of 
>HIV/AIDS is not education, it is 
>transformation," Dr. Warren said. "That involves 
>saving sex for marriage, training men to respect 
>women, offering treatment through churches, and 
>encouraging individuals to pledge themselves to one partner."
>
>What kind of "transformation" is he talking 
>about - into a UN compliant Purpose Driven 
>puppet? Where's Jesus Christ in all this? Where 
>is the Gospel and the call to repentance? It 
>simply isn't there; and THAT, my friends, is the real issue.
>
>In spite of Warren's dialectic call for 
>"transformation" (into being Purpose Driven) the 
>fact is, most sinners today aren't being 
>transformed, aren't being delivered, aren't 
>being healed and aren't being saved because they 
>aren't repenting and surrendering their lives 
>over to Jesus Christ; they're only getting 
>treatment and therapy by sin management 
>specialists who frankly, are enjoying a rather booming business right now.
>
>"Having a form of godliness, but denying the 
>power thereof: from such turn away." - 2nd Timothy 3:5
>
>Until each of us individually acknowledges just 
>who and what we are in the sight of Almighty 
>God, and our sin is confessed and repented of in 
>brokenness, humility and total surrender before 
>His ONLY Begotten Son, Who paid for it on a 
>Cross 2000 years ago - with or without AIDS - we 
>ultimately face an unspeakable and unrelenting 
>torment that no man or program can treat, comfort or cure.
>
>Jesus said: "I came not to call the righteous, 
>but sinners to repentance." - Luke 5:32
>
>If you want to see a perfect example of just how 
>the church today undermines the Gospel by 
>imitating the world for the sake of growth, 
>reread the lengthy quote near the top of this 
>article, taken from LifeSiteNews.com and simply 
>replace the word "AIDS" with the word "sin" and 
>the word "abstinence" with the word 
>"repentance." I think you will find the 
>egregious parallels between the AIDS movement 
>and the church growth movement compelling.
>
>"And through covetousness shall they with 
>feigned words make merchandise of you: whose 
>judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and 
>their damnation slumbereth not." - 2nd Peter 2:3
>
>Related Articles:
>
>1. AIDS a 
><http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/aug/06081704.html>Glamorous 
>Multi-Billion Dollar Industry
>2. Rick and Kay Warren 
><http://www.purposedriven.com/en-US/HIVAIDSCommunity/StartingAMinistry/Rick_and_Kay_Warren_challenge_church_leaders_to_play_a_more_vital_role_in_the_global_AIDS_response.htm>challenge 
>church leaders to play a more vital role in the global AIDS response
>3. HIV/AIDS Conference 
><http://www.purposedriven.com/en-US/AboutUs/PDintheNews/HIV_conference_shifts_focus_from_education_to_action.htm>Shifts 
>Focus From Education To Action
>4. Saddleback hosts 
><http://www.purposedriven.com/en-US/AboutUs/PDintheNews/Saddleback_hosts_historic_church_based_AIDS_conference.htm>historic 
>church-based HIV/AIDS conference
>5. Report says 
><http://www.pastors.com/article.asp?ArtID=9719>church 
>efforts against AIDS single most effective
>
>© 2006 Paul Proctor - All Rights Reserved
End of forwarded message text:

John