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Sunday, November 05, 2006

FACTS OR FABLES?


People are turning to fables instead of facts – even in the Christian World. In a 2001 Newsweek article "Christian" entertainment products had sales of over $3 billion (and that figure excludes gift wares and Bibles). Christian music had sales of $747 million, or 4.8% market share (compare that to Country music's 10%); Christian movies and video, combined generated $835 million. Christian wares are no longer cloistered in Christian "supply" stores, but available at
Walmart and other national chain-stores. Of course, by now, we've all read about the Christian theme park, Holy Land Experience, in Orlando Christian Wrestling Federation, whose members perform throughout the nation?
Moreover, Christian books (excluding Bibles) sold over $1 billion (sales quadrupling since 1980).
Yet, contrary to expectations, many of these books are not theological tracts, nor even biblically-based self-improvement manuals, but a new, burgeoning category, Christian fiction, the most famous example being the Left Behind books (55 million copies in its "product line" sold since the first book was released in 1995).

So, increasingly Christians are turning to fables instead of facts. Not only are media mongrels learning that evangelical Christianity is ripe for exploitation, so are politicians. If you want to win elections or make money, evangelicals are the group to turn to.

What does this mean? There will be more and more movies, books, products and paraphernalia designed for the "evangelical Christian".

2 Timothy tells us that at the end of time (2 Tim 3:1), many people (so called Christians) would settle for a form of Godliness (2 Tim. 3:5). They would heap up teachers that would feed them sentimental sermons and fables (2 Tim 4:3,4).

Are such teachers and their fables being “heaped up” today? The statistic’s I’ve shared indicate that they are. So if these things are true, and they are – what is the answer? What is the antidote?

Source: http://threeangels.org

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