____________________

August Specials:
Ray Yungren's important book, A Time of Departing, exposes the deceptions of a new spirituality sweeping the planet. To read Jackie Alnor's review of this book click here. 

Cost: $10, plus $1.75 shipping.  To order this book by invoice click here to tell Bill you want it.  Give him the title.   To go to our order form, click here.  

    
The Christian Sentinel is proud to be offering the modified version of 703-page paperback edition of The Kingdom of the Cults as part of our resource list.  See our articles on this topic in the March and April E-updates.  (See also the Rische's statement on the book by clicking here.)  The late Walter Martin actually performed the wedding ceremony for Bill and Jackie Alnor more than 15 years ago in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.  Click here to go to our order form.  

Cost: $14.99 plus $1.75 postage.  To order this book by invoice click here to tell Bill you want it, and we'll get a copy right out to you.  To go to our order form, click here. 

__________________

Read Christian Sentinel President Bill Alnor's latest book, UFO Cults and the New Millennium.  Price slash to $5 continues. 

In this 1998 book, which normally retails for $14.99, Bill exposed the dangerous theologies of Malachi York and the Raelian movement (the UFO cult that recently claims to have cloned two human babies) and other UFO cults.  A little more than a month ago York fell into more scandal by admitting to having sex with children in his cult, the Ancient Mystical Order of Melchizedek.

"What Love is This?" 

Dave Hunt vs. John Calvin 

Why do so many Christian bookstores refuse to carry popular author Dave Hunt’s book, "What Love is This?" Well, the subtitle gives a clue: "Calvinism’s Misrepresentation of God." One doesn’t come against a major portion of Protestant Christianity without running into trouble.  See Jackie Alnor's review of this controversial book.  
[Click here to purchase the book online.]

__________________
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly -- August 2003 --  Edition  -- We reserve the right to publish your letters and E-mails as it states at the bottom of each E-update and indeed at the bottom of most pages at www.cultlink.com.  Sometimes they challenge us, sometimes they anger us, but more often they bless us.  Click here to see some of our recent letters.     

Hank Hanegraaff

Does Adherence to ECFA's Standards "Clear" a Ministry of Wrongdoing? NO! -- See this explosive Editorial by William Alnor (Click Here)

__________________

Christianity Today, which is recognized by many as the premiere evangelical news and features magazine in the U.S., followed the Christian Sentinel's June and July E-updates that outlined wrongdoing and financial scandal inside the Christian Research Institute with a devastating story of its own.

The July 16 Christianity Today (CT) article, according to Bill Alnor, who is also director of the journalism program at Texas A&M University - Kingsville "took some courage by Christianity Today editors to investigate the matter."  However, CT made a decision to only report on the current ECFA-related allegations, and to not dwell on previous negative news CRI has faced.

"It continued to document what has amounted to more than 13 years of nonstop scandal that has swirled around Hank Hanegraaff and the Christian Research Institute since his takeover of the ministry just after the death of founder Walter Martin," Alnor added.

"Looking at the preponderance of evidence should convince any Christian not to give a dime to CRI now or ever again," Alnor said. "In fact, after all the wrongdoing documented over the years, I am surprised that an organization like Salem Broadcasting would continue to sponsor Hanegraaff and the Bible Answer Man Show. I am even more astounded by the small but shrinking number of supposedly discerning evangelical churches and a few Christian leaders that would even consider inviting Hanegraaff to come as a speaker, such as the Hawthorne Gospel Church in New Jersey."

"The Christianity Today story, despite pledges from CRI to be accountable again after they got caught, once again demonstrates CRI’s lack of accountability," Alnor said. "If anyone ever needed to resign from a Christian organization it's Hank Hanegraaff. The pattern is the same as always under Hanegraaff's regime: CRI punishes the very people God has directed to blow the whistle on wrongdoing inside, while Hanegraaff and his cronies line their pockets with more money each year from people who give to CRI's massive `church marketing' scheme -- mistakenly thinking they are giving the money to God."

However, Alnor also has major problems with the way the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) handled the CRI scandal, and he has problems with some of the organization's statements. (See Bill's editorial here.)

The CT article demonstrated that those who blew the whistle on CRI due to its out of control spending on salaries for the Hanegraaffs (at more than $250,000 a year for Hank alone, not to mention near the six figure range for his wife, Kathy), an expensive $66,000 Lexis, country club membership dues into the thousands of dollars and other assorted wrong doing, were fired for obeying God rather than Hank's money-making organization!

The CT article pointed out that employee Jen Hubbard, a donor communications specialist, saw problems with the way Hanegraaff was spending money at CRI (all the while being engaged in constant fundraising and cries of poor mouth) and pointed it out to her superiors all without any success. She then went to Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, to which CRI belongs. She was then fired, and her firing was followed by the termination of another employee who was supposed to head an internal accountability group to help monitor out of control spending by Hanegraaff and others at CRI.

ECFA then allegedly investigated and issued statements on CRI in March and in June. With this E-update, the Christian Sentinel is placing the statements on line. Click here for the March and June statements. In spite of their findings of CRI’s financial irregularities, ECFA put a positive spin on the report as if to say that misappropriation of funds was merely an oversight on the part of Hank Hanegraaff.

As the Christian Sentinel has pointed out, since Hanegraaff's regime began in the late 1980s, more than 100 people quit or were fired from CRI, and many of them had serious problems with the lack of ethics at CRI, and specifically with Hanegraaff and his right-hand man, Paul Young.

"Greed, the lack of ethics, and failure to provide godly leadership by Hanegraaff has been one of the most astonishing stories within evangelicalism within the past 15 years," Alnor said. "The heartache CRI has caused to hundreds of people formerly associated with the ministry's original founder (Walter Martin) should also continue to be told. Hanegraaff should leave and he should leave now."

__________________

Why am I receiving this E-update? 
If you have received this E-mail from Bill Alnor and cultlink.com and did not want to receive it, we apologize to you.  Most people were added to this list by signing up for it from our home page.  If you want to be removed write bill@cultlink.com and place remove in the subject line. 
__________________

Price slashed to $10 for August 2003 E-update readers on our popular video documentary 

The Great Apostasy: The Lost Sign
For us to send it to you today and invoice you for $10, plus $1 shipping, write Bill by clicking here. Click here to print out the August 2003 order form to mail in. 

This video documents the rise of religious deception within the church from the beginning of the 1900s to the present day.  Length: 90 minutes.  It is filled with actual film footage of preachers caught in deception. Jesus warned us of the great falling away.  Yet, many are convincing Christians this very deception is an outpouring of revival.  See for yourselves how the spirit of Antichrist is within our churches.