A recent encounter with a frenzied procession on nearby Baja highways between Tijuana, Tecate and Ensenada, devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe ( http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12446c.htm ) reminded me of the spiritual adultery of the ancient jews that we read about in Jeremiah chapters 7 and 44:

"Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. Do they provoke me to anger? saith Jehovah; do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces? Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, mine anger and my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched." (ASV 7:17-20)

"Then all the men who knew that their wives burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great assembly, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of Jehovah, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly perform every word that is gone forth out of our mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off burning incense to the queen of heaven, and pouring out drink-offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink-offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink-offerings unto her, without our husbands? Then Jeremiah said unto all the people, to the men, and to the women, even to all the people that had given him that answer, saying, The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, did not Jehovah remember them, and came it not into his mind? so that Jehovah could not longer bear, because of the evil of your doings, and because of the abominations which ye have committed; therefore is your land become a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is this day. Because ye have burned incense, and because ye have sinned against Jehovah, and have not obeyed the voice of Jehovah, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil is happened unto you, as it is this day. " (ASV 44:15-23)

Like these ancient Hebrews, each year (on December 11 & 12) millions of pilgrims flock to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City to pay homage their "queen of heaven" (http://www.newadvent.org/faq/rosary.pdf) . Many of them crawl on bloodied hands and knees for blocks in order to gain or to pay back favors attributed to to this mestizo madonna. The cult of the Virgin of Gudalupe stops at nothing to fuel the increasing interest in this religious hoax, even claiming that here [painted] eyes display a supernatural reflection of the indian Juan Diego presenting the image to a skeptic clergy (http://www.sancta.org/eyes.html)when what ought to be reflected is Juan Diego alone, standing in front of the Virgin receiving the image. I suppose no one has even stopped to think about that one.

For fellow American Christian brethren who have never been in close contact with the Roman Catholic religion outside the United States and who are engrossed in the rabid ecumenism of our day, it is nearly impossible to even begin to fathom the all-pervasive influence that RC syncretism and Christo-paganism exerts on Hispanic culture. I believe that it was the renowned author Carlos Fuentes (Nobel prize winner) who said that Mexicans are not so much Roman Catholic as they are devotees of the Virgin of Guadalupe - more so in the South than in the North. The Guadalupe cult is practically synonymous with Mexican national identity, but it is also a major stumbling block for firmly establishing New Testament Christianity in Mexico.

The Christian faith is one that engages our sense of reason. Paul says so in Romans 12:1:

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." (KJV)Note: oddly, most other English translations overlook the proper rendering of "logikos" (reasonable) where we get our word “logical” from.

How does one effectively communicate a "reasonable" or logical Gospel to an irrational religious culture? It has never been an easy task, but it has been made even more complicated do to the indifference and apathy of most of our Christian Churches and Churches of Christ towards Mexico as a field that is still white unto the harvest. It seems that the "10/40 Window" theory and the "World Christian Movement" have virtually taken over our thinking, even to the point of relegated nearly all of the Western Hemisphere to oblivion in terms of evangelism. According to the "10/40 Window" idea, nearly 1 billion Roman Catholics worldwide have already been “evangelized” and are therefore no longer in need of hearing the Gospel. What we ought to be doing, according to missiological theory in vogue today, is evangelizing ‘unreached’ groups such as Muslims, Buddhists, etc. because they have never heard the Gospel. The idea is that, once these groups have been reached then Jesus can return to earth. Of course we ought to be evangelizing those in Muslim countries, but must we sacrifice the huge unreached population in the West to accomplish that goal? We ought to be doing both!

For recent news on the Guadalupe phenomenon, click on the news links below:

http://www.thenewsmexico.com/noticia.asp?id=41952 http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-virgin-of-guadalupe1213dec12,0,3403341.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2002/December/07/style/stories/01style.htm http://www.lavida-oaxaca.com/In_The_News/News_Virgin_Guadalupe.htm

Here are a few sources for further investigation and study:

http://owl.ben.edu/faculty/jlewis/rhetbook/vog.html http://www.vdare.com/awall/quadelupe.htm http://wais.stanford.edu/mexico_livingdead121300.html http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/guadalupe.htm#FRAUD http://www.lib.utexas.edu/benson/bibnot/bn-87.html http://hemi.ps.tsoa.nyu.edu/archive/studentwork/colony/reed/bibliography.htm http://www.hope.edu/latinamerican/VirginofGuadalupe.htm http://www.library.arizona.edu/images/cadena/hogartxt.html http://owl.ben.edu/faculty/jlewis/rhetbook/vog.html

-- Anonymous, December 14, 2002

Answers

Hey Phil,

I hear you, brother. This has been a problem we've also encountered as well, planting a church here in St. Louis. As we've raised funds, even my wife's home church gave us the excuse that they were concentrating their efforts on the 10/40 Window. They would rather give their money to people they really don't know than to someone they raised in the faith.

And yet, we must press on towards the goal. And that is what I encourage you to do, Phil. Keep going. Several churches are going to give you the 10/40 spiel, but every so often God sends an unlikely source.

Let me share what has happened this week. For over a year, we've been reaching out to a family in the neighborhood- help when there was a fire, bringing their children to Bible study and special activities. Recently, we've "adopted" them as a church to help with Christmas. The mom of the family has godparents who have also been trying to help and encourage them to get into the church. The family was telling the godparents about us and now they want to meet with us so that they can support the ministry and help us get the building we've been raising funds for. Praise God for He works in mysterious ways!

God bless, Scott

-- Anonymous, December 16, 2002

Phil I am not up on a lot of expressions you use could you tell me what the 10/40 window is. Also as far as the cathlolic church goes in my opinon the are all a bunch of heathen idol worshippers. My neighbor is catholic and he carries around these little coins of dead people and prays to them for differnt things such as saint anthony he is supposed to help you find lost things.It is ammazing to me that most so called christians in this area say "they are christians to" speaking of catholics.They are not christian and they are in the same boat as any other idol worshippers. Chuck Williams

-- Anonymous, December 16, 2002

With apologies to all who are not familiar with 10/40- windownese, I will try to define it in layman’s terms. This is just a brief summary so don’t nock it until you have given yourself an opportunity to do further research. Also, you may want to take a look at the info sources that are provided below.

1. The 10/40 Window movement is strictly founded on the notion that Jesus cannot return until the entire world has been “evangelized” (Matthew 24:14). In this sense, it could be argued that it is biblically based. But that is where its biblical position begins and ends. 2. It is inherently post-millennial and dominionist in its eschatology (for a study on Kingdom Theology and dominionism, see: http://members.tripod.com/thecontenders/kingdom1.htm) 3. The hub of the movement is Fuller Theological Seminary and the U.S. Center for World Mission. Therefore, it has intimate ties with the World Christian Movement. 4. It uses the same familiar terms we use for missions, but with an entirely new meaning. Some examples: a. Gospel : not the biblical gospel but an ecumenical hybrid - an all-inclusive version that even allows for an universalistic view of salvation. b. Salvation: a heavy emphasis on social reconstruction rather than on personal justification. c. Unreached: this term does not include 1 billion Roman Catholics or individual “unreached” groups in the Western Hemisphere. d. Reached: includes 1 billion Roman Catholics and all “Christian” groups within the Western Hemisphere, regardless of their teachings.

For further study, please see the following,

In favor of the 10/40 Window approach to world missions:

http://1040window.org/ http://www.ad2000.org/1040broc.htm

Expose of the “World Christian Movement” of which the 10/40 Window concept is a part:

http://www.banner.org.uk/globalism/WCM1.html http://www.banner.org.uk/globalism/WCM2.html http://www.banner.org.uk/globalism/WCM3.html http://www.banner.org.uk/globalism/WCM4.html

-- Anonymous, December 16, 2002

To specifically answer Chuck's question, it is from 10 degrees to 40 degrees north of the equator from W. Africa to E. China. I got that definition from http://1040window.org. It was one of the websites Phil shared.

I guess it shows how in the dark I am. I have never heard of the 1040 window (other than the active window in my tax prep software - hahah).

-- Anonymous, December 16, 2002