Causes of Death in the USA
By Ralph D. Winter
Not more than one in ten dies a natural death. This is not a pretty picture, and not something to look forward to. As someone said, I am not afraid of death, just the process of dying. But the absolute wonder is that less than one percent of medical funds goes to disease sources instead of disease treatments. There are several reasons for this.
Read MoreTheologizing the Microbiological World
By Ralph D. Winter
We need to recognize and ponder more seriously the kind and degree of harm Satan is able to cause. We need to unmask the works of Satan and not go on thinking that he, as a spirit being, cannot be held responsible for causing any intelligent damage to our DNA codes, our genetic distortions being labeled “defects” instead of “intelligent distortions.”
Read MoreA Johanine Understanding of “The Works of the Devil”
By Beth Snodderly
The devil’s works can be summarized as bringing death—both physical (disease and deformity, social chaos, mental chaos) and spiritual (unbelief, hatred), the Son of God appeared to give life (1 John 4:9). The appearing of the Son of God is seen to result in works and characteristics that are the opposite of those associated with the sin of the devil, thus nullifying or destroying them.
Read MoreA Growing Awareness About Disease
By Ralph D. Winter
Neither in the practice of medicine (doctors and hospitals) nor in the pharmaceutical world is there–nor can there be–significant concern or focus upon the origins of disease. Why? People pay to be cured. They don’t readily offer their life savings to attack the roots of diseases they do not yet have or already have. Only in the universities and in government is there substantial possibility of non-remunerative foundational research, and even there much of what both the government and universities do is driven by pharmaceutical funds.
Read MoreThe Embarrasingly Delayed Education of Ralph D. Winter
By Ralph D. Winter
In order to glorify God we must resist the common idea that all events are initiated by God. We are to rejoice in and praise God in all things but not rejoice and praise God for all things. As long as angels and men have free will God is not in the usual sense the initiator of all things. This scenario is the very opposite of sitting back and assuming that God does all things both good and bad. Rather, it explains the urgent and momentous obligation to distinguish evil from good and to fight all evil and every evil with everything in our command.
Read MoreThe Future of Evangelicals in Mission
By Ralph D. Winter
My prediction in this article is that in the 21st century the mainstream of Evangelicalism in the USA, and of Evangelical missions in particular, will hopefully recover a broader perspective, moving from what has been dominantly Second Inheritance to a rediscovery of the earlier full-spectrum of the “First Inheritance” tradition, which possessed a theology that combined both personal “salvation” with vast social responsibility, thus uniting concern for the glorification of God in both individual and social transformation.
Read MoreThe Unfinished Epic: In Five Acts
By Ralph D. Winter
Our current concepts of Christian mission work are good but incomplete, and, in fact, are much too narrow if we are really setting out to glorify God who is constantly blamed for evil. The novel element here is the idea that the full implications of the New Testament’s concept of Satan have been largely lost in Western Christianity to the extent that we have been influenced by Augustine’s neo-platonic view of a God who, often with mysterious reasons, initiates both good and evil — with Satan only a “bystander.”
Read MoreWarfare Missiology
By Ralph D. Winter
All my life I have assumed that the big tension is between human beings and God. Since Adam fell out with God, his entire lineage has been estranged and needs reconciliation through the blood of Christ. But the larger picture is that the biggest tension is not between humans and God but between vicious, hideous plotting evil and God, and humans were created to be on God’s side in that conflict with evil.
Read MoreRoberta Winter Institute
By Ralph D. Winter
We have an un-updated theology, thinking that we aren’t responsible to do something about something we can’t see (microbes). But we CAN see these now and do something. We are casting aside a whole arena of responsibility…The primary focus of this new institute will not be laboratory science but public and mission awareness of the need for new theological sensitivity for destroying the works of the devil.
Read MoreLet’s Be Realistic
By Ralph D. Winter
Why don’t Christians have a theology for attacking the very roots of disease? Why merely give intravenous liquids to babies dying from dysentery without dealing with a contaminated water supply? Why deal with water contamination and not concern ourselves with eradicating the pathogens that constitute the contamination?
Read More