KFLCC / New Age Bible Versions - Gail Riplinger

it appropriate for the child to respond, ’But that’s just YOUR value judgement. Don’t force it on me.'io The harvest from the seeds planted in the sixties (NASB) and seventies (NIV) is ripe and rotting on the vine. A 1990 survey by researchers at Indiana University and Marion County Health department revealed sexual activity is beginning at an earlier age than ever. Dr. Donald P. Orr reported 555 of 677 middle-class students, age 12-14 have engaged in fornication. 11 Another recent survey, done by 8 denominations, polled 1438 'evangelical' teens (those who regularly attend a conservative church). Nearly half had committed fornication; only one-third "declined to brand sex outside of marriage as morally unacceptable." Bibles which omit a clear mandate against, "sexual intercourse on the part of unmarried persons" (Webster's ’fornication') leave parents defenseless in their battle for their children's chastity. An anxious mother called Moody Broadcasting's Open Line' program asking Pastor Cole where she could find a verse to show her son that pre-marital sex is wrong. He was unable to give one. 12 On a recent 700 Club, the author of Generation at Risk was asked why sexually active Christian kids have no sense of guilt. He responded that there was "no absolute standard of scripture" to use and so young people conclude, "If I don't feel bad, it must not be wrong." 13 The use of the ambiguous word 'immorality' by new versions is more a matter of sales than semantics. "After all, we are in the entertainment business," quips the owner of the NIV, international publishing magnate and purveyor of erotica, Rupert Murdock (New Age Bulletin , England, Vol. V, No. 1, p. 2, June 1993) Pressure from mainline denomination, representing large markets, prompts their use of wording which allows the greatest variety of interpretations. The 1991 national committee report from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) represents the reins pulling from religious and 'ethical' markets.