It seems strange to revisit the Club of Rome reports that were issued during the decade of the 1970s. But in the context of the 1977 Consultation of leading evangelicals, which was discussed yesterday on Herescope as part of an ongoing history lesson on neoevangelical heresy, it becomes necessary.
Donald E. Hoke, a Consultation organizer, identified as the coordinator of the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton, Illinois, in his opening presentation on "Views of the Future as Reflected in Reports to the Club of Rome," did not use the occasion to dispute the Reports. Rather he made a lengthy factual presentation of the contents of the Reports. Hoke reported on the formation of the Club of Rome:
"Born in April, 1968, when an international group of scientists, educators, economists, humanists, industrialists, and civil servants gathered in Rome at the invitation of Dr. Aurelio Peccei a foresighted Italian economist, the Club of Rome now numbers some 70 persons from 25 nations in its restricted elite membership. None are politicians, nor does the group seek to express any single ideological, political or national point of view." (Evangelicals Face the Future, p. 3) [emphasis added]
It was the last statement, highlighted above, which is either incredibly naive or potentially misleading. The Club of Rome did indeed have an ideology -- an ideology that is antithetically opposed to biblical Christianity: worldwide population controls, the formation of a global economic system, the creation of a new international order, food production, extreme environmentalism, etc. And Aurelio Peccei, its co-founder, did have a personal ideology and aligned himself with Planetary Citizens along with Willis W. Harman, the Dalai Lama, David Spangler, William Irwin Thompson, Donald F. Keys, Rene Dubois and other Luciferians. To explain why this is significant:
"The work of Planetary Initiative (PI) followed years of preparation by the Network of World Servers, set up by Alice A. Bailey in 1925. The role of the World Servers (also called "Servant of the World") was to act as the "vanguard for the reappearance of the Christ. . . " The organization controlling PI, which coordinates the efforts of the networking groups, is called Planetary Citizens. One of the official purposes of Planetary Citizens is to aid the 'world servers' everywhere." (Constance Cumbey, The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow, 1982, p. 84)
Historian Dr. Dennis Cuddy wrote of Peccei's ideology. "On May 3, 1974, the Toronto Globe and Mail [reported] that Club of Rome cofounder Aurelio Peccei said, 'A new international order will have to be established, not just in the economic sphere but in social and political areas.'" (The Globalists, p. 137)
Donald E. Hoke could have used his speech as an opportunity to distinctly separate biblical Christianity apart from the the crisis-mongering documents produced by the Club of Rome. But that did not happen. Instead, he concluded with a significant proposal from the 1977 Goals for Mankind Club of Rome report:
"Of all possible scenarios for the solution of world problems, the authors feel that the most hopeful scenario -- that group which is most likely to lead world consciousness to an awareness of its problems and to its solutions -- is what they call 'the religion science-led scenario. . . . The greatest hope for the world lies in the religionists and scientists uniting to awaken the world to its near fatal predicament and then leading mankind out of the bewildering maze of international crises into the future Utopia of humanist hope. . . . Of significance to us here is the conviction expressed in their latest book that religious leaders must lead the way, hand in hand with science, if we are to find any solution to the predicament of mankind." (Evangelicals Face the Future, p. 8)
Of course, (as was covered in previous Herescope posts) just two short years later in the 1979 Consultation, Willis W. Harman was invited to address the topic of creating a Utopian future based upon metaphysical science.
The Truth:
"For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations: thou hast established the earth, and it abideth." (Psalm 119: 89-90)
Tomorrow: How futurists influenced the church. . .