INTRODUCTION
Edited by W. B. Howard...Editor of Despatch

The following article from the Queensland Sunday Mail will bring our readers right into the lead-up to the next Millennium. Although the article is not very enlightening in many ways, and its viewpoint is not Godly, it still shows the veracity of what Despatch is warning about. Right here in our own State of Queensland, the erstwhile hidden things of the New Age are beginning to appear, just as a matter of course. This will increase as we go further into the last of the Last days. No need to hide the plans of the NWO any more, for they already have a strangle-hold on the economy, education, weapons and government of the globe. Note in particular the mention of Gerald Barney. This man, and the plans for Iceland, at a place
called Thingvellir, AD 2000, were dealt with at our recent Seminar at Rainworth. All religious leaders and even political
leaders will be meeting at Thingvellir in order to pledge allegiance to Mother Earth. At a pagan Stone Altar, the leaders will
be required to hand-sign their commitment to Gaia Mother Earth, and agree that the globe should be governed along the
lines of worship and veneration of “her”.

Note also the reference to Jay Gary, a name which I have never before seen mentioned in the secular press!
How important that the “Millennial Doctor” booklet be distributed amongst Christians in order to alert them to the dangers
of this man and his collaboration with the New Age. Many other interesting comments as well.

FULL PAGE ARTICLE WHICH APPEARED
IN ‘SUMMER BREAK’ SECTION OF
“THE * SUNDAY MAIL” - 5 th. January, 1997. Page 28.

"MILLENNIUM MANIA". (pp.4-7)

Enroute to 2000, the doomsayers have never had it so good. Predicting the next Big Bang is a boom industry and even the ufologists are boldly going where none have been before. Latent Christians are beating a path back to Church and in Texas
a modern-day Noah is building a fleet of escape blimps. Come again? That’s just it. May be He will.

DEBORAH KOVACH reports.

The world’s odometer is inching toward a millennial milestone. When the calendar finally rolls over to January 1, 2000 - an event long anticipated, often feared - it will mean far more than just another huge New Year’s party. For many people, the year 2000 will herald the biggest spiritual event ever. “People notice when their odometer turns to triple zero,” says Ted Daniels, director of the Millennium Watch Institute in Philadelphia. The planning already is under way. The Pope will start a jubilee celebration at St. Peter’s Basilica by opening bronze Holy Year Doors, used only every 25 years, at midnight Mass on Christmas Eve 1999.
In Colorado, a man who calls himself the Millennium Doctor hopes to lead a five-month caravan through the Middle East.
In Virginia, the Millennium Institute is planning three years of sacred celebrations. And Campus Crusade for Christ is leading a coalition trying to convert 1000 million people by 2000. Pastors are preaching about the Battle of Armageddon described in the Book of Revelation.
A woman from Plano, Texas, says aliens are trying to warn us that the end is near.
And a fellow from Garland, Texas, is said to be building a fleet of blimps that will airlift him 20km above the earth as it is tossed by a cataclysmic shift on its axis.
Across America, deep thinkers have started cranking out books and holding conferences on What It All Means. Daniels, who has been tracking millennium mania since 1992, keeps tabs on 1200 sources concerned with the date. Let’s just say it’s a growth industry. A year ago, there were six web sites devoted to issues surrounding the turn of the century; now there are 6000.

Religious broadcasters are writing Christian apocalyptic novels that are flying off the shelves. By definition, the millennium is a huge Christian celebration because it marks the 2000th anniversary of the approximate date of Jesus’s birth. Christians have been anticipating the event for 1000 years. But because the Christian calendar is in common use worldwide, everyone else feels its effects. For the first time in history, satellite television and digital clocks will enable people on every continent and in nearly every country to mark the same turn of the century. “When you have an unknown impending global event, you have to invent a meaning for it,” Mr. Daniels said.

He said die-hard millennium watchers broke down into four groups:
* Evangelical Christians, some of whom believe that Christ will return and that the Battle of Armageddon will be fought sometime around the year 2000.
* Environmentalists, who believe we are polluting and populating ourselves into imminent apocalypse.
* UFO watchers, who believe that aliens are visiting the Earth to warn humans that the end is near.
* New Agers, who believe that 2000 signals the dawn of an enlightened era. Many of them will use the occasion to latch on to theories that they believe prove the apocalypse is near.

That’s because most religious leaders don’t know how to handle discussions about the end, according to James Moorhead, professor of American church history at Princeton Theological Seminary. “Mainline religions haven’t found a convincing way of talking about the end, so that has left an opening for all sorts of surrogates,” he said. “Not that anyone ought to take the Book of Revelation literally.” People have harboured fearful feelings at the end of every century since at least 1300, according to Hillel Schwartz, author of ‘Century’s End: An Orientation Manual Toward the Year 2000' and probably the most celebrated scholar of the millennium.

A typical behaviour at century’s end was the invention of new spiritual frontiers, Mr. Schwartz said.

While such attention to the millennium may seem silly, Mr. Schwartz said, the millennium watchers performed a valuable service. Mr. Schwartz is writing a book called ‘What Are You Going to Do in the Year 2000, Seriously?’ In it, he proposes that people set aside time for spiritual change. Some people, especially some evangelical Christians, believe that the end of the millennium roughly coincides with predictions in the Book of Revelation.

At Hillcrest Church, a 3000-member inter - denominational congregation in north Dallas, for instance, the Rev. Lenny Allen teaches his members to be ready for Jesus’s Second Coming. He believes the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 was a signal that the end is near because it fulfilled biblical prophecy. Now, he says, Christians await the rapture, when they believe they will be spirited to heaven just before the Lord returns to fight the Antichrist in the Battle of Armageddon. Once the battle is over, Jesus reigns on Earth for 1000 years. “Something is in the air,” Mr. Allen said, “Things can’t go on the way they’re going.”

Some people carry their end-time forecasts to extremes that are hard for many Americans to fathom. Richard Kieninger moved to Garland, Texas, in 1976, attracted a small following and began building a utopian community called Adelphi, 80 km east of Dallas. A few years ago, he predicted a cataclysmic earth shift on May 5, 2000, that would cause floods, tidal waves, earthquakes and volcanoes. But, he said, he would be ready. The last anyone heard, he was working on technology to airlift himself in a blimp 20km above the chaos.

For some people, the turn of the century will bring joy. A mellow guy who calls himself the Millennium Doctor is the top cheerleader for what he hopes will be a uniquely Christian celebration. “I’m a physician of the soul” says Jay Gary, a Baptist whose focus is on December 25, rather than December 31. He plans to re-enact the Journey of the Magi in the Middle East, starting from Iraq on August 6, 1998, and travelling overland on camels to arrive in Bethlehem by January 6, 1999.

But it’s not all that simple, even for Christians, says Gerald Barney, head of the Millennium Institute in Arlington, Virginia. “I don’t think we’re doing a good job right now with regard to each other or caring for the Earth,” Barney said.
“I’m not expecting a Second Coming, frankly.” The millennium gave people an opportunity to step back and contemplate history, he said. “The 21st century can’t be a continuation of the past,”
Barney said. Barney has a few ideas. He’s organizing a series of sacred celebrations around the world. The first will be held in 1999 in South Africa, during the Parliament of World Religions. It will open a year of meditation and preparation for the new century. In 2000, Iceland will host an observance in a natural amphitheatre that will include world religious leaders and world youth leaders pledging partnership in making changes.

The following year, youth in Costa Rica will host a final celebration at sunrise.