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November 15, 2015
Hugh Hefner
Playboy Mansion
10236 Charing Cross Road
Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815
Dear Mr. Hefner,
This is the seventh letter I have written you and I have chosen to write it on the 10th anniversary of the passing of one of the most influential people in my life. My hometown pastor at Bellevue Baptist in Memphis, Adrian Rogers, was my pastor from 1975 to 1983 when I was 14 to 21 years old and he influenced me in this crucial time of my life.
I attended his funeral and I was touched by speakers such as my youth choir director James Whitmire, my College Director Ken Whitten, our family friend Bob Sorrell and current Bellevue pastor Steve Gaines.
Two other notable people who spoke were James Dobson,founder of Focus on the Family and by video the Evangelist Billy Graham. Graham noted, “We need for ministers of the Gospel to defend the Bible as the infallible Word of God…I believe in my heart that Adrian Rogers was such a man. I knew him personally. I had walked with him and prayed with him…I know God’s hand was upon Adrian Rogers as he proclaimed the Bread of Life from his church and through radio and television…I praise God for his ministry.”
Later in this letter I will return to this subject of the historical accuracy of the Bible. Adrian Rogers actually was remembered among other things for his contribution in this area in Southern Baptist life. In fact, one of my favorite sermons by him is called, HOW YOU CAN BE CERTAIN THE BIBLE IS THE WORD OF GOD and you can watch this message on You Tube.Just two days ago it was Friday the 13th which is a pretty spooky day usually, and I wanted to talk to you about a subject that most people would consider very scary but it is the subject that Billy Graham has chosen for the last book he will ever write. I was privileged to hear Billy Graham speak both in Memphis in 1978 and in Little Rock in 1989.On Sunday November 8, 2015, I was in Memphis at my parents’ home getting ready to go to church when I saw the “Keeping the Faith” segment on Fox News with Franklin Graham. Speaking of his father Billy Graham he noted:He just turned 97 on Saturday and he is still with us and his mind is still sharp and he received about a dozen cakes and he took a bite out of everyone of them. He has no ailments than other his age. He doesn’t hear well or see well but his mind is clear and he can understand you and can communicate with him.This book was 90% completed by his 95th birthday but he got sick right after that and we didn’t think he would live to Christmas that year and we put the book aside but then last year when he doing pretty good we got it back out so he could finished it when he was doing pretty good.At 97 he is getting close to eternity (in the afterlife) he knows that and he wants people to know there is a heaven and a hell.In “Where I Am: Heaven, Eternity and Our Life Beyond,” Billy Graham asserted, “As a Christian and a preacher of the Gospel, I am always grieved to have to interrupt a marvelous picture, such as eternal life in Heaven, to talk about another eternal place that Jesus calls Hell…It has no similarities to what is typically called home, nor is Hell a resting place, a holding place, or a graveyard. Hell is a burning inferno…I can say with certainty that if there is no literal fire in Hell, then God is using symbolic language to indicate something far worse…Just as there are no words to adequately describe the grand beauty of Heaven, we cannot begin to imagine just how horrible the place called Hell is.”But there is hope if one repents and puts his or her faith in Christ alone for eternal life.“We need to say either yes or no. But some of us say maybe. Some of us try to straddle the fence and live in both worlds, but Jesus will not compromise with us. The Gospel plan is all set. We must accept His Son if we are to enter into His eternal kingdom. If your answer is not yes, then the choice is made.”
Adrian Rogers once noted:
When people think of Hell, they picture the devil as a comical character wearing a red suit with horns, a tail and a pitchfork, making people shovel coal. Satan loves that image because we laugh at it.
Satan promotes laughter about Hell because if people don’t understand the teaching of Hell, they’ll not prepare to go to Heaven, to give their hearts to Christ.
It makes no difference if all the scholars, preachers, scientists, statesmen, politicians and liberal theologians put together say there is no Hell, it wouldn’t change one letter of what the Word of God says.
Often the minister who preaches on Hell is accused of being unloving. With a sneer the world loves to call him a “hell-fire and damnation preacher.” The late, great Dr. Robert G. Lee said,
I know some people call the preacher who stands squarely upon the teaching of Christ and His apostles narrow, harsh, and cruel. As to being narrow, I have no desire to any broader than was Jesus. As to being cruel, is it cruel to tell a man the truth? Is a man to be called cruel who declares the whole counsel of God and points out to men their danger? Is it cruel to arouse sleeping people to the fact that the house is on fire? Is it cruel to jerk a blind man away from the rattlesnake in the coil? Is it cruel to declare to people the deadliness of disease and tell them which medicine to take? I had rather be called cruel for being kind, than to be called kind for being cruel.
The cruelest thing we could do would be to fail to warn people about Hell and what the Bible has to say about it. To ridicule a preacher who warns of Hell is like ridiculing a doctor who warns of cancer. Hell is not a pleasant subject, but it is a reality.
HUGH DON’T YOU WANT TO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT BECOMING A CHRISTIAN SO YOU CAN GO TO HEAVEN AND AVOID PUNISHMENT. IT IS NOT TOO LATE.
“But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’” (1 Corinthians 2:9)
In the article “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Billy Graham & Me (EXCERPT)” on March 19, 2013 I read these words by a political hero of yours, Bill Clinton:
When I was governor, Billy came to Little Rock for another crusade, and we traveled together to visit my pastor, W.O. Vaught, who was dying of cancer. I’ll never forget their conversation – about faith and fears, life and death. It was my first real glimpse of Billy the private man. He went to the home of my pastor and offered him comfort, saying that he too had lived a long life, and would see him again soon “just inside the Eastern Gate.” He lived his faith when no one was looking.
In 1974 in an interview with R. Couri Hay YOU NOTED:
Beyond a certain point a person would be a fool to suggest that he really knows the answers and I don’t. In other words, I have no idea what we are doing here, but we are here and that wasn’t just man’s invention. I mean there is something beyond all of this and whether it has a purpose or a point, grander plan. I don’t know. No one knows and those who pretend to know strike me as being rather pompous.
THREE POINTS YOU ARE MAKING.
- YOU DON’T HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS. 2. THERE IS SOMETHING BEYOND ALL OF THIS BUT YOU DON’T KNOW IF THERE IS A PURPOSE OR NOT. 3. THOSE WHO PRETEND TO KNOW ARE POMPOUS.
Number one, thank you for admitting that you don’t have all the answers.
Number two, the scientist Blaise Pascal in his book Pensées gave the reason for your second observation:
“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11a Amplified Bible (AMP)
11 He has made everything beautiful and appropriate in its time. He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God]
The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
Number three, those Christians like me who claim that God has spoken truth in the Bible do have evidence to back up that view and below is some of that evidence.
The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted. Below is a piece of that evidence given by Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop concerning the accuracy of the Bible.
The following is an excerpt from TRUTH AND HISTORY (chapter 5 of WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?, under footnote #94):
So the story goes on. We have stopped at only a few incidents in the sweep back to the year 1000 B.C. What we hope has emerged from this is a sense of the historical reliability of the Bible’s text. When the Bible refers to historical incidents, it is speaking about the same sort of “history” that historians examine elsewhere in other cultures and periods. This borne out by the fact that some of the incidents, some of the individuals, and some of the places have been confirmed by archaeological discoveries in the past hundred years has swept away the possibility of a naive skepticism about the Bible’s history.And what is particularly striking is that the tide has built up concerning the time before the year 1000 B.C. Our knowledge about the years 2500 B.C. to 1000 B.C. has vastly increased through discoveries sometimes of whole libraries and even of hitherto unknown people and languages.
There was a time, for example, when the Hittite people, referred to in the early parts of the Bible, were treated as fictitious by critical scholars. Then came the discoveries after 1906 at Boghaz Koi (Boghaz-koy) which not only gave us the certainty of their existence but stacks of details from their own archives!
Here is an excerpt from the article, “Archaeology and the Old Testament,” which is on the website of Probe Ministries:
The Discovery of the Hittites
The Hittites played a prominent role in Old Testament history. They interacted with biblical figures as early as Abraham and as late as Solomon. They are mentioned in Genesis 15:20 as people who inhabited the land of Canaan. 1 Kings 10:29 records that they purchased chariots and horses from King Solomon. The most prominent Hittite is Uriah the husband of Bathsheba. The Hittites were a powerful force in the Middle East from 1750 B.C. until 1200 B.C. Prior to the late 19th century, nothing was known of the Hittites outside the Bible, and many critics alleged that they were an invention of the biblical authors.
In 1876 a dramatic discovery changed this perception. A British scholar named A. H. Sayce found inscriptions carved on rocks in Turkey. He suspected that they might be evidence of the Hittite nation. Ten years later, more clay tablets were found in Turkey at a place called Boghaz-koy. German cuneiform expert Hugo Winckler investigated the tablets and began his own expedition at the site in 1906.
Winckler’s excavations uncovered five temples, a fortified citadel and several massive sculptures. In one storeroom he found over ten thousand clay tablets. One of the documents proved to be a record of a treaty between Ramesses II and the Hittite king. Other tablets showed that Boghaz-koy was the capital of the Hittite kingdom. Its original name was Hattusha and the city covered an area of 300 acres. The Hittite nation had been discovered!
Less than a decade after Winckler’s find, Czech scholar Bedrich Hronzny proved the Hittite language is an early relative of the Indo-European languages of Greek, Latin, French, German, and English. The Hittite language now has a central place in the study of the history of the Indo-European languages.
The discovery also confirmed other biblical facts. Five temples were found containing many tablets with details of the rites and ceremonies that priests performed. These ceremonies described rites for purification from sin and purification of a new temple. The instructions proved to be very elaborate and lengthy. Critics once criticized the laws and instructions found in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy as too complicated for the time it was written (1400 B.C.). The Boghaz-koy texts along with others from Egyptian sites and a site along the Euphrates called Emar have proven that the ceremonies described in the Jewish Pentateuch are consistent with the ceremonies of the cultures of this time period.
The Hittite Empire made treaties with civilizations they conquered. Two dozen of these have been translated and provide a better understanding of treaties in the Old Testament. The discovery of the Hittite Empire at Boghaz-koy has significantly advanced our understanding of the patriarchal period. Dr. Fred Wright summarizes the importance of this find in regard to biblical historicity:
Now the Bible picture of this people fits in perfectly with what we know of the Hittite nation from the monuments. As an empire they never conquered the land of Canaan itself, although the Hittite local tribes did settle there at an early date. Nothing discovered by the excavators has in any way discredited the Biblical account. Scripture accuracy has once more been proved by the archaeologist.4
The discovery of the Hittites has proven to be one of the great archaeological finds of all time. It has helped to confirm the biblical narrative and had a great impact on Middle East archaeological study. Because of it, we have come to a greater understanding of the history of our language, as well as the religious, social, and political practices of the ancient Middle East.
Hefner family below:
I read about your mother Grace being a Bible-believing Christian. Al Mohler of Southern Baptist Seminary noted, “Hefner’s Methodist mother wanted him to be a missionary. In a very real sense, she got her wish in reverse. Hefner became a missionary all right, but a missionary that preached a rejection of the Christian sexual ethic.”
It is not too late for anyone to seek forgiveness. II Peter 3:9: The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
Growing up in church you probably memorized John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
In this letter I have attempted to demonstrate to you that the Biblical Christianity that your parents brought you up in is based on revealed truth and the Bible is historically accurate. In a previous letter I quoted you portions of the great sermon PAYDAY SOMEDAY by Robert G. Lee and in today’s letter I quoted both Billy Graham and Adrian Rogers on hell. But I wanted to end with just a portion of that quote by Lee that Adrian Rogers used:
Is a man to be called cruel who declares the whole counsel of God and points out to men their danger? Is it cruel to arouse sleeping people to the fact that the house is on fire?
Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.
Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221
PS: I plan to write you again and will be responding to your past statements like I did today. Today I responded to three points that you made about those who say they know that God has spoken truth in the Bible. I would very interested in any feedback you may have.
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Featured artist is William Kentridge
William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1955. He attended the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (1973–76), Johannesburg Art Foundation (1976–78), and studied mime and theater at L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, Paris (1981–82). Having witnessed first-hand one of the twentieth century’s most contentious struggles—the dissolution of apartheid—Kentridge brings the ambiguity and subtlety of personal experience to public subjects that are most often framed in narrowly defined terms.
Using film, drawing, sculpture, animation, and performance, he transmutes sobering political events into powerful poetic allegories. In a now-signature technique, Kentridge photographs his charcoal drawings and paper collages over time, recording scenes as they evolve. Working without a script or storyboard, he plots out each animated film, preserving every addition and erasure. Aware of myriad ways in which we construct the world by looking, Kentridge uses stereoscopic viewers and creates optical illusions with anamorphic projection, to extend his drawings-in-time into three dimensions.
Kentridge has had major exhibitions at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2009); Philadelphia Museum of Art (2008); Moderna Museet, Stockholm, (2007); and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2004); among others. He has also participated in Prospect.1 New Orleans (2008); the Sydney Biennale (1996, 2008); and Documenta (1997, 2002). His opera and theater works, often produced in collaboration with Handspring Puppet Company, have appeared at Brooklyn Academy of Music (2007); Standard Bank National Arts Festival, Grahamstown, South Africa (1992, 1996, 1998); and Festival d’Avignon, France (1995, 1996).
His production of Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera, The Nose, premiered in 2010 at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in conjunction with a retrospective organized by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. William Kentridge lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa
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The Daily Hatch 