Richard Cavendish wrote in
Man, Myth and Magic of the Druidic gathering which met at the site now
occupied by Oxford University: “It is said that in 1245 a gathering [of Druids]
was held with representatives from many parts and the objects of the Order were
agreed. A grove or group was founded, the Mount Haemus Grove which still
exists.” (p. 722)

The Cambridge Encyclopedia
states: "Oxford University The oldest university in Britain, having its origins
in informal groups of masters and students gathered in Oxford in the 12th-c...
The closure of the University of Paris to Englishmen in 1167 accelerated
Oxford's development into a universitas... University College 1249." (pp.
823-24)

A History of Pagan
Europe refers
to the Mount Haemas Grove order as the Ancient Order of Druids of Oxford: “In
1781...the Ancient Order of Druids was set up in London by Henry Hurle, as an
esoteric society patterned on Masonic lines. In 1833, a split between the
mystics and those who wanted a friendly society led to the majority forming the
United Ancient of Druids... The mystical side continued as the Albion Lodge of
the Ancient Order of Druids of Oxford, claiming descent from the Mount Haemus
Grove.” (Pennick & Jones, p. 211)

The Oxford Movement

Counter-Reformation in England

“Guided by and
receiving its impetus from Oxford University men, the movement also protested
state interference in the affairs of the church. On July 14, 1833, in response
to the English government's bill reducing bishoprics in Ireland, John Keble
preached the sermon ‘National Apostacy’ from the university pulpit. He accused
the government of infringing on ‘Christ's Church’ and of disavowing the
principle of apostolic succession of the bishops of the Church of England.
Insisting that salvation was possible only through the sacraments, Keble
defended the Church of England as a divine institution. During the same year
John Henry Newman began to publish Tracts for the Times, a series of pamphlets
by members of the University of Oxford that supported and propagated the beliefs
of the movement. They were widely circulated, and the term ‘Tractarianism’ has
often been used for the early stages of the Oxford Movement or, indeed, as a
synonym for the movement itself.

“It is ironic that
these tracts (which were supposed to argue ‘against Popery and Dissent’) would
lead some of the writers and readers into embracing the Roman Catholic Church.
These men found it increasingly impossible to adhere to church polity and
practice on Protestant terms. When Newman argued in Tract 90 (1841) that the
Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England were in harmony with genuine Roman
Catholicism, he was attacked with such furor that the series of tracts was
brought to an end. Early in 1845, realizing that they would never be allowed to
be Anglicans while holding Roman Catholic views, several Oxford reformers joined
the Roman Catholic Church. Newman defected later that year, and by 1864 nearly
one thousand ministers, theological leaders, and Anglican church members
followed his lead. In 1864 Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua was published,
explaining his departure from the Church of England and defending his choice of
the Roman Church as the one true church. Newman was made a Roman Catholic
cardinal in 1879.

“After the
defections in 1845 the movement was no longer dominated by Oxford men and became
more fragmented in its emphases. Edward B Pusey, professor of Hebrew at Oxford
and a contributor to Tracts, emerged as the leader of the Anglo-Catholic party,
which continued to push for doctrinal modifications and a reunion between the
Anglican and Roman churches. Other groups sought to promote High Church ritual
within Anglicanism. Many of the sympathizers the Oxford Movement had gained at
its inception (before anti - Reformation tendencies were observed) continued to
uphold the primary goals and spiritual fervor of the movement. This has had a
great significance upon the theological development, polity, and religious life
of the Church of England for over a century. Anglican eucharistic worship was
transformed, spiritual discipline and monastic orders were revived, social
concern was fostered, and an ecumenical spirit has developed in the Church of
England.” [Source:
Believe]

The Rhodes Scholars

British diamond magnate
Cecil Rhodes created the Rhodes Scholarships to bind together the elite of the
English-speaking countries by bringing promising young men to Oxford University
to “imbibe the English imperial ethos. Successive U.S. administrations (not
least Bill Clinton's) have been stuffed with Rhodes’ Scholars.”

“Quoting from Professor
Carroll Quigley's monumental history, Tragedy and Hope, [Samuel]
Blumenfeld recounts the ‘sensational impact’ that socialist professor John
Ruskin had on the young Cecil Rhodes while a student at Oxford. Later, ‘with
support from Lord Rothschild and Alfred Beit, [Rhodes] was able to monopolize
the diamond mines of South Africa’ and put his enormous, ill-gotten fortune in
diamonds and gold to work in his plan for world empire.

“To accomplish this end,
Rhodes confided to his intimate friend and executor, William T. Stead, it was
necessary to (in Rhodes’ own words) create ‘a society…supported by the
accumulated wealth of those whose aspiration is to do something.’ And this
‘something" that Rhodes had in mind for them to ‘do’ with their wealth? Nothing
less, said Rhodes, than ‘a scheme to take the government of the whole world.’

“These and other revealing
statements are found in an important article on Cecil Rhodes in the New York
Times of April 9, 1902, which Blumenfeld has reprinted in The Rhodes Legacy.

STEALTHY RECRUITING

“The secret society of
which Rhodes spoke was launched, notes Blumenfeld, on February 5, 1891. Forming
the executive committee of this society were Rhodes, Stead, Lord Esher, and
Alfred Milner. Below them was a ‘Circle of Initiates’ comprised of Lord Balfour,
Sir Harry Johnson, Lord Rothschild, Lord Grey, and other scions of Britain's
financial and aristocratic elite. According to Professor Quigley, Bill Clinton's
mentor at Georgetown University, ‘The scholarships were merely a facade to
conceal the secret society, or more accurately, they were to be one of the
instruments by which the members of the secret society could carry out his
purpose.’ ‘The Rhodes Scholarships,’ Blumenfeld writes, ‘as outlined in Rhodes’
will, became the main instrument whereby the most promising young people
throughout the English-speaking world could be recruited to serve an idea that
Rhodes thought would take 200 years to fulfill. And, says Blumenfeld:

“‘Obviously, the way the
secret society would recruit its future leaders from among the Rhodes scholars
was to dangle before them the prospects of future advancement in whatever field
they chose to pursue, be it education, politics, government, foundation work,
finance, journalism, etc. Thus, if you understood the implicit message being
given to you by your sponsors you might one day become president of Harvard,
President of the United States, a Supreme Court Judge, a US senator, or
president of the Carnegie Foundation. The road to fame and fortune was open as
long as you played the game and obeyed the rules. The Association of American
Rhodes Scholars has an alumni membership of about 1,600. They have become
leading figures in the new ruling elite in America.’” [Source:
Reviewing the Rhodes Legacy]

For nearly
twenty years the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS) has been training a
new generation of Evangelical mission scholars and practitioners to become a key
resource to the church in mission in contemporary contexts of complexity and
diversity. It has drawn key people from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern
Europe to its research and post-graduate study programmes.

Through its
publications, including the journal ‘Transformation’ and the study
programmes, OCMS has been a major influence in shaping Evangelical mission
Theology and Strategy in the growing churches of the Two-Third World.

Its
importance has largely been due to the sense of ownership of OCMS by the
Evangelical leadership of the Two-Thirds World. These leaders shape its
agenda and send their younger colleagues for training. The Centre is now
seen as an important instrument in the institutional development of
post-graduate training institutions in the Two-Third Worlds.

?Professor
Andrew Walls––
Professor of Religious Studies , Aberdeen University; Honorary Professor, Edinburgh
University
and Curator of Collections at the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the
Non-Western World:

Names from OCMS listing above

Armerding
was for many years professor of Old Testament and principal
at Regent College
[see below],
Vancouver. In 1968-9 he held a postdoctoral fellowship in archaeology in
Jerusalem. He is currently director of the Schloss Mittersill Study Centre,
Austria, and he is senior academic adviser to the Oxford
Centre for Mission Studies.
In both capacities he works extensively with theological education in the
emerging democracies of eastern Europe. Armerding has published
commentaries, a volume on Old Testament criticism and work on ancient Israel's
charismatic leadership.

Controversy
between Evangelicals and Roman Catholics has been constant since the sixteenth
century. Controversy aims to refute, that is, to show that the positions opposed
are wrong, and ought not to exist in their present form, and that those who
support them need to change. This course is a venture not in controversy but
in
dialogue,
that is, in the kind of exposition and interchange that enables those on both
sides to map in depth the nature and range of their differences, and to see how
it is that both bodies of opinion believe themselves to be discerning and
obeying God’s truth revealed in Christ in those areas where they part company.

Topics for
exploration include: the church, faith & assurance, priesthood & ministry, the
sacramental system, the eucharist, the place of Mary & canonized saints,
purgatory, indulgences, and prayers for the departed and what
Evangelicals and Catholics may and should do together.[emphasis
added]

By virtually all accounts,
J.I. Packer is one of this century's greatest Evangelical statesmen. As he
reaches the golden years of his career we notice that he has begun to take a
serious interest in conservative Christian dialogue with the hopes of forming a
common agenda for the church' s unified witness in the modern world. His work in
"Evangelical ecumenics" (to coin a phrase) began most visibly in his dialogue
with Catholics in 1995 which led to his signing the document "Evangelicals and
Catholics Together." Although his interest in Orthodoxy began much earlier, it
was not until 1995 that it took concrete expression at a conservative ecumenical
gathering of Catholics, Orthodox and Evangelicals called the "Rose Hill"
conference. It was there that Dr. Packer and the present author worked as formal
dialogue partners. At Rose Hill, Packer delivered a paper titled, "On from Orr:
Cultural Crisis, Rational Realism and Incarnational Ontology," to which I
responded with "An Eastern Orthodox Response to J.I. Packer." The dialogue was
followed up in 1997 when Packer and the author
[Bradley
Nassif, Ph.D.]
team-taught a course at Regent College titled, "Eastern Orthodoxy and
Evangelicalism in Dialogue."

PROFESSORS:

J.I. Packer

Some of Dr.
Packer’s books are: Knowing God;Christianity: The True Humanism
(with Thomas Howard), Rediscovering Holiness, Concise Theology,
and A Passion For Faithfulness. Education: Oxford University. Packer is
Director of the Anglican Studies Program
of Regent College; a signer of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together Documents
I and II; co-author of “Resolutions for Roman Catholic and Evangelical
Dialogue”; a signer
of the
Evangelical Declaration on Care of Creation [Interfaith/Earth Summit];a
member of the Board of Reference of Renovaré, a mystical movement founded and
directed by Quaker psychologist, Richard Foster. See
exposes:
Dr. James I. Packer-Rediscovering Holiness;
J.I. Packer: General Teachings/Activities]

Dr. Howard
has written twelve books, including Christianity: The True Humanism,
Evangelical is Not Enough, and On Being
Catholic.

[Ed. Note:
Thomas Howard made the following statement after visiting an Episcopal church,
an experience which led to his being confirmed the Anglican Church and
eventually joining the Roman Catholic Church:
"That time I was pierced to the heart. I was enthralled by the candles and
vestments. I felt as though my heart would break. Something had been touched
inside me, and I could not rest until I attended to it." Source:
Miles J. Stanford]

Bradley Nassif, Ph.D.

Professor, Antiochian
House of Studies (USA), a graduate program of St. John of Damascus Seminary,
Balamand University (Lebanon); Director of academic programs at Fuller
Theological Seminary, Southern California Extension; founder of the Society for
the Study of Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism. [Dr. Nassif defends Orthodox
kissing of icons in
Christianity Today]

which is
Fuller Theological Seminary's Theological Education by Extension/TEE to the
Northwest. Gasque is credited as being the co-founder of Regent College,
Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Regent College is a partner with InterVarsity
Christian Fellowship/IVCF.

Dr. Peter
Kuzmic is the Eva B. and Paul E. Toms Distinguished Professor of World
Missions and European Studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
[Rockefeller-affiliated ATS member].
A native of Slovenia and a citizen of Croatia in former Yugoslavia, Dr. Kuzmic
is the foremost evangelical scholar in Eastern Europe and is considered an
authority on the subject of Christian response to Marxism and on Christian
ministry in post-Communist contexts.

Fluent in
several languages, Dr. Kuzmic completed all his studies summa cum laude. He is a
graduate of a German Bible College; received his B.A. from Southern California
College in Costa Mesa, CA [now
renamed Vangard University which is a partner with Oxford Centre for
Mission Studies];
M.A. from Wheaton Graduate School, Chicago, IL; and M.Th. and D.Th from the
University of Zagreb. In 1992 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity
degree by Asbury Theological Seminary
[Rockefeller-affiliated ATS member].

A former
pastor of two churches, he is a founder and currently the director of the
Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia, the only evangelical
graduate theological institution in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. He is also
co-founder and chairman of the Council of the Evangelical Christians of (former)
Yugoslavia, and president of the Protestant Evangelical Council of Croatia. As
founding president of Agape and New Europe Vision (evangelical relief
ministries in Croatia and Bosnia), he takes an active role in ministering to the
physical and spiritual needs of his fellow citizens.

Dr. Kuzmic
is in great demand as a speaker. His global
platform has included plenary addresses at Lausanne II in Manila (1989), Urbana
(1990), the European Leadership Consultation (1992), the National Association of
Evangelicals Fiftieth Anniversary (1992),
as well as other international gatherings. He has ministered in more than 60
nations on every continent.

An
award-winning writer, Dr. Kuzmic has authored various articles and books
including a major study on the influence of Slavic Bible translations upon
Slavic literature, language and culture. He has also authored two textbooks, The
Gospel of John and Biblical Hermeneutics and has contributed to numerous
compendiums, handbooks and encyclopedias. A columnist for several religious and
secular newspapers, he also serves as editor of Izvori,a Christian monthly
journal in the Croatian language.

From 1986
to 1996, Dr. Kuzmic chaired the Theological Commission of the World Evangelical
Fellowship. He now chairs the Theology and Strategy Working Group of the
Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization.
He is one of the founding executives of the Council of Evangelical Christians of
Yugoslavia…

Dearborn was
educated at Fuller Theological Seminary and was a founder, with Ward
Gasque, of Fuller's Theological Education Extension program, Pacific
Association of Theological Education/PATE when it began in Seattle. At the
same time Dearborn was identified as director of World Vision's Institute for
Global Engagement, founded by then WV President Robert Seiple.

ESA
History Over the
past two decades-plus, Evangelicals for Social Action has become the primary
organizational leader for progressive evangelical voices and a primary
inspiration of renewed evangelical concern for the poor, equality for women and
minorities, and care for the environment.

ESA began
with a weekend meeting of forty prominent evangelical leaders in Chicago in
1973. Dick Ostling of Time said that weekend was the first time in the
twentieth century that a prominent group of evangelical leaders spent that much
time on social issues, and the Chicago Tribune called the meeting the most
important church-related event of 1973. The resulting document, The Chicago
Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern, was a ringing call for Christians
to challenge racial and economic injustice and work for the full dignity and
equality of women and minorities.

ESA and
ESA's founder Dr. Ronald J. Sider (Ph.D., Yale) have long been at the center of
renewed evangelical concern for the poor. Sider's book, Rich Christians in an
Age of Hunger, is now in its fourth edition with over 350,000 copies in
seven different languages. In its cover story on Sider, Christianity Today (evangelicalism's
most influential magazine)
highlighted Sider's and ESA's leadership on the question of economic justice and
listed the publication of Rich Christians along with President Jimmy Carter's
election and Pat Robertson's run for the Presidency as one of the eighteen
especially important events in the emergence of evangelical Christianity in the
last fifty years.

ESA has
played a central role in developing a new evangelical environmental movement in
the last ten years. ESA was the central leader in forming the Evangelical
Environmental Network (one of four partners along with the NCC, the U.S.
Catholic Conference, and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life).[Note:
The EEN web site states that only World Vision and Evangelicals for Social
Action founded this organization.]

EEN, which
ESA continues to lead, now enjoys the active participation of 14 mainstream
evangelical organizations all of whom are strengthening their environmental
work. In early 1995, when a new conservative Congress sought to drastically
weaken the Endangered Species Act, ESA and EEN played a key role in defending
the environment. At a news conference in Washington widely reported on ABC
Evening News and dozens of major newspapers across the U.S., ESA called on
Congress to preserve a strong Endangered Species Act in order to care for God's
creation. A comment by a key environmental staffer at the Sierra Club is widely
accepted in the larger environmental community: "We won this battle because of
the evangelicals."

ESA is a
strong voice for the full equality of women in church and society. ESA has
encouraged the development of Christians for Biblical Equality, the primary
evangelical feminist network, and continues to work with its leaders.

In recent
years, ESA has played a key role in the founding and development of Call to
Renewal
(a progressive network of evangelicals, Catholics, mainline Protestants, and
historic black and Hispanic Christians
coordinated by Jim Wallis),
and continues to be a leader of the evangelical wing of the Call to Renewal.
[See: Constance Cumbey on
Jim Wallis: “Wallis’
group has clearly been mainstream New Age from way back.”]

After World
War II, several of the younger leaders of American Protestant evangelicals
became concerned over what they saw as a lack of commitment among evangelicals
to the proclamation and achievement of social justice. Partly this was a legacy
of the most publicized split between the "fundamentalists" and "liberals" in the
early years of the century which made many evangelicals suspicious of the
so-called social gospel. However, in the 1960's and 1970's some evangelical
preachers, theologians, and educators began to feel that they had gotten too far
away from the Biblical injunctions on helping the poor and oppressed. Some of
these men and women gathered together in Chicago in 1973 to prepare a statement
on the need for Christian social action. According to the letter of invitation
which went out, "At a recent conference at Calvin College, a planning
committee (John Alexander, Myron Augsburger, Paul Henry, Rufus Jones, David O.
Moberg, William Pannell, Richard Pierard, Ronald J. Sider, Lewis Smedes,
and Jim Wallis
[Sojourners and
Call to Renewal]
was formed to plan a Thanksgiving Workshop on Evangelicals and Social Concern.
It is a workshop, not a conference. It will be a time for discussing, praying,
and concrete planning, not a time for listening to papers." At this workshop, a
statement called "A Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern" (also known as
the Chicago Declaration) was signed by participants. In this statement they
admitted that they had individually and corporately participated in forms of
racism and exploitation and pledged themselves, according to a press release, to
"rethink their lifestyle and work for a more just distribution of the world's
resources." Out of this workshop grew the annual meetings of Evangelicals for
Social Actions which were concerned with ways for implementing their concern.
A
Christian feminist group, the Evangelical Women's Caucus, in part grew out of
the meetings of ESA.

Additional Sider Info…

In 1969
Sider served with Bruce Nicholls on the World Evangelical Fellowship/WEF'sTheological Commission and chaired a committee at the 7th WEF General
Assembly, Consultation on a Simple Life Style [one of six consultations]
sponsored jointly by The Theology and Education Group of the Lausanne
Committee for World Evangelization [John
Stott]
and the Unit on Ethics and Society of the Theological Commission of WEF
[Ronald Sider].

Sider is a
corresponding editor for Billy Graham's Christianity Today. His
organization Evangelicals for Social Action has been the recipient of
grants from Pew Charitable Trust and ESA has been involved at the
policy-setting level for faith-based welfare reform.

The ESA
web site links to three ministries which are outworkings of ESA…

[John D.
Perkins, who is a Mission
America
co-chair with Billy Graham and Bill Bright]

?World Relief––an
affiliate of the National
Assoc. of Evangelicals/NAE.

NAE is a
regional member and founder of the World
Evangelical Fellowship/WEF.

Network
9:35 is promoting the
NACSW Convention “Building Communities and Strengthening Families” One of
the keynote speakers for this conference is Marian Wright Edelman,
founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund/CDF.

EEN is a
unique evangelical ministry initiated
by World Vision and Evangelicals for Social Action
as part of a growing movement among Christians to respond faithfully to our
biblical mandate for caring stewardship of God's creation. EEN was formed
because we recognize many environmental problems are fundamentally spiritual
problems. EEN's flagship publication, Creation Care magazine[published by
ESA],
provides you with biblically informed and timely articles on topics ranging from
how to protect your loved ones against environmental threats to how you can more
fully praise the Creator for the wonder of His creation…

Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation

The
declaration is a carefully considered statement on earth stewardship. Since the
day we released it four years ago, hundreds of evangelical leaders in North
America have expressed their agreement with the principles of the declaration by
signing on.

TheEEN
brings together major evangelical ministries, such as InterVarsity Christian
Fellowship and World Vision, for fellowship and strategic planning to
integrate God's mandate for stewardship
into their efforts.

Last year we
reconnected with Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA), which for us has become a
marriage made in heaven. Since the late 70's ESA has been one of the most
respected inter-denominational evangelical voices encouraging the church to
create wholistic ministries that meet the profound needs of our world in Jesus
name (evangelism and social concern). ESA has
invited us to create a
specialized leadership development ministry to college students that allows
these students to rub shoulders with and work alongside some of the most
talented wholistic ministers in the world.
We call this ministry Koinonia Leadership Mission and our goal is to recruit and
train college students to become church related, wholistic ministry servant
leaders!

Both the
Fieldstead Institute [Howard Fieldstead Ahmanson] and the Ethics and
Public Policy Center [Elliot Abrams, CFR
and U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom/USCIRF] are
credited by Amy Sherman for the funding of her book Restorers of Hope:
…church-based ministries that work. The book was a promo for faith-based
welfare reform/charitable choice. The federal welfare legislation passed in
1996. Sherman was the change-agent sent by Manhattan Institute and Hudson
Institute to various states' church networks; advising them on compliance for
becoming FBOs [faith-based organizations].