February 21, 1999 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org)- The following is from What in the World, Vol. 25, No. 3, 1999 --

Pope John Paul II criticizes "Bible-only" thinking in his latest encyclical letter, "Faith and Reason" (Fides et Ratio). The Pope, a onetime philosophy professor, warns against "fideism," the idea that rational knowledge has little value for faith. He condemns "biblicism" as "one currently widespread" symptom of the problem. John Paul redefines biblicism as the tendency "to make the reading and exegesis of Scripture the sole criterion of truth." The rule of Christian faith, the Pope claims, is unity among three sources of truth: "Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture, and the Magisterium [teaching authority] of the Church" (What in the World, Vol. 25, No. 3, 1999).

CONCLUDING NOTE FROM BRO. CLOUD: Those who claim to be "evangelical" or Bible believers but who speak highly of Pope John Paul II (i.e., Billy Graham, Jack Van Impe, Pat Robertson, Bill Bright, James Robison, Chuck Colson, Paul Crouch, and hundreds of others) are traitors to the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3).