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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JULY 17, 1981
PAGE 6
I'm happy to be a teen in God's Church!
There is so much to look
forward to in God's soon-coming Kingdom.
And the pathway entering
into His Kingdom is education and character building.
One fantastic way you've found to reach and educate the youths in
God's Church is through Y.O.U. This program started the year I turned
twelve, thus I've been a part of it since the very beginning--when it
was just a small group of teens meeting every Sabbath for Bible class.
Today we have officers, sports, activities, fund-raisers, ways to
serve our church, and we have our own personalized magazine--YOUTH 81.
Y.O.U. has grown so much and changed in so many ways since it first
began six years ago. More importantly, Y.O.U. has made us realize how
lucky we are to be eligible to become future leaders in God's Kingdom.
Who could ask for more?
P.B. (Chicago, IL)
ON THE WORLD SCENE
CRISES MOUNT FOR BRITAIN They are calling it Britain's "long, hot summer."
A worsening war against the IRA in Northern Ireland has now been joined,
rather suddenly, by unprecedented street riots and looting. And above all
hangs the threatened dissolution of the Commonwealth.
Night after night of rioting and looting have turned inner-city commercial
areas of England's largest cities into charred remains. On July 12, dis
turbances spread even to Scotland. Britain's reputation as an orderly,
law-abiding society has been permanently damaged.
Beleaguered police
forces have often been caught in the middle between battling groups of
young people--West Indian blacks or East Asians on one side and nee-fascist
"skinhead" white youths on the other. The gunless bobby may not be for
long.
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher denounced the rioters for embarking on a
"spree of naked greed." She disputed assertions on the part of opposition
liberal Labor Party politicians that Britain's current economic plight was
largely to blame for the rioting. "There are many poor societies," said the
Prime Minister, "which are scrupulously honorable in everything they do and
would not sink to some of the things we have seen."
Backing up her
appeared to be
doing in their
"telly."
claims, Mrs. Thatcher observed that much of the trouble
spontaneous, opportunistic "copycat" rioting--with youths
localities what they had seen the night before on the
In a mirror-image of the United States in the 1960s, police in high-crime
immigrant areas have been accused of "brutality" or "harrassment." But the
fact is, crime rates are extremely high in certain neighborhoods, especial
ly those inhabited by West Indian blacks, which have a high incidence of
family breakdown, leaving thousands of directionless youths to roam the
streets, some of them joined together in predatory "wolf packs." Clashes
with police were inevitable.
Left-wing teachers, clergymen and social workers have been feeding on this
fermenting discontent, making the youths feel they are "victims of
society." Outright Marxist factions have stepped in to try to mobilize the
malcontents.