Vision of holy war in China disturbs TV pastor

Some advisors to the producers of God TV, broadcast on cable television in Hong Kong are worried about the prophecies offered in a book by Wendy Alec, God TV co-founder.

South China Morning Post/June 6, 2004
By Simon Parry

Hong Kong -- A church leader who acted as an adviser to evangelist channel God TV in the run-up to its Hong Kong launch is disturbed by apocalyptic prophesies about China written by the station's co-founder.

Pastor Dennis Balcombe, of Hong Kong's Revival Christian Church, said he was "very concerned" about extracts from Wendy Alec's book Journal Of The Unknown Prophet and would contact network executives about the matter. He was anxious to find out whether Mrs Alec's vision of a bloody showdown between good and evil on the mainland was also being promoted on the channel, which began broadcasting on Hong Kong's Cable TV in January.

Pastor Balcombe, 59, has been a minister in Hong Kong for 35 years and was an unofficial, unpaid adviser to God TV, meeting Mrs Alec's husband and network co-founder Rory Alec before the Hong Kong launch. He is quoted supporting the network on God TV's website.

However, he said he knew nothing before or after the launch of Mrs Alec's book, published last year and reprinted this year, in which she predicts a bloody conflict in China in which "Holy Warring Angels" will go to war against "the satanic Princes of the East".

In the book, sold over the God TV website, Mrs Alec - whose network now claims to reach more than 200 million potential viewers worldwide - presents a series of visions she claims to have received from God between 1999 and 2002.

Comparing the battle to spread Christianity in China with the fall of the Berlin Wall, she writes: "A voice of utterance that shall resound in Shanghai. It shall resound in Beijing. It shall resound in Taiwan. It shall resound in Hong Kong. And so the flame of revival shall rise from My believers and shall blaze across China."

Pastor Balcombe said: "I am very concerned about this kind of prophecy of a great bloodbath in China. Personally I don't believe it ... It gives a negative view of what Christianity is supposed to be about."

A God TV insider said Mrs Alec's prophecy of a showdown was not based on the current Chinese leadership and that the bloody conflict she predicted could be 100 years away.

Pastor Balcombe said he liked what he had seen of God TV so far. "I think Christian TV is a good thing and I know people in Guangdong are watching it with illegal satellites," he said.

Wendy and Rory Alec declined requests from the Sunday Morning Post for an interview and did not respond to e-mailed questions.

But God TV spokesman Mark Cullen said: "We have decided not to comment further on your particular interpretation of the story."

A spokeswoman for Cable TV, which has a one-year deal with God TV, said it would not be speaking to the network about Mrs Alec's writings. "Our only concern ... is whether the channel meets local programming standards," she said.