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The Millennium Bug Debugged
Findings and Facts About an Issue Dividing Christians Have you heard the one about the grandfather who got notified that he was to report to kindergarten because of Y2K problems? Perhaps you heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend-. But where does tale come from? Is there any truth behind the stories, rumors, and suppositions floating around through popular culture and even respected sources?
- GenresNonfiction
143 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
12 people want to read
About the author
Hank Hanegraaff
110 books133 followersHendrik "Hank" Hanegraaff, also known as the "Bible Answer Man", is an American Christian author and radio talk-show host. Formerly an evangelical Protestant, he joined the Eastern Orthodox Church in 2017. He is an outspoken figure within the Christian countercult movement, where he has established a reputation for his critiques of non-Christian religions, new religious movements, and cults, as well as heresy in Christianity. He is also an apologist on doctrinal and cultural issues.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 16, 2023
THE ‘BIBLE ANSWER MAN’ DISCOUNTS ‘ALARMING’ AND ‘UNVERIFIED’ REPORTS
Author (and ‘Bible Answer Man’ and head of the Christian Research Institute) Hank Hanegraaff wrote in the introductory section of this 1999 book, “If ever there was an issue I did not want to tackle, it was Y2K! Frankly, I did everything I could to avoid it. But as major broadcast ministries ranging from Focus On the Family to the Old Time Gospel Hour publicly aired their perspectives on the ‘millennium bug,’ calls and communications from virtually every sector of cascaded into the offices of the Christian Research Institute. Pastors were desperate to know what to communicate to their congregations. Parishioners wanted to know whether they should pull their savings out of the bank or retirement accounts. One couple wondered whether they should bring a baby into a world about to go berserk. The sentiments ranged from acrimony to anxiety.” (Pg. 16)
He continues, “I proceeded, fully aware that I would pay a significant personal price for speaking out against the selling and sensationalism surrounding this issue. Already I have been accused of ‘breeding complacency’ within the body of Christ. Some even suggest I am endangering the lives of my wife and eight children … it has been asserted that ‘I stand to hold the blood of many people’ on my hands. It is my firm conviction, however, that the ministry is not a place to strive for popularity or political correctness. Rather, my concern must be for the well-being of the body of Christ.. As evidenced by the letters above, people are being significantly frightened by what they are hearing from Christian leaders regarding Y2K, I am deeply grieved over the spiritual, emotional, and financial havoc that so many have already suffered. It is my prayer that this material will (1) provide a much-needed antidote; (2) provide Christians with discernment skills so the next time they face an issue like Y2K---as they surely will---they will be equipped to discern wheat from charr and heat from light; and (3) produce a greater awareness of the damage done by selling fear, sloppy journalism, sophistry, ‘Scriptorture,’ and schisms in the church.” (Pg. 20)
He recounts, “Prior to spending thousands of dollars on [Michael] Hyatt’s food storage plan, buying [Don] McAlvany’s gold, or investing in [Chuck] Missler’s seminars and sermons, in decided to check out their stories and statistics. Sadly, such investigative journalism has become a virtual dinosaur in the Christian community. As a result, sloppy journalism has been allowed to run wild.” (Pg. 50) He continues, “Michael Hyatt … reports … as follows: ‘In Kansas, a 104-year old woman was given a notice to enter kindergarten.’ …Chuck Missler repeated Hyatt’s words verbatim… I was somewhat suspicious of the story… While there was a centenarian in Minnesota … who received a notice from the local Roman Catholic school system (not the government or the Minnesota Department of Education) to enroll in kindergarten in 1993, the letter was not sent out due to a computer glitch but due to a human error… Sadly, long after I informed Hyatt of his faulty conclusions, he continues to circulate the story complete with the original errors.” (Pg. 50-51)
He states, “The consequences to Christianity might best be communicated by revisiting a report circulated worldwide by the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) that scientists had discovered hell in Siberia. According to the story, scientists drilled a hole nine miles into the hole, and heard the voices of thousands… screaming in agony. Paul and Jan Crouch, founders of TBN, claimed their tale was documented by major newspaper accounts as well as a letter from a Scandinavian Christian. The documented newspaper account turned out to be nothing more than a fabrication---a sensational story printed by a Charismatic tabloid with no factual basis. And the letter? It turned out to be a hoax concocted by a man… to demonstrate just how easily Christians can be duped.” (Pg. 54- 55)
He asserts, “Men like Missler appear to be bent on creating a Y2K panic. They tell a story and then postulate a plethora of preposterous ‘what it’ scenarios. In the case of the Department of Defense, Missler intoned,. ‘It is a known fact that much of the same computer software running many of our American programs has been stolen by the Russians and Chinese. What would happen if they were to solve our Y2K computer problems and they didn’t?’ Such sophistry is now so rampant that emergencies are cropping up behind virtually every bush.” (Pg. 61)
He explains, “I should emphasize that as one exaggerated emergency after another evaporates, the line of demarcation between those who are simply misled and those doing the misleading becomes more evident. Exploiters create new emergencies. The exploited confess their error.” [He quotes Jerry Falwell and James Dobson as among those who have retracted their earlier ‘alarmist’ statements.] (Pg. 62-63)
He argues, “The greatest danger most Christians face is not the millennium bug but the bad financial advice that is being circulated by an ever-increasing number of Christian leaders. Larry Burkett provides a classic case in point…. Burkett’s 1994 prognostications were not vague generalities. Instead, he seemed perfectly willing to put his credibility on the line. In his words: ‘We are going to have a rapid deflation of our economy… And I don’t mean inflation like we saw under Jimmy Carter… It will be 14 or 15 percent a month, and then 20 and then 25 and then 100 percent… and then 1000 percent a month.’” (Pg. 77-78)
He observes, “let me point out that undue pessimism is exacerbating the emerging schism in the church… When [D. James Kennedy] explained Y2K to [his wife]… she responded, ‘Well, Bill Gates will fix it.’ Kennedy had to warn her that even Bill Gates admitted, ‘I can’t fix it. It’s bigger than I am.’ In truth, Gates said nothing of the sort… Gates wrote an essay on Y2K in which he said, ‘If everyone pays attention to the right things and does a good job, the New Year celebration will be about what didn’t happen. We’ll be celebrating the fact that our computers just kept on running.’ Gates has also communicated that ‘he expects minimal Y2K problems in the United States.’” (Pg. 83)
He concludes, “As we head for the new millennium, it is my deepest desire that those who have made life decisions based on sloppy journalism, sophistry, and Scriptorture will commit themselves to developing the necessary skills to discern wheat from chaff and heat from light. If we do, the next time we face the selling and subjectivism of Christian sensationalists---as we surely will---Christians will be unified around truth rather than divided by error.” (Pg. 97)
This book was one of the helpful ‘minority’ of ‘Christian’ books (others include Dave Hunt’s ‘Y2K: A Reasoned Response’ and Arnold Froese’s ‘When Y2K Dies’) offering a more rational approach to Y2K.
Author (and ‘Bible Answer Man’ and head of the Christian Research Institute) Hank Hanegraaff wrote in the introductory section of this 1999 book, “If ever there was an issue I did not want to tackle, it was Y2K! Frankly, I did everything I could to avoid it. But as major broadcast ministries ranging from Focus On the Family to the Old Time Gospel Hour publicly aired their perspectives on the ‘millennium bug,’ calls and communications from virtually every sector of cascaded into the offices of the Christian Research Institute. Pastors were desperate to know what to communicate to their congregations. Parishioners wanted to know whether they should pull their savings out of the bank or retirement accounts. One couple wondered whether they should bring a baby into a world about to go berserk. The sentiments ranged from acrimony to anxiety.” (Pg. 16)
He continues, “I proceeded, fully aware that I would pay a significant personal price for speaking out against the selling and sensationalism surrounding this issue. Already I have been accused of ‘breeding complacency’ within the body of Christ. Some even suggest I am endangering the lives of my wife and eight children … it has been asserted that ‘I stand to hold the blood of many people’ on my hands. It is my firm conviction, however, that the ministry is not a place to strive for popularity or political correctness. Rather, my concern must be for the well-being of the body of Christ.. As evidenced by the letters above, people are being significantly frightened by what they are hearing from Christian leaders regarding Y2K, I am deeply grieved over the spiritual, emotional, and financial havoc that so many have already suffered. It is my prayer that this material will (1) provide a much-needed antidote; (2) provide Christians with discernment skills so the next time they face an issue like Y2K---as they surely will---they will be equipped to discern wheat from charr and heat from light; and (3) produce a greater awareness of the damage done by selling fear, sloppy journalism, sophistry, ‘Scriptorture,’ and schisms in the church.” (Pg. 20)
He recounts, “Prior to spending thousands of dollars on [Michael] Hyatt’s food storage plan, buying [Don] McAlvany’s gold, or investing in [Chuck] Missler’s seminars and sermons, in decided to check out their stories and statistics. Sadly, such investigative journalism has become a virtual dinosaur in the Christian community. As a result, sloppy journalism has been allowed to run wild.” (Pg. 50) He continues, “Michael Hyatt … reports … as follows: ‘In Kansas, a 104-year old woman was given a notice to enter kindergarten.’ …Chuck Missler repeated Hyatt’s words verbatim… I was somewhat suspicious of the story… While there was a centenarian in Minnesota … who received a notice from the local Roman Catholic school system (not the government or the Minnesota Department of Education) to enroll in kindergarten in 1993, the letter was not sent out due to a computer glitch but due to a human error… Sadly, long after I informed Hyatt of his faulty conclusions, he continues to circulate the story complete with the original errors.” (Pg. 50-51)
He states, “The consequences to Christianity might best be communicated by revisiting a report circulated worldwide by the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) that scientists had discovered hell in Siberia. According to the story, scientists drilled a hole nine miles into the hole, and heard the voices of thousands… screaming in agony. Paul and Jan Crouch, founders of TBN, claimed their tale was documented by major newspaper accounts as well as a letter from a Scandinavian Christian. The documented newspaper account turned out to be nothing more than a fabrication---a sensational story printed by a Charismatic tabloid with no factual basis. And the letter? It turned out to be a hoax concocted by a man… to demonstrate just how easily Christians can be duped.” (Pg. 54- 55)
He asserts, “Men like Missler appear to be bent on creating a Y2K panic. They tell a story and then postulate a plethora of preposterous ‘what it’ scenarios. In the case of the Department of Defense, Missler intoned,. ‘It is a known fact that much of the same computer software running many of our American programs has been stolen by the Russians and Chinese. What would happen if they were to solve our Y2K computer problems and they didn’t?’ Such sophistry is now so rampant that emergencies are cropping up behind virtually every bush.” (Pg. 61)
He explains, “I should emphasize that as one exaggerated emergency after another evaporates, the line of demarcation between those who are simply misled and those doing the misleading becomes more evident. Exploiters create new emergencies. The exploited confess their error.” [He quotes Jerry Falwell and James Dobson as among those who have retracted their earlier ‘alarmist’ statements.] (Pg. 62-63)
He argues, “The greatest danger most Christians face is not the millennium bug but the bad financial advice that is being circulated by an ever-increasing number of Christian leaders. Larry Burkett provides a classic case in point…. Burkett’s 1994 prognostications were not vague generalities. Instead, he seemed perfectly willing to put his credibility on the line. In his words: ‘We are going to have a rapid deflation of our economy… And I don’t mean inflation like we saw under Jimmy Carter… It will be 14 or 15 percent a month, and then 20 and then 25 and then 100 percent… and then 1000 percent a month.’” (Pg. 77-78)
He observes, “let me point out that undue pessimism is exacerbating the emerging schism in the church… When [D. James Kennedy] explained Y2K to [his wife]… she responded, ‘Well, Bill Gates will fix it.’ Kennedy had to warn her that even Bill Gates admitted, ‘I can’t fix it. It’s bigger than I am.’ In truth, Gates said nothing of the sort… Gates wrote an essay on Y2K in which he said, ‘If everyone pays attention to the right things and does a good job, the New Year celebration will be about what didn’t happen. We’ll be celebrating the fact that our computers just kept on running.’ Gates has also communicated that ‘he expects minimal Y2K problems in the United States.’” (Pg. 83)
He concludes, “As we head for the new millennium, it is my deepest desire that those who have made life decisions based on sloppy journalism, sophistry, and Scriptorture will commit themselves to developing the necessary skills to discern wheat from chaff and heat from light. If we do, the next time we face the selling and subjectivism of Christian sensationalists---as we surely will---Christians will be unified around truth rather than divided by error.” (Pg. 97)
This book was one of the helpful ‘minority’ of ‘Christian’ books (others include Dave Hunt’s ‘Y2K: A Reasoned Response’ and Arnold Froese’s ‘When Y2K Dies’) offering a more rational approach to Y2K.
December 25, 2023
.
The Millennium Bug Debugged:
The facts behind all the Y2K sensationalism, by Hank Hanegraaff
pub. 1999, less than 150 pages.
Overview:
Hanegraaff had not intended to tackle the Y2K issue. But when CRI (the Christian Research Institute) was bombarded with queries about the alarms sounding throughout all sectors of Christendom, he felt a mandate to investigate and present his findings. What he discovered runs the gamut from profiteering to careless journalism to simple gullibility.
Specifically the gullible were in the Christian community, who tended to believe and even prepare for the end times that Y2K was said to possibly bring about. The secular world and news media seemed confident the problem would be fixed (which it was) with little or no disruptions.
What an embarrassment.
The Millennium Bug Debugged:
The facts behind all the Y2K sensationalism, by Hank Hanegraaff
pub. 1999, less than 150 pages.
Overview:
Hanegraaff had not intended to tackle the Y2K issue. But when CRI (the Christian Research Institute) was bombarded with queries about the alarms sounding throughout all sectors of Christendom, he felt a mandate to investigate and present his findings. What he discovered runs the gamut from profiteering to careless journalism to simple gullibility.
Specifically the gullible were in the Christian community, who tended to believe and even prepare for the end times that Y2K was said to possibly bring about. The secular world and news media seemed confident the problem would be fixed (which it was) with little or no disruptions.
What an embarrassment.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews