The following is another installment of the Friday Church News Notes:

CHURCHES ARE NEGLECTING DISCIPLINE. Friday Church News Notes, December 21, 2001 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) One of the root problems with the lack of spiritual power and zeal in Baptist churches today is the neglect of discipline. This affects nations as a whole. Across the length and breadth of the land there are unrepentant moral reprobates and heretics on the rolls of Baptist churches; and neglect of discipline is not a problem that is isolated to the Baptists. It is spread across the entire realm of "evangelicalism." In "Church Discipline: The Missing Mark," R. Albert Mohler, Jr., recently observed: "The decline of church discipline is perhaps the most visible failure of the contemporary church. No longer concerned with maintaining purity of confession or lifestyle, the contemporary church sees itself as a voluntary association of autonomous members, with minimal moral accountability to God, must less to each other. . . . The present generation of both ministers and church members is virtually without experience of biblical discipline. . . . By the 1960s, only a minority of churches even pretended to practice regulative church discipline. . . . Consumed with pragmatic methods of church growth and congregational engineering, most churches leave moral matters to the domain of the individual conscience" (from chapter 8 of The Compromised Church, edited by John H. Armstrong, Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1998).Even among staunch fundamental Baptist churches there is a rapid decline in the practice of church discipline. Most of the big ones simply don't practice discipline, and have not done so for many decades. Even many of the smaller ones are too busy trying to build impressive numbers that they avoid anything that would interfere with the potential for growth.

MANY SUPPORTING THE TORONTO PRINTER WHO REFUSED TO PRINT FOR HOMOSEXUAL ORGANIZATIONS. Friday Church News Notes, December 21, 2001 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) Many are speaking out in support of the Toronto printer who has been fined heavily for refusing to print material for a homosexual organization. Scott Brockie, owner of Imaging Excellence, is appealing a $5,000 fine levied in February 2000 by the Ontario Human Rights Commission after he refused to print materials for the Canadian Gay and Lesbian Archives. He says that he refused the work because of his Christian beliefs. Brockie was represented in his recent appeal to the Ontario Divisional Court by a lawyer associated with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. He also has the support of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which said people should be able to refuse to assist causes they don't agree with. The Ontario Human Rights Commission found that even though Brockie refused the work because of sincerely held religious beliefs, it is reasonable to limit his freedom of religion "in order to prevent the very real harm to members of the lesbian and gay community." That is nonsense. What harm? They simply had to go to another printer. In reality, the Ontario Human Rights Commission is persecuting a Canadian citizen for his religious beliefs. This reminds us that when a government gives homosexuals their "rights," Bible believers lose theirs. (Religious organizations in Canada are thus far except from the discrimination laws that pertain to homosexuals.)

MILWAUKEE LAW RESTRICTING DISTRIBUTION OF TRACTS RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Friday Church News Notes, December 21, 2001 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) A U.S. District judge has ruled as unconstitutional a law in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that forbade the distribution of informational pamphlets by placing them on car windshields. The new ruling was in response to a suit brought against the city by Rosemary Deida, after she was fined $158 in December 2000 for placing religious tracts on car windshields. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman ruled that the law broached the guarantee of freedom of speech in the First Amendment.

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY SAYS MOHAMMED INFLUENCED MILLIONS FOR GOOD. Friday Church News Notes, December 21, 2001 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) Speaking in Bahrain on November 3, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the worldwide communion of Anglican churches, called Mohammed "a great religious leader whose influence on millions has been for the good." To the contrary, Mohammed has influenced multitudes to follow a false gospel to eternal hell. Carey said that "interfaith dialogue is not an option but a necessity." Carey spoke commendably of the writings of modernist John Hick and did not condemn Hick's claims that Christians should stop claiming that Jesus Christ is the only Lord and Savior and that there is only one God and one faith. Carey belittled and condemned fundamentalists or "dogmatists," as he called them, who carry "banners pronouncing that 'Jesus is the answer'" and who refuse to dialogue with other religions. He said Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship the same God and that Muslims and Christians are brothers. The title of Carey's message was "How Far Can We Travel Together?" The Bible answered that almost 2,000 years ago. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? . . . Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you" (2 Cor. 6:14-17). The Lord's Apostles, who started the first churches, did not dialogue with idolaters; they preached the blessed Gospel to them. Ecumenists dialogue because they have no truth to preach.

WHEATON COLLEGE HONORS IMMORAL JAZZ MUSICIAN. Friday Church News Notes, December 21, 2001 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) In March of this year, Wheaton College and the Billy Graham Center held a jazz program honoring famous jazz artists Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke. This is evidence of the worldliness of Evangelicalism today, something even well-known Evangelical leaders have warned about (i.e., Richard Quebedeaux, The Worldly Evangelicals, 1979; Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster, 1984; James Hunter, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation, 1987; The Cambridge Declaration, 1996). Jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, who died in 1971, divorced and remarried twice and was a serial adulterer throughout his life. Armstrong "smoked pot just like you smoke regular cigarettes" (Larry Nager, Memphis Beat, p. 94). Looking back on his music career, Armstrong said: "My &Mac183; memories will always be lots of beauty and warmth from gage [marijuana]. Well, that was my life and I don't feel ashamed at all. Mary Warner [marijuana], honey, you sure was good&Mac183;" (Armstrong, cited by Harry Shapiro, Waiting for the Man, p. 25). Bix Beiderbecke, who was one of the pioneers of the Chicago jazz style in the 1920s, also lived the licentious lifestyle so typical of jazzmen. He "died from pneumonia brought on by an excess of bootleg gin" (Shapiro, p. 31). Sadly, it is not only evangelicals and liberals who are flirting with the world today; it is also fundamentalists. It is becoming increasingly unpopular to preach separation from the world even in churches that allege to be strongly devoted to the Scriptures. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 is upon us.

APOSTASY IN AMERICA. Friday Church News Notes, December 21, 2001 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) Throughout much of the world America is considered a "Christian nation." Recently a Hindu man in South Asia asked me if "all Americans are Christians." Hardly! A majority of Americans claim to be Christian, but very few give biblical evidence of regeneration. A Barna survey which was done following the September 11 terrorist attacks gives shocking evidence of this. Only two in 10 adults claim to believe in "absolute moral truth." Twenty-five percent of the Americans surveyed said they found moral guidance "in their feelings." Only 13 percent based their moral decisions on the Bible. Even that is probably an exaggeration.

FBI AND CIA EMPLOYING OCCULTIC PRACTICES? Friday Church News Notes, December 21, 2001 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org) Prudence Calabrese, owner of TransDimensional Systems, claims that the United States government has signed a contract with her company to employ "remote viewers" in their anti-terrorism efforts. Remote viewing is an occultic practice of visualizing the location of distant objects. The CIA conducted experiments with psychic viewing at Standard Research Institute until 1995. God's Word forbids man's age-old attempts to reach beyond the limitations of his five physical senses through psychic means. In the Old Testament, it was called "divining" and was condemned in Deut. 18:10-11 and in other Scriptures. An article in WorldNetDaily for Dec. 17 notes that well-known remote viewer Ed Dames falsely predicted that by this date there would be a worldwide financial collapse and that Eastern Europeans would be eating human flesh.