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

PRO-LIFE CANDIDATES WIN BIG IN 2002. Friday Church News Notes, November 15, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Pro-life candidates won big in the recent 2002 election in the U.S. The following is from NewsMax.com for November 9: "The myth that a candidate for public office must be pro-abortion to stand a chance of winning exploded last Tuesday when opposition to abortion played a key role in many of the victories that gave Republicans control of the Senate and increased their majority in the House. According to Pro-Life Infonet (www.prolifeinfo.org) as cited by Crisis magazine's Deal Hudson: 'Fully eight of the top ten Senate races in the country were won by pro-life candidates, and other pro-life incumbents managed to keep their seats as well. Two-thirds of the newly elected House officials are also pro-life. 17 of the 22 candidates sponsored by EMILY's List -- a veritable who's who of pro-abortion politicians -- were defeated. Exit polls conducted by such sources such as Fox News confirmed that many voters had abortion on their minds when they went to the polls -- and the overwhelming majority of those voters were pro-life. In Missouri, 17 percent of voters said abortion was their number one concern, second only to the economy (21 percent), in voting for a senator. Of those 17 percent, 80 percent voted for pro-life candidate Jim Talent over incumbent pro-choice Senator Jean Carnahan [a Southern Baptist]. Fourteen percent of Minnesota voters said abortion was their top concern, the third-highest single issue named. Nine percent of the voters in Georgia felt the same way. Of these voters, the vast majority voted for pro-life candidates -- candidates that went on to big wins.'"

TELEVISION GROWING MORE OPENLY DEMONIC. Friday Church News Notes, November 15, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Television broadcasts are growing more openly demonic with each passing year. God strongly forbids psychic activity and attempts to communicate with the dead. These are associated with demonism and witchcraft in the Word of God. "There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee" (Deut. 18:9-12). Yet the airwaves are increasingly filled with the very things that God has condemned, and these vile shows are watched by professing Christians. These include Crossing Over, featuring psychic readings by John Edward; The Dead Zone, about a man who wakes up after six years in a coma to find he has psychic powers; The Haunted, about a psychic detective; Six Feet Under, about the supposed living dead; and Pet Psychic, featuring alleged communication with dead animals! More programs on these themes are planned for later this year, including The Dream Team, which will feature interpretation of dreams, and Hollywood and Beyond, which will feature astrologers and psychics who will allegedly communicate with dead movie stars. The list of Hollywood movies that have dealt with occultic themes is endless. Harry Potter is just the latest in a long stream of cinematic rubbish popularizing and trivializing the demonic.

REPRESSIVE RELIGION LAW IN BELARUS. Friday Church News Notes, November 15, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - On October 31, the president of Belarus signed the most restrictive religion law in Europe. The Keston News Service notes: "The new law outlaws unregistered religious activity; requires compulsory prior censorship for all religious literature; bans foreign citizens from leading religious organisations; religious education is restricted to faiths that have ten registered communities, including at least one that had registration in 1982; and there is a ban on all but occasional, small religious meetings in private homes."

WIFE WINS LAWSUIT AGAINST HUSBAND'S MISTRESS. Friday Church News Notes, November 15, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Earlier this month, Margaret McCarthy of Washington state won a hefty lawsuit against her late husband's mistress, requiring her to pay back the value of everything the man had given her during their adulterous relationship. When Jack McCarthy, a wealthy real estate broker, died last year, his girlfriend, Kathie O'Keefe, sued the estate, demanding a watch and ring and $200,000 he allegedly had promised her ("Mistress Ordered to Reimburse Dead Lover's Wife for 20 Years of Gifts," ABC News, Nov. 9, 2002). Margaret McCarthy counter-sued and won, based on a 90-year-old state law that does not allow one married spouse to gift community property to an individual without the consent of the other spouse.

TAMMY FAYE BAKKER HAS NON-JUDGMENTAL MINISTRY TO HOMOSEXUALS. Friday Church News Notes, November 15, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Tammy Faye Bakker (now Messner), former co-host of the charismatic Praise the Lord (PTL) program, today has a non-judgmental ministry to homosexuals. She appears at "gay-pride" events nationwide, including a recent Tammy Faye look-alike contest in Washington, D.C., where she was "surrounded by men in falsies and pancake makeup&Mac183;" (Charisma News, November 2002). She tells them that "there's a God who loves them and cares for them," but she does not tell them that homosexuality is a sin. After Tammy Faye's first husband, Jim Bakker, went to prison for defrauding his followers out of $158 million, she divorced him and married Roe Messner, an old family friend whose company helped build PTL's Heritage USA complex. Referring to critics who say she should speak plainly against homosexuality, Tammy Faye says, "I thought the church was supposed to be a hospital and not a courtroom." In fact, it is both. The New Testament church invites "whosoever will" to receive Christ's free salvation and be born again, but the church also judges professing believers who walk in darkness (1 Corinthians 5-6).

ROMAN CATHOLICS AND HINDUISM. Friday Church News Notes, November 15, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Roman Catholicism is increasingly syncretised with Hinduism and Buddhism. In March, many Catholic priests, including the Pope's nuncio (ambassador) to India, participated in the jubilee celebration of the Institute of Philosophy and Religion in that country, which has been training Catholic and liberal Protestant church leaders for decades in Hinduism. Students in the Institute are taught Yoga techniques. The president of the Institute is Catholic priest Noel Sheth, who frequently quotes the Hindu scriptures in his talks. The Institute's motto is taken from Hinduism. One of the attendees of the jubilee celebration, Swami Prabhudar, told The Hindu newspaper, "I am a swami [Hindu holy man] but also a Jesuit priest. I worship Christ but include tales from Hindu mythology and the Upanishads in my sermons." When my wife and I interviewed a nun in the mid-1990s who worked with Mother Teresa's organization in Nepal assisting dying Hindus, we asked her what they did to prepare them for death. She replied, "We teach them to pray to their gods."

VIDEO GAMES GETTING MORE IMMORAL. Friday Church News Notes, November 15, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Video games, which have long been permeated with gratuitous violence, are quickly becoming sexually explicit. Acclaim Entertainment has added topless female cyclists and video clips of strippers to its popular BMX game, which is aimed at young males (USA Today, Nov. 13, 2002). The "Mature-rated" games are the fastest growing category in terms of sales and are expected to double this year, from 7% of overall sales to 14%. Other morally filthy games are The Getaway and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. The latter features interactive prostitutes. Even many of the video games that are not overtly sexual or violent in nature feature scantily clad females and are not morally wholesome. Be wise and beware.