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

HARRY POTTER CRAZE CONTINUES. Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - The second installation of the Harry Potter films is increasing the Potter craze, topping box office sales with $88.4 million. The first Harry Potter movie grossed $90.2 million in its first weekend, and so far has earned nearly $1 billion in worldwide sales. The books have sold more than 200 million copies in 40 languages. Writing in the February issue of the Baptist Bible Tribune, Alan Ingalls, a professor at Baptist Bible Seminary, Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, lists three dangers with these books. "First, Potter desensitizes our society to the occult. Harry Potter treats the occult and its practices as neutral and in some cases as useful. Harry Potter has become the poster boy for witchcraft, and the pagans are delighted that he is creating a good image for them. Those who read Harry Potter uncritically may be desensitized to a way of life that God condemns in the strongest possible terms. Second, Potter promotes curiosity and experimentation with the occult. Third, Potter removes God and moral absolutes. The books have no Creator God who reveals His will and His ways to mankind." (Igalls concludes by recommending that children read The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. We believe this is misguided, as C.S. Lewis was a dangerous false teacher and his fiction works are filled with pagan symbolism and concepts that are not healthy even though they have been "christianized.")

NUTTY "WHAT WOULD JESUS DRIVE" CAMPAIGN. Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - A campaign entitled "What Would Jesus Drive?" has been launched by various liberal religious and secular environmental groups in an effort to convince car buyers to avoid vehicles that do not get high gas mileage and to pressure the government to increase fuel efficiency standards. Partners in the campaign include the National Council of Churches, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life. The head of the campaign is an American Baptist. The group accepts uncritically the myth of global warming and considers exhaust emissions a key element in it. Because of this, the campaign considers the building and purchase of a car a "moral issue." They are very worried about Sport Utility Vehicles, which get lower gas mileage than other cars. In fact, Jesus did not give any commandments about environmentalism one way or the other, and the only warming he warned about was the heat of eternal Hell.

COURT RULES AGAINST CHIEF JUSTICE MOORE. Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - On November 18, Federal District Court Judge Myron Thompson ruled against Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore and ordered that a monument of the Ten Commandments be removed from the courthouse within 30 days. Moore replied to the ruling that he has no plans to remove the Ten Commandments monument and is appealing to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Moore is a bold Christian who is standing on the U.S. Constitution and is opposed to the reinterpretation of it by modern liberal judges who have turned the first amendment on its head and have created the "separation of church and state" myth. Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the Supreme Court has wisely stated: "The separation of church and state is a metaphor based on bad history and worse law. It has made a positive chaos out of judgments, and it should be frankly and explicitly abandoned." Moore is not attempting to establish a religion, which is what the first amendment forbids. He is merely acknowledging the role that God and the Bible have played in the formation of U.S. law. Moore is not one to be easily intimidated. One of his poems is as follows: "Choosing godless judges, we've thrown reason out the door/ Too soft to put a killer in a well-deserved tomb, but brave enough to kill that child before it leaves the womb/ . . . you think that God's not angry that this land is a moral slum?" Amen and amen. Sadly, there are very, very few judges in this apostate land who think as Roy Moore does and this situation is not going to change until there is a revival in the churches and the fear of God is proclaimed from the pulpits.

GROSS IGNORANCE AMONG AMERICA'S YOUNG PEOPLE. Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - That a public school education in America is more a brainwashing process than a real education is evident in the lack of serious learning that goes on. A recent survey by the National Geographic Society "found little to no improvement in students' knowledge of geography since 1988." In spite of the fact that the nation of Iraq is in the news every day, ONLY ONE IN SEVEN or 13% of Americans ages 18 to 24 could find it on a map! Only 17% could locate Afghanistan, even though such maps have been published repeatedly in almost every newspaper and news magazine in the country over the past year. The young Americans were not only ignorant of the world but of their own country. ONLY THIRTY PERCENT COULD LOCATE THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY! More than 10% of them could not even locate the United States on a world map, and almost 30% could not locate the Pacific Ocean! These facts also remind us that the typical American young person is more consumed with vanities such as pop music, fashion, sports, and partying than with anything of substance. Very few of them even vote, which is a good thing since they are abysmally ignorant of what is happening in our nation and world.

LIBERALISM WITHIN THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION. Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Some independent Baptists are claiming that liberalism has been removed from the Southern Baptist Convention, but this is not the case at the state level. It is the state conventions that compose the national convention, and while the national seminaries have removed modernistic professors in recent years, most of the state colleges and universities are still riddled with theological modernism. This was illustrated on Tuesday when the Louisiana Baptist Convention voted to add a statement to its constitution affirming that the Bible is "the inspired, inerrant and infallible word of God." While the motion passed by a slim required majority of 60%, it is important to note that ONE-THIRD OF THE CONVENTION DELEGATES VOTED AGAINST IT. Perry Sanders, pastor of First Baptist Church of Lafayette, is one who voted against it. He "argued the resolution should be qualified because current texts have been translated so many times that they may not reflect the original message" (Associated Press, Nov. 17, 2002). This illustrates the fact that the Southern Baptist Convention remains a mixed multitude of believers and unbelievers. For more information, see our book Has the Southern Baptist Convention Been Rescued from Liberalism?

MORE COMPROMISE AT CEDARVILLE. Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - The following is from Calvary Contender for December 2002: "Michael Card was slated to perform Oct. 12 at Cedarville University. He is very ecumenical, and a few years ago produced a joint album [and had a joint concert tour] with Roman Catholic musician John Michael Talbot [who prays to Mary]. CCM/rock group Jars of Clay were listed to perform at Cedarville Oct. 4. Some of their music is patterned after the Beatles and other secular rock groups. They recorded for an R-rated obscene film a few years ago (2/15/98 CC). More recently, Cedarville features jazz bands and singers (3/15 CC). Six jazz events are listed on its Oct.-Apr. calendar."

KAZAKHSTAN: HOME BIBLE STUDY ENDS IN POLICE RAID. Friday Church News Notes, November 22, 2002 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - The following is from the Keston News Serve, Nov. 11: "On 8 September police and officers of the National Security Committee (KNB, former KGB) raided the apartment of a Baptist church leader Kormangazy Abdumuratov, where Baptists were studying the Bible. After taking details, searching and videoing the flat and those present, the Baptists were taken to police headquarters, where all were interrogated. After between one and two hours of interrogation, everyone was released except Abdumuratov. The police told him to write a statement declaring that he would stop holding religious meetings in his home. He refused and was threatened with imprisonment because he had been caught three times taking part in unregistered religious meetings. One policeman even hit him, but after six hours he was released. Subsequently, hostile TV footage was shown on the Baptists and Abdumuratov was expelled from the Institute where he was a student, as he was said to be a traitor to the Kazakhs and to have been bought off by foreigners."