The following is another installment of the Friday Church News Notes designed especially for use in churches. It is published by Way of Life Literature&Mac226;s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.

NEW HEAD OF PROMISE KEEPERS IS SOUTHERN BAPTIST. Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2003 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Thomas Fortson, Jr., the newly appointed head of Promise Keepers, is a member of a Southern Baptist congregation (Riverside Baptist in Denver). Founding president Bill McCartney resigned effective October 1. The widespread Southern Baptist support for Promise Keepers is a loud testimony to the deep spiritual compromise that permeates the Convention in spite of the “conservative renaissance.” Promise Keepers has promoted the most radical form of ecumenical unity. Promise Number Six states, “A Promise Keeper is committed to reaching beyond ANY &Mac183; DENOMINATIONAL BARRIERS to demonstrate the power of biblical unity.” The official Promise Keepers literature does not list any exceptions to its call for reaching beyond denominational barriers. Catholic priest John Salazar spoke at a PK meeting in Plainview, Texas, in December 1995. That same year, the PK field representative for the upper Midwest was a Roman Catholic. According to the December 1995 issue of the Roman Catholic publication New Covenant, a Promise Keepers group was being formed that year in a Catholic parish in Tallahassee, Florida. In 1996, PK representatives Dale Schlafer and Glenn Wagner spoke at the Roman Catholic Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, a school that promotes prayers to Mary. Roman Catholic Mike Timmis was one of the directors of Promise Keepers for a couple of years. Addressing 40,000 ministers at the 1996 Atlanta Clergy Conference, Bill McCartney said: “No such meeting was held in the past 400 years, and IT IS EXCITING TO SEE THE DENOMINATIONAL BARRIERS COME DOWN AS WE HAVE PROTESTANTS AND ROMAN CATHOLICS HERE TOGETHER. THE PURPOSE OF THIS MEETING IS TO HAVE THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.” Where are the Southern Baptists who have lifted their voices to warn plainly of this error?

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY MEETS WITH THE POPE. Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2003 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Rowan Williams, newly elected Archbishop of Canterbury, made his first official visit to the Pope earlier this week. In his public remarks, the ailing Pope warned that “serious difficulties have arisen on the path to unity.” He was referring to the recent ordination of a homosexual as a bishop in the Episcopal Church in America. I am not sure why the Pope is so condemning of this, seeing that the Roman Catholic Church’s priesthood is literally permeated with homosexuals in at least some parts of the world. Williams ignored the homosexual issue in his public statement and focused rather on the nature of the papacy. He said the Pope has invited church leaders to engage “in a patient and fraternal dialogue about the Petrine ministry.” It is probable that the papacy and perhaps the Catholic priesthood will undergo some significant changes in coming days in preparation for a more complete ecumenicity and the fulfillment of the last acts of this age (Revelation 17).

FOUL LANGUAGE ON TV INCREASES ALMOST 100% IN FOUR YEARS. Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2003 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Baptist Press: “The use of foul language on television shows in the past five years has increased dramatically on nearly every network and in nearly every time slot -- including the so-called ‘Family Hour’ from 8 to 9 p.m. ET -- according to a study by the Parents Television Council. The report examined all prime-time entertainment series on the major broadcast television networks from the first two weeks of the 1998, 2000 and 2002 November sweeps periods, analyzing a total of 400 program hours. Foul language, including curses or intensives, offensive epithets, scatological language, sexually suggestive or indecent language, and censored language, increased by 94.8 percent during the Family Hour between 1998 and 2002. During the 9 p.m. ET time slot, such language increased by 109.1 percent, though the smallest increase (38.7 percent) occurred during the last hour of prime time -- the hour when young children are least likely to be watching.”

CHILDREN’S MINDS FILLED WITH DEMONIC THOUGHTS. Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2003 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The world is being prepared for the coming of the antichrist by the rapid spread of pagan and demonic thought, even among professing Christians. The minds of the youngest children are being filled with spiritual deception. Pokemon is only one example. It has become a $5 billion business. In May the Pokemon television series began broadcasting in Hindi, one of the world’s major languages. An article in the Sunday Times of India said, “They [children] bargain in Pokemon lingo, calculate the weight, height and powers of the cards. ... They are obsessed with the cards. ... Pokemon and his friends have magical powers, which can burn, give electric shocks, and can kick too. ... Anupriya Chadha, child psychologist feels, ‘The trading encourages the child to participate in the manipulative realm of role-play.’” God’s Word warns us that the thought life has consequences in “real life.” The Bible says that as a person “thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Prov. 23:7). The love of Christ teaches us to “think no evil” (1 Cor. 13:5) and the Psalmist prayed that the meditation of his heart would be acceptable before God (Ps. 19:14).

DOCTOR SAYS MOTHER TERESA NO MIRACLE WORKER. Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2003 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from The Scotsman, Oct. 5, 2003: “Just days before the beatification ceremony for Mother Teresa in Rome, to be conducted by Pope John Paul II, a doctor in West Bengal has said there is no evidence to support the belief that Monica Besra was miraculously cured. Besra, from the village of Dhulinakod, 450 miles from Calcutta, was dying of a stomach tumour five years ago when nuns from the Missionaries of Charity, on the first anniversary of Mother Teresa’s death, tied an oval-shaped silver medallion bearing her picture to Besra’s stomach. &Mac183; Dr Ranjan Kumar Mustafi, of Balurghat Hospital in West Bengal, said: ‘This miracle claim is absolute nonsense and should be condemned by everyone. She had a medium-sized tumour in her lower abdomen that was caused by tuberculosis. The drugs she was given eventually reduced the cystic mass and it disappeared after a year’s treatment.’”

POWER TEAM: PREACHING THE GOSPEL IN A “NONCONDEMNING WAY.” Friday Church News Notes, October 10, 2003 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, http://www.wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Tampa (Florida) Tribune for September 20 featured a full-page article about the Power Team, a charismatic evangelistic ministry that uses physical feats of strength to attract crowds. It was founded roughly 25 years ago by John Jacobs, who retired earlier this year, citing marital problems and other factors (he divorced in 2000 and subsequently remarried). There are currently 19 members of the Power Team and they perform about 120 crusades a year. Power Team member Craig Lemmley, former Oklahoma bodybuilding champion, said, “Each night a different member will share his testimony--we speak in a motivational, noncondemning way.” How can you preach the gospel without condemnation? Unless a person acknowledges his fallen condition, he cannot be scripturally saved. Thus in the preaching of the gospel, some very bad news must precede the good news. The gospel begins with the bad news that man is sinful and unrighteous before a holy God and is therefore under His condemnation. This is what we see in the book of Romans. Paul spends almost three chapters preaching the bad news about man’s sin and God’s holiness before he gets to the good news that we can be saved through Jesus Christ. The very first thing Paul says, as he sets out to preach the gospel, is “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:18). Those are powerful and extremely condemning words! Beware of the ecumenists, church growth gurus, New Evangelicals, contemporary Christian musicians, Christian rockers, etc., who think they can soften God’s Word without changing anything of consequence, who think their positive-emphasis and non-judgmental approach is the same Christianity as that of the apostles. It isn’t!