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’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.

ROCK & ROLL SPIRITUALITY: CHRIST AND THE WORLD, TOO. Friday Church News Notes, October 28, 2005 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - An article in a Canadian Christian publication observed that many rock & rollers are singing about spiritual themes (BC Christian News, June 2003). It mentioned, as an example, Bruce Springsteen’s song “My City of Ruins,” in which he sang: “With these hands/ I pray for the strength, Lord/ with these hands ... I pray for the faith Lord/ With these hands, I pray for your love, Lord.” It also mentioned a duet by Mick Jagger and Bono called “Joy” (it was included on Jagger’s album Goddess in the Doorway). The lyrics to “Joy” include these: “And I drove across the desert/ I was in my four-wheel drive/ I was looking for the Buddha/ And I saw Jesus Christ ... And I look up to the heavens/ And a light is on my face/ I never never never/ Thought I’d find a state of grace.” Jagger told Rolling Stone magazine that he has “a spiritual side” and that the song “Joy” “is about the joy of creation, inspiring you to a love of God...” The Bible warns that there are false christs, false spirits, and false gospels (2 Cor. 11:3-4). The “god of this world” is the devil (2 Cor. 4:4) and he transforms himself into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14). Rock & rollers have sung about “Jesus” and “spiritual things” since the 1950s, but their spirituality commonly fails the Bible test. The rock & roll Lord is a New Age Christ who does not claim to be the only God and Saviour, who does not warn about Judgment and Hell or demand the New Birth through faith in his blood. The rock & roll spirituality is a syncretistic one that is all-encompassing and all-accepting and that does not require repentance. Mick Jagger sings about finding a state of grace but he has never renounced his anti-christ past. In the 1970s Newsweek magazine called Jagger “the Lucifer of rock” and “the unholy roller.” In 1968 Jagger and the Rolling Stones sang “Sympathy for the Devil.” The cover to Their Satanic Majesty’s Request depicted the Stones posed as warlocks. Bruce Springsteen sings about the “Lord” but he, too, has not renounced his former mockery of the things of God, such as opening concerts with the words, “Welcome to the Church of Rock, brothers and sisters!” Unrepentant rock & rollers want Christ and the world, too, but this is an impossibility. “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4).

ANOTHER HOMOSEXUAL FESTIVAL UPSET BY A HURRICANE. Friday Church News Notes, October 28, 2005 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Hurricane Wilma, which caused destruction in south Florida last weekend, has caused the postponement and possible cancellation of a debauched homosexual party called Fantasy Fest in Key West, a haven for moral perversion. This is the second time in recent weeks that such a thing has happened. Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in late August, caused the cancellation of the “Southern Decadence” Festival that was scheduled to begin two days after the storm hit.

RICK WARREN’S YOUTH PASTOR ASSOCIATED WITH EASTERN MEDITATIVE PRACTICES. Friday Church News Notes, October 28, 2005 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Agape Press, Sept. 29: “A leading Christian publisher of youth ministry material is being accused of introducing young people to practices rooted in New Age Eastern spirituality. The 2005 National Youth Workers Conference in Sacramento, California, was sponsored by Youth Specialties, a group that one Christian author says introduces students to labyrinth walks, yoga, and contemplative prayer practices.  For that reason, Cathy Mickels, co-author of the book Spiritual Junkfood: The Dumbing Down of Christian Youth, is advising youth workers and parents to distance themselves from the conference and Youth Specialties. Mickels claims Youth Specialties teaches youth pastors to introduce students to ancient eastern spiritual practices. ‘Nowhere in God’s Word does it say that you take kids on labyrinth walks, that you introduce students to yoga or to contemplative prayer practices where you say a word over and over again to put yourself into what Youth Specialties says is a “semi-conscious state,”’ she states. ‘None of these practices are in God's Word.’ ... Among the featured speakers at the Sacramento conference are Mark Yaconelli, who is the director of the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, and Doug Fields, the youth pastor at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in California. Musicians featured include the Chris Tomlin Band, the David Crowder Band, and Jars of Clay.”

ECUMENISTS CALL FOR MORE PARTICIPATION BY EVANGELICALS AND PENTECOSTALS. Friday Church News Notes, October 28, 2005 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Representatives of the most radical and liberal side of the ecumenical movement met at the Interchurch Center in New York City on Oct. 22 to discuss the absence of Evangelicals and Pentecostals from “the ecumenical table.” The meeting was sponsored by the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches in America. The General Secretary of the Reformed Church in America, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, observed that “churches that are growing the fastest are not connected to the ecumenical fabric” (Christian Post, Oct. 24). He further observed, though, that Evangelicals are becoming involved in the same type of social endeavors that the liberal ecumenists have long been involved with, and he mentioned in particular Rick Warren’s HIV/AIDS initiative and the Micah Challenge which aims to address global poverty. Whether Evangelicals actually join the World Council or the various National Councils is neither here nor there. The fact remains that theological liberals and evangelicals are drawing closer together in practice, as the ecumenical leader observed. The liberals have replaced the Great Commission with a social-political program while the evangelicals have added such a program to the Great Commission. There is not a hint of a social-political program in Christ’s Great Commission (Mat. 28:19-20; Mk. 16:15; Acts 1:8) and we do not see such a thing in the book of Acts.

WHY THE WORLD LOVES U2. Friday Church News Notes, October 28, 2005 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The rock band U2 remains one of the world’s favorite bands 20 years after first appearing on the cover of the March 1985 issue of Rolling Stone under the headline, “Our Choice: Band of the Eighties.” How can this be, when it is claimed that three of the members are Christians and when Christianity Today loves them as much as Rolling Stone? The world loves U2 because U2 is of the world, and the world recognizes its own. Jesus Christ said, “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19). The vague Christianity that Bono preaches is one of his own devising. I have read many U2 interviews but not once have I heard them preach the Gospel of the new birth through repentance and faith in the blood of Jesus Christ or warn the unsaved of eternal hell. U2 does not rebuke wickedness and immorality. The love that Bono sings about is the world’s love. U2’s philosophy is the world’s philosophy. Consider this line from the song “Vertigo” from their album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb: “A feeling is so much stronger than a thought.” This summarizes the rock & roll philosophy. The Bible says we are to live by God’s laws, but rock & roll says, “Live by your feelings.” The Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, but rock & roll says, “Just follow your heart.” The Bible says we can only know God through the sound doctrine of His revelation in the Scriptures, through right thinking that comes by the right understanding of God’s word; but rock & roll says, “Feelings are more important than thoughts.” This is why the world loves U2. And this is also why New Evangelicals and Charismatics love U2. See 2 Tim. 4:3-4.

MODERN BIBLES--THE DARK SECRET. Friday Church News Notes, October 28, 2005 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In my estimation, the 48-page “Modern Bibles: The Dark Secret” by Jack Moorman contains one of the best concise presentations in print today refuting the modern versions and defending the King James Bible. Examining the popular New International Version, Pastor Moorman (Bethel Baptist Church, London, England) notes the serious omissions in the modern versions, the attack upon the Deity of Jesus Christ, and many other doctrinal corruptions. Some defenders of the modern versions, such as James White, have denied that the modern Bibles weaken the doctrine of Christ’s deity, but they are dead wrong. In the 19th century, the Unitarians readily observed that they could support their doctrinal errors more easily from the critical Greek text than the Received Text. The Unitarians were among the first to call for the removal of the word “God” in 1 Timothy 3:16 and for the obliteration of 1 John 5:7 from the Bible. The Unitarians could see what James White and D.A. Carson and other defenders of the modern versions today claim they cannot see, that the critical Greek text is more in conformity with heretical theology. In Modern Bible Versions--the Dark Secret, Pastor Moorman also refutes the Westcott-Hort theory of modern textual criticism, gives helpful information about the history of the Bible text, and presents an outline of the all-too-neglected doctrine of Bible preservation. Pastor Moorman has a gift of making the subject of Bible texts and versions understandable to the average Christian. This booklet is available from Plain Paths Publishers, P.O. Box 830, Columbus, NC 28722, http://www.plainpath.org, 828-863-2736, plain@juno.com.

CONCLUSION: Friends in Christ, do not be discouraged by any of this. It is God’s will that we know the times (1 Ch. 12:32; Mat. 16:3) and that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. These things remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the coming of the Lord. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ day by day? “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:11-14).