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.

NO END TO HOLLYWOOD’S FILTH (Friday Church News Notes, June 1, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A film that shows bestiality in a somewhat positive light was shown at the Cannes film festival this year. The movie, Zoo, is about a Boeing engineer (involved in top-secret defence projects) who died after having sex acts with a horse. He was a member of a group of men who commit bestiality, and the movie shows them in a sympathetic light, trying to make the viewers understand their perversion (“Bestiality Flick,” News24.com, South Africa, May 22, 2007). Last year at Cannes the buzz was all about a movie that depicted a graphic rape of a young girl. The Hollywood crowd has been pushing the moral envelope since the days of the silent movies. That which is shocking today is soon innocuous and the vile cycle must begin anew, because “the eyes of man are never satisfied” (Proverbs 27:20) and his flesh craves for more sin. The following, which was stated in 1960 by William Orr, is even truer today: “Hollywood and the many companies which produce and market films for entertainment have prostituted their powers in order to gain wealth and influence. These companies have become monsters, rich, unprincipled, and corrupt. And the commercial movies of today are dramatized and produced by sinful, wicked people, and their influence is a vile curse upon our land. ... The unvarnished truth is that it is not possible for Christians to watch these pictures and not defile their minds and weaken their spiritual lives. I am absolutely sure that no child of God who allows the deadly virus of the average commercial movie to enter his mind can be the person God wants him to be. It is just inevitable that his love for Christ will grow less. Other sins will follow. You can put it down on this score: it is not possible to keep looking to Christ and keep looking at the movies too. There will have to be a choice here” (The Christian and Amusements, Moody Pocket Books, 1960, pp. 93, 95).

CHINESE VILLAGERS RIOT OVER POPULATION CONTROL (Friday Church News Notes, June 1, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Villagers in the Guangxi region of southwestern China rioted and clashed with police over that nation’s draconian population control laws (“Chinese Villagers Riot,” OneNewsNow.com, May 24, 2007). The communist Chinese empire forbids parents to have more than one child (sometimes two), and many babies are forcefully aborted by the government. This protest will doubtless be put down violently. China also controls the flow of news to the people, so probably few will know that their courageous fellow countrymen are protesting. Communism is no friend of human liberty and no friend of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

AMERICA’S CHRISTIANITY A MILE WIDE AND AN INCH DEEP (Friday Church News Notes, June 1, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A new Barna poll has again documented that America’s Christianity is a mile wide and an inch deep. More than 80% of those responding to the latest religious survey identified themselves as Christians, but only 27% believe that salvation is by grace without works; only 25% pray, attend church, and read the Bible; only 22% volunteer free time to help in church work; only 37% are convinced that Jesus did not sin; and only 24% are certain that Satan is a real spiritual being. David Kinnaman, who directed the study, said: “... one reason why beliefs fluctuate is that most Americans hold few convictions about their faith. For instance, even among those who disagree with orthodox views, many do so while hedging their bets. Most Americans have one foot in the biblical camp, and one foot outside it. They say they are committed, but to what? They are spiritually active, but to what end? The spiritual profile of American Christianity is not unlike a lukewarm church that the Bible warns about” (“Barna’s Annual Tracking Study,” Barna.org, May 21, 2007). While we don’t have a lot of confidence in Barna, there can be no doubt that this observation is correct. “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 13:34).

HEAD OF THE NCC SPEAKS AT PRO-HOMOSEXUAL RALLY (Friday Church News Notes, June 1, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in America, spoke on May 6 at SundayOUT day at Christ Church in Philadelphia (“NCC’s Bob Edgar Speaks at Pro-Homosexuality Rally,” Institute on Religion and Democracy, May 9, 2007). The Interfaith Service was held on the final day of the Equality Forum’s weeklong festival of “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered” persons. David Sheaffer, who attended the service, said: “A strong sense of irony overwhelmed me as I sat next to George Washington’s box, listening to quiet organ music, and read the memorials on the walls of the saints that served this congregation over its 300 plus years of history. I was sitting alongside individuals proudly wearing rainbow t-shirts, ‘Adam + Steve’ t-shirts, ‘God Made Me Gay’ stickers, and one woman wearing a t-shirt that asked, ‘What kind of Man are you?’” Edgar told the crowd about his homosexual great-uncle and claimed that from ten to twelve percent of people will be homosexual, a figure that is highly overstated. “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. 4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 3-4).

SAUDIS ARREST CHRISTIAN FOR ENTERING MECCA (Friday Church News Notes, June 1, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from the Jerusalem Post, May 24, 2007: “Saudi officials have arrested a man in Mecca for being a Christian, saying that the city, which Muslims consider to be holy, is off-limits to non-Muslims. Nirosh Kamanda, a Sri Lankan Christian, was detained by the Saudi Expatriates Monitoring Committee last week after he started to sell goods outside Mecca's Great Mosque. After running his fingerprints through a new security system, Saudi police discovered that he was a Christian who had arrived in the country six months earlier to take a job as a truck driver in the city of Dammam. Kamanda had subsequently left his place of work and moved to Mecca. ‘The Grand Mosque and the holy city are forbidden to non-Muslims,’ Col. Suhail Matrafi, head of the department of Expatriates Affairs in Mecca, told the Saudi daily Arab News. ‘The new fingerprints system is very helpful and will help us a lot to discover the identity of a lot of criminals,’ he said.”

METEOROLOGIST CALLS GLOBAL WARMING A MYTH AND A WITCH HUNT (Friday Church News Notes, June 1, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Meteorologist Augie Auer of New Zealand called Global Warming a myth and warned that the environmentalist “greenies” are on a witch hunt in their efforts to come against farmers and others who are allegedly contributing to warming. Speaking at the annual meeting of Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers in Ashburton, Auer said that man’s contribution to greenhouse gases is so small that we couldn’t change the climate if we tried (“Global Warming Debunked,” The Timaru Herald, May 19, 2007). He explained that water vapour is responsible for 95% of the greenhouse effect, an effect which is vital to keep the world warm, and he said the Global Warming fervor is “going to be a joke in five years.”

MITT ROMNEY SPEAKS OUT AGAINST FREEDOM OF SPEECH (Friday Church News Notes, June 1, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts who is running as a Republican presidential candidate, told the Associated Press that public officials should not be allowed to express moral judgments against homosexuality. He said: “I think people are entitled to BELIEVE what they want to believe, but what they SAY in their official and secular roles should be an expression of tolerance and respect for people regardless of our differences” (“Romney Supports Tolerance for Gays, But Not Public Servants Who Speak against Homosexuality,” LifeSiteNews.com, May 25, 2007). Romney, who has appointed many homosexuals to office during his administration, condemned General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for saying recently that homosexual behaviour is immoral and has no place in the military. I wonder when Romney last read the United States Bill of Rights? Where does the Bill of Rights say that a citizen loses the right to freedom of religion and freedom of speech when he assumes public office? The freedom to BELIEVE apart from the freedom to SAY is no freedom at all.

INTEGRITY MUSIC’S WORLDLY CHILDREN’S MUSIC (Friday Church News Notes, June 1, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Integrity Music’s incredibly worldly “God Rocks” series is aimed at children. The DVDs feature the God Rocks band and animated spoofs of Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, The Beatles, and Motown. The songs are “a funky retelling” of Bible stories with words from the New International Version. Song titles include “Rock Steady” and “Church Granny Rock.” Integrity Music even has the audacity to call this worldly foolishness “uncompromising.”

A LADY’S RIDING HABIT IN 1881 (Friday Church News Notes, June 1, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from excerpted from “Our Deportment, or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society” by John H. Young (Detroit: F.B. Dickerson & Co, 1881). “A lady’s riding habit should fit perfectly without being tight. The skirt must be full, and long enough to cover the feet, but not of extreme length. The boots must be stout and the gloves gauntleted. Broadcloth is regarded as the more dressy cloth, though waterproof is the more serviceable. Something lighter may be worn for summer, and in the lighter costumes a row of shot must be stitched at the bottom of the breadths of the left side to prevent the skirts from being blown by the wind. The riding dress is made to fit the waist closely, and button nearly to the throat. ... Coat sleeves should come to the wrist with linen cuffs beneath them. ... It is well to have the waist attached to a skirt of the usual length, and the long skirt fastened over it, so that if any accident occurs obliging the lady to dismount, she may easily remove the long overskirt and still be properly dressed.” CONCLUDING NOTE FROM BRO. CLOUD. This is not a Christian book, but notice the amazing emphasis on modesty and proper decorum. The lady was to be covered from foot to neck, and her dress was not to be too tight. Lead shot was used to keep the dress from blowing up. She was to be dressed in a modest, feminine manner even while riding a horse. That was a different society than the one we live in today, because it was more strongly influenced by the Bible; and it was not only more modest but more wholesome as well. Though society at large has turned its back on biblical modesty, God’s people do not have to follow society’s folly.