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THE ANGLICAN GOTH EUCHARIST (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - There appears to be no bottom to the apostasy of the Anglican Church. St. Edward King and Martyr Church in Cambridge, England, has hosted a Goth Eucharist every other week for the past two and a half years, led by Chaplain Fraser Watts and Assistant Chaplain Marcus Ramshaw. It has been praised by the Anglican Bishops of Ely, Huntingdon, and Whitby. Instead of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs the Goth Eucharist features Goth rock music by debauched groups such as Sisters of Mercy, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, and Nightwish, complete with swear words. Sisters of Mercy web site says, “We are a rock 'n' roll band. ... And intellectual love gods in our spare time.” Their interviews and testimonials are filthy. Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus” record cover was pornographic. Nightwish songs include “Planet Hell” and “She Is My Sin.” Joy Division’s lead singer, Ian Curtis, hung himself at age 25 while listening to Iggy Pop’s album The Idiot. Ramshaw says, “The service is very honest about how rubbish life is. Goths seem to be quite into depression and this is a way of letting out all your anger and frustration. ... It has taken a long time reassure people that you could be a Goth and a Christian. They are not incompatible. Christianity is all about finding light in dark places” (“In Goth We Trust,” Cambridge News, Jan. 14, 2006). In fact, Christianity is about shining light into dark places, because a dark place is a place absent of light. Christianity is not about letting all your anger and frustration out; it is about putting away “all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31). Goth and Bible Christianity are not compatible. Jesus Christ demanded that people repent when they come to Him and turn from all of their evil ways, saying, “... except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). The apostles preached the same thing. Paul preached “that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance” (Acts 26:20). The Bible teaches that when someone turns to Christ he is to turn from his old life and “be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2), but Ramshaw doubtless has a different Bible.

HOMOSEXUALS TRYING TO DESTROY FREEDOM OF SPEECH (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is adapted from “There is only one acceptable way to talk about homosexuality -- SILENCE!” by Ed Vitagliano, OneNewsNow.com, May 31, 2007: “More and more, in the U.S., Canada and Europe, homosexual activists and their straight sympathizers are trying to ensure that the only speech that’s tolerated is the pro-gay kind. ... In the United Kingdom Stephen Green, national director of the evangelical group Christian Voice, was arrested at a gay pride event for distributing leaflets containing Bible passages opposed to homosexuality. ... In France the mayor of a French town was fined almost $4,000 merely for saying that homosexuality was ‘inferior’ to heterosexuality. In Scotland the pressure to conform manifested itself in another way. The National Health Service issued a new policy document for hospital workers titled Fair For All -- The Wider Challenge: Good LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) Practice in the NHS. The new policy requirements, the document said, were intended to combat ‘homophobia.’ How did Fair For All define such ‘homophobic language?’ STAFFERS WERE TOLD TO ‘AVOID OFFENDING GAY PATIENTS’ BY USING WORDS LIKE ‘MOTHER’ OR ‘FATHER,’ since some patients might have two mothers or two fathers. ... ‘HUSBAND’ AND ‘WIFE’ WERE ALSO DISCRIMINATORY, according to the new policy, and must be replaced by ‘partner’ or ‘they/them.’ ... Meanwhile, in the Canadian city of Kamloops, British Columbia, Catholic city councilman John DeCicco was brought up on charges before the provincial Human Rights Tribunal after two homosexual men took offense when he stated at a city council meeting that homosexual acts were ‘not normal and not natural.’ ... Also in British Columbia, postal workers in Vancouver staged a walkout against delivering mail from Christian organization that was critical of the homosexual lifestyle. ... Luis Padilla was fired from his job at Cargill Foods in Timberville, Virginia, because he had a sign on his pickup truck supporting an amendment to the Virginia Constitution which defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. ... a statement released by the company said the sign could be ‘reasonably construed as a show of hostility and intolerance toward homosexuals.’ ... In all these cases there is a common sentiment: If you fail to support, by words or deeds, the normalization of homosexuality, you will be punished.”

UNITED METHODISTS APPROVE TRANSGENDER PASTOR (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A “transgender” pastor received a standing ovation from fellow Methodists attending the annual Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church recently. The individual in question began her ministry five years ago as Ann Gordon, the female pastor of St. John’s United Methodist Church in Baltimore, but after a sex change operation she changed her name to Drew Phoenix and now considers herself a man. She said: “The gender I was assigned at birth has never matched my own true authentic God-given gender identity, how I know myself. Fortunately today God’s gift of medical science is enabling me to bring my physical body in alignment with my true gender” (Baptist Press, June 6, 2007). St. John’s voted on May 25 to appoint her for another term as pastor. This sad event is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy. “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. ... But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. ... Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children” (2 Peter 2:1-2, 10, 14).

IRAN’S PRESIDENT SEES COUNTDOWN TO ISRAEL’S END (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has again stated his desire to see Israel destroyed. On June 3 he said: “With God’s help, the countdown button for the destruction of the Zionist regime has been pushed by the hands of the children of Lebanon and Palestine. By God’s will, we will witness the destruction of this regime in the near future” (Reuters, June 3, 2007). He said that if Israel attacks Lebanon again “the angry ocean of the nations of the region will remove your rotten ... roots.” In fact, Israel will not be destroyed because God’s covenants with her are certain (i.e., Jeremiah 31-33), but she remains in rebellion against God to this day and will go through the “time of Jacob’s trouble” to bring her to repentance (Jer. 30:7). The book of Revelation describes this time in great detail beginning in chapter 6. When Israel repents and her Messiah returns, her enemies will be destroyed (Zechariah 12:6-9). “For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins” (Romans 11:25-27).

ANNE GRAHAM LOTZ JOINS WITH WCC PRESIDENT IN A CONFERENCE IN INDIA (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of Billy Graham, and World Council of Churches president Samuel Kobia were among the speakers featured at a convention of the Mar Thoma Church in India in February. The convention was held in Maramon, Kerala, February 11-18. The Mar Thoma Church is a member of the wretchedly apostate World Council. Kobia doesn’t preach the redemption of the soul through the blood of Christ; he preaches the redemption of society through socio-political endeavors. In April he said the focus of the World Council is not on the evangelization of the world but on such things as the healing of divisions between denominations and challenging violence (“WCC Head Calls for Change in Famed Ecumenical Motto,” Christian Post, April 28, 2007). For more about the World Council of Churches see http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/wcc.html.

SADDLEBACK CHURCH’S SCHOOL OF ROCK (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Under the Worship section of Saddleback Church’s web site we find the “School of Rock,” where you can learn to sing “like your favorite pop artist” and play guitar songs “by legendary bands.” This is “worship” of a holy God Rick Warren style. (Warren sang the drug-drenched Jimi Hendrix song “Purple Haze” before his church on April 17, 2005, accompanied by his “praise and worship” band.) The “Beyond the Blues” class “will take your blues playing to another level, along with classic blues licks by the masters.” The Saddleback web site neglects to say that the legendary rockers, pop stars, and classic blues artists were and are drug- and alcohol-drenched and their lives and music morally filthy. “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11).

INVENTOR OF JAZZ WAS AN EXCELLENT REPRESENTATIVE OF THAT FIELD (Friday Church News Notes, June 15, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Two movies are being made about Buddy Bolden (1877-1931), called by some the inventor of jazz, and an examination of his short life turns up evidence that he was a premier representative of that field, not only musically but morally. Known as “King Bolden,” the New Orleans “cornet king” played in one of the city’s most popular bands. At age 29 he was incarcerated in a mental institution after attacking his mother-in-law with a water pitcher, and he spent most of the rest of his life locked up for insanity. His heavy drinking doubtless contributed to his illness and his early death at age 54 in an insane asylum. He was buried in an unmarked site in a pauper’s graveyard. Bolden often closed his ragtime-blues-jazz shows with a song called Funky Butt. This was a reference to “the olfactory effect of an auditorium packed full of sweaty people dancing close together and belly rubbing” (Danny Barker, Buddy Bolden and the Last Days of Storyville, 1998, p. 31). Thus the moral lewdness that has characterized jazz and blues and rock & roll was very much evident at its birth. It is impossible to use music that is so intimately associated with immorality and rebellion for the glory of the thrice holy God of the Bible.