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.

A WORLDLY BAPTISM (Friday Church News Notes, October 5, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - NewSpring Church’s baptism ceremony on September 8 featured a tailgating party. This contemporary, seeker-friendly Southern Baptist Church in Anderson, South Carolina, baptized 562 people that day, and church members were encouraged to emulate a football tailgating party. Tony Morgan, the church’s “chief strategic officer,” said: “People brought their RVs and set up tents. There were televisions going with people watching football games before the baptism service started. ... It was pretty fun” (Baptist Press, Sept. 25, 2007). Football and baptism. What an unholy, carnal mess! A baptism is not a worldly party. It is a joyful event but also a solemn and holy event. It depicts the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It depicts dying to the old life and rising to the new. A baptism is a time to pray and a time to reflect and a time to repent and a time to re-dedicate, but it is not a time for a worldly sports party. The contemporary seeker-friendly churches, with their repentance-less quick prayerism, allow people to hold on to their gods and allegedly have Christ, too. What do North Americans worship today? Four of their gods are Rock & roll, Sports, Hollywood, and immodest Fashion, and these are the very things that seeker-friendly churches love. “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.  Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy” (James 4:4-5). “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:15-16).

HULA WORSHIP (Friday Church News Notes, October 5, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - According to the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) philosophy music is neutral and therefore any music can be used to worship God. This has produced rock & roll worship, heavy metal worship, jazz worship, rap worship, even hula worship. Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church features an “Ohana worship venue” as one of its nine Sunday morning worship selections. The Ohana venue comes “complete with hula and island-style music,” and on the first Saturday of every month you can take hula lessons during the potluck following the service. Saddleback isn’t the only church offering hula worship. According to the Monday Morning Insight blog for April 6, 2006, it is used in churches in many parts of the world. The hula dance originated as a pagan religious ritual associated with the goddess Laka in the Hawaiian Islands. Missionaries who arrived in the early 19th century denounced the hula as a heathen dance (“Hula,” Wikipedia). Today the CCM crowd offers it up to God in worship, but those old self-sacrificing missionaries knew much more about God and true worship than the CCM crowd will ever know. “Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen...” (Jeremiah 10:2).

CROCODILE INTELLIGENCE (Friday Church News Notes, October 5, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Australian scientists have discovered that the crocodile is capable of complex navigation over long distances. The discovery came after satellite tracking devices were fitted to three dangerous crocodiles that were removed from popular tourist spots in the Australian Outback and released hundreds of miles away. All three found their way back, one after traveling 250 miles in 20 days (“Clever Croc Has Its Own Version of Sat-nav,” The Times, Sept. 27, 2007). The fact that the creatures of this world have intelligence prove that they were designed by an intelligent Being. Empirical science is “knowledge based on observable phenomena,” and observation has never witnessed intelligence seeping from a rock or wafting from an inanimate soup or spinning out of an explosion. The scientists who conducted the study don’t get it because of their evolutionary blinders. Craig Franklin of the University of Queensland’s School of Integrative Biology said, “Crocodiles are more closely related to birds than they are any other reptile. Maybe they are using navigation systems that are similar to what occurs in birds.” I don’t think so! 

UNITARIAN-UNIVERSALIST: THE I-CHURCH FOR THE I-GENERATION (Friday Church News Notes, October 5, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - This month the Unitarian-Universalists launched their first national marketing campaign in 50 years. The campaign features ads in Time Magazine and a new DVD to introduce Unitarian Universalism to outsiders. The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) was founded in 1961 as a consolidation of the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church in America. Roughly 1,000 churches are represented, and they have experienced growth over the last decade. The UUA allows its members to choose their own religious path. The web site says: “Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religion that encompasses many faith traditions. Unitarian Universalists include people who identify as Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and others. As there is no official Unitarian Universalist creed, Unitarian Universalists are free to search for truth on many paths.” This is truly the I-Church for the I-Generation. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves...” (2 Timothy 3:1-2).

ANGLICAN HYPOCRISY (Friday Church News Notes, October 5, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The bishops of the Episcopal Church in America have reluctantly, half-heartedly, sort-of accepted the ultimatum that was issued to it earlier this year by the bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion. In their recent six-day meeting in New Orleans the Episcopal leaders agreed to “exercise restraint” in approving another homosexual as bishop and not to approve prayers to bless same-sex couples. The recent statement is a meaningless gesture. The only biblical position would be to repent of disobeying the Bible and of approving something that God calls an abomination and a reprobate mind. This is mere religious politics, and it stinks to high heaven. In March these same Episcopalian bishops said that “all God’s children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants” of the church (“Anglican Head: Episcopal Rejection of Ultimatum Discouraging,” AP, March 22, 2007). The Church of England is shot through and through with the same theological liberalism and immorality that characterizes the Episcopal Church in America. In 1982 Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie said he was an agnostic as to why Jesus suffered on the cross (Sunday Times Weekly Review, London, April 11, 1982). In 1984 David Jenkins, Anglican Bishop of Durham, described Christ’s resurrection as “a conjuring trick with bones” (St. Louis Post Dispatch, Oct. 28, 1984), and in 1986 this unbelieving bishop got a standing ovation from the general synod of the Church of England when he defended his doubts about the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection of Christ (Associated Press, July 7, 1986). In 1994 it was reported by The Sunday Times (July 31) that at least 100 Anglican priests are atheists who do not believe in “an external, supernatural God.” We could also show that acceptance of unrepentant homosexuals is rife throughout Anglicanism. For the worldwide Anglican Communion to lecture the Episcopal Church in America about theological liberalism and its resultant immorality (these are two peas in a pod) is gross hypocrisy. They have no conviction about or love for the truth; they are only playing politics. End-time apostasy is in full bloom.

NASA SCIENTIST WHO WARNED OF ICE AGE IN 1971 WARNS OF GLOBAL WARMING TODAY (Friday Church News Notes, October 5, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Inside the Beltway,” The Washington Times, September 19, 2007: “NASA scientist James E. Hansen, who has publicly criticized the Bush administration for dragging its feet on climate change and labeled skeptics of man-made global warming as distracting ‘court jesters,’ appears in a 1971 Washington Post article that warns of an impending ice age within 50 years. ‘U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming,’ blares the headline of the July 9, 1971, article, which cautions readers that the world ‘could be as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age, a leading atmospheric scientist predicts.’ The scientist was S.I. Rasool, a colleague of Mr. Hansen’s at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The article goes on to say that Mr. Rasool came to his chilling conclusions by resorting in part to a new computer program developed by Mr. Hansen that studied clouds above Venus.” COMMENT FROM BRO. CLOUD: When NASA can tell me with complete accuracy what the weather will be at a given place just one month from today, I will have more respect for their “computer models” that allegedly tell us what is going to happen one decade from today.

CATHOLIC LEAGUE CALLS FOR BOYCOTT OF MILLER BEER (Friday Church News Notes, October 5, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, recently announced a boycott of Miller Beer because of its sponsorship of a wicked homosexual parade in San Francisco (“Gay Parade Sparks Miller Beer Boycott,” The Church Report, Sept. 29, 2007). Miller Beer’s logo appears on an obscene, blasphemous poster of the Lord’s Supper which “depicts Jesus Christ and his disciples as half-naked homosexual sadomasochists” (“Spokeswoman ‘Dropped Ball’ on Homosex-fest query,” WorldNetDaily, Sept. 29, 2007). Donohue said, “Miller is sponsoring an incredibly outrageous and palpably anti-Christian event in San Francisco: the Folsom Street Fair.” With that we agree 100%, and this filthy business will receive its just reward in due time and it might be much sooner than we think. What, though, about the boycott of Miller Beer? Donohue is calling on Protestants to join his boycott, and he said that if the beer company doesn’t come around “the only winners will be Anheuser Busch and Coors.” The Catholics are going to take their beer business elsewhere! Do you see anything strange about this picture? Evangelicals have long told us that we need to join hands with Roman Catholics in order to win the “cultural war.” This silly boycott of a beer company is a reminder that Roman Catholic Church is far more the problem in the cultural war than they are the solution. Roman Catholicism has never produced a godly culture. This is not difficult to prove. Go to Italy or the Philippines or the Republic of Ireland or Mexico or Quebec and look at the “culture” that Rome has created.

MUSLIM PERSECUTION INCREASING IN ENGLAND (Friday Church News Notes, October 5, 2007, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Christian Converts Risk Muslim Attack,” The Sunday Times, London, September 16, 2007: “One of Britain’s most senior bishops has warned that a sustained campaign by Muslim extremists to intimidate and attack converts to Christianity risks ending in a murder. Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, says that the persecution of Christian converts from Islam is so widespread that it may be only a matter of time before there is an ‘honour killing’ of a convert by family or relatives. He spoke out as the Barnabas Fund, a charity that looks after persecuted Christians around the world, estimated that there are more than a thousand attacks each year against former Muslims across Britain. ... The Barnabas Fund has uncovered widespread abuse against new converts, from being verbally abused and spat at to being assaulted by gangs of men on the street and left for dead. In some cases it believes that women converts were abducted to Pakistan.”

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).