Friday Church News Notes
Volume 22, Issue 6 - February 5, 2021
The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, though this does not imply an endorsement.
Prof. Elizabeth Mburu
SUBJECTIVE BIBLE INTERPRETATION TAUGHT AT SOUTHEASTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Prominent SBC Seminary Teaches that Biblical Interpretation Is Subjective,” Reformation Charlotte, July 16, 2020: “Like Southern Seminary, Southeastern has abandoned its strong adherence to biblical fidelity and objective truth and exchanged it for social justice activism and woke theology. ... While the school has been engulfed in secular philosophies such as Critical Race Theory for a number of years, standpoint epistemology is relatively new to the scene and has taken a stronghold in the school’s curriculum--despite the fact that they will not use the terminology. ... Standpoint Theory, also known as Standpoint Epistemology, teaches that knowledge and insight, at least in part, emerges from one’s social status or cultural background. In other words, people from different cultures, upbringings, hardships, and personal experiences have a special ability to glean truth from various sources. ... Recently, the videos of Southeastern Seminary’s Southeastern Symposium online conference were released whereby one of the keynote speakers, Elizabeth Mburu, openly taught these concepts. According to Mburu’s bio, she pursued her doctoral studies at Southeastern ... [She said,] ‘It seems we, as Africans, are still trying to imitate foreign ways when it comes to reading, interpreting, and applying the Bible in our every day lives. ... So the solution I propose is a contextualized African intercultural approach to the study of the Bible.’ ... This is antithetical to how the Scriptures actually teach us to understand the truth--the truth is universal and is to be rightly understood in its original authorial intent. ... [Mburu’s lecture] suggests that she believes biblical truth to be subjective, rather than objective. It suggests that she believes that instead of the Holy Spirit revealing the truth as is meant in its original context, that the Holy Spirit instead intends for the Scriptures to mean different things to different people groups.” Pastor Tom Buck, First Baptist Church of Lindale, Texas, warns, “SEBTS is teaching a hermeneutic based on standpoint epistemology. Hermeneutics is not static but is ‘dynamic’--it changes based upon your cultural context. This view isn’t just in error, it’s flat out dangerous!” (@TomBuck, Jul. 16, 2020).
MISSTATING THE HISTORY OF FREE SPEECH IN AMERICA (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Referring to the suppression of speech by the major social media companies, syndicated talk show host Dennis Prager says, “This is the first time in American history that free speech is threatened seriously” (“Conservatives wary of Big Tech censorship,” Justthenews.com, Nov. 11, 2020). There is no doubt that we are seeing a serious wave of censorship, but it is not the first time in American history that free speech has been threatened. The free speech of Baptists, Quakers, and others was stifled in Massachusetts and some other colonies for 150 years. In 1635, Roger Williams had to flee into the wilderness in the dead of winter to escape persecution for saying things that were forbidden by the colonial government. In 1651, Obadiah Holmes was beaten with 30 stripes for saying forbidden things. Many Baptists were imprisoned. Because of the stifling of free speech, the first Baptist church in Massachusetts was shut down in 1680 and a second Baptist church was not formed until 1749. The censorship did not end until Massachusetts formed their state constitution in 1780. Baptists in Virginia also suffered censorship of free speech and the imprisonment of 30 Baptist preachers. The free speech of anyone supporting the political rights of blacks was viciously stifled in the Southern states during the Democrat-led Jim Crow era, which lasted 90 years. The free speech of Bible-believing Christians has been stifled in the American public school system for a very long time. Try teaching biblical creationism and the biblical view of man and woman and sexuality, for example, and see how long it takes for the government education censors to ban you.
ECONOMISTS PREDICT 890,000 DEATHS OVER THE NEXT 15 YEARS DUE TO IMPACT FROM THE COVID LOCKDOWNS (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In a new paper, economists warn that the economic and social costs of the Covid lockdowns will be grave. In “The Long-Term Impact of the Covid-19 Unemployment Shock,” Francesco Bianchi (Duke University), Giada Bianchi (Harvard Medical School), and Dongho Song (Johns Hopkins University) estimate there will be nearly one million deaths over the next 15 years. The abstract reads, “We use our results to assess the long-run effects of the COVID-19 economic recession on mortality and life expectancy. We estimate the size of the Covid-19-related unemployment to be between 2 and 5 times larger than the typical unemployment shock, depending on race/gender, resulting in a 3.0% increase in mortality rate and a 0.5% drop in life expectancy over the next 15 years for the overall American population. We also predict that the shock will disproportionately affect African-Americans and women, over a short horizon, while white men might suffer large consequences over longer horizons. These figures translate in a staggering 0.89 million additional deaths over the next 15 years” (“The Long-Term Impact,” working paper 28304, National Bureau of Economic Research, nber.org).
RUPERT MURDOCH WARNS OF THE CANCEL CULTURE (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Rupert Murdoch calls out the ‘awful woke orthodoxy,’” Just the News, Jan. 26, 2021: “Longtime head of News Corp. and the Fox Corporation Rupert Murdoch says media organizations are facing widespread ‘censorship’ that in turn is preventing ‘individuals and societies from realizing their potential.’ Murdoch’s frank sentiments came during a pre-taped acceptance speech he gave in response to a lifetime achievement award from the Australia Day Foundation. Murdoch’s media empire reaches tens of millions of Australians each day. [He said,] ‘For those of us in media, there’s a real challenge to confront: a wave of censorship that seeks to silence conversation, to stifle debate, to ultimately stop individuals and societies from realizing their potential. This rigidly enforced conformity, aided and abetted by so-called social media, is a straitjacket on sensibility. Too many people have fought too hard in too many places for freedom of speech to be suppressed by this awful woke orthodoxy.’”
FACEBOOK CENSORING SPEECH AGAINST THE TRANSSEXUAL AGENDA (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Facebook has been suspending accounts of some who speak against the transsexual agenda. On Jan. 26, Facebook suspended Robert Gagnon for a week for speaking against Joe Biden’s new transgender military policy, claiming that he violated Facebook’s “Community standards on violence and incitement.” Gagnon, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice, responded, “There was absolutely no incitement to violence on our part. We abhor violence done to any person. This is just a thinly veiled and pathetic excuse for censorship of any critical views toward trans-tyranny over our consciences, religion, and reason. Only one point of view is being allowed. Trump was not the great danger to the Republic. Left-wing canceling is” (“Disagreeing with Biden’s Transgender Policy is ‘Incitement,’” PJMedia, Jan. 26, 2021). Pentecostal preacher/news commentator Michael Brown was locked out of Twitter for 12 hours on Jan. 20 for saying, “Will I get punished by Twitter for saying that, in God’s sight, ‘Rachel’ Levine (nominated by Biden to be his assistant secretary for HHS) is a man?” Apparently this came under Twitter’s ban on “hateful conduct.” Brown commented on the suspension, “When biological truth conflicts with transgender activism, biological truth is banned. When biblical truth conflicts with transgender activism, biblical truth is banned” (“Locked out by Twitter,” Townhall, Jan. 25, 2021).
DISCIPLESHIP LESSONS IN TAGALOG (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Missionary Bill Hardecker has recorded 22 discipleship audio lessons in the Tagalog language. Lessons 1-17 are Foundational Doctrines (The Bible, God, Angels, Man, Sin, Salvation, Church, Baptism, Lord’s Supper, Witnessing, the Last Days). Lessons 18-22 (and more to come) are on the Christian Life. Each lesson has downloadable study notes that go along with the audio files. They are available online at
https://www.sermonaudio.com/solo/mzbmp/sermons/series/132299/
ISRAELI LOCUST SLAYERS TRAIN ETHIOPIANS (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Israeli locust slayers,” Israel21c.org, Nov. 29, 2020: “Some call it a plague. Yoav Motro calls it a war. The enemies are huge armies of desert locusts destroying farm and grazing lands across nine East African countries. In Ethiopia alone, the locusts have conquered three million acres since January. Motro, the vertebrates and locust specialist for Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, captained a successful battle against these winged creatures in Israel in 2013. ... When the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations approached Israel for financial support for Ethiopia in fighting these most destructive migratory pests in the world, Motro felt that wasn’t sufficient. ‘I said, I have a better idea: to help them help themselves. We can do that by bringing the correct equipment with us and training them to use it.’ That’s how Motro and three handpicked experts ended up spending two weeks of November in Jigjiga (Jijiga) in Ethiopia’s Somali region. As the expression goes, giving a man a fish will feed him for the day; teaching him to fish will feed him for a lifetime. Giving him a fishing rod makes it possible. The Israelis handed the Ethiopians a ‘fishing rod’--in the form of 27 surveillance drones, 100 motorized backpack sprayers and in-person training--enabling locals to vanquish the locusts on their own in the future. ... Tamir Ashual of the Agriculture Ministry led logistics officer training. Yoav Muller of Muller Professional Pest Control taught the nighttime spraying method developed in Israel. ‘It’s a novel method based on what we learned in 2013: To attack the locusts at night when they are asleep. That gives us an edge,’ Motro tells ISRAEL21c. ... According to the FAO, 40 million to 80 million locusts can converge in a single swarm over a square kilometer. In one day, they can consume crops that could have fed 35,000 people.”
CONCLUSION: The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this obviously does not imply an endorsement. We trust that our readers will not be discouraged. 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. The News Notes remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the Lord’s coming. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ? “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).
MISSTATING THE HISTORY OF FREE SPEECH IN AMERICA (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Referring to the suppression of speech by the major social media companies, syndicated talk show host Dennis Prager says, “This is the first time in American history that free speech is threatened seriously” (“Conservatives wary of Big Tech censorship,” Justthenews.com, Nov. 11, 2020). There is no doubt that we are seeing a serious wave of censorship, but it is not the first time in American history that free speech has been threatened. The free speech of Baptists, Quakers, and others was stifled in Massachusetts and some other colonies for 150 years. In 1635, Roger Williams had to flee into the wilderness in the dead of winter to escape persecution for saying things that were forbidden by the colonial government. In 1651, Obadiah Holmes was beaten with 30 stripes for saying forbidden things. Many Baptists were imprisoned. Because of the stifling of free speech, the first Baptist church in Massachusetts was shut down in 1680 and a second Baptist church was not formed until 1749. The censorship did not end until Massachusetts formed their state constitution in 1780. Baptists in Virginia also suffered censorship of free speech and the imprisonment of 30 Baptist preachers. The free speech of anyone supporting the political rights of blacks was viciously stifled in the Southern states during the Democrat-led Jim Crow era, which lasted 90 years. The free speech of Bible-believing Christians has been stifled in the American public school system for a very long time. Try teaching biblical creationism and the biblical view of man and woman and sexuality, for example, and see how long it takes for the government education censors to ban you.
ECONOMISTS PREDICT 890,000 DEATHS OVER THE NEXT 15 YEARS DUE TO IMPACT FROM THE COVID LOCKDOWNS (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In a new paper, economists warn that the economic and social costs of the Covid lockdowns will be grave. In “The Long-Term Impact of the Covid-19 Unemployment Shock,” Francesco Bianchi (Duke University), Giada Bianchi (Harvard Medical School), and Dongho Song (Johns Hopkins University) estimate there will be nearly one million deaths over the next 15 years. The abstract reads, “We use our results to assess the long-run effects of the COVID-19 economic recession on mortality and life expectancy. We estimate the size of the Covid-19-related unemployment to be between 2 and 5 times larger than the typical unemployment shock, depending on race/gender, resulting in a 3.0% increase in mortality rate and a 0.5% drop in life expectancy over the next 15 years for the overall American population. We also predict that the shock will disproportionately affect African-Americans and women, over a short horizon, while white men might suffer large consequences over longer horizons. These figures translate in a staggering 0.89 million additional deaths over the next 15 years” (“The Long-Term Impact,” working paper 28304, National Bureau of Economic Research, nber.org).
RUPERT MURDOCH WARNS OF THE CANCEL CULTURE (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Rupert Murdoch calls out the ‘awful woke orthodoxy,’” Just the News, Jan. 26, 2021: “Longtime head of News Corp. and the Fox Corporation Rupert Murdoch says media organizations are facing widespread ‘censorship’ that in turn is preventing ‘individuals and societies from realizing their potential.’ Murdoch’s frank sentiments came during a pre-taped acceptance speech he gave in response to a lifetime achievement award from the Australia Day Foundation. Murdoch’s media empire reaches tens of millions of Australians each day. [He said,] ‘For those of us in media, there’s a real challenge to confront: a wave of censorship that seeks to silence conversation, to stifle debate, to ultimately stop individuals and societies from realizing their potential. This rigidly enforced conformity, aided and abetted by so-called social media, is a straitjacket on sensibility. Too many people have fought too hard in too many places for freedom of speech to be suppressed by this awful woke orthodoxy.’”
FACEBOOK CENSORING SPEECH AGAINST THE TRANSSEXUAL AGENDA (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Facebook has been suspending accounts of some who speak against the transsexual agenda. On Jan. 26, Facebook suspended Robert Gagnon for a week for speaking against Joe Biden’s new transgender military policy, claiming that he violated Facebook’s “Community standards on violence and incitement.” Gagnon, author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice, responded, “There was absolutely no incitement to violence on our part. We abhor violence done to any person. This is just a thinly veiled and pathetic excuse for censorship of any critical views toward trans-tyranny over our consciences, religion, and reason. Only one point of view is being allowed. Trump was not the great danger to the Republic. Left-wing canceling is” (“Disagreeing with Biden’s Transgender Policy is ‘Incitement,’” PJMedia, Jan. 26, 2021). Pentecostal preacher/news commentator Michael Brown was locked out of Twitter for 12 hours on Jan. 20 for saying, “Will I get punished by Twitter for saying that, in God’s sight, ‘Rachel’ Levine (nominated by Biden to be his assistant secretary for HHS) is a man?” Apparently this came under Twitter’s ban on “hateful conduct.” Brown commented on the suspension, “When biological truth conflicts with transgender activism, biological truth is banned. When biblical truth conflicts with transgender activism, biblical truth is banned” (“Locked out by Twitter,” Townhall, Jan. 25, 2021).
DISCIPLESHIP LESSONS IN TAGALOG (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Missionary Bill Hardecker has recorded 22 discipleship audio lessons in the Tagalog language. Lessons 1-17 are Foundational Doctrines (The Bible, God, Angels, Man, Sin, Salvation, Church, Baptism, Lord’s Supper, Witnessing, the Last Days). Lessons 18-22 (and more to come) are on the Christian Life. Each lesson has downloadable study notes that go along with the audio files. They are available online at
https://www.sermonaudio.com/solo/mzbmp/sermons/series/132299/
ISRAELI LOCUST SLAYERS TRAIN ETHIOPIANS (Friday Church News Notes, February 5, 2021, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Israeli locust slayers,” Israel21c.org, Nov. 29, 2020: “Some call it a plague. Yoav Motro calls it a war. The enemies are huge armies of desert locusts destroying farm and grazing lands across nine East African countries. In Ethiopia alone, the locusts have conquered three million acres since January. Motro, the vertebrates and locust specialist for Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, captained a successful battle against these winged creatures in Israel in 2013. ... When the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations approached Israel for financial support for Ethiopia in fighting these most destructive migratory pests in the world, Motro felt that wasn’t sufficient. ‘I said, I have a better idea: to help them help themselves. We can do that by bringing the correct equipment with us and training them to use it.’ That’s how Motro and three handpicked experts ended up spending two weeks of November in Jigjiga (Jijiga) in Ethiopia’s Somali region. As the expression goes, giving a man a fish will feed him for the day; teaching him to fish will feed him for a lifetime. Giving him a fishing rod makes it possible. The Israelis handed the Ethiopians a ‘fishing rod’--in the form of 27 surveillance drones, 100 motorized backpack sprayers and in-person training--enabling locals to vanquish the locusts on their own in the future. ... Tamir Ashual of the Agriculture Ministry led logistics officer training. Yoav Muller of Muller Professional Pest Control taught the nighttime spraying method developed in Israel. ‘It’s a novel method based on what we learned in 2013: To attack the locusts at night when they are asleep. That gives us an edge,’ Motro tells ISRAEL21c. ... According to the FAO, 40 million to 80 million locusts can converge in a single swarm over a square kilometer. In one day, they can consume crops that could have fed 35,000 people.”
CONCLUSION: The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this obviously does not imply an endorsement. We trust that our readers will not be discouraged. 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. The News Notes remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the Lord’s coming. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ? “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).
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Distributed by Way of Life Literature., publisher of Bible Study Materials and reports for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Established in 1974, Way of Life Literature is a fundamental Baptist preaching and publishing ministry based in Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. Brother Cloud lives in South Asia where he has been a church planting missionary since 1979. OUR GOAL IN THIS PARTICULAR ASPECT OF OUR MINISTRY (REPORTS AND FRIDAY NEWS) IS NOT DEVOTIONAL. IS TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO ASSIST PREACHERS IN THE PROTECTION OF THE CHURCHES IN THIS APOSTATE HOUR.
David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
The Way of Life Literature preaching and publishing ministry is based at Bethel Baptist Church, London, Ontario, of which Wilbert Unger is the founding Pastor. A mail stop is maintained in Port Huron, Michigan.
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