TRUMP AND AMERICA’S FUTURE (Friday Church News Notes, November 1, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - I am very thankful that God protected Donald Trump from assassins and have prayed much that he would win the U.S. presidential election in a few days. I have prayed earnestly that new birth salvation in Jesus Christ will come to the Trump family. A Trump presidency would be endlessly better than a Kamala presidency. I also understand that Donald Trump can’t make America great again and anything he does will be like putting a Band-aid on a terrible cancer. Trump can’t change any of the fundamentals that are destroying America and will continue to destroy America during and after his term. He can’t wake up lukewarm, disobedient pastors. He can’t make the churches biblical and holy. He can’t root out theological liberalism. He can’t heal corrupt evangelicalism or resurrect dying “fundamentalism.” He can’t make Christian homes pilgrim homes. He can’t rebuild the “nuclear family.” He can’t heal the endless ills of the public school system. He can’t root out Marxism from the university system. He can’t change the progress of the multitude of pagan isms that are leavening society. He can’t correct the constitutional balance of power that has been lost. He can’t destroy the welfare system. He can’t change the leavening of society by moral reprobation. He can’t conquer the “do your own thing” filthy pop culture in all of its varieties, white, black, hispanic, etc. He can’t fundamentally change the deeply corrupted judicial system. He can’t “drain the swamp.” God’s redeemed people can do things Trump and the Republicans and political conservatives cannot do, which is preach the gospel and build godly individual lives, homes, and churches. This is what Christ has commanded, and it will make more difference in the country than barrels full of political commentary and action.

UNIVERSITY PUTS TRIGGER WARNING ON “EXPRESSIONS OF CHRISTIAN FAITH” IN CHAUCER (Friday Church News Notes, November 1, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “University Puts Trigger Warning,” The European Conservative, Oct. 15, 2024: “A leading UK university has been strongly criticised for putting a trigger warning on Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales advising students that the work contains ‘expressions of Christian faith.’ Critics say the University of Nottingham is ‘demeaning education’ for warning students that the Medieval collection of stories of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury Cathedral may contain Christianity. ... The Canterbury Tales is one of the most famous works of Medieval English literature. It is a collection of stories about various characters on their way to the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket, then one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Europe. The stories also contain explicit references to rape and antisemitism, neither of which the university’s warning mentions. ... Frank Furedi, director of MCC Brussels and an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, added, ‘Warning students of Chaucer about Christian expressions of faith is weird. Since all characters in the stories are immersed in a Christian experience there is bound to be a lot of expressions of faith. The problem is not would-be student readers of Chaucer but virtue-signalling, ignorant academics.’” CONCLUDING NOTE: The “Christianity” promoted by Chaucer is Roman Catholicism, which is not biblical Christianity, but the authors of the trigger warning in this report do not know that.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S APOSTASY (Friday Church News Notes, November 1, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) Christianity Today (CT) has been on the cutting edge of evangelical compromise and apostasy since its inception. Founded by Billy Graham in 1956 to “express evangelical Christianity to the present generation,” it quickly moved from a fairly conservative biblical stance to going beyond any semblance of biblical soundness: promoting the most radical ecumenism, defending “evangelical Catholics,” questioning the infallible inspiration of Scripture in countless ways, crowning the heretic C.S. Lewis as “Superstar,” defending Pentecostal gibberish, concluding that self-esteem guru Robert Schuller was not a heretic, promoting secular and Christian rock, and glorying in neo-orthodoxy. All of this is the product of evangelicalism’s “renunciation of separatism.” At the National Pastor’s Conference in San Diego, February 2009, a forum I attended with media credentials, Andy Crouch, a senior CT editor, engaged in a positive interview of William Young, author of The Shack, a man who makes no claim of saving Christian faith, a man who rejects the God of Scripture and defines God as a woman who does not exercise wrath toward sin, does not send unbelievers to an eternal fiery hell, does not require repentance and the new birth, puts no obligations on people, does not accept the Bible as the infallible Word of God, and does not mind if the early chapters of the Bible are interpreted as “myth.” Crouch did not even hint that there might be a damnable theological problem with the way that God is depicted in this book. (See “The Emerging Church Is Coming,” a free eBook at www.wayoflife.org.) Most recently, Christianity Today hired Amisho “Sho” Baraka, a cussing, radical ecumenist and marijuana promoter, as director of the “Big Tent Initiative.” Big Tent means “navigating between differences” and “bridging between cultures.” It means radical ecumenism. It means building the “one world church.” Baraka says, “I joined Christianity Today to contribute to the wonderful weirdness of building the kingdom.” (“Christians Are Peculiar, and That’s Okay,” CT, Aug. 19, 2024). He calls himself a “theological nomad” and labels John the Baptist “a pre-modern hipster wandering the desert.”

TATTOOING AND CUTTINGS (Friday Church News Notes, November 1, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD” (Le. 19:28). God forbade the Israelites to cut or tattoo their flesh because it was an identification with paganism and idolatry, and the New Testament contains the same principle. See Ro. 12:2; 1 Co. 10:20-22; 2 Co. 6:14-16; Eph. 5:11; 1 Th. 5:22. This law forbids the practice of pagan mourning rites. They cut themselves, wailed, refused to be comforted, shaved their hair, etc. The child of God mourns the loss of loved ones, but he does not mourn like the world. He has hope in God’s promises. Tattooing is still intimately associated with idolatry, paganism, moral debauchery, and rebellion. An article by Clay Thompson in the Pacific News Service for July 27, 1996, was titled “Pagan Fashion’s New Frontier--Facial Tattoos.” Note that the author, who in this article makes no claim to be a Christian, associates tattoos with paganism. He connects it with a “new reverence for pagan beliefs.” A prominent book on tattooing is Pagan Fleshworks. “Body modification” is the practice of burning, inking, cutting, piercing, and otherwise desecrating one’s God-given body. A July 2003 survey of more than 2,000 people in the United States, reported in the AFP for Oct. 11, found that among women who get tattoos, 34% “feel sexier,” and 29% overall “FEEL MORE REBELLIOUS.” One woman interviewed by the Vancouver Sun admitted that she got a tattoo “PARTLY OUT OF REBELLION against the normal Christian stereotype of ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that.’” She admits that her mother did not want her to get a tattoo and did not like it (“For the Love of God,” The Vancouver Sun, Vancouver, British Columbia, Feb. 1999). Such rebellion is forbidden in God’s Word. Another reason against tattooing is that the believer’s body is not his own; it is the temple of the Holy Spirit. “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1 Co. 6:19). For the born-again Christian, tattooing is graffiti on someone’s else’s temple.

ANOTHER COMPANY DITCHES DEI (Friday Church News Notes, November 1, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Caterpillar makes policy changes,” Fox Business, Sept. 20, 2024: “Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar is making changes after reviewing its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies amid mounting scrutiny of such initiatives at corporations around the country. A memo sent by Caterpillar executives to the company’s employees that was reviewed by FOX Business explained that the DEI changes include requiring that all corporate training be oriented to focus on business operations, as well as requiring approval from senior leaders for bringing in external speakers or participating in external surveys and awards. The changes come as anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck said he had been in discussions with the company about his plans to ‘expose their woke policies’ which resulted in the preemptive changes, which he outlined in a social media post. Caterpillar said in the memo that going forward, ‘All training, both formal and informal, must be focused on our business and designed to foster high performance and execution of our enterprise strategy.’ ... Caterpillar's DEI rollback follows similar moves at Molson Coors, Lowe’s, John Deere, Ford and Tractor Supply [and Harley-Davidson].”

WHY DON’T YOU RUST? (Friday Church News Notes, November 1, 2024, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) The following is from CreationMoments.com, October 21, 2024: “Did you ever wonder why you don’t rust? Before you laugh, remember --iron is not only a major part of your blood, it is used to attract the oxygen that is carried by your blood to the rest of your body. And you know what happens when oxygen meets the iron in your car or a tool that is left outside overnight--rust! So, why don’t we rust? Part of the reason is that the molecular structure of hemoglobin is very cleverly designed so that the iron in your hemoglobin attracts oxygen and holds it but, at the same time, is prevented from rusting. There are many designs that hemoglobin could have--but the actual structure prevents rust from forming. But 200 billion of your red blood cells die every day. The iron in those cells is no longer prevented by the hemoglobin from forming rust. So your body collects iron from these cells and stores it in tiny protective containers made up of the protein ferritin, where it is prevented from combining with oxygen and turning into rust. Actually, these rust proofing systems in the body can go wrong because of a rare genetic defect called bronze anemia. People suffering from this defect actually do develop rust like deposits in their bodies, and sometimes the rust actually discolors their skin. The careful planning and intricately related systems that make life possible speak loudly of a Creator. No wonder discoveries in the biological sciences have caused some scientists to defect from evolution and see creation as the better explanation.”

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; Mt. 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” (Ro. 13:11-14).