Friday Church News Notes
February 7, 2025 - Volume 26, Issue 6
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.
PENSACOLA ON THE CCM ROAD (Friday Church News Notes, February 7, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Pensacola Christian College is on the slippery slope of adapting Contemporary Worship Music. In a school convocation on Jan. 19, 2025, a trio and musicians performed “Goodness of God” by Bethel Music. This was also performed by the Voices of PCC on Oct. 4, 2023. On August 25, 2024, the college choir sang “We Believe” by the Newsboys. The Pensacola adaptations are not full-blown hard rock as in the original renditions; they are soft rock, but soft rock is sensual and addictive. The Pensacola versions feature beat anticipation and vocal sliding and non-resolving chords which are major elements of the contemporary sound. The problem is that a large percentage of pastors have no idea what we are talking about here and don’t seem to care, because they make no effort to get educated. Further, I would guess that the Pensacola music people and a great many of the students are listening to the “real thing.” If you have a taste for rock, you want the full-blown thing. And like Hillsong, the Newsboys and Bethel know how to rock. Bethel Music, operated by a former Assemblies of God church, is hugely influential. The heretical emphasis is “encountering God” and “pursuing the presence of God” by means of releasing oneself to heavily sensual music. “At every service, our worship teams usher in the presence of God.” Bethel’s series “Without Words” uses instrumental music “to push the creative boundaries of worship.” There are no lyrics, no words. This is blind mysticism which emphasizes emotion over understanding. It is disobedience to the Bible’s command to “be sober, be vigilant” and is a perfect recipe for spiritual delusion. Bethel Church’s Jesus Culture youth ministry conferences are attended by tens of thousands. Bethel’s School of Supernatural Ministry has graduated 13,000 in over 100 countries since 1998. Bethel teaches and practices all sorts of charismatic heresies, such as the continuation of apostles and prophets, gibberish tongues, the promise of healing in the atonement, angelic and demon sightings, clairvoyance, grave soaking (lying on a grave to soak up the deceased’s “anointing”), and the appearance of “glory clouds,” gold dust, and angel “feathers.” The adaptation of CCM is the spiritual death knell of any church or organization that goes that route. It’s just a matter of time. CCM cannot be safely used in moderation and is incompatible with the biblical practice of separation. It is addictive in its sound, leaving the listener craving that type of sound and open to a stronger version. It puts the listener into communication with people like the Newsboys, Bethel Music, and the Gettys who represent the “broader church” with all of its dangers. It preaches the “lighten up” and enjoy the pop culture (cultural liberalism) philosophy of evangelicalism today. It is a bridge to the world and to the end-time, one-world church. (See also The Directory of Contemporary Worship Musicians and The Satanic Attack on Sacred Music, www.wayoflife.org.)
TRUMP ERADICATES GENDER IDEOLOGY FROM FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (Friday Church News Notes, February 7, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We’re glad to see this, but the very big problem with executive orders is that they can be reversed by a future president. The following is excerpted from “Trump Eradicates,” The Federalist, Jan. 31, 2025.“The Trump administration has dealt a significant blow to gender ideology within the federal government, with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issuing a memorandum that, among other requirements, apparently instructs all federal employees to remove their pronouns from email signatures. ... On the chopping block, too, are all contracts, programs, and grants that ‘promote gender ideology.’ Any agency employee whose job ‘involves inculcating or promoting gender ideology’ will be placed on paid administrative leave immediately, and all related initiatives under their watch will be ended. All agencies will be required to take down all media related to the ideology, including on websites and social media, and federal prompts for users to include their pronouns must be removed. Men’s and women’s intimate spaces, such as restrooms, will also no longer be able to accommodate those of the opposite sex or claimed ‘gender identity’ and will return to being designated for males or females, exclusively. The memorandum also requires the following: ‘Withdraw any final or pending documents, directives, orders, regulations, materials, forms, communications, statements, and plans that inculcate or promote gender ideology. Cancel any trainings that inculcate or promote gender ideology or have done so in the past.’ ... OPM’s guidance comes as a direct result of a Trump executive order, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. That order was at the root of another major action from the Trump administration on Friday, with the U.S. Department of Education throwing out the Biden administration’s radical rewrite of Title IX and replacing it with the first Trump administration’s protections for women and girls.”
CHINA’S WAR AGAINST DECADENCE (Friday Church News Notes, February 7, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “TokTok: weapon of mass distraction,” UnHerd, Jan. 23, 2025: “To this day, many in China believe Western liberalism leads to decadence, but one man has done more than anyone to turn this thesis into policy. Despite not being well known outside China, Wang Huning has been China’s top ideological theorist for three decades, authoring many of Xi Jinping’s policies. Among the Chinese, he is widely known as ‘guoshi’, or ‘teacher of the nation’. Although Wang refuses to do press or even speak with foreigners, his books reveal something of his worldview. His 1991 America Against America, based on his travels a few years prior, has since become a key CCP text for understanding the US. The premise is simple: the conflict between America’s economic system and its value system have made the country fundamentally unstable, destined for commodification, nihilism, and decadence. And, as Wang morbidly diagnoses, the country will eventually collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. According to Wang, America is directed mostly by blind market forces; the country obeys not a single command but a cacophony of demands that lead it everywhere and nowhere. ... Every new microchip, TV, and automobile only distracts and sedates Americans further. As Wang wrote: ‘it is not the people who master the technology, but the technology that masters the people.’ To prevent China’s own technological advancement from leading it down the same perilous path, Wang proposed an extreme solution: neo-authoritarianism. In his 1988 essay, ‘The Structure of China’s Changing Political Culture’, Wang wrote that the only way a nation can avoid the US’s problems is by instilling ‘core values’--a national consensus of beliefs and principles rooted in the traditions of the past and directed toward a clear goal in the future. This idea has been central to President Xi’s governance strategy, which has emphasised the ‘core socialist values’ of civility, patriotism, and integrity. ... The CCP’s intrusion into ByteDance’s [owner of TikTok] operations is part of a broader governmental strategy called the ‘Profound Transformation’, which seeks to clear space for core socialist values by ridding China of ‘decadent’ online content. In August 2021, Chinese state media called for an end to TikTok-style [entertainment] for fear that ‘our young people will lose their strong and masculine vibes and we will collapse’. In the wake of that statement, there have been crackdowns on ‘sissy-men’ fashions, ‘digital drugs’ such as online gaming, and ‘toxic idol worship”’ Consequently, many online influencers have been forcibly deprived of their influence, with some having their entire presence erased from the Chinese web.”
U.S. SURGEON GENERAL WARNS OF LINK BETWEEN ALCOHOL AND CANCER (Friday Church News Notes, February 7, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “U.S. Surgeon General,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Jan. 3, 2025: “Today, United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a new Surgeon General’s Advisory on Alcohol and Cancer Risk, outlining the direct link between alcohol consumption and increased cancer risk. Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after tobacco and obesity, increasing risk for at least seven types of cancer. While scientific evidence for this connection has been growing over the past four decades, less than half of Americans recognize it as a risk factor for cancer. ... ‘Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States--greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the U.S.--yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk.’”
RUDY ATWOOD PIANO SOLO NOTATIONS (Friday Church News Notes, February 7, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Ziesemer Family Publishers has released a new collection of 25 Rudy Atwood piano solos. These are not mere reprints of older notations. The solos have been upgraded by a study of Atwood’s actual performances. Also added are tempo marks, dynamics, and expressive indications. In addition, there are QR codes linking each arrangement to an actual recording on YouTube where available. See zfpublishers.com.
THE AMAZING MEXICAN FREE-TAILED BAT (Friday Church News Notes, February 7, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, January 7, 2025: “The largest community of mammals in one space spends the summer in Bracken Cave, outside San Antonio, Texas. Here, 20 million female Mexican free-tailed bats raise their 20 million pups, gulping down 150 tons of insects every night! The bats winter in Mexico and mate in the spring. Then, for some reason unknown to scientists, the females head to Texas. While they make the difficult migration, the females store the male sperm in suspended animation. Once settled in at Bracken Cave, they become pregnant. Four months later, each has a single pup. Although the cave’s one-room nursery has 20 million noisy pups, a mother bat can find her own youngster in as little as 12 seconds! At night, each female leaves the cave and flies as far as 60 miles, consuming as much as her total body weight in insects. After about five hours, she returns to the cave to nurse her pup. The bat’s normal diet does not provide enough fat for the mother bat’s rich milk. But the nursing period also falls at the same time that an ant, that is a rich source of fat, grows wings. These flying ants are available, in the bats’ airspace, at just the right time! Someone has remarked that God must like bats a lot. He made more species of bats than any other mammal. And He has designed nature to provide for all the bats’ needs. Notes: Carol Ezzell, ‘Cave Creatures,’ Science News, Vol. 141, pp. 88-90.”
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).
TRUMP ERADICATES GENDER IDEOLOGY FROM FEDERAL GOVERNMENT (Friday Church News Notes, February 7, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - We’re glad to see this, but the very big problem with executive orders is that they can be reversed by a future president. The following is excerpted from “Trump Eradicates,” The Federalist, Jan. 31, 2025.“The Trump administration has dealt a significant blow to gender ideology within the federal government, with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issuing a memorandum that, among other requirements, apparently instructs all federal employees to remove their pronouns from email signatures. ... On the chopping block, too, are all contracts, programs, and grants that ‘promote gender ideology.’ Any agency employee whose job ‘involves inculcating or promoting gender ideology’ will be placed on paid administrative leave immediately, and all related initiatives under their watch will be ended. All agencies will be required to take down all media related to the ideology, including on websites and social media, and federal prompts for users to include their pronouns must be removed. Men’s and women’s intimate spaces, such as restrooms, will also no longer be able to accommodate those of the opposite sex or claimed ‘gender identity’ and will return to being designated for males or females, exclusively. The memorandum also requires the following: ‘Withdraw any final or pending documents, directives, orders, regulations, materials, forms, communications, statements, and plans that inculcate or promote gender ideology. Cancel any trainings that inculcate or promote gender ideology or have done so in the past.’ ... OPM’s guidance comes as a direct result of a Trump executive order, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. That order was at the root of another major action from the Trump administration on Friday, with the U.S. Department of Education throwing out the Biden administration’s radical rewrite of Title IX and replacing it with the first Trump administration’s protections for women and girls.”
CHINA’S WAR AGAINST DECADENCE (Friday Church News Notes, February 7, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “TokTok: weapon of mass distraction,” UnHerd, Jan. 23, 2025: “To this day, many in China believe Western liberalism leads to decadence, but one man has done more than anyone to turn this thesis into policy. Despite not being well known outside China, Wang Huning has been China’s top ideological theorist for three decades, authoring many of Xi Jinping’s policies. Among the Chinese, he is widely known as ‘guoshi’, or ‘teacher of the nation’. Although Wang refuses to do press or even speak with foreigners, his books reveal something of his worldview. His 1991 America Against America, based on his travels a few years prior, has since become a key CCP text for understanding the US. The premise is simple: the conflict between America’s economic system and its value system have made the country fundamentally unstable, destined for commodification, nihilism, and decadence. And, as Wang morbidly diagnoses, the country will eventually collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. According to Wang, America is directed mostly by blind market forces; the country obeys not a single command but a cacophony of demands that lead it everywhere and nowhere. ... Every new microchip, TV, and automobile only distracts and sedates Americans further. As Wang wrote: ‘it is not the people who master the technology, but the technology that masters the people.’ To prevent China’s own technological advancement from leading it down the same perilous path, Wang proposed an extreme solution: neo-authoritarianism. In his 1988 essay, ‘The Structure of China’s Changing Political Culture’, Wang wrote that the only way a nation can avoid the US’s problems is by instilling ‘core values’--a national consensus of beliefs and principles rooted in the traditions of the past and directed toward a clear goal in the future. This idea has been central to President Xi’s governance strategy, which has emphasised the ‘core socialist values’ of civility, patriotism, and integrity. ... The CCP’s intrusion into ByteDance’s [owner of TikTok] operations is part of a broader governmental strategy called the ‘Profound Transformation’, which seeks to clear space for core socialist values by ridding China of ‘decadent’ online content. In August 2021, Chinese state media called for an end to TikTok-style [entertainment] for fear that ‘our young people will lose their strong and masculine vibes and we will collapse’. In the wake of that statement, there have been crackdowns on ‘sissy-men’ fashions, ‘digital drugs’ such as online gaming, and ‘toxic idol worship”’ Consequently, many online influencers have been forcibly deprived of their influence, with some having their entire presence erased from the Chinese web.”
U.S. SURGEON GENERAL WARNS OF LINK BETWEEN ALCOHOL AND CANCER (Friday Church News Notes, February 7, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “U.S. Surgeon General,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Jan. 3, 2025: “Today, United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy released a new Surgeon General’s Advisory on Alcohol and Cancer Risk, outlining the direct link between alcohol consumption and increased cancer risk. Alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of cancer in the United States, after tobacco and obesity, increasing risk for at least seven types of cancer. While scientific evidence for this connection has been growing over the past four decades, less than half of Americans recognize it as a risk factor for cancer. ... ‘Alcohol is a well-established, preventable cause of cancer responsible for about 100,000 cases of cancer and 20,000 cancer deaths annually in the United States--greater than the 13,500 alcohol-associated traffic crash fatalities per year in the U.S.--yet the majority of Americans are unaware of this risk.’”
RUDY ATWOOD PIANO SOLO NOTATIONS (Friday Church News Notes, February 7, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Ziesemer Family Publishers has released a new collection of 25 Rudy Atwood piano solos. These are not mere reprints of older notations. The solos have been upgraded by a study of Atwood’s actual performances. Also added are tempo marks, dynamics, and expressive indications. In addition, there are QR codes linking each arrangement to an actual recording on YouTube where available. See zfpublishers.com.
THE AMAZING MEXICAN FREE-TAILED BAT (Friday Church News Notes, February 7, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, January 7, 2025: “The largest community of mammals in one space spends the summer in Bracken Cave, outside San Antonio, Texas. Here, 20 million female Mexican free-tailed bats raise their 20 million pups, gulping down 150 tons of insects every night! The bats winter in Mexico and mate in the spring. Then, for some reason unknown to scientists, the females head to Texas. While they make the difficult migration, the females store the male sperm in suspended animation. Once settled in at Bracken Cave, they become pregnant. Four months later, each has a single pup. Although the cave’s one-room nursery has 20 million noisy pups, a mother bat can find her own youngster in as little as 12 seconds! At night, each female leaves the cave and flies as far as 60 miles, consuming as much as her total body weight in insects. After about five hours, she returns to the cave to nurse her pup. The bat’s normal diet does not provide enough fat for the mother bat’s rich milk. But the nursing period also falls at the same time that an ant, that is a rich source of fat, grows wings. These flying ants are available, in the bats’ airspace, at just the right time! Someone has remarked that God must like bats a lot. He made more species of bats than any other mammal. And He has designed nature to provide for all the bats’ needs. Notes: Carol Ezzell, ‘Cave Creatures,’ Science News, Vol. 141, pp. 88-90.”
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).
_____
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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