Friday Church News Notes
April 18, 2025 - Volume 26, Issue 16
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.
Kristen and Keith Getty
THE GETTYS: A BRIDGE TO GREAT DANGERS (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Even the most conservative of the contemporary worship musicians, such as the Gettys (Getty-Townend Music), are a path to a wide variety of spiritual, moral, and doctrinal dangers. The Gettys are conservative in their Reformed theology, but they have no boundaries. They don’t believe in separation. They are positive-only, non-judgmental. The Gettys are people that say they love sound doctrine, but they don’t hate heresy. They say they love righteousness, but they don’t hate worldliness. At least they don’t speak out about it, and the Bible says they should. “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11). Because of the lack of effectual boundaries, the Gettys are a potential bridge to the exceedingly dangerous world of the “broader church” with all of its sins and heresies, as surely as Hillsong or any of the other contemporary worship groups. The Gettys are a bridge to the world of rock & roll. Their music is syncretistic. They “fuse the music of their Irish heritage with the sounds of Nashville, their newly adopted home.” They are “crossing the genres of traditional, classical, folk and contemporary composition.” The Gettys are hard rockers and they even promote hip hop. Keith Getty has called Bono, U2’s lead singer, a brilliant theologian and heaped praise upon him, but Bono is a rank heretic and a moral reprobate, as we have documented. The Gettys are a bridge to immodest dress. The Gettys are a bridge to the Roman Catholic Church. In July 2012, the Gettys joined Roman Catholic Matt Maher, who prays to Mary as the Queen of Heaven, on NewsongCafe on WorshipTogether.com. They discussed “The Power of the Cross,” which was co-written by Getty-Townend. The program promoted ecumenical unity, with Maher/Townend/Getty entirely one in the spirit through the music. Jude 1:3 was despised and Romans 16:17 disobeyed. Keith Getty collaborated with Catholic Margaret Becker in the song “Jesus Draw Me Ever Nearer” and with Roman Catholic Máire [pronounced Moya] Brennan in writing “With the Early Morning.” The Gettys are a bridge to many other dangers, and anyone who is influenced by the Gettys is in great danger of unwittingly following these bridges to doctrinal apostasy and spiritual shipwreck. (See our report “The Gettys: Pied Pipers of Contemporary Worship Music,” www.wayoflife.org/reports/).
UNITARIANISM AND THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is a popular rousing march that preaches the false social gospel. The author, Julia Ward Howe, a Unitarian universalist, confused the coming of Christ with the armies of the North. Howe misidentified God’s altar as “the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,” referring to army camps, and falsely claimed that the gospel was “writ in burnish’d rows of steel.” At the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893, Julia Ward Howe delivered a pantheistic (God is everything), universalistic (Fatherhood of God) message entitled “What Is Religion?” (www.womenshistory.about.com). Howe was related to and in close association with the Beechers who were at the center of apostasy in American churches. Henry Ward Beecher was the hugely influential pastor of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. He was an advocate for “the evolutionary theory and scientific biblical criticism” (Encyclopedia Britannica). He opened his pulpit to Unitarians such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and even to agnostics such as Horace Greeley and Mark Twain.
FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST PROBLEM AND SOLUTION (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Following is an excerpt from communication I had recently with a man on the subject of what is happening with fundamental Baptist churches: The traditional independent Baptist model was never strong enough, never biblical enough, never spiritual enough, never wise enough, never serious enough. Having been an independent Baptist since 1973, my observation is that a traditional independent Baptist church, generally speaking, has been hasty about evangelism, careless in receiving members, biblically shallow, lacking in sound scholarship, weak in true discipline, externally-oriented about modesty, entertainment oriented in youth discipleship, soft in separation, and lacking in a true body ministry (Ephesians 4:16). But the solution is not to go down the path of evangelicalism or contemporary Reformed theology, which is a path to end-time apostasy. The solution is to go back to the Bible alone and to reject every tradition and every pragmatic element that does not stand up to the light of God’s Word. The solution is to stop being man followers and to be Christ followers in reality, not in mere profession, and to establish churches that are thorough-going Bible churches that please the Lord Jesus Christ. The solution is not to establish modern churches, but to establish true pilgrim churches.
DON’T QUIT (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The secret to a special forces mindset is persistence and doggedness. Admiral William McRaven describes this as follows: “Like many things in life, success in BUD/S [SEAL trials) didn’t always go to the strongest, the fastest, or the smartest. It went to the man who faltered, who failed, who stumbled, but who persevered, who got up and kept moving. Always moving forward, one evolution at a time. ‘Never quit. Never quit. Never quit!’” (Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations). This is true in the Christian life, but whereas the special forces soldier typically trusts in himself, the child of God perseveres in Christ and by God’s power. “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Gal. 6:9).
MODERN BIBLE VERSIONS A SLIPPERY SLOPE (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The modern Bible text/version position is a slippery slope toward abandoning conviction about the purity of God’s Word. It might begin with acceptance of the New King James Version, but rarely is that the end. Typically, the acceptance of one modern version leads to acceptance of most of them. Consider that the frightfully corrupt The Message has been recommended by Billy Graham, Warren Wiersbe, J.I. Packer, Joni Earekson Tada, Bill Hybels, Bill Gaither, Chuck Swindoll, Joyce Meyer, John Maxwell, Max Lucado, Focus on the Family, and many others. The multiplicity of versions weakens the authority of Scripture in the hearts and lives of individuals and churches. Consider the insightful testimony of a pastor who left the Southern Baptist Convention in 1996: “The problem with the SBC is that they have no absolute authority. The typical SBC church has no less than four different translations in any given service. So it is impossible for the people to hear a ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ Every issue becomes debatable. Every conviction becomes questionable” (Pastor Marty Wynn, Lighthouse Baptist Church, Columbus, Georgia, May 2011).
DANGERS OF SOCIAL MEDIA (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Social media is a major element in the destruction of the holy pilgrim character of churches, yet most churches have given up this battle. Consider some of the dangers: Social media is used to create false lives. Young people pretend to be something they aren’t. It is a massive forum for the seduction of women. It is a forum for vanity (endless selfies and the promotion of self). It is the devil’s mixing bowl. It is a forum for mixing the good together with the bad, the godly together with the ungodly, truth with error. It is breaking down the barriers of separation between God’s people and the world. It is weakening spiritual convictions. It is a forum for moral filth. It is a forum for heresies. It is a great time waster. Social media is purposefully engineered to be addictive. Asa Raskin, who designed the endless scroll and other popular app features, says, “We’re in the largest behavioral experiment the world has ever seen. You’re being tested on all the time. ... Behind every screen on your phone there are literally a thousand engineers to try to make it maximally addicting. IT’S AS IF THEY’RE TAKING BEHAVIORAL COCAINE AND JUST SPRINKLING IT ALL OVER YOUR INTERFACE” (Mind Control: The Dark Side of Your Phone, BBC documentary, 2018). “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:16-17). Homes and churches must do everything they can to protect God’s people. Our church has a buddy system. Cornerstone Baptist Church in Chicago has a buddy system. They also use TheCord.app. We deal with this subject extensively in The Pornographic Age and Victory in Christ (March 2025).
A COMPUTER WITH FINS (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, March 8, 2025: “The glass knifefish, popular in home aquariums, has been the subject of study by two University of California researchers. They have concluded that this unusual looking fish has such a complex nervous system that it is basically a computer with fins. As the 6- to 7-inch native of South America swims along, it generates up to 700 weak electrical impulses a second, which it uses like radar to navigate. The returning signals are received by specialized cells all over the fish’s body. The fish’s brain then processes these signals in much the same way that our brain processes the signals from our ears and tells us the direction of the source of sound. However, where we use sound waves to tell us direction, the glass knifefish uses electrical impulses that travel much faster than sound. But not only are those impulses faster but there are up to 700 signals per second to process. The fish’s secret to processing this huge amount of information is called parallel processing. This is a technique that has been discovered and applied to produce the fastest computers yet. The glass knifefish is an unlikely design to have evolved. The highly sophisticated information-processing technology built into this fish can only be attributed to the Creator, presented to us in the Bible.”
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).
UNITARIANISM AND THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is a popular rousing march that preaches the false social gospel. The author, Julia Ward Howe, a Unitarian universalist, confused the coming of Christ with the armies of the North. Howe misidentified God’s altar as “the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,” referring to army camps, and falsely claimed that the gospel was “writ in burnish’d rows of steel.” At the Parliament of the World’s Religions in 1893, Julia Ward Howe delivered a pantheistic (God is everything), universalistic (Fatherhood of God) message entitled “What Is Religion?” (www.womenshistory.about.com). Howe was related to and in close association with the Beechers who were at the center of apostasy in American churches. Henry Ward Beecher was the hugely influential pastor of Plymouth Church in Brooklyn. He was an advocate for “the evolutionary theory and scientific biblical criticism” (Encyclopedia Britannica). He opened his pulpit to Unitarians such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and even to agnostics such as Horace Greeley and Mark Twain.
FUNDAMENTAL BAPTIST PROBLEM AND SOLUTION (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Following is an excerpt from communication I had recently with a man on the subject of what is happening with fundamental Baptist churches: The traditional independent Baptist model was never strong enough, never biblical enough, never spiritual enough, never wise enough, never serious enough. Having been an independent Baptist since 1973, my observation is that a traditional independent Baptist church, generally speaking, has been hasty about evangelism, careless in receiving members, biblically shallow, lacking in sound scholarship, weak in true discipline, externally-oriented about modesty, entertainment oriented in youth discipleship, soft in separation, and lacking in a true body ministry (Ephesians 4:16). But the solution is not to go down the path of evangelicalism or contemporary Reformed theology, which is a path to end-time apostasy. The solution is to go back to the Bible alone and to reject every tradition and every pragmatic element that does not stand up to the light of God’s Word. The solution is to stop being man followers and to be Christ followers in reality, not in mere profession, and to establish churches that are thorough-going Bible churches that please the Lord Jesus Christ. The solution is not to establish modern churches, but to establish true pilgrim churches.
DON’T QUIT (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The secret to a special forces mindset is persistence and doggedness. Admiral William McRaven describes this as follows: “Like many things in life, success in BUD/S [SEAL trials) didn’t always go to the strongest, the fastest, or the smartest. It went to the man who faltered, who failed, who stumbled, but who persevered, who got up and kept moving. Always moving forward, one evolution at a time. ‘Never quit. Never quit. Never quit!’” (Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations). This is true in the Christian life, but whereas the special forces soldier typically trusts in himself, the child of God perseveres in Christ and by God’s power. “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Gal. 6:9).
MODERN BIBLE VERSIONS A SLIPPERY SLOPE (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The modern Bible text/version position is a slippery slope toward abandoning conviction about the purity of God’s Word. It might begin with acceptance of the New King James Version, but rarely is that the end. Typically, the acceptance of one modern version leads to acceptance of most of them. Consider that the frightfully corrupt The Message has been recommended by Billy Graham, Warren Wiersbe, J.I. Packer, Joni Earekson Tada, Bill Hybels, Bill Gaither, Chuck Swindoll, Joyce Meyer, John Maxwell, Max Lucado, Focus on the Family, and many others. The multiplicity of versions weakens the authority of Scripture in the hearts and lives of individuals and churches. Consider the insightful testimony of a pastor who left the Southern Baptist Convention in 1996: “The problem with the SBC is that they have no absolute authority. The typical SBC church has no less than four different translations in any given service. So it is impossible for the people to hear a ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ Every issue becomes debatable. Every conviction becomes questionable” (Pastor Marty Wynn, Lighthouse Baptist Church, Columbus, Georgia, May 2011).
DANGERS OF SOCIAL MEDIA (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Social media is a major element in the destruction of the holy pilgrim character of churches, yet most churches have given up this battle. Consider some of the dangers: Social media is used to create false lives. Young people pretend to be something they aren’t. It is a massive forum for the seduction of women. It is a forum for vanity (endless selfies and the promotion of self). It is the devil’s mixing bowl. It is a forum for mixing the good together with the bad, the godly together with the ungodly, truth with error. It is breaking down the barriers of separation between God’s people and the world. It is weakening spiritual convictions. It is a forum for moral filth. It is a forum for heresies. It is a great time waster. Social media is purposefully engineered to be addictive. Asa Raskin, who designed the endless scroll and other popular app features, says, “We’re in the largest behavioral experiment the world has ever seen. You’re being tested on all the time. ... Behind every screen on your phone there are literally a thousand engineers to try to make it maximally addicting. IT’S AS IF THEY’RE TAKING BEHAVIORAL COCAINE AND JUST SPRINKLING IT ALL OVER YOUR INTERFACE” (Mind Control: The Dark Side of Your Phone, BBC documentary, 2018). “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is” (Eph. 5:16-17). Homes and churches must do everything they can to protect God’s people. Our church has a buddy system. Cornerstone Baptist Church in Chicago has a buddy system. They also use TheCord.app. We deal with this subject extensively in The Pornographic Age and Victory in Christ (March 2025).
A COMPUTER WITH FINS (Friday Church News Notes, April 18, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from CreationMoments.com, March 8, 2025: “The glass knifefish, popular in home aquariums, has been the subject of study by two University of California researchers. They have concluded that this unusual looking fish has such a complex nervous system that it is basically a computer with fins. As the 6- to 7-inch native of South America swims along, it generates up to 700 weak electrical impulses a second, which it uses like radar to navigate. The returning signals are received by specialized cells all over the fish’s body. The fish’s brain then processes these signals in much the same way that our brain processes the signals from our ears and tells us the direction of the source of sound. However, where we use sound waves to tell us direction, the glass knifefish uses electrical impulses that travel much faster than sound. But not only are those impulses faster but there are up to 700 signals per second to process. The fish’s secret to processing this huge amount of information is called parallel processing. This is a technique that has been discovered and applied to produce the fastest computers yet. The glass knifefish is an unlikely design to have evolved. The highly sophisticated information-processing technology built into this fish can only be attributed to the Creator, presented to us in the Bible.”
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).
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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, BUT 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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