Friday Church News Notes
May 23, 2025 - Volume 26, Issue 21
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.
PIRATE’S COVE, THE ONE-WORLD CHURCH, AND THE CUSP OF FINAL APOSTASY (Friday Church News Notes, May 23, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Pirate’s Cove, California, intimately associated with the birth of Christian rock, is back in the news in connection with “revival” and Christian unity. In 2023, 2024, and 2025, thousands were baptized at Pirate’s Cove and nearby beaches (Newport, Huntington), and Mark Francey said a major goal is unity (“Baptize California Pastor,” Crosswalk, May 16, 2025). Thousands of churches are participating, with the number growing each year, and no words of disunity are allowed, no contending for the faith, no warnings about apostasy, no separation from error, all of which are unity killers. To understand this we need to look back about a half century. Nothing has done more to build a one-world “church” than contemporary worship music, which began at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa which was led by Chuck Smith and Lonnie Frisbee. It was called the Jesus People Movement and the Jesus Revolution by the media and made the front pages of magazines such as Newsweek and Time. Hundreds of hippies had conversion experiences of various sorts, a great many of which were lacking in biblical reality, many even drug induced and “vision” oriented, as our research has documented. (I was in California in late 1972 and again in early 1973 in my wandering days before I was saved in the summer of 1973.) Chuck Smith and his wife, Kay, were led astray by their acceptance of visions, tongues, and prophecies. Large numbers of the hippies were baptized at Pirate’s Cove and from the midst of these arose the first Christian rock bands, such as Love Song and Children of the Day. In 1971, Calvary Chapel founded Maranatha! Music to publish the first Jesus music albums. By stepping back and viewing the scene from a broad perspective, we can see that it was a major changing of the times. Technologically, it was the dawn of the computer era, the first personal computers appearing in 1975. Socially, it was the dawn of the rock & roll era and the music-driven global pop culture. Spiritually, it was the dawn of the new age with its emphasis on mysticism and yoga. Religiously, it was the dawn of exploding ecumenism, spurred by the Second Vatican Council, which launched Rome into the ecumenical mania, and by the New Evangelicalism which was capturing churches at break-neck speed and replacing the black and white of Jude-like biblical dogmatism with the gray of compromise. At the heart of the ecumenism is the new music, which has swept through practically all churches, from fundamentalist to Roman Catholic. It is the soundtrack of the one-world church. Even the most conservative of contemporary praise musicians are ecumenical in philosophy and practice, including Steve Green and Keith Getty, as we have documented in the free eBook, The Directory of Contemporary Worship Music, www.wayoflife.org. The leaders of Baptize California believe the mass baptisms, the unity, and the Christian rock concerts are “the cusp of revival.” When measured biblically, they are the cusp of final apostasy.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION RESCINDS $37 MILLION FINE AGAINST AMERICA’S LARGEST CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY (Friday Church News Notes, May 23, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has dismissed an unprecedented $37.7 million fine against the largest Christian university. This is probably the result of President Trump’s zeal to relieve Christians from the persecution that has been imposed under Obama and Biden. “Grand Canyon University, based in Phoenix, Arizona, was cleared of any wrongdoing by a Joint Stipulation of Dismissal order issued by ED’s Office of Hearings and Appeals, which said ‘there are no findings against GCU, or any of its employees, officers, agents, or contractors, and no fine is imposed.’ ... GCU was founded in 1949 as a nonprofit college by the Southern Baptist Convention but became a for-profit institution in 2004 ... The department alleged that the school misrepresented the cost of its doctoral programs on its website” (“Dept. of Education Rescinds,” The Christian Post, May 19, 2025). In addition to the massive fine by the Department of Education, Grand Canyon University was also hit with lawsuits from the Federal Trade Commission and a financial audit from the Department of Veterans Affairs, in an apparent effort by government agencies to target the school. “The American Principles Project, a conservative think-tank, published a report last year citing the Department of Education’s Office of Enforcement actions against Christian schools. Though Christian colleges and universities have fewer than 10% of students in the U.S., they make up around 70% of the penalties imposed by the Office of Enforcement, according to the report” (The Christian Post, May 19, 2025).
JESSE DUPLANTIS SAYS HE HAS SAME DNA AS GOD (Friday Church News Notes, May 23, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - As a reminder of how weird and heretical the Word-Faith movement is we only have to consider Jesse Duplantis. In a recent sermon he said, “I want you to create your world and walk in it. A lot of people get mad at me because they never saw me sad, sick, disgusted, broke, busted, disappointed. Why? Because I am in my own world, and it’s a good world. Why? I created it. How can you create? I have the same DNA as God Almighty. And so do you. You were created by God. You have His DNA. ... In the beginning God said ... Let there be light. So if there is a darkness in your area, you say, let there be light. The same DNA that is in God is also in you” (Jesse Duplantis Ministries, 2025). The Word-Faith movement was founded by Kenneth Hagin, Sr., who was born in 1917 and died in 2003 when his word-faith power apparently fizzled. The chief principle is that what a believer claims by faith, he will have. Hagin said, “Your confession of faith in God’s Word will bring healing or whatever it is you need from God into the present tense and make it a reality in your life!” (Hagin, The Word of Faith, Dec. 1992). Hagin defined this in his book How to Write Your Own Ticket with God. Hagin’s positive confession teachings, which he derived at least partially from E.W. Kenyon, spawned an entire movement within Pentecostalism, with its proponents having vast influence. Hagin taught that the Christian is an incarnation of God like Jesus. Hagin taught a health gospel, claiming that healing is promised by God. Prominent Word-Faith preachers past and present include Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Jr., Morris Cerullo, Marilyn Hickey, John Osteen, Robert Tilton, John Avanzi, Rod Parsley, Jerry Savelle, Creflo Dollar, Fred Price, Paul Crouch, and Charles Capps. (For more about these things see The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements: The History and Error, www.wayoflife.org.)
CARY SCHMIDT, LONG-TIME LEADER AT WEST COAST BAPTIST COLLEGE, HAS BEEN A CHRISTIAN ROCKER SINCE HIS TEEN YEARS (Friday Church News Notes, May 23, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Cary Schmidt took the pastorate of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Newington, CT, in 2012, after serving 22 years with Paul Chappell at Lancaster. He left on good terms and his material remained on Pastor Chappell’s web site last time I checked. Schmidt has transitioned Emmanuel Baptist from a fundamentalist stance to a contemporary evangelical one. A former member of the church informed me in 2017 of the changes, including $85 thousand spent on a “slick platform renovation.” In typical contemporary fashion, the auditorium is darkened and the spotlight is on the speaker. In April 2017, the new Emmanuel hosted a Steve Green concert. While Green is on the “conservative” side of Contemporary Christian Music, he is an out and out rock and roller and an ecumenist and is therefore a bridge to the world and to the “broader church.” In 1996, Green appeared at the Promise Keepers Atlanta Clergy Conference and sang “Let the Walls Come Down,” referring to tearing down walls between all denominations. Promise Keepers’ ecumenism is cutting edge. At the 1997 Stand in the Gap conference in Washington, D.C., Promise Keepers’ founder Bill McCartney declared, “We have a plan ... Baptists, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, we’ve been divided, but now we’re being reunited.” He said that full Catholic participation was his intention from the start (Our Sunday Visitor, July 20, 1997). Why would a fundamental Baptist pastor bring Steve Green to his church to build bridges to the very dangerous ecumenical movement? When Schmidt introduced Green to his church in 2017, he said he had been listening to Green’s music since he was 18 years old and Green’s songs “kind of dot the high moments and low moments of my life. ... I have told many people, he’s kind of the sound track of my spiritual growth.” It is now clear that Cary Schmidt was a Christian rock enthusiast the entire time he was on staff at Lancaster Baptist Church and West Coast Baptist College. In 2023, Cary Schmidt joined Bryan Samms at the Church Advanced conference. Samms is at the forefront of the movement to transition churches away from the King James Bible. In October 2024, Emmanuel Baptist hosted Keith and Kristyn Getty and others for a “Healthy Church Weekend.” The Gettys are ecumenical rock & rollers who associate closely with Roman Catholic musicians, such as Matt Maher, and are a bridge to the “broader church” with all of its heresies and spiritual dangers.
THE AMAZING PLATYPUS (Friday Church News Notes, May 23, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) The following is from CreationMoments.com, November 8, 2024: “Europe was introduced to Australia’s duckbill platypus in 1798. Because of the difficulties of travel in those days, scientists didn’t send a live platypus from Australia to the British Museum in London. They sent only a platypus skin. Scientists in London looked at the duck bill, the beaver tail and the webbed feet of this egg laying mammal and immediately denounced the creature as a hoax. Two hundred years later, the duckbill platypus continues to amaze scientists. Recently researchers discovered a surprising new ability the platypus uses to find food. It seems that the nerves in the platypus’s skin, which relay the sense of touch, are also able to sense electricity. Every time we or any living creature use a muscle, a tiny electric current is generated. When the shrimp that the platypus eats flick their tails, they generate about 200 millionths to 1,000 millionths of a volt of electricity. That small amount of voltage is enough to enable the platypus to sense and locate lunch. Modern biological research has also shown another mystery about the platypus. (At least it’s a mystery for evolutionists.) While the platypus is classified as a mammal, it is genetically as different from all other mammals as mammals are from birds. Nor is the platypus genetically like the bird. This leaves the platypus with absolutely no evolutionary history, almost as if it had simply popped into existence. And that’s what the Bible says happened when God created the heavens and the Earth and everything in them during creation week!”
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).
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION RESCINDS $37 MILLION FINE AGAINST AMERICA’S LARGEST CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY (Friday Church News Notes, May 23, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has dismissed an unprecedented $37.7 million fine against the largest Christian university. This is probably the result of President Trump’s zeal to relieve Christians from the persecution that has been imposed under Obama and Biden. “Grand Canyon University, based in Phoenix, Arizona, was cleared of any wrongdoing by a Joint Stipulation of Dismissal order issued by ED’s Office of Hearings and Appeals, which said ‘there are no findings against GCU, or any of its employees, officers, agents, or contractors, and no fine is imposed.’ ... GCU was founded in 1949 as a nonprofit college by the Southern Baptist Convention but became a for-profit institution in 2004 ... The department alleged that the school misrepresented the cost of its doctoral programs on its website” (“Dept. of Education Rescinds,” The Christian Post, May 19, 2025). In addition to the massive fine by the Department of Education, Grand Canyon University was also hit with lawsuits from the Federal Trade Commission and a financial audit from the Department of Veterans Affairs, in an apparent effort by government agencies to target the school. “The American Principles Project, a conservative think-tank, published a report last year citing the Department of Education’s Office of Enforcement actions against Christian schools. Though Christian colleges and universities have fewer than 10% of students in the U.S., they make up around 70% of the penalties imposed by the Office of Enforcement, according to the report” (The Christian Post, May 19, 2025).
JESSE DUPLANTIS SAYS HE HAS SAME DNA AS GOD (Friday Church News Notes, May 23, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - As a reminder of how weird and heretical the Word-Faith movement is we only have to consider Jesse Duplantis. In a recent sermon he said, “I want you to create your world and walk in it. A lot of people get mad at me because they never saw me sad, sick, disgusted, broke, busted, disappointed. Why? Because I am in my own world, and it’s a good world. Why? I created it. How can you create? I have the same DNA as God Almighty. And so do you. You were created by God. You have His DNA. ... In the beginning God said ... Let there be light. So if there is a darkness in your area, you say, let there be light. The same DNA that is in God is also in you” (Jesse Duplantis Ministries, 2025). The Word-Faith movement was founded by Kenneth Hagin, Sr., who was born in 1917 and died in 2003 when his word-faith power apparently fizzled. The chief principle is that what a believer claims by faith, he will have. Hagin said, “Your confession of faith in God’s Word will bring healing or whatever it is you need from God into the present tense and make it a reality in your life!” (Hagin, The Word of Faith, Dec. 1992). Hagin defined this in his book How to Write Your Own Ticket with God. Hagin’s positive confession teachings, which he derived at least partially from E.W. Kenyon, spawned an entire movement within Pentecostalism, with its proponents having vast influence. Hagin taught that the Christian is an incarnation of God like Jesus. Hagin taught a health gospel, claiming that healing is promised by God. Prominent Word-Faith preachers past and present include Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Jr., Morris Cerullo, Marilyn Hickey, John Osteen, Robert Tilton, John Avanzi, Rod Parsley, Jerry Savelle, Creflo Dollar, Fred Price, Paul Crouch, and Charles Capps. (For more about these things see The Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements: The History and Error, www.wayoflife.org.)
CARY SCHMIDT, LONG-TIME LEADER AT WEST COAST BAPTIST COLLEGE, HAS BEEN A CHRISTIAN ROCKER SINCE HIS TEEN YEARS (Friday Church News Notes, May 23, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Cary Schmidt took the pastorate of Emmanuel Baptist Church, Newington, CT, in 2012, after serving 22 years with Paul Chappell at Lancaster. He left on good terms and his material remained on Pastor Chappell’s web site last time I checked. Schmidt has transitioned Emmanuel Baptist from a fundamentalist stance to a contemporary evangelical one. A former member of the church informed me in 2017 of the changes, including $85 thousand spent on a “slick platform renovation.” In typical contemporary fashion, the auditorium is darkened and the spotlight is on the speaker. In April 2017, the new Emmanuel hosted a Steve Green concert. While Green is on the “conservative” side of Contemporary Christian Music, he is an out and out rock and roller and an ecumenist and is therefore a bridge to the world and to the “broader church.” In 1996, Green appeared at the Promise Keepers Atlanta Clergy Conference and sang “Let the Walls Come Down,” referring to tearing down walls between all denominations. Promise Keepers’ ecumenism is cutting edge. At the 1997 Stand in the Gap conference in Washington, D.C., Promise Keepers’ founder Bill McCartney declared, “We have a plan ... Baptists, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, we’ve been divided, but now we’re being reunited.” He said that full Catholic participation was his intention from the start (Our Sunday Visitor, July 20, 1997). Why would a fundamental Baptist pastor bring Steve Green to his church to build bridges to the very dangerous ecumenical movement? When Schmidt introduced Green to his church in 2017, he said he had been listening to Green’s music since he was 18 years old and Green’s songs “kind of dot the high moments and low moments of my life. ... I have told many people, he’s kind of the sound track of my spiritual growth.” It is now clear that Cary Schmidt was a Christian rock enthusiast the entire time he was on staff at Lancaster Baptist Church and West Coast Baptist College. In 2023, Cary Schmidt joined Bryan Samms at the Church Advanced conference. Samms is at the forefront of the movement to transition churches away from the King James Bible. In October 2024, Emmanuel Baptist hosted Keith and Kristyn Getty and others for a “Healthy Church Weekend.” The Gettys are ecumenical rock & rollers who associate closely with Roman Catholic musicians, such as Matt Maher, and are a bridge to the “broader church” with all of its heresies and spiritual dangers.
THE AMAZING PLATYPUS (Friday Church News Notes, May 23, 2025, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) The following is from CreationMoments.com, November 8, 2024: “Europe was introduced to Australia’s duckbill platypus in 1798. Because of the difficulties of travel in those days, scientists didn’t send a live platypus from Australia to the British Museum in London. They sent only a platypus skin. Scientists in London looked at the duck bill, the beaver tail and the webbed feet of this egg laying mammal and immediately denounced the creature as a hoax. Two hundred years later, the duckbill platypus continues to amaze scientists. Recently researchers discovered a surprising new ability the platypus uses to find food. It seems that the nerves in the platypus’s skin, which relay the sense of touch, are also able to sense electricity. Every time we or any living creature use a muscle, a tiny electric current is generated. When the shrimp that the platypus eats flick their tails, they generate about 200 millionths to 1,000 millionths of a volt of electricity. That small amount of voltage is enough to enable the platypus to sense and locate lunch. Modern biological research has also shown another mystery about the platypus. (At least it’s a mystery for evolutionists.) While the platypus is classified as a mammal, it is genetically as different from all other mammals as mammals are from birds. Nor is the platypus genetically like the bird. This leaves the platypus with absolutely no evolutionary history, almost as if it had simply popped into existence. And that’s what the Bible says happened when God created the heavens and the Earth and everything in them during creation week!”
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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