Friday Church News Notes

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VOLUME 13 ISSUE 15
GRAPHICAL PDF VERSION.

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 does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.

MARK DRISCOLL TO SPEAK AT LIBERTY UNIVERSITY (Friday Church News Notes, April 13, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The long spiritual slide of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University (formerly Liberty Baptist College) has hit a new low with the upcoming visit of Mark Driscoll, who will speak April 20-21 on the subject of his new book Real Marriage. Driscoll, senior pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, is a Reformed Calvinist who describes himself as “theologically conservative and culturally liberal.” His church hosts champagne dance parties and beer brewing lessons; the men watch and discuss R-rated movies; and the church operates a theater called Paradox that hosts secular rock concerts. Driscoll criticizes “hardcore fundamentalism that throws rocks at culture” (“Pastor Provocateur,” Christianity Today, Sept. 21, 2007) and defines himself as “relevant,” “contextual,” and “cool” (“Conference examines the emerging church,” Baptist Press, Sept. 25, 2007). He says it is “legalistic” to preach against tattoos, body piercing, smoking, and drinking (The Radical Reformission, p. 103). He speaks of sexual activities in a filthy R-rated fashion. Both Driscoll and Liberty promote Roman Catholic contemplative mysticism. Driscoll recently said he believes “we’re sitting at the edge of a precipice” of “a new movement, with the potential to see revival in our generation” (“It’s Time to Move from Minutia to Movement,” Acts29network.org, March 8, 2012). He is excited that this movement is “spilling over traditional boundaries that have historically separated people” and describes it as “a number of tributaries coming together to form a river.” He says, “I’m fortunate to have close friendships with Christian leaders from around the world and across the theological spectrum.” Driscoll is describing a movement, for sure, but it isn’t new and it isn’t godly. It is the spirit of end-time apostasy. It is the corrupt “church” that grows into an impressive tree whose branches are filled with birds of the air (Mat. 13:31-32). It is the “church” that is well on the way to being leavened by ancient and end-time heresies, all orchestrated to the theme song of sensual rock & roll (Mat. 13:33). Liberty University, which was a conservative, fundamentalist institution just three decades ago, is now part of the one-world church, and it didn’t happen overnight. It happened with incremental steps of compromise. (See “Jerry Falwell: Should We Warn or Praise?” May 12, 2011, www.wayoflife.org.)

HARVARD’S ANTI-ISRAEL PROGRAM (Friday Church News Notes, April 13, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Harvard’s Academic Pogram,” FrontPageMag.com, Feb. 22, 2012: “Harvard University is a school of rich tradition. And in a few days it will be restoring a great Harvard tradition dating back to the 1930s: the tradition of hosting Nazis and violent anti-Semites on campus seeking the mass murder of Jews. Harvard is to hold a pseudo-academic conference devoted to calls for Israel’s extermination. This ‘academic conference’ will be little more than a genteel campus pogrom. Misnamed the ‘One State Conference,’ it will definitely not have any discussion of any ‘one-state solution’ under which all of Western ‘Palestine’ remains one single Jewish state, while ‘Palestinians’ unhappy about living there as a political minority move to one of the 22 Arab states. When the conference organizers and speakers talk about a ‘one-state solution,’ what they mean is a Rwanda solution, a final one, to the ‘Jewish Problem’ of the Middle East. They want Israel annihilated and replaced by a ‘bi-national’ state with an Islamist Arab majority in control. And it does not take a great imagination to understand just how Jews will fare under such a ‘solution.’ ... The ‘star’ of the Harvard pogrom will be Ilan Pappe, who is arguably the most thoroughly discredited pseudo-academic on the planet. Pappe is a notorious fabricator, someone who claims proudly that facts and truth are of no importance. ... Pappe is an expatriate Israeli who devoted one of his ‘books’ to his sons with the wish that they may grow up in a world without Israel. His own University of Exeter recently chastised him for his infamous habit of playing fast and loose with facts. ... While Pappe may be the most notorious fabricator at Harvard’s Destroy Israel Conference, he is hardly the only one. A close runner-up will be Stephen M. Walt, who--along with his sidekick John Mearsheimer--is best known for proliferating medieval ‘theories’ about a grand Jewish cabal plotting to control the world. Walt and Mearsheimer spin yarns about the imaginary power of the ‘Jewish lobby’ that sound very much like German propaganda from the 1930s.”

LANCASTER RECOMMENDING BOOK BY CONTEMPLATIVE PROMOTER (Friday Church News Notes, April 13, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Ministry 127 blog operated by Lancaster Baptist Church (home of West Coast Baptist College) recommends a number of unsound authors, including Thom Rainer, John Maxwell, and Donald Whitney. This is a very disturbing and dangerous practice. The reviewer of Whitney’s Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health, Lancaster Associate Pastor Cary Schmidt, says, “Every page was intensely scriptural, very articulate, and powerfully inspiring regarding the healthy Christian life.” What Schmidt fails to say is that Donald Whitney, a New Evangelical Southern Baptist Calvinist, is a bridge to some extremely dangerous things. He has some sound and helpful things to say, like any prominent New Evangelical, but the truth is mixed with error and he has no proper boundaries, having rejected “separatism.” By this glaring omission and by recommending Whitney so highly, Schmidt and Lancaster Baptist are helping people to cross the bridges that Whitney has built. Lancaster is doing the same thing with literature that they are doing with music. They are messing around with the wrong stuff. FIRST, WHITNEY IS A BRIDGE TO CONTEMPLATIVE MYSTICISM, and these are the most spiritually treacherous waters that exist. What Whitney touches on lightly in Ten Questions, he covers in some detail in Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Though Whitney emphasizes the supremacy and authority of Scripture, he recommends unscriptural mystical practices and favorably and repeatedly quotes radical mystics Richard Foster and Dallas Willard. Whitney praises Foster for his “great contribution” (Spiritual Disciplines, p. 22) and recommends the practices of “the medieval mystics” (p. 65), referring to the Catholic monks who invented contemplative mysticism in their benighted monasteries. It is unconscionable that Whitney doesn’t warn his readers that these mystics were committed to Rome’s damnable sacramental gospel and venerated Mary. Whitney promotes the practices of silence, journaling, and spiritual direction, and the “silence” recommended by Whitney is not merely to get alone with God and His Word in a quiet place. It is maintaining silence “inwardly so that God’s voice can be heard more clearly” and “does not always require words [or] sounds” (p. 184). This is blind and dangerous mysticism. To be alone with God in a quite place and to meditate on His Word is NOT the same as sitting in silence and trying to hear God’s voice internally. One is scriptural and profitable; the other is mystical and dangerous. SECOND, WHITNEY IS A BRIDGE TO REFORMED THEOLOGY with its error pertaining to God’s election and its Augustinian allegoricalism and replacement theology which confuses Israel with the church. Whitney continually quotes the “Puritans” and recommends meditating on their writings as a devotional practice (“Do You Thirst for God?” 2001, p. 9), which is a recipe for being captured by the heresy of Reformed theology--something that is happening to many students in IFB Bible colleges. Whitney recommends John Piper in the most enthusiastic manner. THIRD, WHITNEY IS A BRIDGE TO THE VERY DANGEROUS WORLD OF NEW EVANGELICALISM. He quotes from New Evangelical writers continually and in the most favorable manner, such as William Barclay, Elisabeth Elliot, Philip Yancey, and Jerry Bridges. He even cites Billy Graham, the Prince of New Evangelicalism, as an example of true godliness and the wise practice of spiritual disciplines (Spiritual Disciplines, p. 191). In some ways, “conservative evangelicals” like Donald Whitney are more dangerous than the Richard Fosters and Dallas Willards and Rick Warrens, because they are bridges to the treacherous spiritual waters represented by the latter names. (For more about contemplative prayer see the reports listed in the Articles Database at the Way of Life web site, www.wayoflife.org.)

CHINESE TEEN SELLS KIDNEY FOR IPHONE AND IPAD (Friday Church News Notes, April 13, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A 17-year-old in China who reportedly sold one of his kidneys last year to purchase an iPhone and iPad is now suffering kidney failure. Recruited from an online chat room, he is one of many victims of a thriving illegal market for organs in that country (“Boy in China,” Fox News, April 6, 2012). This sad case reminds us of the multitudes who sell their eternal souls for the fleeting pleasures of this life. “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).

TRAYVON MARTIN, HEPHZIBAH HOUSE, AND AMERICAN SHAMELESSNESS (Friday Church News Notes, April 13, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from a report by Tim Dunkin, RenewAmerica.com, April 6, 2012. “By now, the chances are extremely good that if you have a pulse and an EKG reading, you have heard about the shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman last month in Sanford, Florida. And if you are one of that majority of Americans who get most of their information from the mainstream media, the chances are also extremely good that nearly everything you have heard is both factually incorrect and purposefully slanted to support the agendas of various interests on the Left who have been trying to use this event as a springboard to further their political programs. ... What have we learned about this case? A lot. For instance, the reason George Zimmerman, as a Neighborhood Watch volunteer, was keeping tabs on Trayvon Martin that night was because there had been a rash of break-ins in the area in recent weeks, and Martin was acting suspiciously by appearing to be looking into houses whose owners were away. Also, we've learned that it was Martin who initiated physical contact with George Zimmerman by assaulting him, punching him in the head and continuing to attack him as Zimmerman was on the ground. ... We found out that ... Martin was trying to take Zimmerman's gun (which qualifies as a deadly attack under most ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws--if you're trying to take away somebody else's concealed weapon in a fight, it's likely because you intend to shoot them with it). We’ve even learned that Trayvon Martin was not the sweet, angelic, church choir singing, 12-year old-looking kid in the pictures that the media kept (and keep) showing ... at the time of the shooting was actually a 6'2," 200+ pound thug with a nice gold rack across his teeth (a common indicator of gang affiliation). ... Unfortunately, this sort of shamelessness is becoming the norm in the United States of America, where facts and truth take a backseat to hackery and agenda promotion by any means necessary. ... An example of this that I’ve written about before, but which I think serves to perfectly illustrate this glaring flaw on the face of the American public square, is the story surrounding the ongoing saga of Hephzibah House, in Warsaw, Indiana. Briefly, Hephzibah House is a fundamental Christian ministry in which teenage girls from Christian homes are enrolled when they prove to be too much for their parents and home churches to handle--often these are girls who've gotten involved with drugs, alcoholism, even violence. ... For the past five years or so, Hephzibah House has been the target of an ongoing campaign of internet slander and public defamation perpetrated by a small circle of former residents and their vocal supporters. These opponents, whom I will refer to as the ‘Hephzibah Haters’ or merely ‘Haters,’ have repeatedly made a number of very serious and attention-grabbing accusations against the ministry involving allegations of abuse ... There’s just one problem with all of this--the accusations are not true, and have been refuted a number of times and in a number of ways, whenever the opportunity to put them to the test has been provided.” (See also “In Defense of Hephzibah House,” RenewAmerica.com, Jan. 4, 2012.)

ADAM’S CURSE FELL ON CHRIST (Friday Church News Notes, April 13, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from The Beginning of the World by Dr. Henry Morris: “The curse fell hardest of all on man. This curse was fourfold as follows: (1) Sorrow, resulting from continually disappointment and futility; (2) pain and suffering, signified by the ‘thorns’ which intermittently hinder man in his efforts to provide a living for his family; (3) sweat, or tears, the ‘strong crying’ of intense struggle against a hostile environment; and finally (4) physical death, which would eventually triumph over all man’s efforts, with the structure of his body returning to the simple elements of the earth. But Christ, as Son of Man and second Adam, has been made the curse for us (Gal. 3:13). He was the ‘man of sorrows’ (Isa. 53:5), acquainted more with grief than any other man; He was wounded, bruised, and chastised for us (Isa. 53:5) and indeed wore the very thorns of the curse as His crown; in the agony of His labor, He sweat as it were drops of blood, and ‘offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears’ (Heb. 5:7). And finally, God brought Him ‘into the dust of death’ (Ps. 22:15).”

MT. EVEREST GROWING (Friday Church News Notes, April 13, 2012, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A new survey indicates that Mt. Everest has grown in height by 90 cm (35.43 inches) in nine years. The Himalayas were probably formed either during the massive global upheaval of the Flood or afterwards when the rock formations were still pliable and the water was violently resettling into “the deep” and the ocean basins. Today the Himalayas are heavily populated in many places at altitudes below 15,000 feet. About 30 million people live in Nepal, for example, and many more millions in Tibet, Pakistan, Bhutan, and the northern states of India. Bible prophecy indicates that the mountains will be leveled during a mighty earthquake that will shake the earth during the Great Tribulation (Revelation 16:18-20; Jeremiah 4:23-25).

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). This material is sent only to those who personally subscribe to the Fundamental Baptist Information Service mailing list. To SUBSCRIBE, go to http://www.wayoflife.org/wayoflife/subscribe.html. TO UNSUBSCRIBE OR CHANGE ADDRESSES, go to the very bottom of any email received from us and click "Manage My Subscription." Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org.

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[John81]

Regarding Mark Driscoll, I've noticed a growing number of preachers on the radio will quote him. Each time they make a clarifying statement before they quote Driscoll; typically something to the effect of them knowing Driscoll is controversial, that they don't agree with the way he speaks, the words he uses, but that he's not as bad with his language as he once was, etc.

The question should be, if a preacher feels the need to distance himself from Driscoll on several points before quoting from him, shouldn't they recognize Driscoll isn't someone they should be quoting from? Shouldn't they be able to see that they can get an equally good quote from someone who actually is, or was (if they are deceased) following Christ in how they lived? If they can't find a quote from some preacher to fit their sermon why not simply do without the quote, quote something relevant from Scripture or make their own statement?

One thing Driscoll does that I'm finding really irksome and tiring in that it's done so much today, is how he calls virtually anything he disagrees with that other Christians practice as "legalism" or "fundamentalism". Today "fundamentalism" is used as if it's a dirty word and "legalism" is cracked like a whip in an attempt to shame and silence those who disagree.

Typically, those things denounced as "legalism" or some form of bad "fundamentalism" are soundly biblically things that these people don't want to accept.

The whole idea of being a "sound Christian" yet acting and living like the world is totally unbiblical.