FRIDAY CHURCH NEWS NOTES

[Pastor Matt]

August 7, 2009, Volume 10, Issue 32DOWNLOAD PDF VERSIONThe 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.REVEREND IKE, APOSTATE BAPTIST PREACHER, DIES (Friday Church News Notes, August 7, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Frederick Eikerenkoetter II, better known as Reverend Ike, died on July 28 at age 74. He founded the United Church Science of Living Institute headquartered in New York City and built a multi-million dollar empire through his unabashed prosperity message, which he called “positive self-image psychology,” “Science of Living,” or “Thinkonomics.” At the height of his success in the 1970s, he reached an audience of 2.5 million (“Reverend Ike,” New York Times, July 29, 2009). In the 1980s someone sent us a video cassette of one of Reverend Ike’s television programs, and it was truly amazing. That particular program featured a fire walker, and after the man demonstrated his ability, Reverend Ike excitedly proclaimed, “This man walks on fire; Jesus walked on water; Reverend Ike walks on MONEY!!!!!” At the end of the program he had his son manning the phone while he flipped a coin that had “good luck” inscribed on one side and “blessing” on the other. As he flipped the coin he urged his listeners to call in with their donations so they could be blessed, saying, “You can’t lose with the stuff I use!” The saddest part about Reverend Ike is that his father was a Baptist pastor and he was his father’s assistant in his teenage years. Somewhere along the way, though, he rejected the biblical gospel of salvation through the blood of Christ and he rejected the path of self-sacrificial Christian service, “finding the traditional Christian message constricting,” and determined to make it big with his own twist on the prosperity gospel. He succeeded in becoming wealthy, but as Jesus said, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26). (Much of Reverend Ike’s doctrine appears to have been adapted from Norman Vincent Peale. See “Norman Vincent Peale: The Apostle of Self-Esteem” at the Way of Life web site and the book The New Age Tower of Babel, available from Way of Life.)

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