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The following is excerpted from “Pakistan City Tense after ‘Blaspheming’ Christians Shot,” BBC News, July 20, 2010:

“Police reinforcements have been called in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad a day after two Christians charged with blasphemy were shot dead outside court. Clashes broke out in the city, home to a large Christian community, after the brothers were gunned down. Pastor Rashid Emmanuel, 32, and Sajid, 24, were accused of writing a pamphlet critical of the Prophet Muhammad; a rights activist said they were framed. Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law carries the death penalty. A police officer who was escorting the brothers from a district court on Monday was critically wounded when the unidentified gunmen opened fire and then escaped. ... Atif Jameel, spokesman for the Pakistan Minorities Democratic Foundation, told the BBC: ‘No-one in his right mind would issue a derogatory pamphlet against the Prophet and put his name and address on it. This appears to be a conspiracy against peace and religious harmony in Faisalabad.’ ... Although no-one has ever been executed under Pakistan's blasphemy law, about 10 accused have been murdered before the completion of their trial, according to a BBC Urdu correspondent in Lahore. Dozens more are living in exile to avoid punishment under the legislation.”

(Friday Church News Notes, July 30, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

An Italian magazine has published an expose on “the double life of gay priests in Rome.” The magazine, Panorama, is owned by Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Using hidden cameras, the magazine captured priests visiting homosexual clubs and bars. A former Italian MP said, “If all the gays in the Catholic church were to leave it at once ... they would cause it serious operational problems” (“Catholic Church Embarrassed by Gay Priests Revelations,” The Guardian, July 24, 2010). A “member of the clergy” is quoted as saying that the proportion of homosexual priests in Rome is “98%.” A 2002 report in America concluded that between 25% and 50% of “seminarians and priests there are homosexual.”

(Friday Church News Notes, July 30, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

The following is excerpted from “Georgia School Forces Christian Student to Alter Beliefs to Graduate,” The Christian Post, July 22, 2010:

“An Augusta State University student filed suit Wednesday after she was told to change her Christian beliefs or otherwise be expelled from the school's graduate counseling program. ‘A public university student shouldn’t be threatened with expulsion for being a Christian and refusing to publicly renounce her faith, but that’s exactly what’s happening here,’ said David French, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund. ‘Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform.’ Jennifer Keeton, 24, has been enrolled in the College of Education’s School Counselor masters degree program since fall 2009. She has expressed her Christian beliefs in class discussions and written assignments, but it was her views regarding gender and sexuality that irked faculty. According to the filed complaint, ‘She has stated that she believes sexual behavior is the result of accountable personal choice rather than an inevitability deriving from deterministic forces. She also has affirmed binary male-female gender, with one or the other being fixed in each person at their creation, and not a social construct or individual choice subject to alteration by the person so created. Further, she has expressed her view that homosexuality is a lifestyle, not a state of being.’ ... A Remediation Plan required that Keeton attend workshops on diversity sensitivity training toward working with GLBTQ [Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Queer] populations, work to increase exposure and interaction with gay populations by attending such events as the Gay Pride Parade in Augusta, and read more on the topic to improve counseling effectiveness with GLBTQ populations. ... When Keeton asked why her biblical ethical views would disqualify her competence as a counselor, Mary Anderson-Wiley [an associate professor who oversees student education and discipline] at one point responded, ‘Christians see this population as sinners.’”

(Friday Church News Notes, July 30, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

The following is from “Firing Follows Anonymous ‘Hate Speech’ Complaint,” OneNewsNow.com, July 14, 2010:

“A professor in Illinois has been relieved of his duties for telling students in his Catholicism class that he agrees with the Catholic Church's teaching on homosexuality. The University of Illinois has fired adjunct professor Dr. Ken Howell, who taught courses on Catholicism, after a student anonymously accused the instructor of engaging in ‘hate speech’ by saying he agrees with the church’s teaching that homosexuality is immoral. Howell, who has taught at the university for nine years, says his firing violates his academic freedom. The professor is being represented by the Alliance Defense Fund in his quest for reinstatement at the school. Jordan Lorence, senior counsel with ADF, explains his firm's approach in the case. ‘We have written a demand letter to the university explaining what the law on freedom of speech is for professors and urging them to restore Dr. Howell to his teaching position,’ says the attorney. ‘And if not, we will examine our options and consider filing a lawsuit against the University of Illinois.’”

(Friday Church News Notes, July 30, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Evangelist Luis Palau and his son Andrew continue to promote radical, rebellious ecumenism through their evangelistic “festivals.” The latest example was the Yakima Valley CityFest in eastern Washington state. The festival brought together more than 100 churches, including Roman Catholic, to entertain and “evangelize” the masses. The churches were “united in the goal of sharing in word and deed the positive message of Jesus Christ.” What could be wrong with that, you say? The thing that is wrong with it is that it is done in blatant disobedience to God’s Word. Have we really become so desensitized by apostasy and compromise that we think that God will overlook willful disobedience in the pursuit of “good”? He won’t, and the Billy Grahams and Luis Palaus of this age (and all the rest of us) will learn that in eternity. Has God not commanded us to mark and avoid those who teach false doctrine (Romans 16:17), to turn away from those who have only a form of godliness (2 Timothy 3:5), to be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers (2 Corinthians 6:14)? Has God not warned us of false gospels (2 Corinthians 11:3-4; Galatians 1:6-8)? How can you preach a pure gospel when you are yoked with churches that preach a false one? This is confusion of the highest degree, and only men drunk with end-time apostasy could pretend that it could work. John Ecker, bishop of St. Paul Cathedral of Yakima (Roman Catholic), enthusiastically urged his parishioners to participate, saying: “Don’t forget our ‘City Fest’ coming the weekend of July 16-17 at the Fair Grounds, a chance to join our voices and prayers with many other churches from our valley and city and to better our city as a place to live for all of our people. I encourage your participation there this month” (St. Paul Cathedral newsletter, June 24, 2010). Do you really think the bishop would do this if he thought his people and their friends would hear any warning that would make them doubt Catholicism? This is a church that “reverences” Mary, believing her to be the immaculate Queen of Heaven; a church that preaches a sacramental gospel of faith plus works; a church that defines the new birth as being baptized. Like Billy Graham before him, Luis Palau is perfectly at home with the St. Paul Cathedrals of this world, and the evangelical world at large is silent in the face of this horrible disobedience, which demonstrates evangelicalism’s unashamed apostasy. Further, the Palau festivals are 75% worldly entertainment. The Yakima CityFest was described as “a nonstop program of music, action sports, and family fun.” It was a rock & roll concert; it was a worldly party. But it was not biblical evangelism.

(Friday Church News Notes, July 30, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

A group that calls itself the Freedom for Christian Women Coalition has issued a “Demand for Apology” from those who teach that women should submit to their husbands and that they are forbidden to preach. The group called out the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood in particular for its “complementarian” interpretation that says men and women “are equally in the image of God but assigns them complementary differences in role and function.” This position became part of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Baptist Faith and Message in 1998. It says in part that “the wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.” This statement enrages the shrill, in-your-face feminists associated with the Freedom for Christian Women Coalition. Assuming for themselves the divine prerogative of knowing the motives of men’s hearts, they claim that “complementarian” doctrine is “more about power and control than about love or obeying the Word of God” (Associated Baptist Press, July 26, 2010). They demand that such beliefs be renounced and “confessed as sin.” They even claim that the “complementarian” view promotes abuse. Cindy Kunsman, one of the speakers at the recent Freedom for Christian Women Coalition conference in Orlando, said, “Many women suffer as a result of the ‘evil woman theology’ perpetuated by CBMW because their sub-Christian view of the nature of women scapegoats women as the root cause of all problems within both marriage and the family.” This is a ridiculous statement. To uphold the Bible’s teaching about women has nothing to do with blaming them as the root cause of problems. In fact, the Bible lays the blame for the fall of the human race on Adam rather than Eve (Romans 5:12). When it comes to the home, God puts the greatest obligation at the feet of the husband and father. He is to love his wife as Christ loves the church, which is the highest standard of compassion conceivable (Ephesians 5:25). He is warned not to provoke his children to wrath but to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). To love and nurture is the opposite of abuse. Any man who abuses his wife and children does so in direct rebellion to the Bible and to the “complementarian” teaching based on the Bible.

(Friday Church News Notes, July 30, 2010,www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

The following is from A Closer Look at the Evidence by Richard & Tina Kleiss. This is a daily devotional, which is packed with interesting scientific facts, is available in a KJV version from Bethel Print Ministry, www.bethelbaptist.ca.

“It has recently been discovered that bees communicate using scents. Beehives are full of scents, yet honeybees are constantly alert to bees who are not members of the hive. Invaders to a hive are killed if they do not have exactly the same scent as the rest of the hive. Entomologists have discovered that all members of an individual hive learn to produce exactly the same chemical password. Amazingly, all honeybees use a specific combination of only two chemicals to make the scent distinctive to their hive. Bees from each hive can instantly tell whether a bee carries that hive’s specific chemical password. When bees start a new hive, they develop a new distinctive chemical password.”

(Friday Church News Notes, July 23, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

The following is excerpted from Benjamin Wiker, “The Importance of Not Being Stupid,” Human Events, July 19, 2010:

“If Nicholas Carr is right—and I’m certain he is—most people who start this article won’t finish it. In his excellent The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to Our Brains, Carr argues that the medium of the Internet, by its very nature, is destructive of the capacity for deep reading and deep thinking. As a result, even a slim article (let alone a thick book) lies beyond our technologically enfeebled powers of concentration. Surfing the Internet is an apt metaphor. Habitual users are masters of skimming along the surface of the web, climbing and dropping from page to page, weaving and ducking from hyperlink to hyperlink. ... Hamlet might be on the Internet, but after reading a few lines, we hit the initial hyperlink to Shakespeare’s bio and skim a couple paragraphs, hit Stratford-upon-Avon and glance at the map, hit Warwickshire out of idle curiosity, then take time out for an email check, click on the Drudge Report and scan the headlines, glide through a few stories, then sample a few blogs, back to the email... As Carr makes clear, the effect is caused by the medium itself, by the way the Internet delivers information. It may very well make available any number of literary and philosophical gems, every classic text worth conserving, but the way it delivers forms the brain in the click and skim image of the medium. We become mentally helpless, incapable of the kind of sustained attention necessary for deep reading and the deep thinking that follows upon it. ... While I’m obviously not for destroying the Internet in a Luddite frenzy (and neither is Carr), no amount of click-and-skimming can replace hours spent with Reflections on the Revolution in France or Democracy in America. Or if it does, the power to think deeply goes with it.”

CONCLUDING NOTE FROM BROTHER CLOUD: This is a true observation, and the ramifications for Bible-believing Christians are serious. We, of all people, need to be spending hours each week in serious meditation on good literature, beginning with the Bible itself. I thank the Lord that the ability of many believers to so meditate has not been destroyed by the Internet. I think of a pastor in Maine I spent some time with recently, who was reading the Bible through in one month. He is a young, technologically-capable man who uses e-mail and the web extensively, but he refuses to let it destroy his mental or spiritual life or that of his large family.

(Friday Church News Notes, July 23, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

According to a new poll, half the Israeli public wants the Third Temple to be built. Only 23% are opposed. The poll was taken in advance of Tisha B’av, which is the commemoration of the destruction of the First and Second Temples on the same day of the year (Arutz Sheva, July 18, 2010). This statistic is a dramatic change from the past, when only a small percentage supported the temple’s rebuilding. In 1986, David Shipler wrote in his book Arab and Jew, “During my five years in Jerusalem [1979-84], the idea of building a Third Temple in place of Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock evolved from a wild notion held by a very few fringe militants into a goal embraced and legitimized by parts of the established right wing.” Several organizations in Israel are dedicated to this task. The Temple Institute has fashioned most of the articles necessary for the Temple’s operation, including a $2 million menorah made from 95 pounds of gold. It currently is located at the Western Wall Plaza just across from the Temple Mount. The rebuilding will probably occur when the Antichrist makes a peace covenant with Israel. Each biblical reference to the Third Temple is given in connection with the Antichrist (e.g., Daniel 8:11-12; 9:27; Matthew 24:15; 2 Thessalonians 2:2).

(Friday Church News Notes, July 23, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Many signs point to the fact that that the Southern Baptist Convention is in decline. Sunday School attendance of children ages 6 to 11 dropped from 1.5 million to less than a million between 1971 and 2007. The age of the average SBC member is in the mid-to-late 50s. Since the 1990s, overall church membership has dropped, as has the number of congregations “plateaued or in decline,” which stood at 70% in 2003 (referring to churches that are either not growing are have decreased in membership by 10% or more). In 2008, NINE THOUSAND SBC congregations reported ZERO baptisms. Many of the reported statistics are, in fact, bogus. The Convention claims to have 16 million members, but that is a meaningless number in light of the fact that only 6 million have an active role (“Southern Baptists Ponder Declining Membership,” NPR, July 20, 2010). SBC membership roles are typically stuffed with inactive names, and a large percentage of the active members attend only on Sunday morning and have little to no further involvement in the life of the church. I am still probably listed as a member in the church that I grew up in, though I left it more than four decades ago when I was a teenager. There is no doubt that the SBC is in decline, but why? Some say it is because of lack of adaptability to the times. These propose a big dose of contemporary emerging church philosophy. But that’s not what built strong Baptist churches in the past. The problem with the Southern Baptist Convention is spiritual deadness. It is that simple, and attempts to raise this dead horse through pounding music and big screen projectors and tattooed youth pastors are vain. It is not a new problem. The Southern Baptist Convention has been in decline spiritually since I was a child (born 1949) and even before that. The SBC churches I was associated with growing up were worldly, spiritually lifeless, and carnal. There was no caution when receiving church members to try to make sure they were truly born again. There was no discipline of sinning members. There were no high moral and spiritual standards for teachers and deacons. There was no rejection of Billy Graham’s rebellious ecumenical evangelism. There was little to no separation from the world; little to no preaching against the filthy rock culture. Even then, the SBC had a name that it lived but it was dead. It was dead! This is why most of the young people left when they reached adolescence, and it is even worse today. No spiritual power. No deep biblical conviction. No real discipleship. No serious Bible training at the congregation level. The only hope for the SBC is a spiritual revival that is founded upon true repentance, but most SBC leaders and teachers and deacons don’t even acknowledge the seriousness of the issue, let alone own up to the root of it. I have read the analysis of many well-known SBC leaders, and none of them have acknowledged what I have said in this report. (Paige Patterson has mentioned “spiritual poverty” but he hasn’t clearly defined that poverty.) The deadness was why I didn’t go back to the SBC when I was saved at age 23. I joined an Independent Baptist church that was on fire for the Lord and was enthusiastic about the Bible and believed in separation and wasn’t afraid to take unpopular stands and preach unpopular messages; but today probably the majority of IB churches are no different in character from the SBC churches I grew up in.

(Friday Church News Notes, July 23, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)