Blogs

Robert Bratcher, chief translator for the Today’s English Version (Good News for Modern Man), died on July 11 at age 90. After earning a Th.D. in 1949 from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, he became a missionary to Brazil, representing the theological liberalism that was already deeply entrenched in the Convention. He taught at the SBC’s seminary in Rio de Janeiro and in 1957 became affiliated with the American Bible Society’s translation department. As early as 1953, Bratcher denied the Divinity of Jesus Christ in a paper published by the Rio de Janiero seminary. During a question and answer session on October 13, 1970, at the First Baptist Church, Spartanburg, South Carolina, Bratcher was asked, “Is Jesus Christ God, or the same as God?” He replied, “Jesus is not the same personality as God” (Donald Clarke, Bible Version Manual, 1975, p. 98). Bratcher also denied the infallible inspiration of Holy Scripture. On November 5, 1970, after a lecture at Furman University, Dr. Bratcher told the students. “IF WE BUILD OUR FAITH WHOLLY ON THE BIBLE, THEN WE ARE BUILDING OUR FAITH ON SHIFTING SAND” (The Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina, Nov. 8, 1970). In 1981, Bratcher made the following statement at a Southern Baptist Life Commission seminar in Dallas, Texas: “ONLY WILLFUL IGNORANCE OR INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY CAN ACCOUNT FOR THE CLAIM THAT THE BIBLE IS INERRANT AND INFALLIBLE ... To invest the Bible with the qualities of inerrancy and infallibility is to idolatrize it, to transform it into a false god” (The Baptist Courier, April 2, 1981). Some claim that the Southern Baptist Convention has “been rescued from liberalism,” but it has never denounced Robert Bratcher and his vile Today’s English Version. It has been heavily promoted by the SBC, in spite of the fact that practically every passage dealing with the Divinity of Christ is corrupted and the Blood was largely removed in New Testament passages dealing with the Atonement, to mention only two of its gross errors. Beware of the Southern Baptist Convention! Even its staunchest preachers are New Evangelical compromisers, and compromise is highly contagious. (For extensive documentation of Bratcher’s apostasy and of the corruption of the Today’s English Version see The Modern Bible Version Hall of Shame, which is available from Way of Life Literature in print and e-book formats.)

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

The book “Burning Down The Shack” by James De Young is “too hot for the U.S. church establishment,” according to WorldNetDaily. “Making mega-millions off a novel seen by many as ‘heretical’ wasn’t a problem for America's Christian publishing, bookstore and broadcasting establishment, but a nonfiction book critiquing the best-seller was turned down by Christian publishers, avoided by Christian bookstores and boycotted by some of the largest Christian radio networks” (“The Book Too Hot,” WorldNetDaily, July 6, 2010). The book exposing The Shack’s heresies has been largely boycotted even though it was purposefully designed to be a soft-hitting critique. (We called the SBC’s LifeWay bookstore in Huntsville, Alabama, and they said that the book is only available as a special order item and probably won’t be available on the shelf for walk-in purchases.) De Young says that he became convinced that “if he were to write a meaningful response, he had to acknowledge chapter-by-chapter the book’s good points and then ‘bring the reader around to questioning what the chapter really is all about and the doctrinal errors in it.’” He said that he decided on this approach as opposed to “being totally confrontive” because other books that have been critical of The Shack have been “dismissed as being extreme, and, therefore, people don’t read them.” As it turns out, his soft approach hasn’t worked, either. The reason is that American Christianity has fallen in love with The Shack God and rejected the God of the Bible. The Shack God is non-judgmental and lets people live pretty much as they please. He is cool and loves rock & roll, doesn’t require repentance from sin, and doesn’t send people to hell. Evangelicalism fell in love with the cool non-judgmental god 50 years ago, and CCM is merely a noisy reflection of this apostasy. I find it interesting that evangelicals such as De Young think that they have the right to test things like The Shack with God’s Word, but they are highly critical of fundamentalists who do the same thing. They say that we go too far. It is acceptable to take a mild stand for a few of “the cardinals” of the faith, but it is “extreme” to take all of the Scripture seriously. Well, then, let me be very extreme, because God requires that we love all of the truth and not just a bit of it! Was the Psalmist an extremist when he wrote, “Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false” (Psalm 119:128)?

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

The spiritual danger in the Right to Life movement lies in its ecumenism. It is typical for Bible believers to be thrown into close association with Roman Catholics and other heretics in their pursuit of the otherwise righteous cause of fighting abortion. A prime example of what can happen is the case of Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in America. In 1994, while working in the abortion industry and living a lesbian lifestyle, McCorvey was befriended by “evangelical” minister Flip Benham of Operation Rescue. The next year she was baptized by Benham. She became an outspoken opponent of abortion and renounced homosexuality. In her book Won by Love, McCorvey described the moment when she rejected abortion. “I was sitting in O.R.’s offices when I noticed a fetal development poster. The progression was so obvious, the eyes were so sweet. It hurt my heart, just looking at them. I ran outside and finally, it dawned on me. ‘Norma,’ I said to myself, ‘They’re right.’ ... It’s as if blinders just fell off my eyes and I suddenly understood the truth--that’s a baby!” So far, so good, but the problem is that the same Right to Life movement that helped open McCorvey’s eyes to the error of abortion brought her into close association with heretics and as a result she was captured by a deceiving spirit (2 Corinthians 11:1-4, 12-15). Through the instrumentality of Priests for Life, particularly McCorvey’s “dear friend Father Edward Robinson,” she joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1998. She announced, “After many months of prayer, and many worried nights, I am making the joyous announcement today that I have decided to join the mother church of Christianity--by which I of course mean the Roman Catholic Church.” The Bible warns, “mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (Rom. 16:17), and, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Cor. 15:33). It is foolish to disobey God’s Word in the pursuit of good. God’s Word is the divinely authoritative definition of right and wrong, and if I am disobeying God’s Word I am not doing good in God’s eyes no matter how right it might feel or how it might appear before men.

(Friday Church News Notes, July 23, 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 daily devotional, which is packed with interesting scientific facts, is available in a KJV version from Bethel Print Ministry, www.bethelbaptist.ca.

“The prevailing scientific opinion is that all American and European eels lay their eggs under a mass of seaweed 1,500 feet deep in the Sargasso Sea. The pinhead-size eggs hatch to release transparent, ribbon-like creatures with no eyes or mouths. Billions of these tiny, blind creatures are programmed to travel 1,000 to 3,000 miles across the ocean. They get into the Gulf Stream and are carried toward Europe or America. Traveling farther north, they gradually lose their transparency and their eyes and mouths appear. The eels that are not eaten slowly develop hearts and stomachs. Next they swim up rivers and eat everything in sight, dead or alive. They gradually turn yellow and grow up to 3 feet long. For the first five to eight years, eels are sexless, after which they develop both male and female organs. Once mature, their noses become pointy, they start back downstream, and their skin turns silvery. Apparently they never eat again, because no silver eel has ever been found with food in its stomach. The eels swim thousands of miles to their birthplace in the Sargasso Sea. At this time the eels either become a male or a female as one of their sex organs shrivels up. Once they reproduce, the eels die.”

(Friday Church News Notes, July 16, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

The following is excerpted from Monique Stuart, Human Events, July 10, 2010:

“I turned on my media player on my computer recently to see an advertisement for Miley Cyrus. ‘Miley Cyrus, All Grown Up,’ scrolled across her picture on my screen. The girl is only 17 years old, not all grown up by my standards. All sexed up would have been more accurate. Judging by her latest music video, though, I guess she thinks that one equals the other, even though it certainly does not. ... I first took notice of the whorification of Miley Cyrus a couple of weeks ago when her new video debuted. The video for her song ‘Can’t Be Tamed’ showed a provocatively dressed Cyrus as a caged animal, dancing as if she were in a [strip joint] ... In an interview with Ryan Seacrest she said, ‘You know, no matter what all the dancers and the way that I was, you know, was dressed, my hair and make-up, yeah, it’s like a, yeah, it’s a gorgeous video. And that’s what it is. It is a sexy video. And, you know, you can’t really take that away from it, but it’s not the premise. It’s not like, “OK, what is your video about? It’s about being sexy,” because that’s what a lot of videos are. That’s not what I wanted.’ A quick glance at the opening lyrics refutes that claim. The song starts, ‘For those who don’t know me, I can get a bit crazy. Have to get my way, 24 hours a day cause I’m hot like that. Every guy everywhere just gives me mad attention. Like I’m under inspection.’ ... Just what I’m sure you were hoping for your 17-year-old daughter to emulate. During her performance of this song on ‘Britain’s Got Talent,’ Miley faked making out with a girl, because being a lesbian is so avant-garde. And, she was so scantily clad for her performance of the song at the Much Music Awards; it would have made Britney Spears blush.”

(Friday Church News Notes, July 16, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Anthony Williams, who performs under the name of Tonex and whose album Out the Box was nominated for a Grammy, revealed several months ago that he is a homosexual. In a recent interview he complains about being discriminated against and compared the discrimination against homosexuals to racism. The interviewer states, “These days, when he is not singing for his fans as Tonex, Pastor Williams travels across the country preaching a message of acceptance. Now his audience is a congregation and his stage a pulpit” (“Openly Gay Gospel Artist Preaches Acceptance,” thegrio.com, July 7, 2010). Williams joins a growing list of “out of the closet” Gospel and CCM performers, including Douglas Harrison, James Cleveland, Marsha Stevens, Kirk Talley, Clay Aiken, and Jennifer Knapp.

(Friday Church News Notes, July 16, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

The following is excerpted from the Baptist Press, July 10, 2010:

“In a landmark decision that could force the United States to recognize ‘gay marriage,’ a U.S. district judge July 8 overturned part of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, ruling that the government cannot constitutionally distinguish between traditional marriage and same-sex ‘marriage.’ Judge Joseph L. Tauro’s ruling on a pair of lawsuits out of Massachusetts invalidates Section 3 of the act, which says that for the purpose of federal law, marriage ‘means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.’ It is the first ruling of its kind; if upheld, it will place the United States alongside the 10 or so other countries worldwide that recognize homosexual ‘marriage.’ It would force the government to recognize ‘gay marriages’ from Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Iowa and Massachusetts; and by extension grant federal benefits, such as tax breaks and federal employee spousal insurance, to same-sex couples. ... The Justice Department, which has the responsibility of defending the law, has not announced whether it will appeal. President Obama opposes the law, and legal conservatives have complained for months the Justice Department was putting forward a weak defense by refusing to use the best arguments in defense of the law. ... The ruling just adds to what could be a banner summer for homosexual activists, despite the fact that a same-sex civil unions bill was vetoed in Hawaii. Homosexual groups are hopeful that a federal judge in a high-profile West Coast case soon will strike down California's ‘gay marriage’ ban. They also are optimistic a congressional bill repealing the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy will pass. On the pop culture front, NBC’s ‘Today’ program reversed course July 8 and announced it will allow same-sex couples to participate in its ‘Modern Day Wedding Contest.’ The Today show even said it is a ‘longtime supporter of the LGBT community.’”

(Friday Church News Notes, July 16, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

The following is excerpted from “Jews Reluctantly Abandon Swedish City,” Haaretz.com, July 11, 2010:

“At some point, the shouts of ‘Heil Hitler’ that often greeted Marcus Eilenberg as he walked to the 107-year-old Moorish-style synagogue in this port city forced the 32-year-old attorney to make a difficult, life-changing decision: Fearing for his family’s safety after repeated anti-Semitic incidents, Eilenberg reluctantly uprooted himself and his wife and two children, and moved to Israel in May. Sweden, a country long regarded as a model of tolerance, has, ironically, been a refuge for Eilenberg’s family. His paternal grandparents found a home in Malmo in 1945 after surviving the Holocaust. His wife’s parents came to Malmo from Poland in 1968 after the communist government there launched an anti-Semitic purge. But as in many other cities across Europe, a rapidly growing Muslim population living in segregated conditions that seem to breed alienation has mixed toxically with the anger directed at Israeli policies and actions by those Muslims--and by many non-Muslims--to all but transform the lives of local Jews. Like many of their counterparts in other European cities, the Jews of Malmo report being subjected increasingly to threats, intimidation and actual violence as stand-ins for Israel. ... A continent-wide study, conducted by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, released in December 2009, found that ... 37.4% agreed with this statement: ‘Considering Israel’s policy, I can understand why people do not like Jews.’ ... 86-year-old Judith Popinski says she is no longer invited to schools that have a large Muslim presence to tell her story of surviving the Holocaust. Popinski found refuge in Malmo in 1945. Until recently, she told her story in Malmo schools as part of their Holocaust studies program. Now, some schools no longer ask Holocaust survivors to tell their stories, because Muslim students treat them with such disrespect, either ignoring the speakers or walking out of the class. ‘Malmo reminds me of the anti-Semitism I felt as a child in Poland before the war,’ she said.”

(Friday Church News Notes, July 16, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

At the recent Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly women preachers were celebrated with a book signing event for “This Is What a Preacher Looks Like.” The book, a collection of sermons by 36 Baptist women, is titled after a popular T-shirt that debuted two years ago at the 25th anniversary of Baptist Women in Ministry. While there is nothing wrong with a woman preaching and teaching, as long as she is teaching women and children, God’s Word forbids the woman to teach or to usurp authority over men (1 Timothy 2:12). There were no female apostles and no female pastors in the early churches. In fact, a woman is not qualified to be a pastor-elder according to the standards of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, unless she can somehow be “the husband of one wife.” Women are very important in the service of Christ, but those who do not submit to the restrictions of God’s Word are rebels. They protest, “Who are you to say that God hasn’t called us to preach?” My answer is, “I didn’t say it; God said it.” The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) is a liberal group that broke away from the Southern Baptist Convention a few decades ago. Baptist Women in Ministry, which is affiliated with the CBF, sold a book (The Wisdom of Daughters) at the 2002 General Assembly that advocates lesbianism, abortion, worship of a female Sophia goddess, and the practice of Wicca. Many Baptist churches are dually aligned with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Southern Baptist Convention, which is clear evidence that the SBC is a deeply compromised mixed multitude. My advice is to stay away from it.

(Friday Church News Notes, July 16, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

Jerry Campbell, president of Claremont School of Theology, says Christians should not evangelize people of other faiths. “The correct perception [of following Jesus] is much more on the side of learning to express love for God and love for your neighbor as yourself” (United Methodist Reporter, July 2, 2010). Claremont, which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, is preparing to become an “interreligious institution” that will provide training for Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus. The new multi-faith venture was approved by the United Methodist Church’s University Senate. To say that following Jesus does not involve preaching the gospel to other religions is ridiculous and unscriptural. The way to love God is to obey His Word, which commands us to preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15), and the best way to love our neighbors is to tell them the Good News of eternal salvation through the shed blood of Christ. The unbelief that is rampant in the mainline Protestant denominations is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy and is irrefutable evidence of its divine inspiration. “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Peter 2:1).

(Friday Church News Notes, July 16, 2010, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)