SEEKER SENSITIVE CHURCH PRODUCES FALSE CONVERTS (Friday Church News Notes, August 22, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Granger Community Church of Granger, Indiana, is one of the most prominent “seeker sensitive” churches. Last year The Church Report listed it has one of the 50 most influential churches in America. Their philosophy is to make the gospel “relevant” to culture and to use pop culture to attract a crowd, and they are very adept at that. They used Beatles Music for their 2007 Christmas theme, which was advertised as “Let it Be...Christmas -- A Story Told by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, George and Ringo.” The church’s web site describes its Sunday evening youth meetings as follows: “Imagine stepping into a large room, the floor vibrating with the beat of rock music. Colored lights cut through a fog-machine haze. The stage is empty, for now. ... if you’re a teenager, chances are you avoid church like the plague. It’s boring. Irrelevant. And the music is ... face it ... lame. So what else do we offer besides a unique environment? Here’s the tip of the iceberg: your kind of music--live and loud; leaders who talk to you, NOT AT YOU (or worse, down to you)--about hard issues you face every day; wild extracurricular events...” Granger is also on the “great sex” bandwagon. Its “My Lame Sex Life” campaign featured billboards with two pair of feet in a very suggestive configuration and sermon titles such as “The Greatest Sex You’ll Ever Have.” The church has attracted large crowds with its “relevant” philosophy, but what is the spiritual reality of the congregation? We have always said that “what you win them with you win them to,” and Granger’s own survey of attendees bears this out. The church’s “Reveal Now” survey found that 47% of attendees do not believe in salvation by grace; 57% do not believe in the absolute authority of the Bible; and 56% do not believe Jesus is the only way to eternal life (Christian Research Net, Aug. 14, 2008).

CATHOLIC CHURCH CONTINUES TO PAY FOR ITS IMMORAL PRIESTS (Friday Church News Notes, August 22, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has agreed to pay $12.6 million to settle 14 cases of sexual child abuse by 10 priests. In 2007 alone the Catholic Church in America paid $615 million to settle abuse cases. The total so far exceeds a billion dollars. The Bishop Accountability organization says that more than 4,000 priests have been accused of abusing children (“US Church to Pay 12.6 Million,” AFP, Aug. 11, 2008). That represents roughly 10% of the Catholic priests in America, and the statistics includes only those that have been accused. A conservative Catholic organization documented this wretched business in the fall/winter 2002 issue of the magazine Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, observing: “… the overwhelming majority of sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church--about 90%--involve homosexual priests preying on teenage boys. The major media and the U.S. culture at large want to deny or spin the homosexual factor out of the scandal.” We would also comment that the judicial system in America is nearly as corrupt as the child-abusing Catholic priests. If a “minister” is guilty of a heinous crime, he should be held liable and should pay for his crime, and if a fellow “clergyman” is found to have contributed to the crime by trying to cover it up, he, too, should be made to pay. But an entire group of churches should not be bankrupted by greedy lawyers as the present system unjustly allows. The American judicial system is no longer about justice for those who have been wronged; it is about money, which it drains from every victim that falls into its uncaring clutches.

NEW BAPTIST HYMNAL FILLED WITH CONTEMPORARY/CHARISMATIC WORSHIP SONGS (Friday Church News Notes, August 22, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The 2008 Southern Baptist Hymnal, published by LifeWay, contains many songs written by charismatics and published by charismatic music companies. Jeff Royal warns: “Seventy-eight of the top 100 CCLI (Christian Copyright Licensing International) songs are included in this hymnal. That means Southern Baptist and others in churches everywhere will be influenced by authors and music companies like Integrity, Maranatha, and the radically charismatic Hillsong records. Most of the song writers or worship leaders I looked at are either charismatic, new evangelical or a combination of the two. You throw Bill Gaither in the mix and that’s a recipe for disaster in my opinion.” For example, songs by David Ruis and Darlene Zschech are included in the new hymnal. Both of these popular worship leaders are extreme charismatic ecumenists. Ruis was one of the worship leaders at the Toronto Airport Church where people, who are instructed not to judge things by the Bible, rolled on the floor, barked like dogs, roared like lions, laughed hysterically, and got “drunk in the spirit” during their “revival.” Ruis’s song “Break Dividing Walls” calls for ecumenical unity between all denominations. Zschech and her raucous Hillsong worship band recently performed for the Catholic Youth Day in Sydney, with the Pope himself present. The lyrics to Zschech’s “Holy Spirit Rain Down” (which is included in the new Baptist Hymnal) begin: “Holy Spirit, rain down, rain down/ Oh, Comforter and Friend/ How we need Your touch again/ Holy Spirit, rain down, rain down.” Where in Scripture are we instructed to pray to the Holy Spirit? To the contrary, the Lord Jesus Christ taught us to pray to the Father (Mat. 6:9). The charismatic movement is not in submission to the Word of God and does not care one way or the other that there is no Scriptural support for this type of prayer, but shame on Baptists who follow in these presumptuous and disobedient footsteps. Shame on Lifeway for giving charismatics a powerful forum to influence Baptist churches.

SON OF HAMAS LEADER FOLLOWS JESUS CHRIST (Friday Church News Notes, August 22, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of the main leaders of the terrorist Islamic organization Hamas, put his faith in Jesus Christ a few years ago and currently is seeking asylum in the United States. He is 30 years old and attends an evangelical church in California. The following is excerpted from a Fox News interview dated August 12, 2008: “There are two facts that Muslims don’t understand. I’d say about more than 95 percent of Muslims don’t understand their own religion. ... Second, they don’t understand anything about other religions. ... Muslims don’t recognize that they stabbed Christianity (in) its heart when they said that Jesus wasn’t killed on the cross. They think that they honor him in this way. ... they don’t understand that this is the most important part of Christianity: the cross! So, they are ignorant, they don’t know what they are doing and it explains what an evil idea it is behind this Islam. ... When I studied the Bible carefully verse by verse, I made sure that that was the book of God, the word of God for sure, so I started to see things in a different way, which was difficult for me, to say Islam is wrong. ... I left everything behind me, not only family. ... You’re saying goodbye to culture, civilization, traditions, society, family, religion, God--what you thought was God for so many years! So it’s not easy. It’s very complicated. ... That was the most difficult decision in my life and I didn’t do it for fun. I didn’t do it for anything from this world. I did it only for one reason: I believed in it. People are suffering every day because of wrong ideas. I can help them get out of this endless circle, the track the devil (laid) for them. ... There is no chance [for peace between Israel and Hamas]. Is there any chance for fire to co-exist with the water? There is no chance. ... It’s not about Israel, it’s not about Hamas: it’s about both ideologies. There is no chance. ... There will be a 100-percent peace when Jesus comes back, when he judges everybody. His kingdom’s going to be 1,000 years and it’s going to be completely peaceful and it’s going to be the kingdom of God.”

MUSLIM FATHER BURNS DAUGHTER TO DEATH FOR HER FAITH IN CHRIST (Friday Church News Notes, August 22, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Muslim Father Kills Daughter for Converting to Christianity,” International Christian Concern, Aug. 13, 2008: “A Saudi Arabian man cut out the tongue of his daughter and burnt her to death after finding out that she had converted to Christianity. The girl came to know about Jesus Christ through the internet, according to Gulf News. Her father found about her conversion and killed her ‘following a heated debate on religion,’ the source indicated. The man is currently in custody. There is no indication as to the killer’s identity or the date of the crime except that ‘the killing happened recently.’ The killer works for the mutaween (Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice), an arm of the government that enforces religious purity and is the government’s face of persecution to Christians in Saudi Arabia. ... The Saudi Arabian officials are using their huge oil wealth to export Wahabbism (the most intolerant version of Islam) to other countries, including the United States. In its recent press release regarding the Saudi government school in Northern Virginia, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom indicated that, according to text books at the school, ‘It is permissible for a Muslim to kill an apostate (a convert from Islam).’ From Ethiopia to Indonesia, Saudi Arabia’s oil money is fueling the killings of Christians and destruction of their property.” “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12).

NEW CATHOLIC BIBLE FEATURES QUOTES FROM HINDU SCRIPTURES (Friday Church News Notes, August 22, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The New Community Bible published by the Catholic Church in India features verses from the Hindu Scriptures and quotes from Hindu activist Mahatma Gandhi. (“New Indian Bible Draws Fire,” Christian Post, Aug. 11, 2008). It is approved by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India and published by the Society of St. Paul. The new Bible sold 15,000 copies within 10 days of its release. The Catholic Church in India has been deeply syncretized with Hinduism over the past 50 years. Some Catholic priests have even imitated the habit of the Hindu holy man, wearing the orange robe, adopting vegetarianism, meditating yoga style, living in ashrams, etc. We documented this in the new book Contemplative Mysticism: A Powerful Ecumenical Bond, which is available from Way of Life Literature.

BARACK OBAMA PRAISED BY HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS (Friday Church News Notes, August 22, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Homosexual activists are praising Barack Obama for his influence in the new Democratic Party platform, which supports the “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender” (LGBT) vision for America (“National ‘Gay’ Leaders Credit Obama,” WorldNetDaily, Aug. 16, 2008). Rea Carey of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force says, “For the first time the platform explicitly calls for an end to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” The platform states that Democrats will fight to end discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. As the homosexual’s candidate, Obama will lead America toward spiritual destruction. That Rick Warren didn’t tell him that publicly in the recent debate at Saddleback Church is evidence of his apostasy. “His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber” (Isaiah 56:10). “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?” (Jeremiah 5:31).

BEHOLD, I COME QUICKLY (Friday Church News Notes, August 22, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The expression “Behold, I come quickly” is repeated four times in Revelation (3:11; 22:7, 11, 20). It refers, first of all, to His coming in God’s perspective. It must be interpreted by God’s clock, not ours. See 2 Peter 3:8. Elsewhere in the New Testament Christ’s coming is described as soon (Lk. 18:8; Rom. 16:20). To God a thousand years is as a day or even less than a day. In Isaiah 54:8 He told Israel, “In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for A MOMENT; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.” Though He has forsaken Israel for at least 2,000 years, to God that is but a moment because He measures things by eternity. The quick coming of the Lord also refers to the imminency of His coming, meaning that it is not preceded by specific signs and could happen at any time (Matt. 24:42, 44; 25:13; Phil. 4:5; 1 Th. 1:9-10; Tit. 2:12-13; Jam. 5:8-9). It will begin with the Rapture of church-age saints (1 Thess. 4:3-18), and from then until the return of Christ to establish His kingdom as described in Revelation 19-20 only seven brief years elapse. If a father leaves his teenage son in charge of his younger siblings and the household affairs and tells him, “I have to go away on some business, but I will come quickly,” what will that teenage son do if he is wise? He will be ready at every moment for the return of his father! The church-age believer is not looking for the Antichrist but for Christ. The events described in Revelation 6-18 are “the day of the Lord,” and it will come “as a thief in the night” and as “sudden destruction” (1 Thess. 5:2-3). The New Testament believer is “not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief” (1 Thess. 5:4). God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5:5).