CHARISMATIC WORSHIP LEADER WHO LIED ABOUT CANCER SAYS HE IS ADDICTED TO PORN (Friday Church News Notes, September 5, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Michael Guglielmucci, who spent the last two years lying about having terminal cancer, now says that he did it to hide his addiction to pornography. Guglielmucci, a popular contemporary worship leader and a former pastor in the Assemblies of God in Australia, even recorded a song called “The Healer” that became a hit (contemporary music is so worldly that it has top 10 lists) and was featured on Hillsong’s latest album. For two years he allegedly fooled even his wife and parents and closest friends into thinking that he had cancer. He sent e-mails to his wife from phony doctors, shaved his head, walked with a cane, and carried around an oxygen bottle, performing before thousands with an oxygen tube in his nose! He was the worship leader at Edge Church International, which is pastored by his father, Danny, but he didn’t appear before his church to confess his sins. Instead, his father, the pastor, read his son’s “confession,” which didn’t deal with sin and repentance so much as it dealt with “pain” and “sickness.” Instead of being placed under church discipline for fornication according to the command of 1 Corinthians 5:11, Michael is being pampered with psychological counseling. Guglielmucci had a web site and raised a lot of money from donors who believed his lie. One grandmother said that she sent him $800 that she had saved to take her wheelchair-bound grandson on a vacation, thinking that more good would come by giving the money to Guglielmucci. His father said that restitution will be made “if people want their money back,” but why should any of the money be kept since it was obtained fraudulently? Where did the money go? Was it spent on pornography?

ABORTION A “CORE MORAL VALUE” OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY (Friday Church News Notes, September 5, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In her speech to the Democratic Convention in Denver, Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said that abortion is one of the party’s “core moral values” (“Democrats Told Abortion One of Their ‘Core Moral Values,’” AP, Aug. 26, 2008). Actually it is one of the party’s “core IMmoral values”; there is nothing moral about killing unborn children. To call abortion a moral value is to call evil good. The Democratic platform that was ratified on August 25 says: “The Democratic Party STRONGLY and UNEQUIVOCALLY supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay.” The Democratic Party should be called Murder Inc., and how a born again child of God could ever vote for such a wicked outfit is beyond me. I’m not saying that the Republican Party is vastly superior, but at least it does not inanely brag about abortion being one of its “core moral values.” Further, there are choices other than Democrat and Republican. Emerging Church personality Donald Miller, author of the book Blue Like Jazz, put his imprimatur upon this unholy mess by delivering the benediction the same night that Keenan spoke. The emerging church and the Democrats belong together, because neither have a clue about truth and righteousness. “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight! Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!” (Isaiah 5:20-23).

VAST HINDU VIOLENCE AGAINST CHRISTIANS IN INDIA (Friday Church News Notes, September 5, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - After a World Hindu Council leader was murdered in India by suspected Maoists on August 23, Hindus falsely blamed the Christians and went on a rampage in Orissa state. At least 13 have been killed, countless others injured, hundreds of church buildings destroyed, and thousands made homeless. At least one person was burned alive. The general secretary of the All Orissa Baptist Churches Federation said, “All Christian villages [are] empty in Kandhamal as Christians, old and young, sick and pregnant mothers [are] hiding in forests exposed to the non-stop monsoon rains without food” (“Hindu Attacks,” Baptist Press, Aug. 28). An Independent Baptist missionary in India wrote on August 27: “The aftermath of Swamiji’s (a local Hindu leader) death by Maoist rebels became a ‘good’ excuse for the VHP (a radical Hindu political party) to attack the local Christians. Today is the fifth day of unrelenting physical attacks by the Hindu militants on Christians. Churches, houses of Christians are burned down. No one knows the extent of the number of deaths. I am told that there is no district that is spared. Families have been separated. Christians from most of the villages from all over Orissa have fled to the forests. The VHP leaders are inciting the Hindus and other tribals not to provide food, water, telephones, SIM cards, and other basic necessities to Christians. Not surprisingly, the media have barely reported these events. Even when they have, they have tried to paint the picture of it being clashes among the different tribals. That it is an organized orchestration by the VHP with the hand-in-glove collusion by the local police and political parties is beyond doubt.”

ROCK & ROLL FAN IN TROUBLE FOR FOLLOWING THE ROCK PHILISOPHY (Friday Church News Notes, September 5, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Rock & roll fan Kevin Cogill was arrested by the FBI on August 27 and charged with copyright violation for streaming some unreleased Guns N’ Roses songs on his web site (“Blogger Arrested Over Leak,” AP, Aug. 28, 2008). Though not stated in the report, it appears that the rock group filed a complaint with authorities; but Cogill was only living up to the rock & roll philosophy, which is do your own thing. On a 1986 album, Guns N’ Roses brashly sang, “I lead a reckless life/ And I don’t need your advice” (“Reckless Life”), encouraging that brash attitude in their listeners, and on a 1988 album they sang, “If you got a hunger for what you see/ You’ll take it eventually” (“Welcome to the Jungle”). Cogill was just leading a reckless life and taking what he wanted. The rock & roll philosophy has caused incalculable moral injury to modern society, and it won’t do for the rock gods to say, “We were just kidding.” One day they are going to stand before a real God that doesn’t consider moral filth and rebellion a joking matter.

CHINESE PASTOR SAYS 2,000 CHRISTIANS ARE IN COMMUNIST PRISONS (Friday Church News Notes, September 5, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - A persecuted house church pastor named Yu Jie says there are 2,000 Christians in prison in communist China. Yu is an elder in the Ark Church in Beijing, and though he has been under house arrest since July and his writings are banned in China, he continues to speak out against oppression. In an article published in a Hong Kong magazine he called Mao Zedong an “assassin” (“China House Church Leader,” Baptist Press, Aug. 29, 2008). Mao was probably the most brutal mass murderer in human history. His life is documented in Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. The London Daily Mail called this “the most powerful, compelling and revealing political biography of modern times” while Time magazine called it “an atom bomb of a book.” For those who want to understand communism and modern history, it is a must read.

BEWARE OF DARK CHRISTIAN FANTASY (Friday Church News Notes, September 5, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Emergent ‘Christian’ Fiction,” Richard & Linda Nathan, FictionPlumbLine.com, Dec. 11, 2007: “In recent years, fiction aimed at Christians has exploded in the marketplace. And popular authors in that marketplace are emphasizing more and more of those disturbing elements that once were relegated to pagan, occult, or secular novels. Since Frank Peretti’s blockbuster novels delivered spiritual warfare to the Christian marketplace, the Left Behind series set millions hungering for apocalyptic literature, and the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis stimulated the appetites of occult fantasy lovers, publishers have been trying to repeat the phenomenally successful sales with a plethora of imitations and wannabes. But some of the biggest changes have come with speculative or ‘edgy’ fiction. ... Saint by Ted Dekker (Thomas Nelson, 2006), and Relentless (2006) and Fearless (2007) by Robin Parrish (Bethany House) are three popular novels promoted by houses considered major publishers for the Christian market.... Yet you won’t find the Gospel or a Christian worldview in [these] books; instead their fictional worlds are drenched with dark fantasy, conflicts of supernatural forces, and the promotion of imagination as a conduit to special powers. ... The main theme of Dekker’s Saint is power--the conflict of supernatural powers and the exaltation of human special powers. This supernatural conflict between good and evil strongly resembles a type of dualism where God and the devil are nearly equal in power and it’s not really clear who's going to be the victor. It is also tangled with an Eastern religious view of tapping into spiritual power to use for one's own purposes through the practices of focusing, meditation, asceticism, and contemplation, similar to the way the martial arts focuses on power. ... This novel is teaching a mythological worldview, not a Christian worldview, and the similarities to pagan myths are enormous. ... Christianity is not about super powers or human abilities. It is about sinners saved by grace and walking humbly with our God, who alone has the power. ... Along with the promotion of this pagan mythology is the elevation of Eastern spiritual disciplines as channels to obtain these powers and special abilities. Dekker gives constant praise for the discipline of Buddhist monks and occult warriors. ... I have the impression of a fascination with evil that is really unhealthy for anyone and especially for a Christian. ... As Dekker says, it’s entertainment. But fiction isn’t just any entertainment; its power and danger lie in that it can draw a reader into a worldview. It embraces the soul and the imagination. It brings to life conjecture and imagination. It teaches. And appearing as Christian, it can fool many.”

PREACHING AGAINST A THOUSAND THINGS (Friday Church News Notes, September 5, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Recently I received the following e-mail: “So, I’ve seen on your website the thousands of things that you don’t believe in. What do you believe in? I believe that the Bible is God’s holy Word, and that Jesus is His only begotten Son, and that I am saved by grace through faith in Christ’s atoning death on the cross. Shouldn’t you guys spend some more time proclaiming stuff like that? I just hear banging gongs and resounding cymbals after visiting your homepage.” BROTHER CLOUD’S REPLY: God saved me by His marvelous grace 35 years ago when I was a 23-year-old hitchhiking, drug-using pagan, and He put into my life many things that had never been there before. One of those was a great love for His holy Word, the type of love expressed in Psalm 119:128. “Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.” If you truly love the truth, you will hate error. IF I PREACH AGAINST A THOUSAND ERRORS, IT IS ONLY BECAUSE I LOVE A THOUSAND TRUTHS. God called me to preach, and He did not call me to preach only a part of His Word or only the “positive” things. He called me to preach all of it (2 Timothy 4:2). He laid Way of Life Literature on my heart a few years after I was saved when I was reading Proverbs 6:23--“For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” Reproofs are necessary for godly living. That is why the Bible is so filled with them. As for “spending time doing stuff like that,” referring to preaching the gospel, my wife and I have been preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in one of the poorest and neediest and darkest parts of the world since the 1970s. If you think preaching the truth in love is just banging gongs and resounding cymbals, help yourself, but such thinking will fail mightily at the judgment seat of Christ.”

SCOFF NOT AT THE BOOK (Friday Church News Notes, September 5, 2008, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Charles Spurgeon (1834-92) -- “Let me call your attention to the fact that when Jesus had risen from the dead, He was just as tender of Scripture as He was before His decease. He told them that ‘all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning Me. Then He opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and this it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead’ (Luke 24:44-46). Find Jesus where you may, He is the antagonist of those who would lessen the authority of Holy Scripture. ‘It is written’ is His weapon against Satan, His argument against wicked men. The learned of this hour scoff at the Book and accuse of Bibliolatry those of us who reverence the Divine Word; but in this they derive no assistance from the teaching or example of Jesus. Not a word derogatory of Scripture ever fell from the lips of Jesus Christ; but evermore He manifested the most reverent regard for every jot and tittle of the inspired Volume. Since our Savior, not only before His death, but after it, took care to commend the Scriptures to us, let us avoid with all our hearts all teaching in which Holy Scripture is put into the background” (Charles Spurgeon, “Scoff Not at the Book”).