06-WEEKLY CHURCH NEWS NOTES
Pastor Dale Morgan
*
November 5, 2006.
By David Cloud [FBIS]
The Weekly Church News Notes is designed for use in churches.
*
EVANGELICAL FREE CHURCH CONSIDERS DROPPING PREMILLENIAL BELIEF *
The Free Church in America (EFCA)
is considering dropping its Premillennial statement of faith. The
EFCA Board of Directors accepted the second draft of the revised
statement on October 19, 2006, and if approved at the next Board
meeting it will go to the Convention for a final vote in February
2007. The current statement says: "We believe in the personal and
premillennial and imminent coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and that
this 'Blessed Hope' has a vital bearing on the personal life and
service of the believer." The revision would remove the words
"premillennial and imminent" as well as the statement that this
blessed hope has a vital bearing on the personal life and service of
the believer. Even if the revised statement is not approved by the
denomination, the very fact that it has been proposed and twice
approved by its board of directors is evidence of a growing rejection
of Premillennial theology. The EFCA has 1,278 churches. It is
enlightening that the proposed new EFCA statement of faith removes
both the imminency of Christ's return and the thought that Christ's
coming has a vital bearing on the believer's life and service. We are
convinced that the doctrine of the imminent return of Christ is not
only Scriptural but it is also the only position on Bible prophecy
that produces a vital bearing on Christian living. Thus, giving up
Premillenialism has huge ramifications. It will be interesting to see
if the current spread of Reformed theology among Baptists will result
in the growth of amillennialism.
*EMBOLDENED EVOLUTIONARY ATHEISTS *
The number of atheists in the world is very small, but some of them are
increasingly vocal in their crusade against religion in general and
the God of the Bible in particular. Richard Dawkins of Oxford
University, a passionate defender of evolution, is an example. His
best-selling book "The God Delusion" blasphemously proclaims: "The
God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in
all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving
control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a
misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal,
pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously
malevolent bully." Atheists such as Dawkins believe that religion is
hindering the evolutionary advancement of humanity and that an
individual can be an atheist "who is happy, balanced, moral and
intellectually fulfilled" ("The New Atheists," Spiegel Online, Oct.
26, 2006). In fact, if evolution is true, nothing matters. If
evolution is true there is no intelligent design, no meaning to life,
no absolute rights and wrongs, no supreme definition of morality, no
existence or judgment beyond death. So if evolution is true it simply
does not matter what a man does or does not do, whether he is
religious or non-religious, violent or non-violent, intellectual or
stupid; and Dawkins is uttering complete nonsense when he speaks of
"morality" and purpose without God. As for the Bible, it has no more
respect for the atheist than the atheist has for it, proclaiming,
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt,
they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good"
(Psalm 14:1).
*SOUTHERN BAPTIST PROFESSOR SAYS CHURCH DISCIPLINE IS "THE CANARY IN A
COAL MINE" *
Speaking at a conference at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at
the end of
September, Gregory Wills compared church discipline to "the canary in
a coal mine." He said, "When the canary in a coal mine keels over,
catastrophe impends. When church discipline is lost, catastrophe
impends" ("Scholars: Baptists Must Reclaim Church Discipline,"
Baptist Press, Oct. 27, 2006). Wills, who is a professor of church
history at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, observed that
church discipline began to decline among Baptists in the late 19th
century. By 1998 Dean Register, president of the Mississippi Baptist
Convention, testified: "It's very unusual for Southern Baptist
churches to take disciplinary action against an individual" (The Sun
Herald, Biloxi, Mississippi, Sept. 13, 1998). There can be no doubt
that this is true. Across the length and breadth of the land there
are unrepentant moral reprobates and heretics on the rolls of
Southern Baptist churches. Furthermore, it is common for a large
percentage of the members of Southern Baptist congregations to
habitually neglect themselves from the assembly and to live no
differently than their unsaved neighbours. According to a 1997 study
by the Strategic Information and Planning department of the Sunday
School Board only 32.8% of the 16 million SBC church members even
bother to show up on a given Sunday morning and only 12.3%
participate in any further aspect of church life. "These figures
suggest that nearly 90% of Southern Baptist church members appear to
be little different from the 'cultural Christians' who populate
mainline denominations" (Founder's Journal, Feb. 7, 1999). Thus, if
church discipline is indeed the "canary in a coal mine," then the
Southern Baptist convention is long dead. Fundamental Baptists need
to pay careful heed to this loud warning. Those who are saying that
the Southern Baptist Convention has "been rescued from liberalism"
are not giving us the whole story. They are not telling us how deeply
compromised and corrupt the Convention is at the local level. In my
experience church discipline is still practiced by most independent
Baptist churches to this day (excepting many of the largest ones,
which rarely operate after the apostolic fashion), and this is only
one of the many serious differences between the independent and the
denominational systems.
*BEWARE OF THE BBC BIAS*
Last month senior figures in the BBC admitted in an internal memo that
it is
"guilty of promoting left-wing views and anti-Christian sentiment"
("BBC Confesses Bias on Religion, Politics," WorldNetDaily, Oct. 23,
2006). "Most executives admitted the corporation's representation of
homosexuals and ethnic minorities was unbalanced and
disproportionate, YnetNews.com said. The British news agency, the
report said, leaned too strongly towards political correctness, the
overt promotion of multiculturalism, anti-Americanism and
discrimination against the countryside." We have long observed this
extreme bias on the part of BBC, and it is sad that it has such a
large influence in many parts of the world; but CNN and most other
mainstream news agencies are guilty of the same thing. Consider how
they portray America's war against terror (or America in general) or
the abortion issue or the Bible or Jesus Christ or Israel or
environmentalism or homosexuality or animal rights or communism or
any of a number of other issues. Two better sources for secular news
are WorldNetDaily.com and CNSnews.com.
*
NEW EVANGELICALISM'S PATHETIC EFFECT ON SOCIETY *
When New Evangelicalism blasted on the scene in the
1950s it repudiated the separatism of Fundamentalism, not only
ecclesiastical separation but separation from the world. Claiming
that Fundamentalism had maneuvered Bible-believing Christianity into
the backwaters of society and had lost its influence because of its
separatist stance, it proposed a new plan to influence society by
engaging it rather than withdrawing from it. What has been the
result? Rather than the world being influenced powerfully by
Evangelicalism, Evangelicalism has been influenced powerfully by the
world. This is not surprising, since the Word of God warns: "Be not
deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners" (1 Cor. 15:33). A
recent article in Christianity Today, a chief New Evangelical
mouthpiece, was entitled "How the Character of Religion in America
Has Changed Since the Founding of Christianity Today." Comparing
Christianity in the 1950s with Christianity a half century later, the
article, while trying to remain upbeat, is forced to admit that
things have changed for the worse in many areas. For example, in 1963
the percentage of those who said the Bible is the Word of God and
should be taken literally was 65% (it would doubtless have been much
higher in the 1940s), whereas in 2006 the figure is only 28%. In the
areas of morality, it is obvious that American society has taken a
severe plunge. The levels of divorce, unmarried cohabitation,
out-of-wedlock births, venereal disease, abortions, violence, and
other signs of unrestrained evil are off the charts compared to the
1940s. Whatever New Evangelicalism has done, it has not influenced
society toward righteousness. The situation was much better when
Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism were synonyms and both practiced
biblical separation. Iain Murray had it right when he said:
"Christians are not to be sheep in wolves' clothing. The Christian
faith is rather at its strongest when its antagonism to unbelief is
most definite, when its spirit is other-worldly, and when its whole
trust is not 'in the wisdom of men but in the power of God' (1 Cor.
2:5)" (Evangelicalism Divided, 2000, p. 212). "And be not conformed
to this world" (Romans 12:2). "Looking for that blessed hope, and the
glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who
gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and
purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good work" (Titus
2:13-14).
*
THE ME GENERATION *
The internet and the pop culture are giant reflections of the
self-esteem mad "me
generation" that was prophesied in the infallible Scripture 2,000
years ago. Two of the most popular web sites are MYspace and YOUtube,
and there is also MyYahoo, MyWay, MyStuff, and a myriad of other
me-centered sites. And don't forget the Ipod on which to play
MYmusic. The very theme of pop music today is "me." "This know also,
that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be
lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers,
disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural
affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce,
despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers
of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but
denying the power thereof: from such turn away" (2 Timothy 4:1-5).
"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me,
let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matt.
16:24).
*UNITARIANISM'S NEW MARKETING CAMPAIGN*
- Positing itself as the non-dogmatic religion for thinking people,
the Unitarian Universalist "church" has launched a new advertising
campaign. Over a three-year period it has spent $750,000 on media
campaigns in five major cities. William Sinkford, head of the
Unitarian Universalists, says, "[We're] coming out of the closet by
being more present in the religious landscape" ("Bearing Witness to a
Sea Change in Unitarian Practice," Los Angeles Times, Oct. 28, 2006).
The campaign features such things as a mailer depicting a homosexual
couple with the slogan, "Imagine a religion where people with
different beliefs worship as one faith." Created in 1961 through a
merger of the American Unitarian Association (which originally denied
the Trinity and the divine inspiration of Scripture and gradually
deteriorated into a mere free-thinking society) and the Universalist
Church in America (which originally denied eternal judgment and
followed the same path as the Unitarians), the group's chief platform
is broadminded tolerance in religious thinking. It is the "church"
for those who believe there are many paths to God or who believe in
no God at all. A 1981 survey of the Unitarian Universalists in San
Luis Obispo, California, found that more than 90% were either
humanists, agnostics, atheists, or "frankly, not sure" (Foundation
magazine, Nov.-Dec. 1981). Unitarianism is simply the logical and
consistent result of the judge-not philosophy.
CONCLUSION: Friends in Christ, do not be discouraged by any of this.
It is God's will that we know the times (1 Ch. 12:32; Mat. 16:3) and
that we be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. These things
remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the
coming of the Lord. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you
living for Christ day by day? "And that, knowing the time, that now
it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation
nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at
hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put
on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in
rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in
strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not
provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof" (Rom.
13:11-14).