The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.

EVANGELICAL COLLEGE NAMES CATHOLIC PRESIDENT (Friday Church News Notes, February 25, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is from Proclaiming the Gospel, February 2011: “The evangelical world was taken by surprise when the Board of Trustees of the King’s College, in New York City, announced that it had unanimously approved the appointment of Dr. Dinesh D’Souza to serve as the school’s fifth president. ‘D’Souza is a model of the ideal King’s College graduate,’ states the college website. D’Souza’s own website states that he is ‘a believing Catholic but a poorly practicing one.’ On December 2, 2010, a special inauguration ceremony for President D’Souza took place at New York’s Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. This is a very liberal church pastored for many years by the late Dr. John Sutherland Bonnell, an apostate known for his work to break down the walls between Catholicism and Protestantism. In 1966 he received a silver medal for his ecumenical accomplishments by Pope Paul VI, during a private audience. Billy Graham was famously criticized by the late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones for having Bonnell on the platform of one of his Crusades in Great Britain.”

THE PEPPERED MOTH

One of the most repeated icons for evolution is the peppered moth, Biston betularia.

In the book New Guide to Science, Isaac Asimov devoted a small section to proving Darwinian evolution and his sole evidence was the peppered moth. Stephen Jay Gould also used the peppered moth as one of the supposed indisputable evidences for evolution (Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes, p. 257).

The following statement from Biology: The Dynamics of Life by Merrill Publishing is typical of the way that textbooks use the peppered moth as a major evidence of evolution:

“The evolution of new species is seldom observed because the changes usually require many generations However, scientists have observed many examples of the natural selection of adaptations. One of the best-studied examples involves the peppered moth in England. During the 1800s, there were two kinds of peppered moths--a common light-colored variety and a rarer dark-colored variety. These moths rested during the day on light-colored tree trunks. In 1850, almost all the moths were light in color. Then, during a rapid expansion of industry around that time, the air became full of smoke and soot. This extreme pollution of the air turned the trunks of trees black. By the end of the century, most of the peppered moth population in England was dark colored. The light-colored individuals had become rare. ... In 1950, scientists performed an experiment to determine if natural selection had caused the dark variety of months to become more numerous. They observed light and dark moths in both industrial and rural areas. The experiment showed that birds ate more dark moths in rural areas where the trees were light-colored and more light moths in industrial areas where the trees were dark-colored. Through natural selection, populations of peppered moths had become adapted to living in industrial areas. The experiment showed that organisms whose color provides better camouflage are more likely to survive and reproduce” (Biology: The Dynamics of Life, Merrill Publishing, 1991, p. 209).

It has been said that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and I have no doubt that more people have been influenced to believe in evolution by artwork than by words. From its inception, Darwinian evolution has been popularized by art.

Lying art.

THE LAETOLI FOOTPRINTS

Serious natural history museums typically feature a model or photo of the Laetoli footprints that purport to prove that apes walked upright over a million years ago on the evolutionary path toward manhood.

In 1978, footprints discovered at a site called Laetoli in Tanzania by Mary Leakey’s team were announced to be “made by a creature that walked upright in a human manner.”

Two sets of prints ran parallel to one another for a length of about 80 feet. One set of prints is man-sized while the other is much smaller.

The footprints are used as an argument for depicting Australopithecus afarenses’s feet (Lucy) as human-like, in spite of the fossil evidence, and Lucy supporters are dogmatic at this point. Typical of these claims is that by Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall.

LUCY: THE CUTE LITTLE APE-WOMAN

The premier missing link between apes and men today is Australopithecus afarensis, a little creature that has been popularized by giving one set of fossils the endearing name of “Lucy.”

Artistic reconstructions typically depict Lucy with human hands, walking uprightly in a purely human manner on human feet, and typically with human-proportion arms and legs. This is true for the models and drawings that I have seen personally at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, the American Museum of Natural Sciences in Washington D.C., the Field Museum in Chicago, Yale University’s Peabody Museum, the Seattle Science Center, the Museum of Man in San Diego, and Michigan State University Ann Arbor.

You can also find drawings of Lucy in science textbooks that depict her walking uprightly with human hands and feet. An example is Life: The Science of Biology by Purves, Orians, and Heller, 1992, p. 604.

These reconstructions are not scientific; they are brainwashing tools.

_______________________________

Thank you for the e-mail and for your concern in this matter.

I'm glad that you called Pastor Chappell. Others have also probably contacted him. It sounds like you and he had a nice anti-Cloud fest, but I am not the issue here.

I do not regret that I sent out that mailing, though I did regret it at one point and at one level. (If you think I enjoy the trouble that this type of thing engenders, you are profoundly wrong. Humanly speaking, I get nothing in return but personal attacks and closed doors.) But perhaps it will stir things up enough for a real direction change. It has certainly brought the issue under a lot of attention. I am convinced that a private conversation from me or from any other one person would have done very little. Real public pressure has to be brought to bear in these cases.

I would have guessed that Bro. Chappell would renounce his use of "Shout to the Lord," but that is only the tip of the iceberg. 

The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.

LANCASTER BAPTIST SHOUTING TO THE LORD (Friday Church News Notes, February 18, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - For awhile now we have observed with increasing concern the adaptation of Contemporary Worship Music at Lancaster Baptist Church, home of West Coast Baptist College. It would be very easy for me to keep my mouth shut about this because of the close relationship I have with some of the people there and because of the widespread support the school has from very conservative Independent Baptists, not to speak of the many commendable things the school stands for; but I can no longer remain silent in good conscience before God. It is not a one-time problem; it is a pattern. For decades I have been warning about the spiritual danger of Contemporary Christian Music and how that it brings a lot of worldly baggage in its wake. It is not just music; it is a philosophy of Christianity that breaks down the God-ordained barriers between the church and the world. Any church today that is not aggressively resisting CCM will eventually succumb to it, and probably sooner rather than later. The evidence is all around us. The pressure toward compromise is too great; the satisfaction that this music offers to the flesh is too intense. The contemporary philosophy in this apostate hour is like a powerful flowing river, and our churches are like small boats. Those that are not paddling fiercely against the current will certainly be carried along by it. I don’t care what else you are doing right; if you allow CCM a foot in the door you are on the slippery slope of compromise. Like many others, Lancaster Baptist and West Coast are saying the right things about being opposed to CCM, but increasingly their actions don’t match the rhetoric. I strongly suspect that there are people in the music department that love CCM and listen to it regularly. This is why they frequently come up with toned-down CCM specials. They remove the heavy back beat (though the dance syncopation can still be present in the piano style); there is no drum kit, no bass guitar; but it is still CCM. The most recent example that came to my attention was radical charismatic-ecumenist Darlene Zschech’s “Shout to the Lord” performed as a special by the orchestra and two pianists and available on YouTube. I urge Pastor Chappell and the leaders at Lancaster Baptist Church and West Coast Baptist College to put a stop to the music people who are digging in the garbage bin of CCM in search for something acceptable. And don’t say, “It can’t happen here.” When I graduated from Tennessee Temple in 1976 it was in most ways every much as conservative as West Coast is today. In music, it was more conservative. But they didn’t heed warnings and thought they were too big to be criticized and shot the messengers instead of heeding the reproof, and today Tennessee Temple is a Southern Baptist rock & roll institution. I would challenge the leaders of Lancaster to bring in an expert like Graham West of Australia to inform the people more properly about music. The wisest standard for Christian music today is the standard that rejects CCM lock, stock, and barrel. Lines must be drawn, and the safest line is the best line. It is far better to err on the side of being too strict about music, as it is one of the most powerful influences in modern society. There is an endless supply of truly sacred music, both old and new, that doesn’t push the boundaries.

NEANDERTHAL

Ernst Haeckel, inventor of the deceptive embryo chart and Java Man, also helped spread the Neanderthal myth. The first edition of his book History of Creation in 1868 featured a series of drawings depicting man evolving from apes--mandrill, monkey, gibbon, orangutan, chimpanzee, gorilla, Tasmanian, African Negro, Australian Negro, Fuegian, Chinese, Indo-German. Haeckel being German, placed his own “race” as the crown of evolution. In 1907, Haeckel described Neanderthal as a pre-human and placed him between Pithecanthropus (Java man) and Homo Australis, which he called “the lowest race of recent man.” This reflected Haeckel’s racist view that the Australian aborigines represented the lowest stage in full human evolution. Haeckel misrepresented Neanderthal’s brain capacity at 1270 cc, which is less than the average for modern man, when in reality the brain capacity was 1560 cc, which is larger than average.

After the discovery in 1908 of a nearly complete Neanderthal skeleton in La Chapell-aux-Saints in France, French paleontologist Marcellin Boule (1861-1942) of the Laboratory of Paleontology in the Museum of Natural History in Paris, added his authority to the evolutionary myth. Boule believed that Neanderthal was a branch of ape-men who became extinct without giving rise to modern humans. Between December 1908 and June 1909 Boule reported to the Academy of Sciences that Neanderthal was ape-like in many characteristics, including the skull and “a divergent great toe.” He believed that Neanderthal did not walk erect like modern man but walked pigeon-toed like an ape with a bent-knee gait.

In 1909, Frantisek Kupka drew a sketch of Neanderthal as a stooped, hairy ape-man gawking wildly with a club in his hand. It was published in the Illustrated London News. (shown at top)

The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.

MORE ABOUT THE COMPROMISE AT NORTHLAND (Friday Church News Notes, February 11, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - One of the interesting things about churches and schools at the beginning of the slide of compromise is that they invariably claim that nothing has changed. This happened at Tennessee Temple in the 1990s, and it is happening today at Northland International University. The following is excerpted from “Is NIU ‘Unchanged?’” by Lou Martuneac, January 10, 2011, indefenseofthegospel.blogspot.com -- “An individual recently provided me with an official document used at Northland International University. The document is titled, Northland Baptist Bible College Position Statement on Contemporary Issues in Christianity. This document was originally prepared by the college and endorsed by the NBBC board. ... [One of the categories is Music, and the official position is stated in part as follows.] ‘We avoid music classified as Contemporary Christian Music--sacred music which is written or performed in a popular or worldly style. These styles include rock, Blues, Jazz, big band, rap, New Age, and other styles normally associated with worldly entertainment or dancing. ... Because of our conservative stance regarding music and performance, we do not endorse Contemporary Christian artists who use worldly techniques in performing or recording their music. We view Christian Rock Music as a contradiction in terms and reject it as being Christian.’ ... [With that NBBC Position Statement in mind, please consider the following event that took place on NIU’s campus in 2010.] NIU students and staff performed music from and danced to the Broadway play entitled Wicked. In the video link you will see Wynne Kimbrough, dean of students, and five students performing a song and dance selection from Wicked. ... One might assume that since this was Spirit Week on campus that this was done as a parody. Nevertheless, there is no justification whatsoever for this presentation on the campus of a fundamental Christian college. As the NBBC Position Statement indicates, ‘… some styles, such as jazz, rock, rap, punk, dance band, or New Age are never considered appropriate.’ In his Friends and Fellow Followers letter Les Ollila wrote, ‘… the foundational principles and historic theological positions to which we have always been committed remain unchanged.’ In Matt Olson’s Open Letter to Friends in the Ministry he stated, ‘Our Music Philosophy: Philosophically, it is unchanged. Let me say it again... unchanged.’” CONCLUSION FROM BROTHER CLOUD: I said at the beginning of this report that one of the interesting things about churches and schools at the beginning of the slide of compromise is that they invariably claim that nothing has changed. Another characteristic is that they turn on those who try to hold to the old paths that were once taught at that very institution. Both of these things can be observed at Northland today. The reader can find the aforementioned video clip at http://indefenseofthegospel.blogspot.com/2011/01/is-niu-unchanged-northland-baptist.html. In this blog, Lou Martuneac documents three other significant changes at Northland. Beware, friends. Let’s be willing to pay a price, any price, for the maintenance of the truth in a compromising hour by disassociating ourselves from those who have committed themselves to a wrong path. It’s not a day in which to build big tent associations of friends; it is day to narrow down one’s associations in order to protect oneself and one’s family and friends and ministry from the terribly contagious disease of compromise.

HAECKEL’S DUMB APEMAN

Ernst Haeckel, inventor of the iconic evolutionary embryo chart, was also the inventor of the dumb cave-dwelling ape-man, and it was based on nothing more scientific than his own fertile imagination. As we saw in “Lying Evolutionary Art - Haeckel’s Embryo Chart,” Haeckel was not one to draw back from inventing facts out of thin air.

Reasoning that the major difference between man and apes is the former’s ability to talk, and assuming that evolution is true and that man evolved from animals, Haeckel concluded that man’s predecessor was a dumb cave-dwelling ape-man. He even invented a scientific name for this mythical creature, Pithecanthropus alalus (“speechless ape-man”).

Haeckel had an artist, Gabriel Max, draw the imagined creature, and Max depicted an entire Pithecanthropus family. The pot-bellied father, ape-headed but having a hairy human body, stands upright and leans on a thick branch, looking as stupid as stupid can be. The poor dim-witted mother sits cross-legged nursing a dumb little ape-man baby. She has long-straggly hair but is less ape-looking than her “husband” except for her ape-like feet.

HAECKEL’S EMBRYO CHART

It was Ernest Haeckel, Charles Darwin’s most enthusiastic disciple in Germany, who devised the iconic embryo chart “proving” that at the embryonic stage man looks almost exactly like various types of animals.

He based this on his “law of recapitulation” (also called the biogenetic law) which stated that the human embryo goes through an evolutionary cycle during which it resembles a single-celled marine organism, then a worm, then a fish with gill slits, then a monkey with a tail, and finally a human. According to recapitulation, each creature repeats or recapitulates the entire alleged evolutionary history. Thus, the human embryo progresses from a single cell to a fish to an amphibian to a reptile to a mammal to an ape to a human.

Haeckel’s embryo chart first appeared in print in 1866 in his book Generalle Morphologie der Organismen and in 1868 in The Natural History of Creation, and since then it has been republished in various forms in countless textbooks, journals, popular reports, and museums. It is still appearing in textbooks in the 21st century. One teacher said, “I have taught Jr. High Science for over 35 years. Every textbook from every major publisher I have ever seen has had Haeckel’s embryos pictured and the text usually claims this as a proof for evolution” (http://creation.com/fraud-rediscovered).

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which was founded in 1950, is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. A year earlier, Graham conducted his first citywide crusade in Los Angeles. His web site announces, “Sixty-one years ago, a tall, earnest evangelist known as Billy Graham descended on Los Angeles with a fury. The city, the young man, and the course of American Christianity would never be the same” (“Celebrating Christ’s Work in the Canvas Cathedral,” BillyGraham.org, Sept. 24, 2010). This statement is true. Billy Graham’s unscriptural philosophy and deep compromise has dramatically changed Christianity in our time. I was born the same year that Graham conducted his Los Angeles crusade. Growing up in a Southern Baptist home, I heard nothing but praise for the evangelist. It was not until I was saved at age 23 that I formed a different opinion of Billy Graham. As a young Christian I learned that Jesus and the apostles warned that false teachers and compromise would increase among the churches throughout the church age and would explode at the end of the age. I learned, therefore, that I had to be very careful and test everything by the Scriptures. When Graham’s ministry is tested by God’s Word rather than by the principles of popular evangelism, it fails miserably. Let’s briefly compare Billy Graham with the apostle Paul, the premier evangelist of the first century.

First, Paul didn’t promote himself. He didn’t form a ministry named for himself and didn’t exalt himself (and allow others to exalt him) as something great.

The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature’s Fundamental Baptist Information Service. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, but this does not imply an endorsement. For instructions on how to unsubscribe to this list or to change mailing addresses, please consult the information paragraph at the end.

JIMMY BUFFETT FALLS OFF STAGE (Friday Church News Notes, February 4, 2011, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Jimmy Buffett is an old-timer rocker who has been preaching the rock & roll philosophy for decades. Recently the 64-year-old fell off the stage during a concert in Australia and had to be hospitalized. Buffett’s god is bacchus, and his songs glorify drink and party. His band’s name, Coral Reefer, refers to tropical island indolence, sensuality, and marijuana. Buffett’s 1977 hit, “Margaritaville,” refers to a tequila cocktail, but it’s not just about a drink; it’s a philosophy of life. He likes to sing about drunkenness, but there is nothing funny or innocent about it. Only the Lord knows how many people have destroyed their marriages, abused and estranged their kids, crashed their cars, ruined their health, contracted venereal disease, blasphemed God, kissed the devil, stolen, raped, murdered, and committed suicide under the influence of drink. It is one of the most destructive things in modern society, but rockers have glorified it throughout rock’s filthy history. Buffett is typically rock cool and “cute” in his blasphemy. One of his songs is titled “My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don’t Love Jesus.” Another is “Vampires, Mummies and the Holy Ghost,” in which he compares God the Holy Spirit to frightful things from his childhood. To Buffett and his rock & roll buddies, the Holy Spirit is more frightful than vampires and psychopaths. No doubt, he has long quenched the voice of the Holy Spirit in his life, which is truly the most fruitful thing, because it is the path to eternal hell. Unlike Buffet, I consider the Holy Spirit to be most wonderful and glorious, both in His holiness and in His compassionate grace. I am thankful for His conviction in the lives of undeserving sinners and His mercy in leading them to Jesus Christ. I certainly didn’t deserve His convicting power when He showed me the sin of my rock & roll reefer lifestyle and awakened me to my desperate need of salvation. Only a first-class fool would be frightened of being turned away from hell. Jeff Royal observes: “Jimmy Buffett has influenced millions with his music over the years. Buffett's fans are called ‘parrotheads.’ He has recently become chummy with many within the country music world. Alan Jackson has toured with and cut duets with him. Country music would have no problem in welcoming him in with open arms. Sadly, many professing Christians are listening to him today.”