Friday Church News Notes – Nov. 12, 2021
| Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears of Virginia, USA |
MORE EVIDENCE OF SYSTEMIC RACISM IN AMERICA: FIRST BLACK WOMAN ELECTED TO STATEWIDE OFFICE IN VIRGINIA, MORE BLACK MAYORS (Friday Church News Notes, November 12, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – In yet more irrefutable proof of America’s systemic racism, Winsome Sears was elected lieutenant governor in Virginia on November 3, becoming the first black woman to hold statewide office in the commonwealth. Jason Miyares became the first Latino elected to attorney general in Virginia, and “people of color” won mayorships in New York City, Boston, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Cincinnati. Jamaican immigrant Winsome Sears is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and famously posed with a military rifle in a campaign photo. The win by Republicans Sears and Glen Youngkin (governor elect) in Virginia overthrew leftist Democratic control of the highest offices in the state, for now. Facetiousness aside, the election of blacks, Asians, and Latinos are proof that America is a place of liberty and opportunity for all people, where immigrants of any skin color can succeed. After her win, Sears said, “We’re framing too many issues in terms of race and it just continues to divide us. And, unfortunately, politicians are using it as a tool because of the things that have happened to us historically to advance, I would think, their nefarious purposes. I didn’t do anything special to get here except stay in school and study. America allowed me to come and do for myself and for my family. No one can say to me I don’t know what it is to be poor. You’re looking at the American Dream. We’re always going to have problems, I understand that. I’m not saying we’re perfect. But you can see those people at the border right now trying to get in. They’re dying to get in because they know if they can put a foot on American soil, the trajectory of their lives will change just as it did for my father” (“Winsome Sears reflects,” Fox News, Nov. 4, 2021). She’s right; the “people of color” breaking down America’s walls to get in are clear evidence that the nation is not systemically racist and that it is a better nation than most other nations on this fallen earth. Even as Critical Race Theory is being taught in many public schools, it is everywhere refuted in reality and the majority of Americans know that it is nonsense. In exit polls, over 72% of Virginia voters said CRT in the schools was an “important” factor in their vote (“Minority candidates make history,” Just the News, Nov. 3, 2021). On another front, law and order was popular with voters. In New York City, the newly elected mayor. Eric, Adams, is a law-and-order former police officer. In Minneapolis, voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have dismantled the police department. In New York’s Nassau County and Suffolk County, tough on crime candidates (Anne Connelly and Ray Tierney) won the district attorneys elections. People are obviously tired of the political attack on the police and the devastating increase of violent crime that is the product of leftist policies.
TEXANS VOTE TO PROHIBIT GOVERNMENT FROM LIMITING RELIGIOUS SERVICES (Friday Church News Notes, November 12, 2021, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – The following is excerpted from Religion News Service, Nov. 4, 2021: “Texas voters on Tuesday (Nov. 2) overwhelmingly supported a measure barring governments from taking any kind of action that limits religious services, such as the public health orders that shut down houses of worship and businesses earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic. Proposition 3, which will add a clause to the Texas Constitution forbidding state or local authorities from prohibiting or limiting religious services, garnered 62.4% of votes, according to unofficial results from the Texas secretary of state.”
FEDERAL JUDGE RULES RELIGIOUS BUSINESSES EXEMPT FROM HOMOSEXUAL BIAS CLAIMS (Friday Church News Notes, November 12, 2021, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – The following is excerpted from Religion News Service, Nov. 4, 2021: “For-profit businesses with sincerely held religious beliefs are exempt from LGBTQ discrimination liability under a decision this week by a federal judge in Texas. The ruling Sunday (Oct. 31) came in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 landmark ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which held that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Bostock ruling left open the question of whether and how the anti-discrimination provisions applied to religious entities. ‘But how these doctrines protecting religious liberty interact with Title VII are questions for future cases too,’ wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch in the 2020 majority opinion. In answer to these questions, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth held that Braidwood Management Inc., which operates three Christian health care businesses in Katy, Texas, is exempt from LGBTQ anti-discrimination protections in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act under both the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. … Separately, O’Connor ruled that other religious nonprofits, including Bear Creek Bible Church, a nondenominational church in Keller, Texas, can fire or refuse to hire LGBTQ employees under Title VII’s religious exemptions. … This new ruling allows both organizations to continue their employment practices unhindered by fear of liability for LGBTQ discrimination. However, the decision can be appealed to federal appellate court.”
ABORTIONS DROP 50% FOLLOWING TEXAS “HEARTBEAT” LAW (Friday Church News Notes, November 12, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – The following is excerpted from “Abortions Drop,” Christian Headlines, Nov 1, 2021: “A new Texas law that prohibits abortions if a fetal heartbeat is detected has led to a 50 percent decline in abortions in the state, according to a new University of Texas study. Researchers at the university’s Texas Policy Evaluation Project studied data from state clinics and found that abortions in September–the first full month the law was in effect–plummeted 49.8 percent compared to the same month one year earlier. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in an emergency appeal from abortion clinics and the Biden administration, each of which is asking the justices to block the law. It is not known when the court will rule. The law requires abortion doctors to test for a fetal heartbeat. If one is detected–which typically occurs at about six weeks of pregnancy–then abortion is banned except in cases of a medical emergency.”
COVID VACCINE NOW REQUIRED FOR NON-CITIZEN ENTRY INTO THE USA (Friday Church News Notes, November 12, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – On October 25, President Biden announced that the United States will require all non-citizens (and non-permanent residents) entering the country to demonstrate proof of vaccination against Covid-19. This is in addition to the requirement to show a pre-departure negative test within three days of boarding a flight to America. Unvaccinated travelers, whether U.S. citizens or not, must now test within one day of departure. The airlines are required to examine the vaccine document and determine if the vaccine is a type approved by the CDC and the World Health Organization and if two weeks has passed since the full dosage was administered.
MICHIGAN CITY FIRST IN U.S. TO HAVE ALL-MUSLIM MAYOR/CITY COUNCIL (Friday Church News Notes, November 12, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – The following is excerpted from “Hamtramck City Council will be all Muslim,” Detroit Free Press, Nov. 5, 2021: “The six-member City Council of Hamtramck will consist of all Muslims starting in January, another historic first for the metro Detroit city known for its sizable immigrant population. The newly elected mayor, Amer Ghalib, 42, is also Muslim, which means all of the city’s elected officials will be Muslim. In Tuesday’s election, three candidates who are all Muslim were elected and will join three current City Council members who are also Muslim. Five of them are immigrants and one is a convert to Islam with ancestral roots in eastern Europe. Advocates with Muslim groups and experts say they do not know of any other city council in the history of the U.S. that has been entirely Muslim.”
SPENDING AND BEING SPENT (Friday Church News Notes, November 12, 2021, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – “I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved” (2 Co. 12:15). Paul, the former Pharisee who hated Christians so much that he put them to death, now loved them with Christ’s love. He was willing to spend and be spent for them even though they did not reciprocate his love. Again, we see the heart of a true godly pastor and parent. It often happens that those we love and help the most, love us the less and even turn against us and do evil against us, but Paul did not let fallen human nature cause him to stop loving and serving. His eyes were upon Christ; he was serving Christ; so he was not offended by man’s sin and did not stop serving Christ because of man’s sin. The Expositor’s Bible comments, “Nature says, ‘Stand upon your rights; vindicate your position; insist on having all that you conceive to be your due’; but love says, ‘Spend and be spent, and spare not till all is gone; life itself is not too much to give that love may triumph over wrong.’”
ROCKS DON’T BEND (Friday Church News Notes, November 12, 2021, www.wayoflife.orgfbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) – The following is from CreationMoments.com, Sept. 29, 2021: “Rock folds always seem to me to make interesting photographs. When I lived in South Wales, there were some very fine examples in the cliffs on the Vale of Glamorgan coast. For the most part, the rock layers seem to run parallel to the beach. Then, suddenly, they bend away, upwards or downwards, in dramatic sweeps. In these bends, the rock layers continue to run parallel. Standard traditional geology suggests that the layers would have been horizontal when originally formed. The existence of the folds, however, causes more problems for traditional geologists who rely on millions of years for all their explanations. The Encyclopedia Britannica says: “The long linear folds that are characteristic of mountainous regions are believed to have resulted from compressional forces acting parallel to the surface of Earth and at right angles to the fold.” However, it is not difficult to imagine what large compressional forces would do to rock layers. Rocks are not malleable, so the eventual result of such forces would be to crack the layers–and, indeed, such cracks can be found. Parallel bending does not make a lot of sense in a deep-time scenario. Suppose, instead, that the layers had been recently formed early in the Flood, and forces were applied towards the end of the Flood to layers which were still plastic and had not hardened. These would bend together in parallel folds. The biblical Flood provides the best explanation for how rocks could bend! Author: Paul F. Taylor. Ref: Encyclopedia Britannica.”
CONCLUSION: 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 obviously does not imply an endorsement. We trust that our readers will not be discouraged. 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. The News Notes remind us that the hour is very late, and we need to be ready for the Lord’s coming. Are you sure that you are born again? Are you living for Christ? “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).