Friday Church News Notes

The Friday Church News Notes is designed for use in churches and is published by Way of Life Literature. Unless otherwise stated, the Notes are written by David Cloud. Of necessity we quote from a wide variety of sources, though this does not imply an endorsement.

THE HYMN SOCIETY PUBLISHES SONGS FOR QUEERS  – For its 100th anniversary, the Hymn Society of the United Methodist Church has published a series of songs that glorify homosexuality under the title “Songs for the Holy Other.” The 46 songs include “A Hymn for Self-Acceptance,” “God Calls You Good,” “God of Queer Transgressive Spaces,” “God of Many Faces,” “The Kingdom of God is the Queerest of Nations,” “Queerly Beloved,” and “Quirky, Queer and Wonderful.” The words to the latter include, “Quirky, queer, and wonderful, distinct, unique, and odd … all of our humanity reveals the face of God.” This is blasphemous, because God is holy whereas homosexuality is “uncleanness,” “vile affections,” “against nature,” “unseemly,” and “not convenient” (Romans 1:24-28). The Hymn Society’s goal with the new songs is “to provide congregations working to dismantle these walls [between homosexuals and ‘straights’] with a toolbox of hymns by and for those who identify as members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, nonbinary, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, romantic, two-spirit, and other sexual/gender minority (LGBTQIA2S+) community and their allies.” They say that lesbianism, homosexuality, etc., are “God-given gifts, and are, in and of themselves, a gift to the church, as we reflect the rainbow diversity of God’s creation.” The series should be titled “Hymns for Sodom and Gomorrah.” It is full-blown apostasy. It is “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth” (Re. 17:5). The Hymn Society was founded in 1922 “for those people who believe that congregational song is an integral component of worship, believe that the writing and singing of new texts and tunes needs to be promoted, and value learning about the origins of the words and music they sing.” We believe in the importance of congregational singing, but the Bible instructs the churches to sing “spiritual songs,” not filthy songs, and to sing by having “the word of Christ dwell in you,” not the word of modernistic heresy. As the apostasy deepens in these last days, Bible-believing churches must have revival and take the Word of God much more seriously, or they will die, as large numbers have in the last few decades. Most Bible-believing churches need to stop singing by vain, empty-minded tradition and dead ritual and learn how to have living, powerful congregational singing that conforms to God’s Word, that is attractive, interesting, and edifying for the entire body, young and old. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord” (Colossians 3:16-17).

SUPREME COURT, 9-0, SAYS BOSTON CAN’T BAN CHRISTIAN FLAG  – The following is excerpted from “Supreme Court,” Christian Headlines, May 2, 2022: “The city of Boston violated the free speech rights of a faith-based group when it refused to fly the organization’s Christian flag while approving the flags of numerous other groups, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday. The court’s 9-0 decision concerns a unique program in Boston that permits private groups to fly flags of their choosing outside Boston City Hall. The court noted that the city approved ‘hundreds of requests to raise dozens of different flags’–that is, until the Christian civic organization Camp Constitution requested that the Christian flag be flown. The city of Boston declined the group’s request, arguing it would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Camp Constitution then sued but lost at the district court and the appeals court level. On Monday, the Supreme Court said Boston’s action violated the Free Speech Clause of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the court’s opinion. ‘The city did not deny a single request to raise a flag until’ Harold Shurtleff of Camp Constitution made his request, Breyer wrote. He noted that the city had allowed flags of other countries, a flag of a bank, and the LGBT Pride flag to be flown. ‘For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Boston’s flagraising program does not express government speech,’ Breyer wrote. ‘As a result, the city’s refusal to let Shurtleff and Camp Constitution fly their flag based on its religious viewpoint violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment.’ … ‘This 9-0 decision from the Supreme Court strikes a victory for private speech in a public forum,’ said Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver. ‘This case is so much more significant than a flag. … Government cannot censor religious viewpoints under the guise of government speech.’”

OHIO LAWMAKERS URGE FEDS TO ADD CANADA TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM WATCH LIST  – The following is excerpted from “Ohio Lawmakers,” Faithwire.com, June 3, 2022: “The Ohio House of Representatives, led by Republicans, passed a resolution this week urging the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to add Canada to its watch list. Citing the ways Canadian lawmakers handled COVID-19 lockdowns and targeted churches, even jailing one pastor for more than a month, state Rep. Tim Ginter (R) presented legislation asking the federal government to add the northern country to a list of nations where religious liberties are in jeopardy. ‘This resolution is not the result of a singular incident or even a handful of incidents,’ he said in a statement, according to WKSU-TV. ‘It’s a persistent pattern of religious rights violations that has driven us to this point.’ At the height of Canada’s overbearing restrictions, government authorities in Alberta arrested and jailed James Coates, pastor of GraceLife Church in Edmonton, for more than 30 days because he held in-person worship services, a violation of unilaterally enacted government edicts. … Ohio state Rep. Reggie Stoltzfus (R) referenced Coates’ incarceration, arguing such treatment by government authorities should not be tolerated and ought to be clearly condemned. ‘While Ohio has stood up for religious freedom and protected the right to attend religious services, it is clear Canada has not done the same,’ he said, describing the authoritarian mandates enacted by Canadian officials as ‘very similar to what we see in Communist-controlled China.’ … Albertan Pastor Artur Pawlowski was also subject to heavy-handed government treatment, reportedly spending two months in solitary confinement … for inciting ‘mischief’ over his participation in the so-called ‘Freedom Convoy’ along the U.S.-Canada border, a weeks-long demonstration earlier this year protesting COVID-19 restrictions. Yet another pastor in Alberta, Tim Stephens of Fairview Baptist Church, was arrested in 2021 for organizing in-person worship services, a violation of a government injunction. Stephens was arrested at his home by Canadian police, who escorted him into the back of a squad vehicle while his children cried uncontrollably.”

GLOBAL WARMING TREND WEAKENING  – The following is excerpted from Kalte Sonne, “The Transition to Green Energies and the Missing Warming,” NoTricksZone, May 11, 2022: “During the energy crisis that has become visible in Germany and Europe over the past few months, things have gotten quieter about the supposedly imminent climate emergency. On the one hand, energy prices and security of supply have pushed the climate issue into the background. On the other hand, a weakening of the warming trend of the last 40 years is apparent. The temperature curve of the satellite-based measurements of the University of Alabama UAH has been oscillating between -0.2 and 0.4 degrees for 20 years and seems to have remained stable since 2015 … [Yet] CO2 concentrations in the air have continued to rise unabated. … A change in global temperature can also happen naturally. We know that clouds have decreased by about 2% after the turn of the millennium, and that for the last ten years cloud cover has been stable at a low level. Second, there are oceanic temperature cycles such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation AMO … Add to this the weakening solar radiation since 2008, and further significant warming beyond 1.5 degrees is unlikely in the next 30 years. … The stagnant trend of temperatures that has been observed for several years can also be seen in the halted decline in Arctic sea ice extent reported by the European Copernicus program in March … Wouldn’t it be time for climate researchers to bring these trends to the attention of politicians and the public? After all, politicians are currently readjusting the priorities of energy supply. … Had [these things] been adequately accounted for in climate models, we would all have been spared much public panic and flawed policy decisions.”

GREENHOUSE THERMOSTAT DISCOVERED  – The following is from CreationMoments.com, March 1, 2022: “The world is a frightening place without God. This fear can be seen today in fears that modern people often confuse with science. Several years ago stories of gloom and doom about a greenhouse heating of the earth were starting to fill the media. We at Creation Moments looked at the scientific basis for these claims. We wanted to know if the greenhouse warming of the earth was a true threat or just another fear of a godless people. We then published the conclusion that the thin and conflicting evidence for greenhouse warming most likely came from the heat island effect of growing cities around some of the temperature measuring sites. Knowing the elegance with which God designed everything in creation, creationists suspected that God probably designed the earth with built-in thermostats that help keep it from warming up too much. When the Pacific Ocean warms more than normal, it sends increasing amounts of water vapor into the air. If heating continues, the water vapor will actually cause the heating to increase until vapor is forced higher into the atmosphere, creating icy cirrus clouds. These clouds reflect enough incoming sunlight to shut down the temperature increase and return things to normal. We are called to be good stewards of the earth. We can be good stewards in joyful service, freed from the fears that afflict those who don’t know God. Author: Paul A. Bartz. REF.: ‘Clouds keep ocean temperatures down,’ Science News, v. 139, May 11, 1991. p. 303.”

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).

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