Friday Church News and 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 SIZE AND INFLUENCE OF AMERICA’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS – The following is excerpted from Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation by Pete Hegseth & David Goodwin: “To an outside observer, the sheer scale of ‘school’ in America is head-turning. The largest transportation system in the world is not in New York or London—it actually takes children to American public schools in half a million yellow buses. The United States spends more on national defense than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, United Kingdom, and Japan combined. Yet America spends even more on school than on defense—more than $700 billion annually on education alone. The largest union in the United States supports not steelworkers or the teamsters, but schoolteachers. Public schools in the United States are the largest state-owned monopoly in the world, outside of China. How and why did this education story become so massive in America? And why are more than 90 percent of students educated in progressive public schools? In a nation of capitalists, why is one of America’s largest industries publicly controlled?” (p. 18). CONCLUDING NOTE: Battle for the American Mind gives a helpful background of what has happened to public education since the last half of the 19th century, but like the vast majority of prominent political conservative writers, the authors do not understand Bible prophecy, including the apostasy, the mystery of iniquity, God’s plan of the ages and sovereign control of history, Israel and the Church, Christ’s Great Commission, the imminent Rapture, and the Day of the Lord, so they do not know the true fundamentals of current events and do not know Christ’s agenda for His people. They also give far too much credence to the benefit of Greco-Roman thought and political schemes and to Catholic Europe (e.g., the Holy Roman Empire and England prior to the Reformation, which they mistakenly label “Christian”).
WOKE AGENDA TAUGHT IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS NATIONWIDE – The following is excerpted from Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation by Pete Hegseth & David Goodwin: “The battlefield for the hearts and minds of our kids is the 16,000 hours they spend inside American classrooms from kindergarten to twelfth grade … Through a seemingly unstoppable progressive pipeline—teachers union priorities, teachers colleges, Common Core prerogatives, and unchecked teachers and administrators—the woke, social justice agenda is showing up in the youngest of classrooms. Often the books and curricula are hidden from parents, or at least largely until now. In one Idaho school district alone, books like A Is for Activist, Antiracist Baby, and Not My Idea: A Book about Whiteness are being read to elementary students. Not only is A for Activist, but L is for L-G-B-T-Q, T is for Trans, X is for Malcom X ... Anti-racist babies are taught to ‘confess when being racist’ and that ‘whiteness is a bad deal. It always was.’ At Creekside Intermediate School in Michigan, students read Black Brother, Black Brother, which highlights a black student who feels like he is ‘constantly swimming in whiteness.’ Cambridge, Massachusetts, public schools’ ‘Early Childhood Curriculum’ teaches black families to be ‘free from patriarchal practices’ as part of the ‘disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics’ and a return to the ‘collective village.’ Kindergarten students in Illinois and fourth and fifth graders in parts of Pennsylvania also read Not My Idea: A Book about Whiteness. The book pounds home the idea that being white is inherently evil and that being black means you are inherently oppressed. This is being taught to six-year-olds in America. These books—and so many more like them—are designed to divide students by race and gender; that is the goal, not just the result. … Maybe your sixth or seventh grader will encounter the ‘gender unicorn’ instead—a widely used Barney look-alike purple unicorn who explains concepts like gender identity, gender expression, and sexual attraction” (pp. 9, 10).
ORIGIN OF AMERICA’S PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE – The following is excerpted from Battle for the American Mind: Uprooting a Century of Miseducation by Pete Hegseth & David Goodwin: “In 1892, [Francis] Bellamy, an early Progressive [social gospel/socialist Baptist pastor], authored the precursor to the pledge of allegiance, called the Bellamy Salute, which would come to be used in schools across the United States. Curiously, Bellamy’s pledge included the Roman salute with outstretched arm—very similar to what would later be known as the Nazi salute. It was nearly identical to what would become our current pledge, except that it made no mention of God. Bellamy’s salute had a purpose: to unite and elevate the American people with reference only to America, not to Christ. The WCP [Western Christian Paideia] no longer bound America together; the new pledge was designed to supplant the creeds of Christianity. The public school classroom would become a shrine of sorts to progressive ideas. The Bellamy Salute was intentionally part of that liturgy, as were American flags. By the early 1900s, there were portraits of John Dewey and Horace Mann in the classroom, alongside George Washington. In 1942, the original salute, with hands outstretched, was replaced for its obvious connection with the Nazi salute. In the 1950s, Bellamy’s original pledge was amended to add ‘under God’ by Congress amid fears of another form of Marxism—atheistic communism. … The original 1892 Bellamy Salute: ‘I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.’ The current pledge of allegiance: ‘I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands; one Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.’ The Bellamy Salute served its purpose as nationalism slowly replaced Christianity over a period of decades. This form of nationalism, married to what has been called Manifest Destiny, became a sort of civil religion in its own right in America. Nationalism has its place—no doubt—but this form of American ‘democracy’ was intentionally disordered. It was an early placement of ‘nation’ above ‘Christ’—and executed intentionally” (pp. 76-77).
GOD’S PEOPLE HAVE THEIR MARCHING ORDERS AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PUBLIC SCHOOLS – We don’t give these facts so that Bible-believing Christians will engage in “saving the schools.” There is no possibility of redeeming the public school system in America (or any other nation). It is godless and filthy beyond belief. It is the mystery of iniquity in near full bloom. But the government school system should never have been supported by God’s people even in its more benign condition at its inception in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is never right and biblical for Christian parents to send their children to be educated in a mixed multitude by unregenerate and/or doctrinally unsound teachers in an atmosphere permeated with humanistic “enlightenment” philosophy (2 Co. 6:14-18; Col. 2:6-8; 2 Ti. 3:5) and the world (1 Jo. 2:15-17). We are instructed to teach our children the whole Word of God (De. 6:4-9; 2 Ti. 3:15-17). They are to be taught to observe all things that Christ has given by divine revelation (Mt. 28:19-20), which is the whole Bible. They are to be prepared for salvation and a surrendered life in Christ as priests (1 Pe. 2:5), ambassadors (2 Co. 5:20), soldiers (Eph. 6:10-19), ministers of spiritual gifts (Ro. 12:3-8), builders of the church (1 Co. 3:9-15 Eph. 4:16), and builders of the home (Eph. 5-6). That requires a lot of godly education, and the church, which is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Ti. 3:15), is the only institution that can give it. The church and home are to operate together in harmony for the great work of raising a godly seed for Christ. God’s instructions for the Christian home are given in the church epistles. The church is to build up the home, and the home is to disciple the children. The pastors and other ministry-gifted men are to be the chief educators (Eph. 4:11-16). The fathers are to be engaged personally and energetically in this business (Eph. 6:4). The mothers are to be the keepers and guides of the home in this business (1 Ti. 5:14 Tit. 2:4-5). God’s people are to live as pilgrims in a foreign world. The Captain’s marching order is to focus like a laser on fulfilling the Great Commission until He comes, and this is emphasized by repetition (Mt. 28:18-20; Mr. 16:15-16; Lu. 24:44-48; Joh. 20:21 Ac. 1:8). He promised to be with those churches that obey this command “even unto the end of the world” (aion, age). The church at Thessalonica got it right and is a model church until the end. “For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come” (1 Th. 1:9-10).
GLOW-IN-THE-DARK SHARK – The following is from CreationMoments.com, June 16, 2022: “The creation is filled with plants and animals which use deception to survive. The glow‑in‑the‑dark cookie-cutter shark is a master at such deception. The cookie-cutter shark is only a foot to a foot‑and‑a‑half long. It doesn’t have powerful muscles and can’t swim very fast. But it doesn’t need to. Lunch serves itself. The shark typically lives between 600 and 3,000 feet below the surface of the water. Looking down from above one of these sharks, you would probably not see it because the top of its body is as dark as the deep waters where it lives. Looking up from below, you wouldn’t see the dark outline of the shark against the light that filters down from the surface. This is because of the shark’s first deception: its underside is completely covered with light‑emitting cells that match the illumination from above. The deception doesn’t stop there, however. A small patch beneath the shark’s jaw doesn’t glow. From beneath, the cookie-cutter shark looks like a small fish, just the kind of dinner a tuna might like. As the tuna speeds toward what it thinks is a small fish, at the last minute the shark turns and takes a bite out of the tuna. Its open, round jaw takes a plug of flesh out of the tuna, hence the name cookie cutter shark. Interestingly, most cookie-cutter shark wounds are not fatal. The fact that the cookie-cutter shark’s form, deceptions and habits all match each other perfectly is not a result of chance, mindless evolution, but of God’s careful design. Ref: S. Milius, ‘Glow-in-the-dark shark has killer smudge,’ Science News, v. 154, p. 70.”
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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