O Timothy April 2011 - Way of Life Literature

W A Y O F L I F E L I T E R A T U R E 

O Timothy 

“Keep that which is committed to thy trust...” 

A Monthly Newsletter of Warning and Edification Volume 28 - Issue 4 - April, 2011 

Brian McLaren on the nature of God and redemption 

“God...is incapable of forgiving, unless he 

kicks somebody else.” “(He) gets his way 

through coercion and violence and 

intimidation and domination.” The “power 

of the blood” gospel “raises some questions 

about the goodness of God.” (More on 

McLaren throughout this issue.) 

Digging in the Walls 

A month’s worth of news 

items, republished from Friday 

Church News Notes. Page 15 

MUSICAL ASSOCIATIONS AND CCM ADAPTATION 

by David Cloud 

When it comes to music, the philosophy coming into ascendance among IB 

churches is this: as long as the words are right we should relax and be edified and 

not be critical. 

Recent West Coast graduate: “The music was a lot more of a concern to me when 

I first started to hear it and think of the fact that it was CCM artists that perform 

it. But seriously, are the words evil Can a Christian not be edified by these 

songs Is it not more important for a person to be edified than it is to be approved 

by men” 

Recent Hyles Anderson graduate: “I am not against new songs that are theocentric 

and doctrinally correct. Who the writer is is not my concern. Any music 

that promotes God for who He is or what He has done without emphasizing the 

flesh, I am for.” 

This philosophy allows the churches to “adapt” CCM by 

selecting songs that have Scriptural lyrics and toning down 

the rhythm. It is an attempt to take the “rock” out of 

Christian rock and to turn charismatic praise music into 

fundamentalist praise music. 

1 Timothy 6:20, 21 1


Following are some of the reasons why this philosophy is 

unscriptural and dangerous: 

1. THIS PHILOSOPHY DISREGARDS THE BIBLE’S 

CLEAR COMMANDS TO SEPARATE FROM 

HERESY AND END-TIMES APOSTASY. 

Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them 

which cause divisions and offences contrary to the 

doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. 

1 Corinthians 15:33 Be not deceived: evil 

communications corrupt good manners. 

Ephesians 5:11 And have no fellowship with the 

unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. 

1 Timothy 6:3-5 If any man teach otherwise, and 

consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our 

Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according 

to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting 

about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh 

envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings 

of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, 

supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw 

thyself. 

2 Timothy 3:5 Having a form of godliness, but denying 

the power thereof: from such turn away. 

O TIMOTHY Magazine 

Volume 28 Issue 4 

David W. Cloud, Editor 

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Copyright 2011 by D.W.Cloud 

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Revelation 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, 

saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not 

partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her 

plagues. 

All of these commandments pertain to associations. 

The Contemporary Christian Music movement is 

permeated with heresy and is committed wholesale to a 

philosophy of ecumenism that is plainly building the 

end-times Harlot Church. Rome has a very prominent 

role in the CCM movement, and there is not one out of 

1000 of the CCM artists that issue any sort of warning 

about that whatsoever. They talk about Christ and sing 

His praises, but they are spiritually blind at a truly 

fundamental level. 

If they were indeed filled with the Holy Spirit, which 

they so frequently and earnestly sing about, they would 

do as Paul did when he encountered a false teacher trying 

to lead people away from the truth: 

“Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the 

Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, and said, O full of all 

subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou 

enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert 

the right ways of the Lord” (Acts 13:9-10). 

I have been to some large, influential charismatic 

ecumenical conferences with press credentials and I have 

thus witnessed with my own eyes and ears those places 

where CCM is birthed and where it is most at home. 

Never have I seen reproof of error after the fashion of 

what the Spirit-filled Paul did in Acts 13. All of those 

conferences (New Orleans 1987, Indianapolis 1990, St. 

Louis 2000, etc.) featured an ecumenical mixed 

multitude that included large numbers of Roman 

Catholics. And not one of the charismatic leaders or 

popular CCM “artists” (including Bill Gaither and his 

outfit who performed at one of these) lifted even a finger 

of protest and warning. They are practically all in bed 

with the vile, wretched end-times apostasy. You might be 

able to find some exception somewhere, but it is only 

that -- an exception. (For reports on these conferences 

see “Strange Things in New Orleans,” “Charismatic 

Confusion in Evangelism,” and “End Times Confusion in 

St. Louis,” at the Way of Life web site. Use the search 

engine or consult the Charismatic section of the Topical 

Listing from the tab at the top of the web site’s home 

page.) 

I attended with press credentials the New Baptist 

Covenant Celebration in 2008, with speakers like Jimmy 

Carter, Al Gore, Tony Campolo, and that great Baptist 

giant Bill Clinton. The very liberal Cooperative Baptist 

2 1 Timothy 6:20,21


Rob Bell at the National Pastor’s Convention in 2009. Bell’s heresies are too numerous to mention, and his recent book “Love Wins” has come 

under fire for presenting a false God. If you accept Bell’s music, it won’t be long before you accept him. Visit a convention like this to find out 

whether or not that is true. 

Fellowship and Baptist World Alliance and American 

Baptist Churches USA were participants. The music was 

CCM and the theme was ecumenism. In his opening 

message Jimmy Carter said that it is impossible to agree 

on doctrines and issues so we should unite rather on the 

“gospel,” but the gospel was never defined, and the 

“gospel” that was actually preached was a social gospel. 

Carter mentioned the “fundamentals” but no one said 

what they were, because doctrinal purity was not on the 

table. There were “ministries” represented at the 

Celebration such as Affirming and Welcoming Baptists 

who are trying to get churches to receive unrepentant 

homosexuals as members and workers. We interviewed 

the representative of this organization and she told us that 

she believes the early chapters of Genesis are not literal 

history, marriage is a man-made institution, and there is 

no such thing as sexual sin. (For a report on this 

conference see “The New Baptist Covenant: A 

Celebration of Liberalism,” FBIS, Feb. 25, 2008, at the 

Way of Life Literature web site. Use the search engine or 

consult the Ecumenism section of the Topical Listing 

from the tab at the top of the web site’s home page.) 

I attended the National Pastor’s Fellowship in 2009 

sponsored by Zondervan and InterVarsity Press (with 

speakers such as Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Bill Hybels, 

Paul Young, author of The Shack, Shane Claiborne, John 

Ortberg, Christopher Wright, Scot McKnight, Alex 

McManus, J.P. Moreland, Andy Crouch of Christianity 

Today, and Billy Graham’s brother-in-law Leighton Ford, 

to name a few). (For a report on this see “The Emerging 

Church Is Coming,” FBIS, March 3, 2009, at the Way of 

Life Literature web site. Use the search engine or consult 

the Emerging Church section of the Topical Listing from 

the tab at the top of the web site’s home page.) 

All of these large influential conferences are committed 

to the ecumenical philosophy. None of them would dream 

of reproving Roman Catholicism. They are far too busy 

with other agendas to do anything like that. These 

conferences throw men together of all doctrinal 

persuasions, from Leighton Ford’s “evangelical 

conservatism” to Brian McLaren’s universalism and 

rejection of hell to Paul Young’s non-judgmental female 

God as taught in his book The Shack. 

1 Timothy 6:20,21 3


These are the types of forums in which CCM is birthed 

and where it is most at home. The music at these forums 

was “real” Christian rock. They pulled out all the stops. 

No messing around with this silly business of trying to 

remove the rock” from Christian rock. There was even 

colored lights and smoke. No holds barred CCM. The real 

stuff. 

It is really pathetic to see once old-fashioned Baptist 

churches like Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, 

Virginia, or Highland Park Baptist Church in 

Chattanooga, Tennessee, trying to use CCM, like they 

have been doing for a couple of decades. They have the 

“worship leader” and the band but the people just stand 

there stiffly, mouthing the words on the big screen 

without the foggiest idea of what to do with such music. 

Hey, that music is created to “connect” you to God, to 

enable you to “experience” God. It’s all about “feeling” 

something. You’re supposed to yield to it, move to it, 

dance, man! Independent Baptist churches that want to 

use CCM need to bring in some charismatic ecumenists 

to teach them how to do it or they need to go to some of 

the charismatic churches and conferences and observe 

how it is done so they can do right by it. If you want to 

use charismatic stuff, you ought to at least make an effort 

to know what it is and how it should be used. 

For nearly four decades I have researched the 

Pentecostal-Charismatic movement, beginning from 

when I was led to Christ by an old-line Pentecostal and 

visited Pentecostal churches as a new Christian seeking 

God’s will about “who” to join. The 317-page book The 

Pentecostal-Charismatic Movements: The History and the 

Error is packed with documentation of the apostasy and 

spiritual danger represented by this movement, which 

also represents the very heart and soul of Contemporary 

Christian Music. We also have a photo-packed DVD 

series on that subject. 

I have visited for research purposes influential churches 

that represent the heart and soul of CCM and its 

philosophy, such as Mars Hill Church in Seattle (Mark 

Driscoll), Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, California, 

Vineyard Fellowship in Anaheim, Carpenter’s Home 

Church of Lakeland, Florida, Christ Church in Nashville, 

City Harvest Church in Singapore, Without Walls in 

Florida, Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul (supposedly 

the world’s biggest church), Bill Hybel’s Willowcreek 

Community Church west of Chicago, Rick Warren’s 

Saddleback Church in California, First Baptist in Atlanta, 

Hills Christian Life Centre in Sydney, and schools such as 

Oral Roberts University, Regent College in Vancouver, 

B.C., Wheaton College, and Southern Baptist Seminary 

in Louisville. 

Charles Billingsly is the Worship Leader at Thomas Road Baptist 

Church in Lynchburg, TN. 

I do have some unique personal experiences and have 

done some serious research into the Pentecostal- 

Charismatic movement and ecumenism and CCM. In 

1998, when I published the first edition of Contemporary 

Christian Music Under the Spotlight, the use and 

“adaptation” of CCM was still rare among IB churches, 

but that is no longer the case. 

Paul warned that evil communications corrupt good 

manners. If anything is evil today, it is the charismatic 

ecumenical movement which is producing the vast bulk 

of contemporary worship music. It has a name that it 

lives, but when judged biblically, it is found to be dead. It 

has zeal without knowledge. It has a form of godliness 

but it denies the power thereof, which is absolute truth. 

There is widespread confusion about the gospel itself 

within this movement. At the North American Congress 

on the Holy Spirit and World Evangelization in 1987, 

which I attended with press credentials, a large 

percentage of the participants and many of the speakers 

were Roman Catholic. The two leaders were a 

Pentecostal and a Roman Catholic who bragged about 



how wonderful it was that they could be so united and 

what a great thing God is doing today. Each evening 

featured about an hour of contemporary worship music, 

which united that mixed multitude in fervent “praise.” 

But then one evening a large percentage of the 35,000 or 

so participants raised their hands to indicate that they 

weren’t sure of their salvation. At a press conference the 

next day, Dennis Costella of Foundation magazine asked 

why the conference didn’t address the matter of salvation 

plainly and publicly in order to clear up the obvious 

confusion. A Pentecostal leader replied, “We don’t have 

time for that.” The more honest answer would have been 

as follows: 

“We are a mixed multitude. This conference represents 40 

different denominations, and we have different ideas 

about that. Our Catholic brethren have one idea and our 

Lutheran brethren another and there are differences of 

opinion even among us Pentecostals. In the context of the 

ecumenical movement, some believe baptism is necessary 

for salvation; some believe you can’t be saved without 

tongues; some believe baptism regenerates; some believe 

cooing infants can be saved; some believe salvation must 

be nurtured through sacraments; some believe you can 

lose your salvation; some believe salvation is a mere 

sinner’s prayer; some believe in ‘Four Spiritual Laws,’ 

etc. So it is impossible to be doctrinally precise on that or 

practically any other issue and still keep our unity. As you 

know, doctrine divides; love unites, and love is what 

really matters. We can’t judge someone else, you know.” 

That would have been the honest answer. 

And the fact that the vast majority of CCM “artists” have 

bought into this wretchedly unscriptural ecumenical 

doctrine is why their music should be rejected 

wholesale--lock, stock, and barrel--by Bible-believing 

churches. 

Thus, the first reason why the associations of CCM and 

not just the words must be considered is that the Bible 

commands us to separate from heresy and even more 

particularly from end-times apostasy. 

John Styll, the publisher of Worship Leader magazine, 

made the following telling observation: 

“You can have a pretty straight-laced but theologically 

liberal Presbyterian church using the same songs that are 

being sung at a wild and crazy charismatic church, but 

they use different arrangements and adapt the songs to 

their unique settings” (Styll, quoted by Steve Rabey, “The 

Profits of Praise,” Christianity Today, July 12, 1999). 

Observe that he said that churches “use different 

arrangements and adapt their songs to their unique 

settings.” 

My friends, that is EXACTLY what Lancaster Baptist 

Church in California and a rapidly growing number of 

other IB churches are doing. Styll, who is totally 

committed to ecumenism and who delights in the fact that 

CCM is bringing all churches together, understands this 

matter much better than the average IB pastor who is 

allowing his people to mess around with CCM. Styll 

understands the power of music. He knows that if 

churches dabble around with CCM they will be hooked 

and they will be drawn gradually closer to the ecumenical 

thinking and orb and its multitude of heresies and fables. 

In an interview with Christianity Today, Don Moen of 

Integrity Music said: “I’ve discovered that worship 

[music] is transdenominational, transcultural. IT 

BRIDGES ANY DENOMINATION. Twenty years ago 

there were many huge divisions between denominations. 

Today I think the walls are coming down. In any concert 

that I do, I will have 30-50 different churches 

represented.” 

Styll and Moen know that they are talking about. They 

know the power of music and the deception of 

ecumenism. Forty years ago, who would have thought 

that fundamental Baptist churches would be using CCM 

on a wide basis in the early 21st century But they are, 

and if they don’t set their houses in order they will be 

swept along by the flood of compromise and apostasy. 

The typical pragmatic IB thinking and the refusal to listen 

to “criticism” on the part of the average IB pastor, won’t 

get the job done. 

2. THE CCM CROWD IS ACTIVELY TARGETING 

“OLD FASHIONED” CHURCHES TO MOVE THEM 

FROM SACRED TO CONTEMPORARY 

These people are real proselytizers. There are 

TRANSITION SONGS and BRIDGE SONGS designed 

to move traditional churches along the contemporary path 

toward Christian rock. From the perspective of the CCM 

artists involved in this, they aren’t doing anything sinister. 

They are simply and sincerely trying to “feed” the 

“broader church.” But from a fundamentalist Biblebelieving 

position, the effect is to draw “old-fashioned” 

Bible churches into the contemporary orb, and that is 

most sinister. 

Bridge songs include “How Deep the Father's Love for 

Us” by Stuart Townend and “In Christ Alone” by 

Townend and Keith Getty. 



Stuart Townend is an extremely popular writer of Contemporary Christian Music who’s tunes are sometimes adapted for use in 

independent Baptist churches and colleges. One of his most popular songs, “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” has a very 

penetrating melody which is soft and sensual, but the tune is sentimental in nature and speaks of a God who is never wrathful, 

vengeful or angry. It is completely unlike sound Christian music which can be soft but not betray the truth about God’s nature. 

These songs are doctrinally sound and hymn-like as 

opposed to out-and-out rock & roll in style, so they are 

considered “safe” by traditional churches. But by using 

this music a church is brought into association with the 

contemporary world that Townsend represents. 

Townend is a Christian rocker. He is charismatic in 

theology and radically ecumenical in philosophy, 

supporting the Alpha program which bridges charismatic, 

Protestant, and Roman Catholic churches. He is a 

member of the charismatic Church of Christ the King in 

Brighton, U.K. and supports the “extraordinary 

manifestations of the Spirit (S4W.com). This refers, of 

course, to the demonic/fleshly charismatic mysticism 

such as spirit slaying, holy laughter, and shaking. 

Townend is holding hands with the “broader church” in 

all of its facets and heresies and end-time apostasies, and 

Townend’s objective in writing the “hymn-like” 

contemporary songs is ecumenism. Consider the 

following statement: 

“‘How Deep the Father’s Love’ was the first hymn-like 

song I had written; before that point I had only written 

modern worship songs in a more contemporary style. ... 

This melody just kinda popped out of my head one day. ... 

It had a kind of classic hymn-like element to it. I thought 

I should just tell the story of Christ on the cross, but tell it 

perhaps from the point of view of what it cost the Father 

to give the Son. ... There is lot of talk about the wrath of 

God and is that right to think that the Father’s wrath was 

poured out on Christ, and I think that is right to say that. 

But that is not to say that God is a vengeful God; actually 

it cost him to give up His son. ... It’s been interesting to 

see the response. It’s quite useful not only in the more 

modern contemporary churches, but in traditional 

churches as well because of the style. And I’m kind of 

exited about that; I am excited about the fact that you can 

write something that actually feeds the broader church 



rather than just particular musical pockets of the church. 

That’s something that motivates me and probably why 

I’ve thought more and more about writing hymns, is I 

would like to try and feed the whole church and not just 

part of it” (Stuart Townend, “Mission: Worship, The 

Story Behind the Song”). 

The first comment we would make is that Townend 

openly states that his objective is to bridge “traditional” 

churches with contemporary ones. After “How Deep the 

Father’s Love” popped into his mind and he turned the 

“hymn-like” tune into a soft “modern hymn,” he realized 

that this type of music could be a powerful bridge. In his 

own blog he says “I don’t go home at the end of a busy 

day and put on a hymns album! So I don’t think of hymns 

as where I’m at musically at all!” (http:// 

blog.stuarttownend.co.uk/2010/05/how-deep-fatherslove.html). 

He is a rock & roller, pure and simple. He 

wants to use the soft CCM to bring together the “broader 

church.” 

What he does not say is that the contemporary churches 

aren’t very interested in soft CCM hymns. It is only the 

“traditional” churches that are interested in “soft” CCM, 

and by using it they are the ones that are in danger of 

being influenced and changed. When “traditional” 

churches borrow Townend’s “soft” CCM, the 

contemporary churches are in no danger of being 

“traditionalized,” but the traditional churches are most 

definitely in danger of being contemporarized. 

The second observation is that Townend is committed to 

serious heresy. He states that God is not vengeful, 

whereas the Bible plainly, repeatedly, and forcefully 

states that God is vengeful. The Psalmist says that God 

will “execute vengeance upon the heathen” (Psa. 149:7). 

The prophets warn of the coming of the “day of the 

Lord’s vengeance” (Isa. 34:8; Jer. 46:10; Mic. 5:15; 

Nahum 1:2). It was God’s holy vengeance that fell upon 

Christ, and it is His vengeance that will fall upon every 

sinner outside of Christ. The apostle Paul said that Christ 

will exercise God’s vengeance on all who obey not the 

gospel (2 Thess. 1:8). 

One concerned pastor wrote: 

“Keith and Kristyn Getty advertise themselves as 

‘Modern Hymn Writers’ and are deceiving many into the 

Rock Genre by this very innocent title and the more 

conservative Praise Soft Rock music. But the fact is, that 

they are not modern hymn writers because they are 

putting out Rock Music which is not spiritual at all but 

carnal and thereby, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and 

not the spirit (spiritual part of us yielding to the Holy 

Spirit).” 

The frightful thing is that the average Independent Baptist 

pastor and music people don’t have the foggiest idea that 

they are being manipulated and that they are walking on a 

BRIDGE that leads to a place they say they are against, 

which is full blown CCM and its enticing philosophy of 

“don’t be so strict and uptight; relax; enjoy life; live the 

grace.” 

3. THIS PHILOSOPHY WILL EFFECTIVELY STOP 

CLEAR WARNINGS. 

How are the pastors and teachers going to give clear 

warnings about CCM and that crowd if they are using 

their music (It is one thing to warn in generalities, which 

doesn’t offend people but also doesn’t get the job done, 

and it is quite another to warn in a plain manner so that 

the people who visit the music section of a typical 

Christian bookstore will know what music to avoid -- 

which is almost all of it!) 

I can’t figure out how this would work at any practical 

level. 

Consider a church that is using music of the likes of Jack 

Hayford, Darlene Zschech, Michael W. Smith, Twila 

Paris, Michael English, Brian Doerksen, Graham 

Kendrick, Rick Founds, Marty Nystrom, Michael Ledner, 

Marty Sampson, Steve Green, Jonathan Stockstill, Chris 

Tomlin, Stuart Townend, Casting Crowns, and other 

mainstream CCM musicians. 

How can the pastor of such a church or visiting preachers 

effectively lift a word of clear warning against this 

crowd 

Knowing human nature as I do and knowing the 

preaching ministry as I do, I don’t believe this would ever 

work, and the longer the situation is allowed to continue 

the quieter the pulpit will be about CCM in an effective 

sense. 

The pastor of the church that allows his people to dabble 

around in CCM in search of “good” stuff has effectively 

been stopped from giving the clear warnings that he 

should be giving about music. 

Oh, he might be able to say, “Beware of Contemporary 

Christian Music, folks,” in a general, vague fashion, but 

he won’t be able to be precise in the way that is required 

today to make people understand the real danger. He will 

hesitate and probably decide against bringing in a 

preacher who might deal with these matters plainly, 

knowing that his people would be confused and probably 

offended. 



More likely these days they will go home and do a 

Google search for the titles of the adapted CCM songs 

they hear at church, perhaps some Hillsong numbers, and 

the top returns will be the “real” Christian rock and they 

will be drawn farther and farther into the CCM world. 

One lady left the following comment at a YouTube clip 

featuring an “adapted” CCM song. The title is “We Will 

Remember” by Tommy Walker. 

“I fell in love with this song when it was sang in our 

church today. I then got home to find the lyrics on the 

Internet. It’s a wonderful song.” 

You can be sure that she found more than the mere 

“lyrics.” 

In this way the appetite for the “real” CCM will spread 

throughout the church, and this type of thing doesn’t 

happen slowly. 

Highland Park Baptist Church did not start out as a full blown CCM 

venue, but started with softer sounds first. Is your church adapting 

CCM for use in services 

If such a pastor becomes convicted that he has allowed 

the church to go down a wrong path and tries to turn it 

around by issuing clear warnings himself, he will quickly 

learn that addicted people (in this case, addicted to 

sensual music) fervently defend their addictions. 

4. THIS PHILOSOPHY MEANS THE CHURCH IS 

ACTUALLY PROMOTING CCM ARTISTS, AND THE 

CHURCH MEMBERS WILL DOUBTLESS BE 

LULLED INTO LISTENING TO THE “REAL STUFF.” 

When church members see that CCM is “adapted” in 

their services, at least some of them will doubtless obtain 

the full-blown stuff to listen to in private. 

When they visit Christian bookstores and browse the 

music section they will see the same songs that they hear 

on Sunday and they will buy the stuff and before long 

they will see that real Christian rock is more fun, more 

powerful, more enticing than “adapted” Christian rock. 

When Lancaster Baptist Church, home of West Coast 

Baptist College, performed “Shout to the Lord” in a 

Sunday service, Cary Schmidt, one of the leaders, said, 

“Most of you have heard this song or know the words to 

this song.” He knew that many of the church members 

were familiar with Hillsong and their music, and I do not 

believe that they listen only to the toned down soft rock 

versions played in church. 

A pastor described to me a scene at a fundamental Baptist 

preachers meeting in which Hillsong numbers were sung 

as specials by a pastor’s wife. He said, “One session 

when she was performing, I was looking across the 

auditorium and just happened to see a young pastor 

coming out of the toilet with a big smile, and he was 

miming the words of the Hillsong junk she was singing. 

So I said to myself, ‘You are not only familiar with this 

song, but you have memorized it, and that means it is the 

music you listen to with enjoyment.’” Exactly, and he is 

probably not listening to the toned down “adapted” 

editions! 

5. IF A CHURCH IS “ADAPTING” CCM, SOMEONE 

IS LISTENING TO “FULL-BLOWN” CCM IN ORDER 

TO FIND AND ADAPT “ACCEPTABLE” PIECES. 

Typically, if musicians are “adapting” CCM for use in a 

conservative church that doesn’t yet allow full-blown 

rock & roll, those musicians are listening to “the real 

stuff” in order to find something to adapt. 

Since rock & roll, even “soft rock,” is highly addictive 

and sensual, we know that these musicians rapidly lose 



their spiritual sensitivity and appetite for truly sacred 

music and become lulled into accepting an increasingly 

wider range of CCM. 

Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, who recorded some of 

the first rock & roll hits, including Elvis’ first recording 

in 1954, knew the power of rock. Reminiscing many 

years later about why rock became such a social 

phenomenon, he said, “It all came out of THAT 

INFECTIOUS BEAT and those young people wanting to 

FEEL GOOD by listening to some records” (“Rock ‘n’ 

Roll Pioneer Sam Phillips Dies,” USA Today, July 30, 

2003). 

Janis Joplin, who died young from the rock & roll 

lifestyle, describes her first big concert in these words: “I 

couldn’t believe it, all that rhythm and power. I got stoned 

just feeling it, like IT WAS THE BEST DOPE IN THE 

WORLD. It was SO SENSUAL, so vibrant, loud, 

crazy” (Joel Dreyfuss, “Janis Joplin Followed the Script,” 

Wichita Eagle, Oct. 6, 1970, p. 7A). 

I can concur with that. Rock & roll reached into the 

Christian home and church in which I grew up and 

absolutely captivated my heart and soul with I was a kid, 

and it taught me the path of rebellion and godlessness. 

Thousands upon thousands have the same testimony. 

Are you pastors who are letting your churches dabble 

with “adapted” CCM and its soft rock willing to take the 

chance that your carelessness in the matter of music will 

cause some young people to offend and go the way of the 

world, the flesh, and the devil Is it not better and wiser 

to err on the side of safety 

Rock can be hard or soft, fast or slow, loud or quiet, and it 

is still rock because it still has a sensual, heavily 

syncopated swing rhythm that moves the body, and it is 

still “infectious” and it still makes people “feel good.” 

With the musicians being influenced by “real” CCM, 

their influence spreads throughout the church body. 

A typical private conversation will be, “Hey, listen to this 

new cut by Darlene Zschech! Hey, you won’t believe this 

new Vineyard CD! Cool stuff!” 

6. THE ATTEMPT TO REMOVE THE “ROCK” FROM 

CHRISTIAN ROCK TYPICALLY RESULTS IN 

MERELY TONING DOWN THE MUSIC FROM HARD 

ROCK TO SOFT ROCK. 

Those who adapt CCM do so because that particular 

church still says it is opposed to CCM so they can’t use it 

full blown. They have to tone down the rhythm. They 

have to try to take the rock out of Christian rock. The 

pastor won’t allow a rock band on stage and is afraid of 

thumping bass guitars and drums, so the music people 

“adapt” it to whatever model is acceptable. 

Typically, though, this is done merely by replacing hard 

rock with soft rock, and since it isn’t loud and boisterous 

and doesn’t have a heavy thump and the singers aren’t 

shaking around and there is no light show or smoke, 

everyone is satisfied that they are avoiding CCM. 

The problem is that the back beat and other elements of 

soft rock are still there but it is much more subtle and the 

soft rock rhythm is created by the pianists and perhaps 

other musicians rather than guitarists and a drummer with 

a trap set. 

It’s soft rock or Southern Gospel honky tonk, and it is just 

as sensual and addictive to the flesh as hard rock. And it 

creates an appetite for such music that is never satisfied. 

7. THIS PHILOSOPHY RESULTS IN THE SAME OLD 

SLIPPERY SLOPE. 

For the previous reasons, the “adaptation” of CCM 

launches a church down the slippery contemporary slope 

as surely as if they had brought in a pure rock band. 

It results in the gradual acceptance of and increasing use 

of CCM, a gradual allowance for sensual rhythms, the 

continual pushing of the boundaries. 

We repeat the warning that many discerning men have 

issued about this slippery slope and its outcome: 

“When the standard of music is LOWERED, then the 

standard of dress is also lowered. When the standard of 

dress is lowered, then the standard of conduct is also 

lowered. When the standard of conduct is lowered, then 

the sense of value in God’s truth is lowered” (Evangelist 

Gordon Sears, Songfest newsletter, April 2001). 

The late Gordon Sears, who I had the privilege of 

meeting the day before he died, loved the Lord and loved 

the Lord’s churches, and he was deeply concerned about 

what is happening among fundamental Baptists. In the 

1990s the number of his meetings dropped significantly 

because so many churches had changed their music 

standards, and they didn’t want an evangelist to come in 

and shake the boat. Notice that Sears said that the 

standard of music doesn’t have to be radically changed. It 

just has to be lowered, and that leads to a downward 

progression that will ultimately result in a lowering of the 

sense of the value of truth itself. A church can hold to 

truth, to doctrinal soundness, without truly valuing it or 



deeply caring for it, and this happens when it buys into 

the CCM philosophy that “love” and “unity” are more 

important than doctrinal purity. 

“If a church starts using CCM, it will eventually lose all 

other standards” (Dr. Frank Garlock, Bob Jones 

University, chapel, March 12, 2001). 

Dr. Garlock is dogmatic here and doesn’t allow for any 

exceptions. I hope he has warned West Coast about this, 

because to “adapt” CCM is doubtless the same as “using 

CCM.” 

“Perhaps nothing precipitates a slide toward New 

Evangelicalism more than the introduction of 

Contemporary Christian Music. This inevitably leads 

toward a gradual slide in other areas as well until the 

entire church is infiltrated by ideas and programs alien to 

the original position of the church” (Dr. Ernest Pickering, 

The Tragedy of Compromise: The Origin and Impact of 

the New Evangelicalism, Bob Jones University Press, 

1994). 

The late Dr. Pickering warned that the introduction of 

CCM precipitates a slide toward New Evangelicalism 

more than anything else. That is a powerful statement. 

And observe that he said this slide is initiated by the mere 

“INTRODUCTION” of CCM. It doesn’t have to be a full 

blown reception. CCM just has to be introduced, and the 

church is on its way to New Evangelicalism. This is 

because the “introduction” of CCM at any level and in 

any way brings the church into intimate association with 

the world of CCM which is totally, passionately 

committed to the New Evangelical philosophy at best, 

and to “ideas and programs alien” to the position of an 

old-fashioned Baptist church. 

“Good fundamental Baptists and others that refuse the 

teachings of the charismatic crowd concerning tongues, 

signs, miracles, and so forth are NOW SINGING THEIR 

MUSIC in our churches and preparing our people for the 

world, the flesh and the Devil. It is the new Trojan Horse 

move ... to deaden our churches to spiritual truth” (Victor 

Sears, Baptist Bible Tribune, 1981). 

This amazing warning was given 30 years ago! That was 

before CCM began to sweep into IB churches. But Victor 

Sears saw it as “the new Trojan Horse move ... to deaden 

our churches to spiritual truth.” He knew that that the 

contemporary music brings a contemporary philosophy, 

and he was deeply concerned. Sears was a leader in the 

Baptist Bible Fellowship International, and this was the 

first group of Independent Baptists that “introduced” 

CCM. It started with the use of contemporary background 

tapes for singing specials. I recall attending a BBFI 

preacher’s conference in the 1980s. The music was CCM 

even then. In light of these warnings, it is not surprising 

that the BBFI today has capitulated entirely to the New 

Evangelical philosophy. Victor Sears predicted it, and the 

men of real conviction and moral courage left long ago. 


Martin Luther stood up to the most powerful forces on the earth in his day, and he did it to defend the God of scripture from the wicked heresies of 

the Roman Catholic Church. While we certainly could not condone all his doctrine, it’s hard not to appreciate the boldness of a man who is willing 

to die for Bible truth. You have only to read the lyrics of his hymns to understand that he did not believe in “The Shack” god. “Did we in our own 

strength confide, our striving would be losing; Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing: Dost ask who that may be 

Christ Jesus, it is He; Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same, And He must win the battle.” 

CCM Permeated With False Christs and False Gods 

A pastor who wrote to criticize me for the warning about 

West Coast’s adaptation of CCM, said that if my position 

is right and that if we should stop using CCM because of 

the heresies of the writers, we should also stop using the 

old Protestant hymns, such as those by Martin Luther, 

Charles Wesley, and Fanny Crosby, and we should also 

stop using the King James Bible, because it was written 

by Anglicans. 

Whatever doctrinal differences a Baptist would have with 

Martin Luther or John Wesley or Fanny Crosby or KJV 

translator John Rainolds, we share the same God, but that 

is often not true for Contemporary Christian Worship. 

Many of the influential CCW artists worship A NON- 

TRINITARIAN GOD. Geron Davis, Joel Hemphill, Mark 

Carouthers, Phillips, Craig and Dean, Lanny Wolfe, and 

others are “Jesus Only” Pentecostals who deny the 

Trinity. To deny the Trinity is to worship a false God. 

Other CCW artists worship A NON-VENGEFUL GOD. 

Stuart Townend, for example, who writes “modern 

hymns” popular in IB churches, denies that God is 

vengeful, which is a brazen rejection of the very God of 

the Bible (Stuart Townend, “Mission: Worship, The Story 

Behind the Song”, http://www.youtube.com/watch 

v=BdVQNyQmdM4). 

A great many of the CCM artists worship A NON- 

JUDGMENTAL GOD. Consider the popularity of The 

Shack among CCM artists. It has been directly endorsed 

by Michael W. Smith and others CCM artists has been 

well received in prominent CCM circles such as Calvary 

Chapels, Vineyard churches, and Hillsong. It was 

promoted at the 2009 National Pastor’s Convention in 

San Diego, which was sponsored by Zondervan and 

InterVarsity Fellowship. Young was one of the speakers 

and a survey found that 57% had read the novel. Young 

was enthusiastically received, and in an interview with 

Andy Crouch, a senior editor of Christianity Today, there 

was not a hint of condemnation for his false god. Crouch 

is a CCM musician in his own right and led one of the 

praise and worship sessions in San Diego. 

The Shack is all about redefining God. It is about a man 

who becomes bitter at God after his daughter is murdered


l-r: William P. Young, Rob Bell, G. Bromley Oxnam. Modernism changes faces and tacks, but is still a lie of the Devil. 

and has a life-changing experience in the very shack 

where the murder occurred; but the God he encounters is 

most definitely not the God of the Bible. 

Young says the book is for those with “a longing that God 

is as kind and loving as we wish he was” (interview with 

Sherman Hu, Dec. 4, 2007). What he is referring to is the 

desire on the part of the natural man for a God who loves 

“unconditionally” and does not require obedience, does 

not require repentance, does not judge sin, and does not 

make men feel guilty for what they do. 

In that same interview, Young said that a woman wrote to 

him and said that her 22-year-old daughter came to her 

after reading the book and asked, “IS IT ALRIGHT IF I 

DIVORCE THE OLD GOD AND MARRY THE NEW 

ONE” 

This is precisely what a very large portion of the 

Contemporary Christian Music crowd is doing. 

Young admits that the God of “The Shack” is different 

from the traditional God of Bible-believing Christianity 

and blasphemously says that the God who “watches from 

a distance and judges sin” is “a Christianized version of 

Zeus.” 

This reminds me of the modernist G. Bromley Oxnam, 

who called the God of the Old Testament “a dirty bully” 

in his 1944 book Preaching in a Revolutionary Age. 

Young depicts the triune God as a young Asian woman 

named “Sarayu” * (supposedly the Holy Spirit), an 

oriental carpenter who loves to have a good time 

(supposedly Jesus), and an older black woman named 

“Elousia” (supposedly God the Father). God the Father is 

also depicted as a guy with a ponytail and a goatee. (* 

The name “Sarayu” is from the Hindu scriptures and 

represents a mythical river in India on the shores of which 

the Hindu god Rama was born.) 

Young’s god is the god of the emerging church. He is 

cool, loves rock & roll, is non-judgmental, does not 

exercise wrath toward sin, does not send unbelievers to an 

eternal fiery hell, does not require repentance and the new 

birth, puts no obligations on people. (See “The Shack’s 

Cool God” at the Way of Life web site, 

www.wayoflife.org.) 

The false CCM non-judgmental, universalistic god is 

represented by emerging church leaders Brian McLaren 

and Rob Bell, both of whom are very popular with CCM 

artists. One Christian rocker told us that these writings 

“resonate” with him. 

McLaren calls the God who punished Jesus on the cross 

for man’s sin “a God who is incapable of forgiving, 

unless he kicks somebody else” (McLaren, http:// 

www.understandthetimes.org/mclarentrans.shtml and 

http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2006/01/ 

brian_mclaren_p.html). He presents the traditional God of 

the Bible as a tyrant who “gets his way through coercion 

and violence and intimidation and domination. McLaren 

says that the “power of the blood” gospel “raises some 

questions about the goodness of God.” 

Rob Bell, author of the influential book Velvet Elvis, 

claims that the God who would allow multitudes to go to 



Brian McLaren believes nothing you believe about the God of the Bible. He denies, questions, twists and perverts every doctrine of scripture and 

does it with a sly grin and a pleasing tone of voice. These men are eternally dangerous to our children and grandchildren and they have their 

sights set on them. 

eternal hell is not great or mighty (Love Wins, location 

1189-1229). He says that such God is not loving and calls 

the preaching of eternal hell “misguided and toxic.” says 

there is something wrong with this God and calls Him 

“terrifying and traumatizing and unbearable” (Love Wins, 

location 47-60, 1273-1287, 2098-2113). He even says 

that if an earthly father acted like the God who sends 

people to hell “we could contact child protection services 

immediately” (Love Wins, location 2085-2098). 

It is obvious that Bell worships a different God than the 

One we worship in “traditional” Baptist churches. 

Bell’s God is more akin to New Age panentheism than 

the God of the Bible. He describes God as “a force, an 

energy, a being calling out to us in many languages, using 

a variety of methods and events” (Love Wins, location 

1710-1724). 

“There is an energy in the world, a spark, an electricity 

that everything is plugged into. The Greeks called it zoe, 

the mystics call it ‘Spirit,’ and Obi-Wan called it ‘the 

Force’” (Love Wins, location 1749-1762). 

Bell worships a false christ. His Jesus is “supracultural ... 

present within all cultures ... refuses to be co-opted or 

owned by any one culture ... He doesn’t even state that 

those coming to the Father through him will even now 

that they are coming exclusively through him ... there is 

only mountain, but many paths. ... People come to Jesus 

in all sorts of ways ... Sometimes people use his name; 

other times they don’t” (Love Wins, location 1827-1840, 

1865-1878, 1918-1933). 

Many of the CCM artists worship A REBEL CHRIST, 

which is certainly a false christ. Mark Stuart of Audio 

Adrenaline says, “Jesus Christ is the biggest rebel to ever 

walk the face of the earth” (Pensacola News Journal, 



Pensacola, Fla., March 1, 1998, pp. 1, 6E). Sonny of 

P.O.D. says, “We believe that Jesus was the first rebel; the 

first punk rocker” (http://www.shoutweb.com/interviews/ 

pod0700.phtml). This is absolute blasphemy. The Bible 

says rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft (1 Sam. 15:23). 

A rebel is a lawbreaker, but Christ was the lawgiver who 

He came to earth to fulfill the requirements of His own 

law (Matt. 5:17-19). Christ was not crucified for 

rebellion; He was crucified for testifying that He is God 

(John 10:33). 

Many of the CCM artists worship A ROCK & ROLL 

PARTY CHRIST. In his Live ... Radically Saved video 

Carman says, “Jesus is always cool; He’s got his thing 

together.” In Resurrection Rap Carman portrays Jesus as 

a street hippie; in The Standard he calls Jesus “J.C.”; and 

in Addicted to Jesus he speaks of “Jammin’ with the 

Lamb.” Petra claims that “God gave rock and roll to you/ 

Put it in the soul of every one.” In “Party in Heaven” the 

Daniel Band sang, “The Lamb and I are drinkin’ new 

wine.” Phil Driscoll says, “God is the King of Soul; He’s 

the King of all rhythm” (quoted by Tim Fisher, Battle for 

Christian Music, p. 82). Messiah Prophet Band says, 

“Jesus is the Master of Metal,” and Barren Cross says, 

“Better than pot, Jesus rocks.” John Fischer described 

God as puffing on a cigar and swaying to rock music 

(CCM Magazine, July 1984, p. 20), while J. Lee Grady 

says Jesus enjoys dancing with the angels and “grooving 

to the sound of Christian R&B pumped out of a boom 

box” (Charisma, July 2000). 

CONCLUSION 

The fact that the CCM crowd typically worships a 

different kind of God than the “old-fashioned” Biblicist, 

is why they are perfectly comfortable using music that 

has been identified as sexy by the secular world. 

“... that is what rock is all about--sex with a 100-megaton 

bomb, the beat” (Gene Simmons of KISS, Entertainment 

Tonight, ABC, Dec. 10, 1987). 

Note that Simmons was not referring to the words of rock 

music; he was referring only to its backbeat rhythm. 

Music researchers Daniel and Bernadette Skubik, in their 

study on the neurophysiology of rock music, warned: 

“Whether the words are evil, innocuous, or based in Holy 

Scripture, the overall neurophysiological effects 

generated by rock music remain the same. There is 

simply no such thing as Christian rock that is 

substantively different in its impact” (“The 

Neurophysiology of Rock,” an Appendix to Ken 

Blanchard’s Pop Goes the Gospel, pp. 187ff). 

The reason that statement doesn’t bother a CCM defender 

is because he sees Jesus as a rock & roll party Dude who 

loves a good time. 

“Those who envision God as a special friend, a kind of 

lover, with whom they can have fun, see no problem in 

worshipping him by means of physically stimulating 

music. On the other hand, those who perceive God as a 

majestic, holy, and almighty Being to be approached with 

awe and reverence will only use the music that elevates 

them spiritually” (Samuele Bacchiocchi, The Christian 

and Rock Music). 



D IGGING IN THE W ALLS 

God commanded the prophet Ezekiel to dig in 

the walls of Israel's temple and observe the evils 

being done in secret by apostate religious 

leaders of that day. "Then said he unto me, Son 

of man, dig now in the wall ... And he said unto 

me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations 

that they do here. So I went in and 

saw. ..." (Ezek. 8:7-10). 

Ezekiel was then instructed to preach against 

the errors of the leaders and to tell the people 

the things he had witnessed. 

"Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O 

son of man. ... Then I spake unto them of the 

captivity all the things that the Lord had 

shewed me" (Ezek. 11:4,25). 

The hour in which we live is very similar to 

that of Ezekiel's day. Many of those who profess 

to be the people of God are apostate. It was 

prophesied in the New Testament Scriptures 

that such would be the case in the closing hours 

of our age. This will culminate in the brief 

worldwide rule of an utterly apostate Harlot 

"church" (2 Tim. 3-4; 1 Tim. 4; 2 Pet. 2-3; Jude; 

Rev. 17). 

As in Ezekiel's day much of the apostasy of our 

hour is hidden from the view of the average 

Christian. We intend by God's grace to "dig in 

the walls" of modern ecumenism and to expose 

and cry out against the things we find. In this 

section we also report on secular events which 

are relevant to Christians. May God give us ears 

to hear, minds to understand, and hearts to obey. 

Is the truth of God not worthy of defense 

DESPERATE TIMES FOR 

I N D E P E N D E N T B A P T I S T 

CHURCHES (Friday Church News 

N o t e s , M a r c h 4 , 2 0 1 1 , 

www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 

866-295-4143) - Over the past 15 years 

we have seen dramatic changes within 

Independent Baptist churches. Large 

numbers of them have moved from “old 

fashioned” conservative to contemporary. 

Everywhere I travel these days for Bible 

conferences the pastors tell me about 

churches in their areas that have 

capitulated to the contemporary 

philosophy and are now enemies of what 

they used to stand for. For example, 

Akron Baptist Temple in Akron, Ohio, 

was taken in the contemporary direction 

by the founder’s grandson, Dallas R. 

Billington, (shown above) who became 

the pastor in 1996. Today, the Akron 

Baptist Temple is an emerging church 

with a “traditional service” called The 

Temple and a raunchy contemporary 

service called The Bridge. The church 

offers a smorgasbord of worship 

“experiences.” It’s all me and my tastes 

and my choices. How 21st century! How 

2 Timothy 3:3-4! In The Bridge a loud 

rock & roll band plays 7/11 (seven words 

sung 11 times) contemporary worship 

music in a darkened auditorium. The 

service is advertised as “creating an 

environment where people who are 

seeking God, can do so in a nonthreatening, 

comfortable way.” It is all 

about “experiencing God.” (For more 

examples, see “Contemporary Music 

Brings Great Changes to Churches,” 

FBIS, September 28, 2010). If something 

isn’t done, something drastic and 

dramatic and truly direction changing, the 

VAST majority of IB churches will be 

well down the emerging path within 10 

years,. It’s not time to beat around the 

bush. It’s not time to play footsie with the 

good old boy IB network. It’s not time to 

be afraid of being blacklisted, slandered, 

and mocked by the “majority.” It’s not 

time to sit on the sidelines and enjoy the 

fight. It’s not time to worry about some 

leader’s feelings. This is real spiritual 

warfare, friends. “When thou sawest a 

thief, then thou consentedst with him, and 

h a s t b e e n p a r t a k e r w i t h 

adulterers” (Psalm 50:18). “The best of 

them is as a brier: the most upright is 

sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy 

watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now 

shall be their perplexity” (Micah 7:4). 

THE INDEPENDENT BAPTIST 

HYPOCRISY ABOUT WARNINGS 

(Friday Church News Notes, March 4, 

2011, www.wayoflife.org 

fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - 

This brouhaha about my warning about 

West Coast’s music has reminded me that 

there is a lot of hypocrisy on this issue. 

The vast majority of IB preachers give 

themselves the liberty to warn about men 

and ministries outside of the IB 

movement (without first contacting 

them), but they draw the line at issuing 

the same type of warning about the errors 

of IB leaders and ministries, regardless of 

the fact that these ministries have a large 

PUBLIC influence, an influence that 

reaches into multitudes of IB churches 

beyond their own borders. We’re allowed 

to warn about Rick Warren and his music 

but not about Paul Chappell’s; about Bill 

Bright and Campus Crusade’s 

unscriptural soul-winning but not Bob 

Gray’s of Texas; about John Piper and his 

Christian hedonism but not Matt Olson of 

Northland who teaches a similar 

philosophy; about Mark Driscoll and his 

cultural liberalism but not Tom Messer of 

Trinity Baptist in Jacksonville; about the 

SBC’s unity in diversity philosophy but 

not Clarence Sexton’s similar error in 

Independent Baptist Friends 

International; about the SDA and their 

cultic traits but not some IB preacher and 

his cultic “unquestioning loyalty.” It 

seems to me that any preacher who has 

ever warned about men and ministries 

without first contacting them and who has 

turned around and condemned me for not 

first contacting Pastor Chappell is simply 

a hypocrite. A pastor friend who read a 



pre-publication edition of this little piece 

commented, “I would mention 1 Peter 

4:17 about judgment beginning at the 

house of God. From this we learn that we 

are to deal with sin in our backyard even 

before we deal with it in the SBC, etc. So 

we need to be MORE concerned about 

error in IB churches and colleges and 

conferences than we are about Robert 

Schuller’s show.” Also, among the many 

interesting e-mails I have received on this 

issue recently is the following: 

“When preachers say you should have 

talked to Pastor Chappell privately first, I 

was reminded about Galatians 2:14: ‘But 

when I saw that they walked not uprightly 

according to the truth of the gospel, I said 

u n t o P e t e r b e f o r e t h e m a l l . . . ’ 

Paul rebuked Peter before them all 

b e c a u s e t h e y w e r e n ’ t w a l k i n g 

uprightly. This seems to apply here. They 

(West Coast Baptist College and other IB 

churches) are not walking uprightly, 

so scripturally Pastor Chappell is rebuked 

before all. Without this rebuke before all, 

even a Barnabas might be ‘carried away 

with their dissimulation’ (Gal 3:13).” “For 

the time is come that judgment must 

begin at the house of God: and if it first 

begin at us, what shall the end be of them 

that obey not the gospel of God” (1 Peter 

4:17). 

SPEAKER AT RICK WARREN 

CONFERENCE URGES CHURCHES 

TO DROP BRANDS AND NETWORK 

WITH BARBARIANS (Friday Church 

N e w s N o t e s , M a r c h 4 , 2 0 1 1 , 


866-295-4143) - Speaking at Rick 

Warren’s Radicalls conference on 

February 25, emerging church pastor 

Dave Gibbons called on Christians to 

forgo their names and to network with 

barbarians. Gibbons, pastor of Newsong 

Community Church of Irvine, California, 

said the world believes churches are a 

“sham” because we aren’t united enough. 

He suggested that churches forego their 

individual names and simply call 

themselves “the church,” adding, “You 

can do a lot for the Kingdom of God if 

you forget about your brand” (“Dave 

Gibbons,” Christian Post, Feb. 26, 2011). 

But “brands” are marks of identification. 

I’m glad that canned food has labels, and 

in light of the Bible’s emphasis on the 

importance of sound doctrine and its 

frequent warnings that apostasy and 

heresy will be widespread, particularly in 

the last days, it would be foolish in the 

extreme not to want to know what a 

church believes. Actually, it is difficult to 

understand what Gibbons is getting at, 

because the churches with which he is 

associated gave up their “brands” long 

ago. Now they are just “Newsong” or 

“Saddleback” or “Vineyard” or whatever. 

Gibbons also advised that churches work 

with “barbarians--or people other than the 

ones they don’t always network with.” On 

his church’s web site, Gibbons calls 

himself “Social Entrepreneur and Lead 

Pastor” and agrees with unbelievers that 

non-emerging churches are “irrelevant, 

boring, hypocritical.” Newsong is heavily 

involved with “social justice” issues and 

artsy projects. It is culturally cutting-edge, 

technologically savvy, very cool. The 

church’s statement of faith has nine 

simple doctrines including support for 

infant baptism. At the Radicalls 

conference Rick Warren echoed Gibbons’ 

call for unity, saying that “we’re all on the 

same team.” To the contrary, the Bible 

warns that “evil men and seducers shall 

wax worse and worse, deceiving, and 

being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13), and, 

“Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them 

which cause divisions and offences 

contrary to the doctrine which ye have 

learned; and avoid them” (Romans 

16:17), and, “Be ye not unequally yoked 

together with unbelievers: for what 

fellowship hath righteousness with 

unrighteousness and what communion 

hath light with darkness” (2 Corinthians 

6:14). It would be interesting to know if 

Rick Warren ever warns about false 

teachers in any plain sense. What he does 

do, though, is to liken biblical 

fundamentalists to Islamic 

fundamentalists. The man has a frightful 

lot to account for, but he refuses the 

“criticism” that could help him repent. 

EMERGING PREACHERS TO 

SPEAK AT SOUTHERN BAPTIST 

PASTOR’S CONFERENCE (Friday 

Church News Notes, March 18, 2011, 


866-295-4143) - The annual Southern 

Baptist Pastors’ Conference this year 

features at least four emerging preachers: 

Rick Warren of Saddleback Church, 

Louie Giglio (shown above) of Passion 

City Church in Atlanta, Paul Gotthardt of 

Life Baptist Church in Las Vegas, and 

Darrin Patrick of The Journey Church in 

St. Louis (home of “Theology at the 

Bottleworks” where participants “grab a 

beer and discuss spiritual topics”). 

Actually, all of the speakers at the SBC 

conference are emerging in philosophy 

after the fashion of Seattle’s Mark 

Driscoll (“theologically conservative and 

culturally liberal”), and right in the 

middle of the pack is John Piper, who is 

influencing many fundamental Baptists. 

The June SBC conference will be Piper’s 

second joint meeting with Rick Warren. In 

April, Piper is scheduled to conduct a 

Desiring God conference at Saddleback 

Church. The “fundamentalists” who are 

moving in the direction of the 

“conservative evangelical” John Piper 

(such as Kevin Bauder of Central Baptist 

Seminary who praises Piper in his blog) 

need to explain how such a conservative 

man is so spiritually blind that he would 

yoke together with an apostate like Rick 

Warren, who says God won’t ask about 

your doctrinal views; who continually and 

approvingly and non-critically quotes 

from heretics such as Roman Catholic 

universalists Mother Teresa, Henri 

Nouwen, and Thomas Merton; who likens 

Christian fundamentalists to Islamic 

fundamentalists; who calls for unity 

between Baptists, Roman Catholics, 

Anglicans, etc.; who promotes the 

exceedingly liberal Baptist World 

Alliance; who yokes together with New 

Age practitioners such as Mehmet Oz, 

who promotes occultic Reiki, and Daniel 

Amen who promotes the filthy Hindu 

Tantra Yoga; and who presents Roman 

Catholic inter-spiritualist globalist Tony 

Blair with a peace prize at Saddleback 

Church (March 2011). Hasn’t Warren read 

the Bible, which states that there is no 

peace to the wicked (Isaiah 48:22; 57:21) 

“Conservative evangelical,” indeed! The 



Southern Baptist Convention is an 

unscriptural, frightfully worldly, mixed 

multitude of “evangelicals,” charismatics, 

modernists, Masons, modern textual 

critics, theistic evolutionists, New Agers, 

female preachers, pastor-ruling deacons, 

and women-run churches, all dancing to 

the beat of rock & roll, and the fact that 

many Independent Baptist preachers are 

moving in the direction of the SBC in 

sympathy and philosophy and most 

IBaptist preachers of influence are saying 

nothing publicly is truly frightful to a man 

who grew up in that denomination and 

knows it all too well from inside-out. And 

please don’t say that it has gotten better, 

because I can prove that such is not the 

case. A few things have improved at a 

certain level, but in most ways the 

corruption has continued to progress 

steadily. 

The Hindu goddess Kali. No one is writing 

books railing against her; atheists seem to save 

all their venom for the God of the Bible. 

There’s a message in that. 

ATHEISTS ANGRY AT GOD (Friday 



866-295-4143) - The amazing title of a 

recent CCN report was “Anger at God 

Common, Even Among Atheists” (Jan. 1, 

2011). A series of studies in the Journal of 

Personality and Social Psychology has 

found that people get angry at God all the 

time and “atheists and agnostics reported 

more anger at God during their lifetimes 

than believers.” On the other hand, “more 

religious people are more likely to see 

God’s intentions as well-meaning.” What 

was not addressed is the strange issue of 

why an atheist would be angry at a myth. 

My educated guess would be that the 

“God” the atheist and agnostic are angry 

at is the very God described in the Bible, 

the Almighty Creator God, and not Zeus 

or Kali or Mother Earth or a vague New 

Age Higher Power. This again proves the 

truth and reality of the Bible, which says 

that it is the fool who says there is no God 

and men have a knowledge of God in 

their hearts and conscience but they have 

rebelled against Him and are at enmity 

with Him (e.g., Psalm 14:1; Romans 

3:18-21; 8:7). We are thankful that the 

Good News is that salvation is available 

through Jesus Christ for sinners who will 

repent, acknowledging their rebellion and 

surrendering to God’s authority, and put 

their faith in Christ’s Atonement which 

He purchased on the Cross. “Whom God 

hath set forth to be a propitiation through 

faith in his blood, to declare his 

righteousness for the remission of sins 

that are past, through the forbearance of 

God” (Romans 3:25). 

DESTRUCTION OF THE AFRICAN 

AMERICAN POPULATION 

THROUGH BIRTH CONTROL AND 

ABORTION (Friday Church News 

N o t e s , M a r c h 1 8 , 2 0 1 1 , 


866-295-4143) - According to a new 

report by the New York City Department 

of Health, 59.8 percent of African- 

American pregnancies in 2009 ended in 

abortion. A whopping 60% of black 

babies in “Christian” America are brutally 

murdered in the womb! What has brought 

this terrible situation about For one, it is 

the fruit of apostate churches. A majority 

of black Americans are professing 

Christians, but obviously this Christianity 

has no biblical substance, because even 

while professing to “love Jesus” it is 

typical to shamelessly indulge in every 

wicked thing, and The same is true for 

white Christians and every color of 

Christians in these evil days. And no 

surprise when we are plagued with 

adulterous “reverends” like Jesse Jackson. 

How many blacks have stood up to 

condemn the gross hypocrisy of these 

“men of the cloth” Multitudes of 

churches today are moral cesspools. 

Another thing that has destroyed morality 

among American blacks is the modern 

Welfare State, which has turned millions 

of people into perpetual slaves living on 

the dole and which has helped destroy the 

family. Of those who are not killed in the 

womb, a large majority are raised by 

single-parent mothers. Many other things 

could be mentioned, but another major 

cause of the massacre of African- 

American blacks through abortion is the 

Darwinian eugenics movement. This 

movement and philosophy, which 

flourished prior to World War II, is based 

on Darwinian natural selection. Founded 

by Charles Darwin’s cousin, Francis 

Galton, eugenics was built upon the idea 

that the white race is superior and should 

be kept pure from intermixture with other 

“races.” In Germany the eugenics 

movement was called “race hygiene.” 

Founder Alfred Ploetz said that his ideas 

about eugenics were drawn from 

Darwinism, and he praised Darwin’s 

disciple Ernst Haeckel as a key influence 

(Richard Wiekart, From Darwin to Hitler, 

p. 15). Henry Fairfield Osborn, head of 

the American Museum of Natural History 

and president of the Second International 

Congress of Eugenics in 1921, praised the 

work of German racists Jon Mioen and 

Hermann Lundborg for giving men “a 

new appreciation of the spiritual, moral 

and physical value of the Nordic [white] 

race” (Edwin Black, War Against the 

Weak, p. 244). Eugenics sought to purify 

the human race by culling it of the 

“inferior” through birth control, abortion, 

infanticide, and euthanasia. Planned 

Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger 

referred to “inferior” humans as “weeds,” 

complaining that “nature eliminates the 

weeds, but we turn them into parasites 

and allow them to reproduce” (Black, War 

Against the Weak, p. 133). Sanger called 

large families “immoral.” She was on the 

cutting edge of the modern Culture of 

Death. In her book Woman and the New 

Race, she said, “The most merciful thing 

that the large family does to one of its 

infant members is to kill it.” Eugenics 

went out of popularity after Hitler took 

the program to its logical conclusion, but 

the Darwinian eugenics philosophy is 

alive and well and has spread throughout 

society. This philosophy has resulted in 

the elimination of multitudes of people, 

and black babies have suffered more than 

those of any other group. If it isn’t racist 

to destroy a class of people through birth 

control and abortion, I don’t know what 

racism is. 

EARTHQUAKES IN DIVERS 

PLACES (Friday Church News Notes, 

March 18, 2011, www.wayoflife.org 


One of the many infallible proofs that the 

Bible is what it claims to be, which is the 

divinely inspired Word of God, is fulfilled 

prophecy. Two thousand years ago the 

Lord Jesus Christ gave many detailed 



Cars atop 3 story buildings after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. 

prophecies of the future. One was the 

prophecy of the destruction of the 

Jerusalem Temple, which was fulfilled 40 

years later in A.D. 70 at the hands of the 

Roman Tenth Legion under general Titus. 

Jesus prophesied that “there shall not be 

left one stone upon another, that shall not 

be thrown down” (Mark 13:2). Some of 

the stones that were pulled down were 

thrown off the Temple Mount and were 

unearthed in recent times along the 

Western Wall where they can still be seen 

today as mute witness to the fact that 

Jesus knows the future. In another 

prophecy, Jesus said that one of the signs 

of the end of the age will be “earthquakes 

in divers places” (Matthew 24:7). The 

most recent fulfillment of that prophecy 

was the earthquake that devastated 

northern Japan last weekend and brought 

this economic powerhouse nation to its 

knees in a matter of moments. Many 

thousands are dead; a modern port city 

was washed out to sea; four nuclear 

reactors were damaged, and one has 

exploded. The nation has been reduced to 

rolling blackouts to conserve power. Its 

powerful train system is at a standstill. Its 

leaders have stated that they are facing the 

worse crisis since World War II. The 

Japan earthquake is only the latest in a 

series of “earthquakes in divers places.” 

Some 40,000 died in in South Asia in 

October 2005; 220,000 in Indonesia in 

2004; 31,000 in Iran in 2003; 13,000 in 

India in January 2001; 17,000 in western 

Turkey in August 1999; 10,000 in Latur, 

India, in September 1993; 50,000 in 

northwest Iran in June 1990. According to 

Bible prophecy, all of these are mere 

previews of what is coming. A future 

earthquake will cause every island to sink 

and the mountains to fall (Revelation 

13:11-18). The good news is that no 

person living today has to go through the 

terrible future judgments. We are still 

living in the era of “good tidings of great 

joy, which shall be to all people” (Luke 

2:10), which is the gospel that Jesus died 

for our sins, was buried, and rose the third 

day to offer eternal salvation to 

whosoever will repent and receive Him as 

Lord and Saviour. The Bible says God has 

no pleasure in the death of the wicked 

(Ezek. 33:11). It is His gracious will, 

rather, that all men be saved (1 Timothy 

2:3-4; 2 Peter 3:9). 

POPE SAYS JEWS NOT GUILTY OF 

JESUS’ DEATH (Friday Church News 

N o t e s , M a r c h 1 8 , 2 0 1 1 , 


866-295-4143) - In a new book Pope 

Benedict has exonerated Jews of the 

responsibility for Jesus’ death. In the 

second volume of “Jesus of Nazareth,” 

the pope blames Jesus’ death on the 

“Temple aristocracy” rather than the 

Jewish nation as a whole. Jewish leaders 

have responded enthusiastically. Elan 

Steinberg of the American Gathering of 

Holocaust Survivors, said, “This is a 

personal repudiation of the theological 

underpinning of centuries of anti- 

Semitism” (“Pope Book Says Jews Not 

Guilty,” Reuters, March 2, 2011). The 

anti-Semitism and hatred of the Jews on 

the part of the Roman Catholic Church, 

the Eastern Orthodox, the Lutherans, and 

others was a sin and a great reproach upon 

the cause of Christ. The Catholic 

Crusaders slaughtered Jews, and this type 

of thing has ruined “Christianity” in the 

minds of vast numbers of people. What 

they don’t know, of course, is that the 

Crusaders were not Bible-believing 

Christians. They were religious nuts 

enflamed with popery! Anti-semitism 

aside, the Bible plainly states that it was 

not merely the Jewish Temple leaders 

who condemned Jesus; multitudes of Jews 

were in fervent agreement. It’s absolutely 

true that “the chief priests moved the 

people” (Mark 15:11), but that does not 

absolve the Jewish nation of rejecting its 

own Messiah when He had fulfilled every 

sign prophesied in Scripture. When Pilate 

tried to calm the Jewish crowd and release 

Jesus, they “cried out the more 

exceedingly, Crucify him” (Mark 15:14). 

They went even further. The Bible says, 

“Then answered ALL THE PEOPLE, and 

said, His Blood be on us, and on our 

children” (Matthew 27:25). Further, the 

Jews continued to hound and persecute 

Christ’s followers like the Paul wherever 

and whenever and however they could. 

We need to see this thing through God’s 

eyes, not through the eyes of the Jews or 

the Pope or the news media. Jesus 

claimed to be the Son of God, the 

promised Messiah. He was born in the 

right place, at the right time, in the right 

way. He spoke the right words, did the 



right miracles, showed the right fervency 

for God’s law and the right compassion 

for the souls of men, died the right way, 

and rose from the dead the right way. 

There is more and better evidence that 

Jesus rose from the dead than there is for 

any event in ancient history, and His 

resurrection proved beyond doubt that He 

was who He said He was, and that is the 

eternal Son of God, the Creator, the only 

Lord and Saviour. The Jews definitely 

crucified Christ, but not only the Jews. 

The Roman Empire crucified Christ in the 

person of Pilate and the Roman soldiers, 

but even more than that, the whole world 

crucified Christ, because it was for every 

man’s sin that He died. It was in 

fulfillment of the great prophecy of Isaiah 

53. “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and 

carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem 

him stricken, smitten of God, and 

afflicted. But he was wounded for our 

transgressions, he was bruised for our 

iniquities: the chastisement of our peace 

was upon him; and with his stripes we are 

healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5). The words “we” 

and “our” here refer both to the Jews and 

also to the sinners of the whole world. 

THE FASTEST FLOWER IN THE 

FOREST (Friday Church News Notes, 


fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The 

following is from Creation Moments, 

February 4, 2011: “The peace and serenity 

of North America's spruce forests is 

occasionally broken by little other than 

the rustle of a deer passing by. At least 

that's what most people think. In truth, 

there are things going on which would 

cause us profound wonder. The 

bunchberry dogwood flower stands only 

about one-tenth of an inch tall. Scientists 

knew that the flowers opened explosively. 

The flowers do this to propel their pollen 

further. The scientists decided to find out 

precisely how fast the flowers really 

opened. So they decided to tape a flower 

opening with a high speed camera that is 

capable of taking 1,000 pictures a second. 

But the camera proved to be too slow. It 

was only with a camera that takes 10,000 

pictures a second that they could clearly 

see what was going on. They saw that the 

petals opened, and in a separate action, 

the stamens unfold so fast that they 

catapult pollen into the air. All of this 

happens in four tenths of a thousandth of 

a second. That's more than a hundred 

times faster than a chameleon's tongue 

captures lunch. The stamens unfold so 

fast that they subject the pollen to 2,400 

times the force of gravity. There are no 

limits to the wonders God can conceive 

and create. His greatest wonder is His 

mercy which resulted in forgiveness and 

salvation.” 

EVANGELICALS AND MORMONS 

TOGETHER (Friday Church News 

N o t e s , M a r c h 1 8 , 2 0 1 1 , 


866-295-4143) - Prominent “evangelical” 

leaders are meeting with Mormons in Salt 

Lake City for a “dialogue” in search of 

better understanding. The evangelicals 

include Leith Anderson, president of the 

National Association of Evangelicals; 

Richard Mouw, president of Fuller 

Seminary; and David Neff, editor-in-chief 

of Christianity Today. Anderson said, “We 

hope this time of dialogue with LDS 

leaders will deepen our understanding of 

the Mormon faith and contribute to the 

ongoing work of evangelicals in 

Utah” (“Evangelicals, Mormon,” 

Christian Post, March 10, 2011). This is a 

continuation of something that began 

several years ago. In November 2004, an 

“Evening of Friendship” at the Salt Lake 

Mormon Tabernacle featured some 

e v a n g e l i c a l s s e e k i n g a b e t t e r 

understanding of and relationship with 

Mormons. Ravi Zacharias, the main 

speaker, was joined by Richard Mouw, 

Craig Hazen (a professor at Biola), Joseph 

Tkach, Jr., head of the World Wide 

Church of God, and CCM musician 

Michael Card. In the Deseret Morning 

News, Card was quoted as saying that “he 

doesn’t see Mormonism and evangelical 

Christianity as opposed to each other; 

they are more like the two ends of a long 

thread -- part of the same thing.” 

Mouthing the CCM ecumenical 

philosophy he said, “The older I get, I 

guess the more I want to integrate 

everything. I think it’s more important to 

be faithful than right” (Nov. 16, 2004). 

The 2004 event and the most recently 

dialogue were sponsored by Standing 

Together Ministries, which was formed in 

2001 by “evangelical” preacher Greg 

Johnson, who has conducted “dialogues” 

with Mormon professor Robert Millet. 

Johnson is a radical ecumenist. His web 

site says, “We affirm that there is one 

Church in Utah that meets in various 

locations,” and, “Unprecedented unity 

will contribute to healthier local churches 

and transformed lives by the thousands.” 

The first “ministry focus” listed is 

“Uniting the Body.” Johnson was 

instrumental in getting Craig Blomberg of 

Denver Seminary and Steve Robinson of 

Brigham Young University together to 

“dialogue” and to produce a book entitled 

How Wide the Divide, which concludes 

that the divide between Mormons and 

Bible-believing Christians is not as wide 

as formerly thought. We wonder what it is 

about Mormonism and its false gospel and 

false christ that these evangelicals don’t 

understand. We are also puzzled at why 

they are dialoguing with heretics when the 

Bible states that we are to mark and avoid 

them, turn away from them, and reject 

them (Romans 16:17-18; 2 Timothy 3:5; 

Titus 3:10-11). The apostle Paul wasn’t 

much of a dialoguer. He called false 

teachers “dogs” and “evil workers” (Phil. 

3:2). Of those who pervert the gospel he 

said, “Let them be accursed” (Gal. 1:8, 9). 

H e c a l l e d t h e m “ e v i l m e n a n d 

seducers” (2 Tim. 3:13), “men of corrupt 

minds, reprobate concerning the faith” (2 

Tim. 3:8), “false apostles, deceitful 

workers” (2 Cor. 11:13) Beware of 

modern “evangelicalism.” 

BROTHER CLOUD IS THE ONE 

WHO HAS BEEN SHOT IN THE 

WEST COAST MUSIC AFFAIR 



fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Not 

only do I have the right Scripturally to 

give a warning about the promotion of 

“adapted” CCM music at an IB school 

that is influencing people all over the 

world, I have a responsibility before God 

to do so. The only authority I need is 2 

Timothy 4:1-2. “I charge thee therefore 

before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, 

who shall judge the quick and the dead at 

his appearing and his kingdom; preach the 

word; be instant in season, out of season; 

reprove, rebuke, exhort with all 

longsuffering and doctrine.” There is no 

limit placed on my preaching, except that 

it be done in the Spirit of God by the 

Word of God. I can reprove and rebuke 

wherever and whoever and whatever and 

whenever, in season and out of season. So 

can Paul Chappell and every other Godcalled 

preacher. Take my preaching 

ministry, for example. I have a very 

public ministry that influences many 

people (a half million downloads of my 

sermons and videos, for example, and 



many tens of thousands of unique visits to 

our web site every month), and I am 

critiqued publicly all of the time by 

countless men. I can’t recall ever being 

contacted first, and I have never written to 

any of those men and reproved them for 

not coming to me, and I have never 

wanted my “supporters” to reprove them. 

If I publish a book or a sermon series or a 

video presentation that influences people, 

other preachers have a right and 

responsibility to warn about my teaching 

if they think it is in error, and they don’t 

have to come to me first. I would 

certainly prefer that they critique me 

honestly and in a gracious, Christhonoring 

way, but at the end of the day, 

that is not my business. Their critiques of 

my public preaching ministry are between 

them and God. I can respond to their 

warnings by repenting of error if I believe 

they are right or I can challenge the 

accuracy of their critique, but I am not 

going to say they have no right to do warn 

about me publicly if they think they have 

a Scriptural basis. Likewise, when a man 

builds an institution and draws students 

into his school from many other churches 

so that he can train and influence them 

and when he publishes material that is 

distributed around the world and when he 

conducts large conferences attended by 

people from many other churches and 

when he preaches at conferences in many 

places, his doctrine and practice is NOT a 

private matter. I have every right to issue 

godly, scriptural warnings in a gracious 

manner in regard to public preaching and 

practice, which is what I do, and Pastor 

Chappell and their supporters and 

students have every right to reply to my 

warnings. But they have no scriptural 

right to mock and ridicule me, yet this is 

exactly what has happened. I’ve been 

called every name in the book. I’ve been 

treated like a fool. I’ve been bossed 

around like some silly puppy. Consider 

the following choice words from a West 

Coast senior: “I strongly suspect ... that 

you are nothing more than a selfproclaimed, 

unbiblical, loud-mouthed, 

arrogant false prophet that attacks others 

to try to gain influence and respect for 

yourself. ... You are a vicious, raucous, 

poisoned, ignorant complainer. ... Your 

hypocrisy and misinterpretation and outof-context 

use of the Bible sickens me. 

May God have mercy on your soul you 

arrogant, raunchy man. I cannot help but 

wonder if those who call you ‘brother’ are 

sadly mistaken. ... you’re full of holes, 

arrogance and grotesque pride.” How is 

that for a piece of godly communication 

from a mere kid to a grandfather preacher 

who has been in the battle for Christ in 

this dark world for a long, long time But 

as he said, he is defending the “man of 

God” and I guess anything is allowed 

when you are so highly motivated. 

BEWARE OF THE SCOOPING/ 

SLIDING VOCAL STYLE (Friday 



866-295-4143) - It is common to hear the 

world’s scooping/sliding vocal technique 

in specials sung in Bible-believing 

churches. The reason is not that the 

singers are trying to be worldly, but they 

are simply imitating the style of music 

that is heard everywhere in the pop 

culture and which predominates in 

Southern Gospel today. In his book How 

to Sing for Money, Charles Henderson 

defined scooping as “sliding up to a note 

from an attack below its true pitch,” and 

he identified it as a “common practice as a 

swing effect” (1940, p. 36). Note that the 

scooping technique was created as a part 

of the modern dance music scene, which 

is all about sexual license. The technique 

is a fitting accompaniment to the sensual 

backbeat rhythm. In a secular book The 

Foundations of Rock, Walter Everett says, 

“Many rock vocalists reach out to their 

audience largely through the 

PHYSICALITY of their singing.” 

Scooping has even been described as 

“sexual utterances” (Charles Brown, The 

Art of Rock & Roll, p. 68). Everett 

observes, “Classical singers traditionally 

strive for constant beauty of tone, but this 

is rarely of interest to rock vocalists, who 

reject the dogma of there being one 

‘right’ way to do anything.” This is a 

telling statement. Note that rock vocalists 

don’t care about beauty of tone, but God’s 

people should strive for beauty in singing 

style because we are serving the God of 

beauty and order and are singing about 

His lovely truth. Further, rock singers 

contort their voices and slip and slide 

around the notes because they have 

rejected absolute truth. Their singing style 

reflects their philosophy of moral 

relativism. Decades ago Dr. Frank 

Garlock issued the following warning. 

“The identical methods employed by the 

world to make the sound sensual are now 

b e i n g u s e d b y m a n y p o p u l a r 

contemporary Christian music vocalists. 

THE STYLE ITSELF REFLECTS AND 

PROJECTS A PHILOSOPHY. These 

techniques include swaying and dancing, 

scooping (sliding up to a note from an 

attack below its true pitch), vocal sliding, 

flipping below and above the actual 

written melody, whispery, breathy voice, 

and delayed vibrato” (Garlock). These are 

not things that God’s people should 

imitate. We would also observe that the 

scooping style of singing is not only 

sensual and worldly, but it also draws 

attention to the singer. In contrast, when 

we sing psalms and hymns and spiritual 

songs, the attention should be fully upon 

the Lord and upon the message of the 

lyrics. 

ROB BELL’S LATEST SWIPE AT 

HELL (Friday Church News Notes, 



Rob Bell’s new book Love Wins has 

stirred up something of a hornet’s nest of 

controversy, which we find puzzling. The 

man has been denying an eternal fiery hell 

and teaching a universalistic faith for a 

long time. In a 2005 interview with 

Beliefnet, Bell said “the church must stop 

thinking about everybody primarily in 

categories of in or out, saved or not, 

believer or nonbeliever.” In his influential 

book Velvet Elvis, which is popular with a 

great number of Southern Baptists, he 

described a marriage that he conducted 

for two pagan unbelievers who told him 

that “they didn’t want any Jesus or God or 

Bible or religion to be talked about” but 

they did want him to “make it really 

spiritual (p. 76). Bell agreed with this 

ridiculous request and said that his pagan 

friends “are resonating with Jesus, 

whether they acknowledge it or not” (p. 

92). Bell’s most recent book, Love Wins, 

is just more of the same. Not only does he 

preach near-universalism, he preaches a 

false god, a false christ, a false gospel, a 

false heaven, a false hell, you name it. He 

is a master of taking Scripture out of 

context and shoehorning his heresies into 

a text. Though Bell has denied that he 



believes in universalism, he certainly 

makes a case for it in this book, though he 

might have left room for some folk to 

wind up for awhile in some type of hell. 

Consider two of many quotes we could 

offer as evidence: “This insistence that 

God will be united and reconciled with all 

people is a theme the writers and prophets 

return to again and again. ... The God that 

Jesus teaches us about doesn’t give up 

until everything that was lost is found. 

This God simply doesn’t give up. 

Ever” (Love Wins, Kindle location 

1259-1287). “The love of God will melt 

every hard heart, and even the most 

‘depraved sinners’ will eventually give up 

their resistance and turn to God. And so, 

beginning with the early church, there is a 

long tradition of Christians who believe 

that God will ultimately restore 

everything and everybody” (Love Wins, 

location 1339-1365). Bell even claims 

that Sodom and Gomorrah will be 

r e s t o r e d ( l o c a t i o n 1 0 5 7 - 1 0 7 1 , 

1071-1082). Bell has nothing but ridicule 

for the gospel that Jesus died for man’s 

sins and that those who repent and believe 

(and only those who repent and believe) 

will be saved. In true heretic fashion, Bell 

redefines Biblical terms. He defines both 

heaven and hell as present realities on 

earth. He says the statements in Bible 

about hell being a place of fire and 

torment are mere poetry. 

ROB BELL’S NEW GOD (Friday 



866-295-4143) - In his new book Love 

Wins, Rob Bell isn’t just rejecting the 

Bible’s doctrine of hell; he is rejecting the 

Bible’s God and in so doing is rejecting 

the very God that his grandparents 

worshiped. Bell’s God is not the thrice 

holy Lawgiver who hates sin. In Love 

Wins there is a photo of a painting that 

hung on a wall in Bell’s grandmother’s 

house. It depicts heaven as a shining city 

on the far side of a dark, burning, 

fearsome chasm. Bridging the chasm is a 

cross upon which people are walking 

toward safety. Bell claims that the God 

depicted in this painting is not great or 

mighty (Love Wins, location 1189-1229). 

He calls the preaching of eternal hell 

“misguided and toxic,” a “cheap view of 

God,” and “lethal” (location 47-60, 

2154-2180). He implies that this God is 

not a true friend and protector; he says 

there is something wrong with this God 

a n d c a l l s H i m “ t e r r i f y i n g a n d 

traumatizing and unbearable” (location 

1273-1287, 2098-2113). He even says 

that if an earthly father acted like the God 

who sends people to hell “we could 

contact child protection services 

immediately” (location 2085-2098). It is 

obvious that Bell wants nothing 

whatsoever to do with the God worshiped 

by his grandparents. Bell’s god is more 

akin to New Age panentheism than the 

God of the Bible. He describes God as “a 

force, an energy, a being calling out to us 

in many languages, using a variety of 

methods and events” (Love Wins, location 

1710-1724). Bell also worships a false 

christ. His Jesus is “supracultural ... 

present within all cultures ... refuses to be 

co-opted or owned by any one culture ... 

He doesn’t even state that those coming to 

the Father through him will even know 

that they are coming exclusively through 

him ... there is only one mountain, but 

many paths. ... People come to Jesus in all 

sorts of ways ... Sometimes people use his 

name; other times they don’t” (Love Wins, 

location 1827-1840, 1865-1878, 

1918-1933). 

WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO DON’T 

PERSONALLY TRUST CHRIST 




Whether or not all men without personal 

faith in Christ go to Hell, the nature of 

that Hell, and whether or not judgment is 

eternal in duration is extremely important 

for the preaching of the Gospel. Will God 

“save some who have not explicitly 

professed faith in Jesus Christ” Well, the 

Bible says certainly not! Ephesians 

chapter two tells us the condition of every 

individual outside of regenerating faith in 

Jesus Christ. He is dead in trespasses and 

sins (v. 1), controlled by and living 

according to the working of the devil (v. 

2), a child of disobedience (v. 2), 

dominated by the flesh (v. 3), by nature 

the child of wrath (v. 3), without Christ (v. 

12), an alien and stranger from the 

covenant of God (v. 12), WITHOUT 

HOPE (v. 12), WITHOUT GOD IN THE 

WORLD (v. 12), far off from God (v. 13). 

The Bible gives absolutely no hope for 

those who die without personal faith in 

Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ had already 

settled this matter before the penning of 

Ephesians. In His conversation with 

Nicodemus, Christ said categorically, 

“Except a man be born again, he cannot 

see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). 

Nicodemus was a very sincere and 

religious Jew, and if any category of 

person could have gone to heaven without 

being born again, it would have been 

people like him. Jesus Christ said that it 

will not happen. In that same conversation 

Jesus said, “He that believeth on him is 

not condemned: but he that believeth not 

IS CONDEMNED ALREADY, because 

he hath not believed in the name of the 

only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18), 

and, “He that believeth on the Son hath 

everlasting life: and he that believeth not 

the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of 

God abideth on him” (John 3:36). Praise 

God for the full salvation that was 

purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ for 

all that will call upon him in repentance 

and faith. God IS good; He paid the full 

price of salvation Himself. We sin, but 

God suffered in our place. There is no 

charge of unrighteousness that can 

legitimately be brought against God. Let 

us who know the Lord not be guilty of 

being lazy in getting the Gospel to the 

ends of the earth. 

ZONDERVAN’S STRANGE CHANGE 

OF MIND (Friday Church News Notes, 



After publishing the first four of Rob 

Bell’s books and his Nooma video series, 

Zondervan decided not to publish Love 

Wins. The president of Zondervan said the 

b o o k “ d o e s n ’ t f i t i n w i t h o u r 

mission” (“Firestorm Grows over 

‘Christian heresy’ Book,” CNN Belief 

Blog, March 8, 2011). Perhaps that 

means, “This book is too hot to handle.” I 

don’t see what else it can mean, because 

Zondervan published Bell’s books Velvet 

Elvis and Sex God which contained the 

same heresies as Love Wins. It appears 

that Zondervan simply foresaw the 

“firestorm” of criticism and decided to 

distance itself. In Velvet Elvis (2005), Bell 

defined hell as “a way, a place, a realm 

absent of how God desires things to 

be” (p. 147), and in Sex God (2007), Bell 

says hell is where “people aren’t treated 

as fully human” (p. 21). As we have 

already cited in this Friday Church News 

Notes, in Velvet Elvis Bell said that 

atheists can be saved without personal 

faith in Christ. In a 2005 interview he said 

that Jesus did not claim one religion is 

better than another when he said he was 

“the way, the truth and the life.” Rather, 

“his way is the way to the depth of 

reality” (“‘Velvet Elvis’ Author 

Encourages Exploration of Doubts,” 

Beliefnet, 2005). This is exactly what Bell 

continues to teach in Love Wins. To his 



credit, the man is willing to state clearly 

what he believes or doesn’t believe 

(though he seems to fudge about being a 

universalist). Zondervan has probably 

done as much to muddy the waters of 

biblical truth in the minds of professing 

believers as any institution on earth today. 

Why back off now 

It’s great that evangelicals like Al Mohler have 

made strong statements about Rob Bell’s 

heretical new book, but Billy Graham has said 

many of the same things. It’s extremely 

hypocritical to pick and choose which heretics 

you are going to denounce. 

“CONSERVATIVE EVANGELICAL” 

HYPOCRISY (Friday Church News 

N o t e s , M a r c h 2 5 , 2 0 1 1 , 


866-295-4143) - Some of the 

“conservative” evangelicals are criticizing 

Rob Bell in a pretty strong way. John 

Piper tweeted, “Good bye, Rob Bell.” 

Albert Mohler, Jr. of Southern Baptist 

Seminary described Bell’s view as 

“Velvet Hell.” I’m glad to see a bit of 

backbone among some evangelicals and a 

level of doctrinal conviction that would 

drive them to actually name the name of a 

false teacher, but it appears very 

hypocritical at the same time. The view 

that atheists and pagan religionists might 

be saved without submitting to Jesus 

Christ is not new. Billy Graham has been 

saying it for decades, but I don’t recall 

any outcry from the evangelical world, 

i n c l u d i n g f r o m G r a h a m ’s o w n 

denomination, the Southern Baptist 

Convention. In an interview with 

McCall’s magazine, January 1978, 

entitled “I Can’t Play God Any More,” 

Graham said: “I used to believe that 

pagans in far-off countries were lost— 

were going to hell—if they did not have 

the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached to 

them. I no longer believe that. … I believe 

that there are other ways of recognizing 

the existence of God—through nature, for 

i n s t a n c e — a n d p l e n t y o f o t h e r 

opportunities, therefore, of saying ‘yes’ to 

God.” In 1985, Graham affirmed his 

belief that those outside of Christ might 

be saved. Los Angeles reporter David 

Colker asked Graham: “What about 

people of other faiths who live good lives 

but don’t profess a belief in Christ” 

Graham replied, “I’m going to leave that 

to the Lord. He’ll decide that” (Los 

Angeles Herald Examiner, July 22, 1985). 

In 1993, Graham repeated this doctrine in 

an interview with David Frost. “And I 

think there is that hunger for God and 

people are living as best they know how 

according to the light that they have. Well, 

I think they’re in a separate category than 

people like Hitler and people who have 

just defied God, and shaken their fists at 

God. … I would say that God, being a 

God of mercy, we have to rest it right 

there, and say that God is a God of mercy 

and love, and how it happens, we don’t 

know” (The Charlotte Observer, Feb. 16, 

1993). In an interview with Robert 

Schuller in May 1997, Graham again said 

that he believes people in other religions 

can be saved without consciously 

believing in Jesus Christ. “[God’s] calling 

people out of the world for His name, 

whether WHETHER THEY COME 

FROM THE MUSLIM WORLD, OR 

THE BUDDHIST WORLD, OR THE 

CHRISTIAN WORLD OR THE NON- 

BELIEVING WORLD, THEY ARE 

MEMBERS OF THE BODY OF 

CHRIST BECAUSE THEY'VE BEEN 

CALLED BY GOD. THEY MAY NOT 

EVEN KNOW THE NAME OF JESUS 

but they know in their hearts that they 

need something that they don't have, and 

they turn to the only light that they have, 

and I think that they are saved, and that 

they're going to be with us in 

heaven” (television interview of Billy 

Graham by Robert Schuller, broadcast in 

southern California, Saturday, May 31, 

1997). What is Rob Bell saying today that 

Billy Graham hasn’t been saying for more 

than 30 years 

FULLER SEMINARY PRESIDENT 

PRAISES ROB BELL’S BOOK (Friday 



866-295-4143) - Richard Mouw, 

President of Fuller Theological Seminary, 

told USA Today that “Rob Bell’s newlyreleased 

Love Wins is a fine book and that 

I basically agree with his theology” (“The 

Orthodoxy of Rob Bell,” Christian Post, 

Mar. 20, 2011). This tells us just how 

terribly far Fuller Seminary has fallen 

from its roots in Charles Fuller’s “only 

through the blood” evangelistic ministry. 

Mouw agrees with Bell that it is wrong to 

say, “Accept Jesus right now, because if 

ten minutes from now you die without 

accepting this offer God will punish you 

forever in the fires of hell.” Mouw 

comments, “What kind of God are we 

presenting to the person” The answer is 

the God of the Bible and the God that was 

preached by the founders of Fuller 

Theological Seminary. It is Bell and 

Mouw who have the new god. Mouw says 

that after a rabbi friend of his died, he 

“held out the hope that when he saw Jesus 

he would acknowledge that it was Him all 

along, and that Jesus would welcome him 

into the heavenly realm.” I’ve never read 

anything like that in the Bible, but C.S. 

Lewis taught this very thing. Mouw says 

that those who question Mother Teresa’s 

salvation just because she believed a false 

gospel should be ashamed of themselves. 

Mouw implies that Bell’s critics just want 

to keep people out of heaven, which is 

patently ridiculous and slanderous. Mouw 

would have us believe that he is more 

compassionate than Jesus, who stated 

very bluntly, “Except ye repent, ye shall 

all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3, 5). Both 

Bell and Mouw complain about their 

“critics,” but they don’t draw back from 

lashing out pretty fiercely at the 

“fundamentalists.” Bell calls hellfire 

preaching “lethal,” “toxic,” “unloving,” 

“creepy,” a “cheap view of God.” No 

judgmental criticism there! Nothing but 

compassionate, tolerant dialogue! 

C.S. LEWIS’S INFLUENCE ON THE 

EVANGELICAL DOWNGRADE OF 

HELL (Friday Church News Notes, 



C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) has been called a 

“Superstar” by Christianity Today. A 1998 

CT poll rated Lewis the most influential 

evangelical writer, and In light of the 

wretched spiritual-doctrinal-moral 

condition of “evangelicalism” today, that 

is a very telling statistic and certainly no 

praise for C.S. Lewis. One of the ways 



that Lewis has influenced evangelicalism 

is in the fundamental issues of hell and 

the exclusiveness of salvation through the 

name of Christ. Lewis said that it would 

not be very wrong to pray to Apollo, 

because to do so would be to “address 

Christ sub specie Apollonius” (C.S. Lewis 

to Chad Walsh, May 23, 1960, cited from 

George Sayer, Jack: A Life of C.S. Lewis, 

1994, p. 378). Lewis elsewhere claimed 

that followers of pagan religions can be 

saved without personal faith in Jesus 

Christ (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, 

HarperSanFrancisco edition, 2001, pp. 64, 

208, 209). In the popular Narnia series, 

which has influenced countless children, 

Lewis taught that those who sincerely 

serve the devil (called Tash) are actually 

serving Christ (Aslan) and will eventually 

be accepted by God. “But I said, ‘Alas, 

Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant 

of Tash.’ He answered, ‘Child, all the 

service thou hast done to Tash, I account 

as service done to me.’ ... Therefore, if 

any man swear by Tash and keep his oath 

for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has 

truly sworn, though he know it not, and it 

is I who reward him’” (The Last Battle, 

chapter 15, “Further Up and Further In”). 

It is not surprising, then, that Lewis has 

been cited as a major influence by 

evangelicals who are soft on hell. Clark 

Pinnock said, “When I was a young 

believer in the 1950s, C.S. Lewis helped 

me understand the relationship between 

Christianity and other religions in an 

inclusivist way” (More Than One Way 

Zondervan, 1996, p. 107). Richard Mouw 

says, “If I were given the assignment of 

writing a careful theological essay on 

‘The Eschatology of Rob Bell,’ I would 

begin by laying out the basics of C.S. 

Lewis’s perspective on heaven and 

hell” (“The Orthodoxy of Rob Bell,” 

Christian Post, March 20, 2011). In the 

acknowledgements section of Love Wins, 

Rob Bell writes, “... to my parents, Rob 

and Helen, for suggesting when I was in 

high school that I read C.S. Lewis.” 

Beware of C.S. Lewis. That he is loved 

with equal fervor by “conservative 

evangelicals,” hell-denying emergents, 

Christian rockers, Roman Catholics, 

Mormons, and even some atheists is a fact 

that speaks volumes to those who have 

ears to hear. 

Aim of O Timothy Magazine 

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Peter 3:1-2, 18) 

• Standing for the whole counsel of God. (Acts 20:27; Jude 3) 

• Challenging Christian workers to uphold the truth and resist the apostasy of our times. (1 Timothy 6:20-21) 

• Exposing the spirit of error and compromise within Christendom (Hosea 4:6a; 2 Tim. 3) 

• Upholding the New Testament Church (1 Tim. 6:13-14). O Timothy is a ministry of Bethel Baptist Church of London, Ontario. 

• Challenging churches to fulfill the Great Commission of world evangelism (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 13-14) 

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O Timothy Volume 28 - Issue 4 - April 2011

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