TBC NewsWatch

SBC PRES. LEADS STUDENT PRAYER AT IHOP

CharismaNews.com, 1/4/16, “Southern Baptist President Leads Thousands of Students in Prayer for Awakening” [Excerpts]: Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd asked over 15,000 attendees at the International House of Prayer Onething 2015 Young Adult Conference in Kansas City to kneel in prayer and ask God for an awakening. His appearance at the conference stirred controversy among conservative online Baptist publications such as Pulpit and Pen and The Reformed Report.

“My being here isn’t an endorsement of your theology or your endorsing my orthodoxy,” Floyd told attendees....“Yet my being here is a clear indication that people must come together and pray.”

Matt Maher, a Catholic musician...was one of the featured worship artists. Bethel artists Steffany Gretzinger and Amanda Cook also led worship. Conference attendees came from all over the world from different denominations.

Ryan Baptista also posted, “As a member of the Catholic Charismatic renewal, I’ve had a heart for what is happening at IHOP for many years and it was amazing to finally get out there and experience the prophetic worship and preaching firsthand. There was a beautiful unity across denominations this week.”

(http://goo.gl/Z71Bzu)

[TBC: SBC president Floyd won’t endorse the theology of groups such as IHOP and Bethel Church, but “people must come together to pray.” But to which god or which Christ? As Dave Hunt wrote in 1990, “That ‘all the world’s major religions are basically the same’ is a lie aimed at the exclusive claims of Christ. The ecumenical movement is a denial of biblical truth and particularly of Christ’s claim that He is the only Savior and that all must believe on Him or be lost forever.”]

ANTI-CONVERSION LAWS IN INDIA

ChristianHeadlines.com, 1/4/16, “Anti-Conversion Laws: Christians in [India] Face Persecution” [Excerpts]: Normally, when we think about the persecuted Church, what comes to mind are places like the Middle East and China. But as I told you two years ago, “the country that has witnessed the single greatest outburst of anti-Christian violence in recent years” is India.

In the past few years, six Indian states, including Maharashtra, which includes Mumbai, have enacted laws that effectively ban conversions from Hinduism to Christianity or Islam.

I say “effectively,” because while the laws, at least as written, “only” ban conversions that are the result of “force, allurement or fraudulent means,” these terms are extremely vague.

Tarun Vijay, a prominent Hindu nationalist, justified these measures by saying that “for the first time [in India], the population of Hindus has been reported to be less than 80 percent. We have to take measures to arrest the decline. It is very important to keep the Hindus in majority in the country.”

“Measures” include a proposed national anti-conversion law, with the Orwellian title “The Religious Freedom Bill.”

(http://goo.gl/vKbzb8)

2015: EVOLUTION IMMOBILE

ICR.org, 12/21/15, “2015: Evolution Immobile” [Excerpts]: Advocates of vertical evolution think their beliefs are as factual as the earth orbiting the sun. However in 2015, science again shows something quite different.

Recent paleontological discoveries all point to minor variation and stasis—or standing still. Macroevolution is the holy grail of the secular faithful, but it continues to elude observation...2015 is no different with evolutionists surprised to find creatures allegedly “millions of years old” that are just the same as their modern counterparts.

Scientists discovered a supposed 150-million-year-old fossilized crab larva in Germany this year. The find surprised secular scientists because it “possesses a very modern morphology, indistinguishable from many crab larvae living today.” Creationists are hardly amazed, seeing that God created crabs as crabs, as He did with all the other arthropods. Evolutionists disagree, but admit in the same article that “the early evolution of crabs is still very incompletely known.”

(http://goo.gl/RbxEyB)