Pope Calls Baptism "The Date of Rebirth as Children of God"

Speaking from the a window of the Papal Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square on January 10, Pope Francis urged his audience to celebrate the day of their baptism. The sermon was in celebration of Angelus, the feast of the baptism of Christ. The pope said that baptism “is the date of our rebirth as children of God” and the occasion when the Holy Spirit “destroys original sin” and “liberates us from the dominion of darkness, which is sin, and brings us into the realm of light” (“‘Do you celebrate the day of your baptism?’ Pope Francis asks,” EWTN News, Jan. 10, 2016). The pope concluded with a prayer to Mary that she would help the baptized to live out their baptism “with joy and fervor.” The majority of “evangelicals” would see this as a false gospel. Yet Pope Francis is widely upheld as a great man of God among evangelicals, including a large percentage of contemporary worship musicians. How can a man of God hold a false gospel? New Evangelical compromise of the late 1940s produced this spiritual confusion and blindness. The same compromise is pervading Independent Baptists today, and it will produce the same results, yet we wonder what percentage of fundamental Baptist church members (or even pastors) could pass a simple test on New Evangelicalism, such as the following: 

Who was the man who coined the term New Evangelicalism? 
In what year did that happen? 
What was the occasion when the term was coined?
What are four major principles of New Evangelicalism?
What are three ways that New Evangelicalism spread?
What are three prominent schools that promoted New Evangelicalism?
What evangelist did more than any other one man to popularize New Evangelicalism?
Other than this evangelist, who are four prominent Christian leaders who have popularized New Evangelicalism? 
What are three major organizations that have popularized New Evangelicalism?

(The answers to these questions can be found in New Evangelicalism: Its History, Characteristics, and Fruit, available in print and free eBook editions from Way of Life, www.wayoflife.org.)

(Friday Church News Notes, January 15, 2016, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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