ABC PM on the gay adoption issue

“Around 200 people squeezed into a small theatre in the New South Wales Parliament today to protest against a bill to allow same-sex couples to adopt. The New South Wales Council of Churches organised the protest meeting…”

– ABC Radio’s PM reported on Clover Moore’s proposed bill on adoption tonight.

Vacation Reading 2010

“Every summer on vacation, I try to read a variety of things. Here is a thumbnail on each of the books from this past week in South Carolina…

Peter O’Brien’s Consumed by Passion (1993) where he carefully and convincingly argues from 1 Cor 10:33-11:1 and elsewhere against David Bosch and others who maintain that Paul did NOT expect other Christians to evangelize. Paul did, O’Brien argues. Good book on the gospel and evangelism. Careful treatment of key passages. Anything by O’Brien is worth reading.”

– Mark Dever shares thoughts on just some of the books he’s been reading during the northern Summer vacation.

New Colin Buchanan DVD

No, this isn’t a commercial, but we thought you might be interested to know that Colin Buchanan has yet another DVD available. :-) See his website.

‘Churches get opt-out point on same-sex adoption bill’

“The independent state MP Clover Moore has moved to shore up support for her same-sex adoption bill by giving church adoption agencies the right to refuse services to gay and lesbian couples without breaching anti-discrimination laws…

However, news of the amendment has not changed the view of church leaders. A letter co-authored by the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell and the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, arrived on MPs’ desks yesterday urging them to vote down the bill.”

– Full story from The Sydney Morning Herald. (Photo: clovermoore.com)

Related: Urgent Public Meeting of Concern — Same Sex Couples Adoption.

CAPA Primates Communiqué, Uganda

The Primates of the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa have released a Communiqué at the conclusion of the 2nd All Africa Bishop’s Conference in Entebbe, Uganda. Read it here (via Global South Anglican).

Urgent Public Meeting of Concern — Same Sex Couples Adoption

From the NSW Council of Churches:

This week in the NSW Parliament a private members bill is being rushed through to open the way for same sex couples to adopt children. The NSW Council of Churches is sponsoring a Public Meeting of concerned citizens opposed to this bill.

•    Theatrette NSW Parliament House
•    1pm–2pm Tuesday 31st August 2010
•    Speakers include Hon David Clarke (Liberal Party), Rev Hon Fred Nile (CDP) other speakers to be confirmed.
•    Please join us to make a statement of concern for the sake of the children!

And from a NSW Council of Churches Media Release:

27 August 2010
Huge change to NSW adoption law while all eyes are on Canberra

The President of the NSW Council of Churches has accused the NSW Government of seeking to fast track the introduction of a Private Member’s Bill by independent MLA Clover Moore which would allow same sex couples to adopt children in NSW.

“The Keneally Government has been sitting on the Same Sex Adoption report for a year, and it is a betrayal of proper parliamentary process to rush through a Private Member’s Bill on the first day of sitting while all eyes are on the negotiations in Canberra to form a federal government,” the Revd Richard Quadrio said.

The NSW Council of Churches is sponsoring a public meeting on same sex couples adoption to be held at the Theatrette, NSW Parliament House, from 1.00-2.00pm on Tuesday 31 August, the day on which the bill is scheduled for debate in both Houses.

“Clover Moore’s Same Sex Adoption Bill has not been debated in any way yet in the wider community. I call on Honorable Members of both Houses to proceed more slowly and to engage in greater community consultation before taking a conscience vote. Please join us to make a statement of concern for the sake of the children, both now and in the future,” Revd Quadrio said.

Click the image at top to download a PDF flyer.

Archbishop Orombi’s opening speech

Archbishop of the Church of Uganda, Henry Luke Orombi’s speech to welcome delegates to the All African Bishops Conference is now available (450kb PDF).

“Time is now for ‘African Anglicanism’ to rise up and begin to bring fresh life in ‘the ailing global Anglicanism.’ The potentials represented today in this conference must be free to go to Europe and America with ‘fresh Wine’ from ‘new Wine Skins’ to the mother Church desperate for the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I say ‘the Church in Africa’ must rise up…”

More from the Conference at africanbishops.org.

A family to keep in your prayers

“Life was beautiful. There was a wobbly toddler and a baby on the way. The kids were to grow up as little buddies, just 17 months apart. Richard Burnet, their proud dad, had landed a dream job. A Bombers fan since childhood, he was the new chief commercial officer for the Essendon Football Club…”

– Ruth Lamperd of Melbourne’s Herald-Sun shares the story of a family you could keep in your prayers. (Photo: Herald-Sun.)

The Archer and the Arrow

“If you are a pastor and haven’t yet read The Trellis and the Vine, you will want to do so. And then you will want to read the follow-up as well. The books are a powerful one-two punch looking first to the big picture of ministry and then focussing in on that one area of utmost importance…”

– Tim Challies reviews The Archer and the Arrow by Phillip Jensen and Paul Grimmond.

Soldiers are not like Macadamia Nuts!

“I have often thought that the typical Aussie bloke is a bit like a Macadamia. You know there is a soft kernel somewhere inside, but the shell is so hard that is seems impossible to crack. So too with soldiers. No doubt there is a spiritual side to them, but the shell is like reinforced concrete. Or so I thought…”

– Ridley College graduate Chaplain Andrew Grills writes about the spiritual openness he has discovered among those to whom he ministers. On the Defence Anglicans website.

And what advice are military chaplains giving Defence Force members looking for churches? It’s a challenge to see if our churches measure up.

(Defence Force Chaplains are always on the lookout for faithful and innovative clergy.)

The Wind of Change: All Africa Bishops Conference, Uganda

“In February 1960, British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan delivered his historic ‘wind of change’ speech in Cape Town, heralding the end of Great Britain’s colonial presence in Africa. Fifty years on, there is a spiritual ‘wind of change’ blowing in Africa which promises to end the predominance of London based institutions in the leadership of the Anglican Communion and the current All Africa Bishops Conference in Entebbe convened by CAPA (the Council of the Anglican Provinces of Africa) provides the clearest evidence yet of this change in the spiritual weather.

It must have seemed to Lambeth strategists that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s presence at this high profile African conference with an agenda dominated by uncontroversial humanitarian issues would be a golden opportunity to portray the Anglican Communion as back to ‘business as usual’ after Rowan Williams’ decision to invite the consecrators of Gene Robinson to the 2008 Lambeth Conference led to the principled absence of some 230 mainly African bishops.

If so, they badly misjudged the mind of the conference. After the first day, the public relations dream is threatening to turn into a nightmare and Dr Williams may well by now be wishing that he had stuck to being a merely virtual presence by video as at April’s South to South Encounter in Singapore.…”

– Read it all at SPREAD.

Lutherans follow Anglicans down rocky road of dissent

“Hundreds of congregations have held votes on leaving the denomination. Others have cut off funding to the national church. Bishops in Africa have condemned the actions taken by their North American counterparts. And this week  disaffected members are gathering to found a new breakaway denomination. …

… as of August 3, 504 congregations have already held first votes on leaving, with 384 passing.”

– A report from Canada’s National Post on the disintegration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The Gospel Song — an Animation

At Worship Matters, Bob Kauflin shares an animated video by Chris Powers – based on Sovereign Grace’s ‘The Gospel Song’, and some words from John Piper.

(The song is also available on that page as a free download.)

‘African bishops say Anglicans in West strayed from God’

“The Anglican church in the West no longer adheres to the word of God, African bishops said Tuesday at a continental conference [at Entebbe] attended by the Archbishop of Canterbury. …

‘Today, the West is lacking obedience to the word of God,’ Reverend Ian Ernest of Mauritius, the head of the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa, told journalists…” – Report from The Nation, Kenya.

See also ‘Archbishop Duncan Joins Leaders at All Africa Bishops Conference’.

‘The heresy of Oakeshott’s hero’

“Your story says Peter Cameron was found guilty of heresy for supporting the ordination of women (”Uncompromising heretic caught in the national spotlight”, August 24). This is untrue.

I quote from the press release at the time… ‘The matters at issue in the judicial process have related to Dr Cameron’s view of the Bible and its authority…’”

– In today’s Sydney Morning Herald, two letters respond to yesterday’s story about the independent MP Rob Oakeshott. On the Letters page – near the bottom.

(Photo: Rob Oakeshott.)

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