PM slams ‘ridiculous’ Tasmanian gender law

“Prime Minister Scott Morrison has savaged a ‘ridiculous’ push to allow Tasmanian parents to choose whether to include their baby’s gender on a birth certificate.

Transgender rights reforms, put forward by the Labor opposition and the Greens, passed the Tasmanian lower house on Tuesday night. …” – Story from 9 News.

The evangelical church in Scotland: An interview with Matt Baines

“Matt Baines is originally from Sydney where he has been working as an assistant minister at Minchinbury Anglican Church until August this year, when he and his family moved to Edinburgh.

Here, Matt shares with us some of his early reflections on the evangelical church in Scotland. …”

– Read his initial reflections at The Australian Church Record.

“White” on the new black-list

“A popular wedding magazine called ‘White’ has announced today that it is closing down. The reason? The Christian publishers had been asked to carry articles featuring same sex weddings, and had politely declined to do so.

The backlash on social media led to a number of advertisers withdrawing their custom, and some customers refusing to buy the magazine any more. In this post I want to comment on the legal issues around this incident, and another episode highlighted in the press today.

A report in The Australian today notes the close of White magazine, and also the other episode involving someone in the ‘wedding industry’:

Christian wedding photographer Jason Tey was taken to the West Australian Equal Opportunity Commission after he agreed to photograph the children of a same-sex couple but disclosed a conflict of belief, in case they felt more comfortable hiring someone else. …”

– Associate Professor Neil Foster comments on a story in today’s The Weekend Australian.

St. Matthew’s Dunedin ‘to disaffiliate’ from Church — report

“St Matthew’s in Stafford St [Dunedin] this week voted to disaffiliate from the church.

The decision means those in the parish who supported the move — it is understood 79% voted for disaffiliation — will have to find a new place to worship. Bishop of Dunedin the Rt Rev Steven Benford confirmed the move yesterday. …”

– Report from The Otago Daily Times. Photo courtesy St. Matthew’s Dunedin.

Religious freedom lost as White magazine shuts

“Christians are being run out of business, hounded by boycotts and bullied by activists, for adhering to their faith a year after the celebrated same-sex-marriage vote.

In a sign Australia faces a ‘crisis of freedom’, The Weekend Australian can reveal a successful international wedding magazine that chose not to feature gay couples will today announce its decision to shut down after becoming the target of an intimidation campaign.

The founders of White magazine, Christians Luke and Carla Burrell, said they were the targets of an activist campaign that deterred their advertisers, frightened their staff and included threats of physical harm because of their stand on same-sex weddings. …”

– Read the full story in The Weekend Australian (subscription).

162nd Academic Year Concludes at Moore

“Today was ‘Final Friday’ at Moore. Held to mark the end of the academic year, there was a community chapel followed by lunch for all, where many families from the College were present along with all faculty, staff and students.

The end of year sermon was given by our Principal, Dr Mark Thompson, on 2 Timothy 4. …”

– Report from the College.

Review: They Shall See His Face

“You may never have heard of Amy Oxley Wilkinson (1868–1949), although it’s possible you know of her great grandfather, Rowland Hassall – one of the first missionaries to come to Australia after fleeing trouble in Tahiti – or his son Thomas, who started the first Sunday School in Australia at Parramatta in 1813, and went on to be an Anglican minister in the rural south of Sydney, who earned himself the moniker ‘the galloping parson’ for visiting his far-flung flock on horseback.

If not them, you will surely know of the Rev. Samuel Marsden, chaplain, missionary and farmer, whose eldest daughter Anne married Thomas. Amy was their granddaughter, the eighth child of John Norton Oxley and Harriet Jane Hassall…”

– At The Gospel Coalition Australia, Dr. Claire Smith reviews They Shall See His Face, by Linda and Robert Banks. It’s about the most widely known female Australian missionary in China and the West in the early 20th century.

The book is available from a number of retailers, including from The Wandering Bookseller.

Walking on Broken Glass

“This month, Chile became the newest province in the Anglican Communion, with national and international guests gathering in the capital, Santiago, for the celebrations presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Among the attendees was the General Secretary of the Anglican Consultative Council, Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, who presented a gift which he claimed symbolized the Anglican Communion. The gift was a glass cruet for communion wine, and it was etched with the Compass Rose, a design set in the nave of Canterbury Cathedral at the time of the 1988 Lambeth Conference.

Dr Idowu Fearon explained:

“It is our practice to remind all newly enthroned Primates that this communion of churches is very precious, and as Primates they are responsible for keeping this precious family together. They have no right to break it, and that is why we give them something that is breakable. So that they make sure they don’t drop it.”

To those unfamiliar with the history of the Anglican Communion it must have been just a nice illustration, but to those who are familiar with that history it was quite a statement remarkable for the depth of self-deception it revealed. …”

– Read the complete article by Charles Raven, at the GAFCON website.

Thanks, but no thanks: New Zealand Church leaders reject Sydney proposal

“A proposal by the Archbishop of Sydney for an overlapping Anglican diocese or province to cater for Anglicans in New Zealand opposed to the blessing of same-sex marriage has been rejected by the leaders of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia (ANZP).

In May, the ANZP General Synod passed a ‘compromise’ resolution on the blessing of same-sex civil marriages in a move that was designed to allow both theological conservatives and those campaigning for change to stay in the same church. But a number of Anglicans have responded to the vote by saying that they were seeking to leave the Church as a result of the decision. …”

– Report from The Anglican Communion News Service.

In their reply to Archbishop Glenn Davies (PDF file – via Anglican Taonga), Archbishop Donald Tamihere and Archbishop Philip Richardson, speak of the cultural and colonial background of the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia:

“One of the key messages we hoped you would take to your home from our meeting at Hemi Tapu is the unique consequences of our history as Anglicans in Aotearoa New Zealand.

We are a Church made up of colonised and coloniser.

We have a difficult history. It is a shared history. We know the language, the face and the consequences of colonisation. For Ma?ori, disenfranchisement, alienation from whenua [Land], racism and poverty are consequences of this shared history. …

To be Anglican in this land requires that we, led by our Lord Jesus Christ, face into this shared history so that we can help shape a common future for all people based on peace and justice and righteousness. …

If those disaffiliating want to be committed to that fundamental consequence of being Anglican in Aotearoa New Zealand, then they must stay in these constitutional and Treaty-based relationships.

We cannot recognise a Church as Anglican which does not encapsulate this 200 years of relationship and history. ”

Reformed Preaching by Joel Beeke

Reformers Bookshop in Stanmore has Reformed Preaching: Proclaiming God’s Word from the Heart of the Preacher to the Heart of His People by Joel Beeke on special until November 17th.

Review of ‘American Gospel’

“The haunting question left with me after watching this documentary was: why is it so easy for Christians to overlook Jesus? …

The first phase of the documentary highlights the dangers of an approach to life which assumes we are good enough for God. …

But we discover that this is not the final destination of the documentary, but merely the opening gambit. After this sweeping introduction to the less culturally specific sins of moralism, or perhaps nominalism, which focus on self-righteousness, the real agenda of the film is unveiled: how Americans have come to believe in and preach the prosperity Gospel. The editing is genius …

The documentary is great viewing and would be useful as an event at a church or in small group.”

– At The Gospel Coalition Australia, Ridley College’s Rhys Bezzant reviews “American Gospel”.

TEC Bishop directs his clergy not to use General Convention trial Marriage Rites

Bishop William H. Love, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany in eastern New York state, has directed his clergy not to use the trial same-sex marriage rites authorised by the recent TEC General Convention.

In doing so, he writes not only to Christian believers in his own diocese, and to the worldwide church –

“To the People of God in the Diocese of Albany and throughout the World,

I speak to you today both as your Brother in Christ, and as the Bishop, Chief Pastor and Ecclesiastical Authority of the Diocese of Albany. As Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Jesus commands us to love God first and foremost with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and secondly, to love one another (Mark 12: 28-31), remembering as Paul points out in (I Corinthians 12:13), we are all part of the One Body of Christ.

What impacts any one part or member of the Body, ultimately impacts the entire body, either directly or indirectly. That is true not only for individuals, but also for congregations, dioceses, provinces, the world wide Anglican Communion and the wider catholic or universal Church. Resolution B012 recently passed at the 79th General Convention of The Episcopal Church is one of those things that will impact all of us either directly or indirectly. …”

He goes on to explain why he is compelled to act as he does –

“On three separate occasions (my ordinations as deacon, priest, and bishop) I have solemnly declared ‘that I do believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to Contain all things necessary to salvation’ (BCP 513). Upon my consecration as Bishop, I was given a Bible and was issued the following charge by the Presiding Bishop: ‘Receive the Holy Scriptures. Feed the flock of Christ committed to your charge, guard and defend them in His truth, and be a faithful steward of his holy Word and Sacraments’ (BCP 521). I take this charge very seriously.

I share all of this with you in an effort to help you understand the charge and responsibilities that Christ has given to me as I attempt to carry out the ministry entrusted to me as the Bishop of Albany and deal with the various issues such as B012 confronting the Church, particularly as they pertain to this Diocese. By God’s grace and the guidance and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, I have tried throughout my 12 years as Bishop of Albany, to be faithful and obedient to the Great Commandment, to God’s Holy Word, and to my ordination vows and the responsibilities entrusted to me as outlined above.

With the passage of B012, the 79th General Convention of The Episcopal Church in effect is attempting to order me as a Bishop in God’s holy Church, to compromise ‘the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3 ESV), and to turn my back on the vows I have made to God and His People, in order to accommodate The Episcopal Church’s ‘new’ understanding of Christian marriage as no longer being ‘a solemn and public covenant between a man and a woman in the presence of God’ as proclaimed in the rubrics of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP 422), but now allowing for the marriage of same-sex couples. …”

– Do read Bishop Love’s full Pastoral Letter and Pastoral Directive (PDF file).

A Greater Peace

“Sergeant Philip Ball is an Australian soldier buried in Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery in France.

He was 21 years old when he was killed in action on 28 March 1918. He was a brave soldier, who was awarded the Military Medal in July 1917.

After the war his parents chose an unusual epitaph for his headstone in Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery:

I FOUGHT AND DIED IN THE GREAT WAR
THE WAR TO END ALL WARS,
HAVE I DIED IN VAIN?

I have not found a similar inscription in the thousands of epitaphs I have collected from Australian war graves of the First World War. But it is a question that challenges any reader …”

– Moore College Historian Dr. Colin Bale writes at The Gospel Coalition Australia.

Related: Bells to ring for Armistice Centenary – SydneyAnglicans.net.

Canberra-Goulburn Elects Dr Mark Short as New Bishop

This news from the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn:

“The Reverend Dr Mark Short has been elected as the eleventh Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn. …

Mark Short is currently National Director, The Bush Church Aid Society, and was formerly Rector of Turvey Park and Archdeacon of Wagga Wagga in this Diocese. …”

– More at the diocesan website.