Departing from orthodoxy: what it was like to split from the Church of Scotland

At The Australian Church Record, Matt Baines speaks with Peter Dickson, Scotland Team Leader of the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, about his 2011 decision to leave the Church of Scotland.

“Leaving the Church of Scotland was a prolonged process. … there were three years of negotiations, discussions, church courts, decisions meetings and correspondence which led to our leaving, finally, in 2011. …

It was a transition of immense upheaval but one in which people’s ultimate allegiances and beliefs came to the fore.”

You can read the full conversation here – and please do remember to pray for the salvation of many in Scotland.

Mark Short installed as Canberra/Goulburn Bishop

Religious Free Speech after Ruddock

Neil Foster at Law and Religion Australia writes:

“I am presenting a paper at the ‘Religious Freedom After Ruddock’ conference being held at the University of Queensland on Saturday April 6.

The paper is “‘Religious Free Speech After Ruddock: Implications for Blasphemy and Religious Vilification Laws’.”

A copy is available here.

The Puzzle of Secularism

“…the funny thing is that I, and all my generation, could have sworn that puritanism was a church disease. With the decline of church influence, then the old stiff and bossy rectitude would collapse. And, indeed, it has, if we are talking about Christian concerns about alcohol, gambling, pornography, promiscuity and the like.

But the tolerant society we were promised by secularists has not emerged – far from it. It is just that a new set of commandments, inspired by autonomy and an optimistic individualistic anthropology, has arrived with a vengeance.”

– Church Society has published on its website an excerpt from Archbishop Peter Jensen’s editorial in the latest issue of Churchman. (Peter is now the Editor of Churchman.)

Standing with the Suffering

“At the end of February, Gafcon held a conference hosted by Bishop Michael Nazir Ali and Bishop Azad Marshall of Pakistan which, though much smaller than last year’s Jerusalem Conference, will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on all those who attended and the wider Anglican Communion.

From 25th February to 1st March, 138 delegates, including four Primates and 31 bishops and archbishops, gathered in Dubai for ‘G19’. The conference was designed for those who had been unable to attend Gafcon 2018 in Jerusalem for political reasons and many came from contexts where there are severe restrictions on Christian witness.

In his opening address, Gafcon Chairman Archbishop Okoh of Nigeria set the tone of the conference…”

– GAFCON’s Membership Development Secretary, Canon Charles Raven, wrote this article for Evangelicals Now.

In defence of Lent

“It was Ash Wednesday when I first preached at our church’s Wednesday service. And truth be told, I’d never given Lent much thought before.

So what were my options? Should I ignore it? Call them all popish fiends? Or should I try to articulate a Reformed, Anglican understanding of the season?

Well, I aimed to do the latter, and here is how I tried. …”

– ACL Council member Dan McKinlay writes at The Australian Church Record.

(Image from the 1552 Prayer Book.)

New Bishop of Canberra & Goulburn to be consecrated on Saturday (6th April)

Dr. Mark Short, elected last November as Bishop of the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn, will be consecrated and installed at St. Saviour’s Cathedral in Goulburn on Saturday 6th April.

Please do pray for Mark and the continued progress of the gospel in that area.

Related:

Dr Mark Short to be installed as Canberra/Goulburn Bishop – Goulburn Post.

“Dr Short said he was surprised to be approached to consider the role. But in many ways it was a ‘coming home’ to the diocese and the cathedral in which he was ordained a priest and a minister.

Born in Sydney, he lived in the Riverina until age five before his family moved to Sydney’s western suburbs. He attended Saint Andrew’s Anglican School where several teachers inspired him to follow Jesus. …”

Good Friday – not just good, but glorious

“Childhood impressions linger, don’t they? I’m so grateful for (most of) them. My earliest memory of 1950s church life is full of happy thoughts, good people and full Sundays. Sunday mornings, afternoons and evenings – there was always something engaging and purposeful to do (yes, Sunday afternoons: Christian Endeavour).

As helpful as all that was, there are someone boyhood memories that need tweaking or straightening out later.

Each year, our evangelical Baptist church gave huge attention to Palm Sunday, followed five days later by a much more sombre Friday morning service. Even without specific instruction, this pattern taught me to celebrate the joy of Palm Sunday but to tone it down on Good Friday. This was the order of things, from glory to gloom: after the glory of the triumphal march into Jerusalem we must move to the gloom of the Cross. Which prompted, of course, that perennial childhood question: “Dad, why is Good Friday good? Isn’t it bad, what they did to Jesus?”

Reflecting on this glory to gloom transition, I now wonder if it needs correction. …”

– Presbyterian Moderator-General, John P Wilson, reflects on why Good Friday is glorious.

Love for a full life

“Life in three words doesn’t sound like much of a life unless the words are faith, hope and love. Big words for a full life.

Woodstock was in 1969 and I was 11 and still sent to Sunday School by parents who prided themselves on being good rather than being thankful for being forgiven. It was one year off the 70’s and one year off my teenage rampages which were tame by comparison to those of teens today. It was the era of music and for so many of us, love.

Of course Woodstock was more than a concert on a farm hill. It proved to be a revolution for a world bent in on itself. …”

– Bishop of Armidale Rick Lewers writes about love.

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