I am so grateful my husband ignored those who would have assisted his dying
“In 2011 my husband was diagnosed with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. This is one of those illnesses for which people such as Anne Turner, whose death was portrayed in a BBC documentary, have sought assisted suicide.
It never entered my husband’s head that he would like to die early. To the contrary, he set about doing all the things he could possibly do to live as long as possible and I helped him. We had a young daughter, we loved each other very much and we wanted to be together for as long as possible, come what may. It never entered either of our minds.
But a point came when that changed. …”
– At The Conservative Woman, Gabriella Dunn shares her story – and that of her husband.
It’s written in light of the British Parliament’s upcoming vote this week on the Assisted Dying Bill. Important reading, even here in Australia where similar laws are already in place.
Related:
Britain’s religious leaders unite against assisted dying in major intervention – Telegraph via Anglican Mainstream.
The Increasing Value of Christian Testimonies
“Traditionally, apologetics has been concerned with defending and commending the truth claims of the Christian faith. In the 1990s Christian apologist Alister McGrath, in response to changing social attitudes, suggested that apologetics should not just be interested in establishing the truth of the Christian faith, but also its relevance. People wanted to know whether the Christian message had any impact on their lives.
Today, the world has moved on again and we find ourselves needing to address a new situation: the view that Christianity is harmful. We now need to commend the Christian faith in terms of its truth, relevance and its goodness. …”
– At The Gospel Coalition Australia, Stephen Liggins has a helpful suggestion for our own personal interactions – and for church gatherings.
Some of our favourite Christmas resources
From Kirsten McKinlay at The Australian Church Record:
“Some of the ACR team share their favourite resources that have helped keep their eyes on Jesus in the busy Christmas season…”
The Anglicans Behind the Bonhoeffer Movie
“When Gafcon emerged to ignite the global Anglican realignment, Emmanuel and Camille Kampouris enthusiastically joined. Recognizing the unique courage of leaders like Peter Akinola, Bob Duncan, and Peter Jensen, they supported the movement every way they could, with Emmanuel taking on a key leadership role.
Around the same time, they also began working on a second passion project, an idea for a movie on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. …”
– From The Anglican Church in North America.
Ministry in the Later Stage of Life
Earlier this month, Phillip Jensen spoke at a Prime Time event at Croydon Park.
He speaks to retirees (or those hoping to be): “We have the gift of a decade.”
See what he means – and what we can do with it.
How to be fun and not boring in Christmas preaching?
From The Pastor’s Heart:
“Planning Christmas Preaching.
What we are nervous about? What we want to get right? What has worked best? What hasn’t?
And how do we leverage the cultural moment?”
Dominic Steele speaks with Nigel Fortescue at Christ Church St. Ives and Pete Stedman at Norwest Anglican Church.
Duties of Church Membership (ii) — Church Society Podcast
“In 1954, the Church Assembly (the forerunner to General Synod) asked the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to write this short guide to the duties of church membership.
It is a simple list which could be given to every person in church, indicating what is expected of them as disciples of Christ and members of the congregation. Presumably in 1954, there were already concerns that not everyone who attended church understood these. It is certainly the case today that newcomers to church have no idea about many of them.
In this week’s episode of the podcast, Tony Cannon and Martin Lane discuss the final three items on the list: financial giving, upholding marriage and bringing children up in the Lord, asking what benefit they would bring to individuals and congregations if we were all more faithful in doing them. Forthcoming episodes will cover the other items on the list. …”
– The latest Church Society podcast.
Evangelising Adults through Song: Colin’s Calvary Road Show
“Beyoncé, Madonna, Adele, Bono, Slash, Ringo, Drake… how many artists are recognised by merely their first name? In Australian Christian circles, Colin has reached such dizzying heights. For thirty years his name has been synonymous with Christian kids’ music, and for good reason. He has perhaps evangelised more Australians than anyone else this century, recorded hundreds of theologically robust songs, many that will likely be sung for generations.
But did you know Colin also does great concerts for adults?…”
– At The Gospel Coalition Australia, Kingsley Davidson introduces Colin Buchanan’s The Calvary Road LP and Show.
Photo: The Gospel Coalition Aust.
Chappo – Jesus claims to be the only way to God
In July 1979, John Chapman spoke at a one-off evangelistic meeting for the Sydney University Evangelical Union. His topic was “Jesus Claims to be the Only Way to God”.
John had a heavy cold, but that didn’t stop him preaching Christ with his characteristic clarity and humour.
Hear his 40 minute talk (9.7MB mp3 file). The audio quality is poor, but this recording will bring back many memories of a dear brother.
It’s also a great talk to pass on – and there are many road-tested illustrations which you could use yourself!
(1980 Photo: AFES. This is a re-post.)
Preparing Your Funeral
“The emptiness of secularism is never more evident than at the funeral.
On one occasion, preaching in the Moore College Chapel, my Principal, D.B.Knox, made the point that death, whether it be 1, 2, 20 or 30 years away, was relatively close for us all.
I am now at an age where I am told it is wise to have my Will handy, together with the Powers of Attorney and Title deed to our apartment. As well, I have included some guidelines for my funeral service, after all, this will be my last opportunity to testify to God’s saving work in my life. …”
– At The Expository Preaching Trust, David Cook shows us what it is like to think about your own funeral. If you trust in Christ, your funeral can be markedly different from the empty ‘celebrations’ we often see.
2024 St Antholin Lecture: Evangelicals Before Evangelicalism
Church Society has posted the video of this year’s 2024 St Antholin Lecture.
“In this year’s St Antholin Lecture, Rachel Ciano from Sydney Missionary and Bible College explores the use of the term ‘evangelical’ in the early English Reformation.
This is a fascinating look at how the much-disputed word evangelical first came to be used by enemies of the Reformation, and Rachel Ciano explores what it meant and implied during this formative period in our history.
Can you guess who was the first English person to describe people as evangelical?
The lecture is followed by a time of Q & A with Dr Lee Gatiss and Dr Mark Burkill (Trustees of the St Antholin Lectures), from the livestream of the lecture on the day.”
Is God disappointed with me?
“For a long period in my Christian life, I felt like God was always just a bit disappointed in me.
Sure, I believed he loved me enough to die for me, and I knew he forgave me for my sin, but I felt that perhaps God just tolerated rather than delighted in me. After all, Jesus calls us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt 5:48). Christians are told to pray continually (1 Thes 5:17). Paul exhorts us to rejoice in the Lord always (Phil 4:4). I knew I wasn’t perfect, my prayers were certainly not continual and I failed to always rejoice, so I felt that God must be constantly displeased with me.
I walked around in a persistent state of low-level guilt. I assumed God gave a bit of a deep sigh and an eye roll each time he saw me fail again.
I wish I had been able to read Faith Chang’s heartwarming book, Peace Over Perfection, in those long years. …”
– At The Gospel Coalition Australia, Jocelyn Loane reviews Peace Over Perfection.
Canon Phil Ashey on the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury
If you haven’t been following developments in the UK, this reaction by Canon Phil Ashey of the American Anglican Council will help explain things:
John Smyth was a Canadian-born British barrister, actively involved with children in the Anglican Communion through several different ministries. He was the chairman of the Iwerne Trust, which ran the Iwerne camps, where he had access and opportunity to abuse hundreds of children and young men. His abuse was not only sexual but physical, performing sadistic beatings on schoolboys and young men attending these camps, as well as attendees at other Christian groups dedicated to the discipleship of young men. This abuse occurred in England but continued in Africa, when Smyth moved to Zimbabwe in the early 80s and continued to run children’s camps. He moved to South Africa in 2001.
Independent investigations revealed that Smyth inflicted sexual, emotional, spiritual, and physical abuse on at least 100 people. The greatest display of hypocrisy within the Church that Smyth participated in was his role as a lawyer representing morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse, prosecuting those accused of blasphemy and immorality. While living in South Africa, he ran the Justice Alliance of South Africa, an organization dedicated to upholding high moral standards in society. He also unsuccessfully opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage in South Africa, claiming that such activity would result in “violence to mind and spirit”. The irony of all this can’t be overstated.
Smyth died before he could be brought to trial.
This past year, the independent review called the Makin Report was commissioned by the Church of England and published this last week, revealing the details on what church authorities knew about the abuse and how they intentionally covered it up or ignored it. Smyth moved to different locations and was allowed to take up posts where he had close contact with young men, even though church leaders knew what was going on. One of those leaders was Archbishop Justin Welby who, in 2013, was informed of Smyth’s abuse but took no action against him. His level of culpability remains to be seen, but he resigned today as Archbishop of Canterbury in a shocking statement.
Though he claimed to take responsibility, much of the statement reads as if he was not so culpable, with hardly an apology but with a pledge to continue entrusting the Church and himself to Jesus Christ. It makes one wonder why this hadn’t happened sooner, when he continued to harbor and abet leaders who destroyed the fabric of Christian morality in the very Christian Church itself. The Smyth case was one horrific example of a leadership style that buries rather than resurrects; hides rather than clarifies; and, frankly, misrepresents rather than speaks the whole truth. This moral failure with regards to Anglicans in England and Africa completely compromises all his leadership and previous pledges from the Canterbury communion towards the majority of the Global South.
Again, the way Abp. Welby dealt with these allegations shows not just an issue with a particular scandal but a recurring practice of burying hard truth and hoping it will go away. It never goes away; truth always comes back to haunt you. That’s the case with the Makin Review and that’s the case with the “Living in Love and Faith” prayers for the blessing of same sex unions in the Church of England– a debacle throughout, in which Welby tried to play both sides and cover up the painful truth that there is no compromise. It’s this desire to stay neutral that, in the end, isn’t neutrality at all. He did nothing when he heard about what Smyth was doing, just like he did nothing to bring discipline to wayward churches and leaders in the Anglican Communion.
The larger debate on human sexuality within the Church of England and increasingly elsewhere in the Anglican Communion is certainly not a case of individual abuse. But with regards to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s “spiritual leadership” of the Anglican Communion, it is spiritual abuse at a corporate level that is damaging countless souls under his care; he has refused to deal with it. In his statement today, he wrote, “It is my duty to honour my Constitutional and church responsibilities, so exact timings will be decided once a review of necessary obligations has been completed.” But where was his duty to honor and defend the Faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3), including the Church’s unbroken biblical teaching on marriage, not only as a bishop but as an archbishop and the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion? So now he resigns for this particular scandal, at this time, in the Church of England—but without regard for the myriad of spiritual scandals he oversaw over his tenure in the See of Canterbury?
Welby’s leaving leaves a lot of questions for the future of the Anglican Communion.
What kind of successor will take his place, and will he or she continue the fracturing or help bring unity based on biblical truth and faithfulness to the unbroken teaching of the Church?
How does this affect Gafcon and the Global South? Does his resignation really matter to them? And what does the See of Canterbury mean for the identity of global Anglicanism, when its highest leader utterly compromised his spiritual and temporal leadership of the Mother Church by aiding and abetting the worst serial abuser in the history of the Anglican Church?
Is this the final nail in the coffin of Canterbury’s post-colonial domination of the Communion?
Isn’t now the time, at this moment, for the Global South and GAFCON to rally the rest of the Communion around repentance? What better moment to proclaim Christ faithfully to the nations and draw other national and regional Anglican churches into the covenantal structures of the Cairo Covenant, ratified in June in Egypt, to carry on the Anglican Communion under biblically-faithful commitments?
Archbishop Welby’s resignation has been a long time coming. What a sad and tragic end to what had been a much hoped for beginning of a return to biblical-faithfulness in the Mother Church. Please pray for the victims of this horrific abuse, and for Anglicans to walk everywhere in the light (I John 1:7-9) as we move forward.
– Received by e-mail. Now also posted on the American Anglican Council website.
Older people and ‘positive, Jesus focussed, choices’
From The Pastor’s Heart:
“How do we proactively serve Jesus in retirement? How might we motivate our older church members to prioritise the work of the gospel?
Mike Raiter said on The Pastor’s Heart a little while back that retirement needs rethinking to avoid the sin of the sluggard.
Mike Raiter said downing tools at 65 and spending 20 or 30 years resting is a 19th century concept and is not Christian.
But what is the alternative?
Ying Yee is lead English Pastor of Chinese Christian Church Milsons Point in Sydney.
Carmel Vincent serves as training and events coordinator at the Ministry Training Strategy.
And Ian Carmichael was CEO of Sydney’s Matthias Media.”
Duties of Church Membership (i) — Church Society podcast
“In 1954, the Church Assembly (the forerunner to General Synod) asked the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to write this short guide to the duties of church membership.
It is a simple list which could be given to every person in church, indicating what is expected of them as disciples of Christ and members of the congregation. Presumably in 1954, there were already concerns that not everyone who attended church understood these. It is certainly the case today that newcomers to church have no idea about many of them.
In this week’s episode of the podcast, Tony Cannon and Steve Short discuss the first three items: discipleship and witness, prayer and Bible reading, asking what benefit they would bring to individuals and congregations if we were all more faithful in doing them. …”
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…