The Post-Christian Condition

“The horrifying case of Anders Behring Breivik has opened a window into the reality of Scandinavian justice — and that window also reveals the shape of justice in a post-Christian world.

The Scandinavian nations are, according to many sociologists, the most radically secularized nations on earth. A study undertaken by sociologist Peter Berger years ago rated Sweden as the world’s most secular nation, with neighboring Norway close behind. But the Scandinavian nations are not merely secular; they are specifically post-Christian. The specific religious worldview they have lost or rejected is that of Christianity — the faith that shaped the culture of these nations for many centuries…”

– Dr Albert Mohler looks at what happens to a sense of justice once you choose to be ‘Post-Christian’.

What’s in a name?

“I am often asked why Moore College is called a ‘Theological College’ rather than a ‘Bible College’.

Because the word ‘theological’ sounds rather obscure to many Christians today, some people refer to Moore College as a ‘Bible College’…”

– Moore Theological College Principal John Woodhouse answers a common question – at SydneyAnglicans.net.

Can banning things lead to tolerance?

“‘London is intolerant of intolerance.’

So said the Mayor of London as he stepped in to ban adverts which drew attention to the existence of people who identify as ‘post gay’.…”

– Peter Sanlon at Oak Hill College asks what principles are involved really being tolerant.

The Journalist’s Question

“Last week a journalist came to church. He was covering the compulsory Easter story. He asked one of our staff – ‘Do you think people have stopped coming to church because they have internalised their faith?’

It was a strange question to ask as a huge number of people crowded into the Cathedral…”

– Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen writes in his weekly column.

Women Bishops in the Church of England

“We all know there are within the Church of England those who conscientiously object to the principle of consecrating women bishops. Those people, both lay and ordained, have been reassured on many occasions that they are loyal, faithful Anglicans. They have been reassured there is a place for them – on some occasions it has even been called an honoured place – within the church. They have been told that that place will remain. So far, so good, you may think…”

– Church Society Council member George Curry points out some of the implications of the Church of England’s current trajectory – in the latest issue of CrossWay (PDF file).

Professor versus Cardinal (#qanda)

“…Q&A on ABC television was an Easter Monday special, featuring Professor Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, and Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal George Pell for a live discussion of faith, science, and morality. The show’s audience was 863,000, its biggest audience since it covered the 2010 federal election. …

Cardinal Pell is creedally orthodox, and conservative on personal and sexual ethics. However I am very unhappy at having him as a spokesman for biblical Christianity. Because on Q&A, he managed to insult the Jewish people, question the existence of Adam and Eve as merely mythological, forget whether or not God actually inscribed the Ten Commands for Moses… stated that atheists can certainly go to heaven, and pushed the unbiblical ideas of purgatory and transubstantiation…”

– read all of Sandy Grant’s comments at The Briefing.

Related: Nathan Campbell, blogging as “St. Eutychus”, comments on Q&A – and links to raw footage of a Good Friday SBS interview with Archbishop Peter Jensen (scroll down).

Image: ABC TV.

Appalled by some Church leaders’ Easter messages

“Each year at Easter I am regularly disappointed by the comments of prominent church leaders in the media here in Australia. Easter is one of only two times in the year when they know that they’ll receive headline prominence in the newspaper, on radio and in every evening TV news bulletin.

So tell me this … why do the majority squander this amazing opportunity by being irrelevant, off message and even (apparently) bored, disinterested and completely devoid of passion in proclaiming the greatest Message of all?…

Now, please understand something. I am not into denomination bashing which is why I’ve deliberately not named the leaders or the denominations to which I refer…”

– Bernie Dymet (ChristianityWorks.com) voices what others may have been thinking.

Related: One message which we think didn’t miss the mark.

Authentic wine tasting

“Just as you finished briefing your serving team the clock struck 7.30 and the wine tasters started to arrive. They mingled and sipped for an hour, before you interrupted with three taps on the side of your glass.

You announced that it was time for a talk entitled ‘How Jesus turns us from red to white’. A speaker you had invited spoke for a good 25 minutes on Isaiah 1:18, which had been printed out and left on various tables around the room.…”

– At The Briefing, James Croucher has a thoughtful piece on being – er – open – in our evangelism.

Christian Voices in the Public Square

“In 2007, a furore erupted when the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney George Pell stated that Catholic MPs might face ‘consequences’ if they supported a bill that would expand stem cell research in 2007. The backlash against him was swift, with the then Emergency Services Minister Nathan Rees saying he considered Cardinal Pell’s statements ‘a clear and arguably contemptuous incursion into deliberations of the elected members of Parliament’. Others accepted his entitlement to his opinion, but said he should keep out of politics.

A similar reaction emerged earlier this year around Melinda Tankard-Reist, a social commentator who opposes the sexualisation of girls and the ‘pornification’ that invades every area of public life. It was charged that her Christian background somehow disqualified her from making statements that might affect others, since any such influence would amount to her ‘imposing’ her beliefs…”

– At Moore College, Andrew Cameron gives notice of a Centre for Christian Living Open Night on Monday April 2nd.

Selling Boxing Day: Humans as Units of Production

“Once again we have a government in NSW that is moving to undermine public holidays.

The State Government has announced its intention to change the rules concerning shopping on Boxing Day. Instead of tightening the rules to remove the exceptions for city shopping, they are relaxing the rules to allow any, or all, shops to open.

This is an appalling concession to the wealthy; the large shops, the retail chains, the shopping malls, the senior management, the shareholders and investors. But it is no protection to those who have to serve in shops or the transport workers, the security services, the cleaners, the warehouse workers, the truck drivers, the small lease holders in shopping malls, the myriad of ordinary people who make the retail system work…”

– It’s worth taking the time to read this social commentary by Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen.

It’s all in the projection

“Most of us preside over church meetings/services (choose your language as appropriate). And an increasing number of us do that in churches which don’t use hymn books or printed sheets but by means of projection.

There are good reasons for this being a good idea. People tend to sing into books/sheets. Most churches notice, when switching from paper to projection, that the singing improves and, I think, it is far easier for singing this way to be the encouraging corporate thing it ought to be.

But we’d be naïve to pretend that there were not issues with it…”

– Adrian Reynolds at the Proc Trust has a simple observation worth considering.

The Archbishop we don’t need (but will probably get)

“Central to the role of the next Archbishop of Canterbury will be his views on human sexuality, not because that is the most important thing about Christian theology (though it is quite important), but because the agenda of our society will make it so…”

– John Richardson calls for an Archbishop of Canterbury who will ‘uphold sound and wholesome doctrine, and … banish and drive away all erroneous and strange opinions’. At the Ugley Vicar.

Farewell Rowan Williams

ACL President Mark Thompson offers these thoughts on the legacy of Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Canterbury –

“Rowan Williams has occupied Lambeth Palace at an extraordinarily difficult period in Anglican history.”

“It is now official that the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will resign at the end of this year. The news is not really a surprise. Rumours have abounded for the past year about an early retirement and return to academia. It is generally recognised that the last decade has been an extremely taxing time for Rowan Williams and the pressure upon him from all sides has been extreme.

Already a great number of valedictory notices have appeared on the net and in the church press. His intellectual prowess is universally acknowledged, even if it is often qualified with exasperation at his highly abstract way of communicating his ideas. He has been described in one recent piece as ‘the theologian’s theologian’, no doubt a reference to the fact that he has never been satisfied with easy answers and has preferred oblique approaches to thorny issues rather than a direct frontal assault. He has challenged his readers and others to deep thought and a refusal to foreclose on the answers. Perhaps too, it might be said, his difficult and abstract prose has had a particular appeal to those too ready to assume that the difficulty lies in the profundity of his ideas rather than an unwillingness to nail his colours to the mast, those who prefer asking questions to giving answers. And yet, it must also be said, there have been fleeting moments of remarkable lucidity in which he has confessed faith in Christ in the midst of uncertainty, suffering and brokenness.  Read more

The Challenges we face

“The church, like the Bible, is not primarily concerned with human sexual behavior. Our main concern is to seek the glory of God in all things, and to bear witness to the saving power of Christ’s gospel. But the Bible makes clear that God’s glory is inherently connected to our sexual behavior and our identity before the Creator. Furthermore, the gospel requires a clear understanding of human sinfulness, including, very specifically, sexual sins.

One thing is clear – the church has to learn how to speak honestly and courageously about sexual morality, but also to speak with true gospel humility. In other words, we must make clear that we are not moral superiors speaking to moral inferiors, but those who have been redeemed by God’s grace pointing others to his grace to us in Christ…”

– Albert Mohler outlines some of the key issues facing a new generation of ministers of the gospel.

What marriage is, and why it matters

“Why do Christians care about marriage, and what does it mean to them? The answer is quite simple, though it demands a considerable amount of unpacking: just as, according to Genesis 1:27, human beings ‘image’ God, so marriage ‘images’ the relationship between Christ and the Church, or to put it another way, the relationship between the Creator-Redeemer God and his created-redeemed people…”

– John Richardson in the UK seeks to flesh out (so to speak) the significance of marriage – at The Ugley Vicar.

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