The heart of growing Christianly

“… The world takes a census, of our numbers, size and influence but it does not know what it is counting. For the institutional size of a Christian denomination or church tells you little about its growth or impact.”

– Phillip Jensen writes about the growth that’s key – at the Cathedral website.

Looters: Them or us?

“I spoke on the phone yesterday with a south London vicar whose parish had been hit by rioters. Actually, “rioters” is not quite the word. The disorders straight after the death of Mark Duggan may have been riots with the associations of protest that brings, but by now a better word than rioters is looters, because the focus seems so strongly on violent theft. …”

– Principal of Oak Hill College in London, Mike Ovey, has some very perceptive comments about this week’s trouble in England.

‘Evangelicals and the gay moral revolution’

“Our greatest fear is not that homosexuality will be normalized and accepted, but that homosexuals will not come to know of their own need for Christ and the forgiveness of their sins.

This is not a concern that is easily expressed in sound bites. But it is what we truly believe.

It is now abundantly clear that evangelicals have failed in so many ways to meet this challenge. …”

– This article by Albert Mohler was originally published in The Wall Street Journal.

Two stories on ‘the Culture of Death’

Two disturbing stories – one from the US, and one from the UK.

From Albert Mohler:

“Consider … the fact that 40 percent of all pregnancies in New York City end in abortion (and fully 60 percent of all pregnancies to African American women). Those horrendous and chilling percentages are evidently not enough for the abortion industry and its ideological supporters. They want to shut down crisis pregnancy centers or render them ineffective.”

and this story in the UK’s Mail Online (h/t Bishop John Harrower):

“Can you imagine a lonelier or more frightening place to be trapped in, unable to communicate, than your own body?

These are terrifying times for anyone who cannot speak up for themselves. Whether they know it or not, they are lying prone in a world increasingly seduced by the idea that death is preferable to the life they are living. … But I can. I have lived that life and I know how precious it is.”

(Image: Feggy Art on Flickr.)

Paul Barnett’s tribute to John Stott

“Two World Wars and the Depression left Christianity in a poor state in the post-World War II era, compounded by the influence of sceptical Biblical Criticism. Amongst those God raised up in these difficult times were C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, F.F. Bruce, J.I. Packer, and John Stott.

Stott was deeply committed to the theology of the Reformation, as may be seen in his magisterial The Cross of Christ and his commentaries on Romans and Galatians. …”

– Bishop Paul Barnett adds his own words of thanks for the life of John Stott.

Evangelism cannot be enough for Evangelicals

John Richardson writes of what it is to be an Evangelical in the Church of England:

“We have an ‘honoured’ place in the institution, but the price exacted from us is to identify ourselves as a ‘tradition’ — one amongst the many different traditions which make up the all-embracing comprehensiveness of the Church of England.

But, … at least from our own perspective, this is a betrayal not only of ourselves but of everyone else. To accept this definition of ‘evangelicalism’ is to cease to be Evangelical. …”

– Read it all at The Ugley Vicar.

 

Christ abolished death

“The death of the evangelical Anglican preacher and author John Stott at the age of 90 has been greeted with acclamatory obituaries in the leading newspapers of the English-speaking world. This was a man named by Time magazine as among the top 100 influential people on the planet in 2005. So what was all the fuss about?…”

– at the ABC Religion & Ethics blog, Michael Jensen writes about John Stott and what made him tick.

Making Sense of the Senseless

“Last weekend’s bombing and shooting in Norway is awful. The pain and suffering of the innocent citizens and their families is incalculable. The actions were more than painful, they were wicked and evil. There is no excuse.

While there is no excuse, we still search for reasons. From the outset of media commentary, people have been struggling to understand the reason.…”

– Read the full article by Phillip Jensen, Dean of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney.

Evangelical Drift

“This is my 51st and final issue as editor of Cross†Way. The magazine, and those that preceded it in the Church Society family line, have been concerned to uphold Biblical teaching within the Church of England. We might prefer to only concentrate on good things, but we learn from Scripture, more or less from beginning to end, that teaching the truth means opposing what is false. From the beginning of Church Association this organisation has identified itself as evangelical.

It is striking therefore to discover that many now consider that evangelicals are the dominant group in the Church of England and see this being demonstrated in senior appointments. If this is so then what passes as evangelical today is not what our forebears considered such…”

– David Phillips looks at the changes in ‘evangelicalism’ in the last decade or so, in the Summer 2011 issue of Cross†Way. (PDF file.)

One way of looking at it

“On July 10, 2011 clergy of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) who since May 2008 had been occupying the Anglican Church of Canada building on Guilford Drive in Abbotsford left that building to conduct worship in Grace Church a few blocks away. Worshippers who support those ANiC clergy also left the Anglican Church of Canada building to worship with those clergy…”

– The Bishop’s Warden of the Anglican Church of Canada parish at Abbotsford in Vancouver in a letter to BC Local News. (Photo: Diocese of New Westminster.) h/t Anglican Essentials Canada blog.

No Fault Today, No Marriage Tomorrow

“I do not generally seek advice about marriage from celebrity models, but I could not help noticing that Christie Brinkley said she’ll ‘never get married again’. …”

– Phillip Jensen writes on the end point of the ‘no fault divorce’.

Place Sensational Headline Here

“Lindsay Tanner’s book “Sideshow” argues how the media has undermined the capacity for proper policy debate in our society. The media’s recent presentation of our Archbishop’s statement on the redefinition of marriage is a classic illustration of the point.

The homosexual community has called society into a debate about the nature of marriage. Through the influence of the Greens, the members of parliament are to inquire of the electorate about changing the law to allow same sex marriage. The Labor party is going to debate its policy on this issue at its national conference.

It would seem right and proper therefore, for any person to present a view on this matter, especially leaders of community groups who have a particular interest or concern to express their views.

As one such community within society, Christians have every right to hold a particular interest in the nature of marriage. We have had a long-term interest in marriage – our ministers are registered by the Government as authorised celebrants and about a third of the community turn to the church for their weddings.  Furthermore, rightly or wrongly, we believe that our view is for the good of society as a whole. …’

– Phillip Jensen, Dean of St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney, writes at PhillipJensen.com. (Also at SydneyAnglicans.net.) Related: Real Marriage, by Archbishop Peter Jensen.

It’s official: Australia is unfair

“The debate about processing asylum seekers in Malaysia has distracted Australians from an even more concerning injustice brewing in our own backyard – the Federal Government’s proposed changes to the ‘character test’ in the Migration Act are politically expedient and fly in the face of measured, compassionate governance. …”

– Andrew Cameron, Chair of the Social Issues Executive of the Diocese of Sydney, has his say on The Drum today.

From subtle exclusion to overt discrimination

“Since 1993 I have chosen to belong to a church that ordains women priests, and before I retire it is likely I will belong to one that consecrates women bishops. Yet this is a practice that I believe to be mistaken, so why am I still here? …

In 1993, as the ordination of women to the priesthood was brought in, the Church of England similarly committed itself to treat those on both sides of the debate equally. Thus the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod (which is still in force) stated as its first principle that,

There will be no discrimination against candidates either for ordination or for appointment to senior office in the Church of England on the grounds of their views about the ordination of women to the priesthood.

Unfortunately, that commitment was never upheld, and has now effectively been overturned.”

– John Richardson laments shifts taking place in the Church of England.

False Prophets, False Teachers, and Real Trouble

“Andy Warhol was wrong. Fame doesn’t last just fifteen minutes. After all, Harold Camping is still in the news, more than a week after his prophecy that the world would end on May 21 at 6:00p.m. turned out — as expected — to be false …”

– Albert Mohler writes on the fallout from Harold Camping’s predictions.

← Previous Page — Next Page →