Do not be afraid

“It is amazing, once you are alerted to it, how often the brief encouragement ‘Do not be afraid’ occurs in Scripture. Often in the context there seems very good reason to be afraid. There might seem no way out. The opposition arrayed against you might seem overwhelming. The virulence and persistence with which you are opposed may be a very real cause for terror. And then the words come, ‘do not be afraid’. …”

– Read Mark Thompson’s encouraging words at Theological Theology.

‘Should I pull the Trigger?’

“It was 3 am. I sat in the sandbagged bunker guarding the entrance to the 400 year old Portuguese fort in Balibo, East Timor. Behind me nearly 100 Australian soldiers were sleeping peacefully. I was dressed in full camouflage battle dress, Kevlar flack jacket, and helmet. I rested the minimi machine gun in the crook of my shoulder and peered sleepily out through my night vision goggles at the Timorese village below…”

– Defence Sunday is being observed on November 7 (Sunday closest to Remembrance Day). This is a good time to be reminded to uphold in prayer (prayer guide) Christians serving in the Australian defence forces.

Ridley graduate Andrew Grills, now a military chaplain, reflects on his experience as an Army Officer in East Timor. Could he pull that trigger if needed?

Vic Tourism ad offensive

“Perhaps someone needs to talk to Tourism Victoria about the difference between sexy and sordid, because it is difficult to think of any situation in which the concept of a double life is a positive one… Someone might also put it to them that this promotion is seriously distasteful, trampling community values and moral codes.

But there is a greater offence here…”

– Morag Zwartz in The Age writes about a Tourism Victoria commercial you may have seen. (h/t Bp. John Harrower.)

Euthanasia question needs wider discussion

“Australians are overwhelmingly in favour of euthanasia. Who can resist the will of the people? So goes the pro-death argument for this sweeping social change. A much quoted 2009 survey, commissioned by the pro-euthanasia group Dying with Dignity, reports 85 per cent support for the practice. As is always the case, support is more muted among the over-65s: the prospect of death, it turns out, does concentrate the mind…”

– Andrew Cameron writes this opinion-piece in today’s Sydney Morning Herald.

Yahoo, Yoga, and Yours Truly

“Well, you never know what a day holds. This morning, Yahoo put the Associated Press story about my article on yoga on its front page. The rest, as they say, is history. My mail servers are exhausted. Messages have been coming in at a rate of about a hundred an hour. The first lesson — count the cost when you talk about yoga. These people get bent out of shape fast…”

– Albert Mohler on the response to a recent article he wrote.

A Conservationist among Lumberjacks

“I have space to raise three concerns, and these briefly: the presiding bishop’s threat to our polity — litigious and constitutional; the revisions to the Title IV canons; and, finally, a passing word about inhibitions and depositions to solve our theological/spiritual crisis…”

– Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina writes in The Living Church about some of the radical changes in the way The Episcopal Church is being run. (h/t Anglican Mainstream.)

Advice for orthodox Primates

In his weekly message, Bishop David C. Anderson, President of the American Anglican Council, has some advice for the orthodox Primates, after the announcement of a meeting of the Anglican Communion Primates in January.

“If asked my opinion, I would strongly advise the orthodox Primates to 1) organize before the Primates’ meeting, and 2) attend and remove by force of numbers the Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church (not physically, but by either voting her off the “island,” or recessing to another room and not letting her in). The meeting is a place to gather and potentially to settle some of the issues that are pulling the Anglican Communion apart, and to begin to restore health to a most wonderful communion.”

The Constitutional Crisis in ECUSA (I)

“Recent changes made by General Convention 2009 to the Canons, in combination with some in the Church who want to establish a strong central authority under the Presiding Bishop, and the ego of the current occupant of that office, have pushed ECUSA to the brink of a crisis, from which it cannot emerge unscathed.

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has already seized authority over the affairs of the Church which is unprecedented — and her usurpation of authority to date has for the most part not been challenged, or questioned. Led by its Presiding Bishop, ECUSA is in the middle of being transformed by a small group from within, and the average congregation and their clergy as yet have no awareness of the scope of the changes.”

– Christian lawyer A S Haley, who blogs at Anglican Curmudgeon, has begun what may well be a most enlightening series.

Gambling at General Synod

“…I’m pleased to say we finally reached a motion I gave notice of on the first day of Synod on the last day! After a bit of debate, it was passed unanimously. …

‘… Synod calls on all state and territory governments to reduce their reliance on taxation on gambling and asks all political parties to refuse donations from organisations which profit from gambling. …’

The last day of Synod also saw Sydney get hammered on the finances.”

Sandy Grant, Rector of St. Michael’s Wollongong, continues his General Synod blogs at The Sola Panel. (Other posts here.)

Church, constitution and creeping centralism

“As we continue to debate a number of matters concerning the relationship of the dioceses to the national church there’s an increasing sense that there are many here who have less and less time for Sydney, except when it comes to us opening up our wallet.

The background to this is probably worth explaining…”

– David Ould continues to write from General Synod. Today’s thoughts have been posted on SydneyAnglicans.net.

Sandy Grant is also posting some reflections over at The Sola Panel.

Out of Egypt

“On 30 January 2010 Bishop Mouneer Anis of Egypt announced that he was resigning from the standing committee of the Anglican Consultative Council…

Bishop Mouneer could easily have camouflaged his resignation in the way that people often do. He could have pleaded the burdens of office or the dangers of stress and ill health. He might even have said that it was time for someone else to take his place, and pretended that he was stepping down in order to give others a chance. He did none of those things…”

– from Gerald Bray’s Churchman Editorial 124/2 (Summer 2010) – on Church Society’s website.

Should Christians practice Yoga?

“Some questions we ask today would simply baffle our ancestors. When Christians ask whether believers should practice yoga, they are asking a question that betrays the strangeness of our current cultural moment…”

– Albert Mohler looks at the modern sanitisation of Yoga.

The power of proximity

“Already I’ve been struck by the value that General Synod provides for proximity. That is, it brings together some of the key players and leaders of all the different dioceses in the Anglican Church of Australia. We are together with time and space forcing us to deal with things we could otherwise put off for years or just ignore for ever…”

– Over at SydneyAnglicans.net, Bishop Robert Forsyth blogs on General Synod so far.

And Anglican Media Melbourne reports –

“The General Synod, meeting at Melbourne Grammar School, adopted a resolution asking the synods of all 23 Australian dioceses to consider whether the Anglican Church of Australia should adopt the Anglican Communion Covenant and to report to the Standing Committee of the General Synod by December 2012. The resolution asked the Standing Committee to report to the next meeting of the Church’s national parliament in 2013.”