Ichabod — the glory departing from Scotland
“The Church of Scotland has declared that the Bible is not the Word of God, that active homosexuality is no bar to the ministry, that a magisterium is to be set up to determine what the Word of God is, and crowns it all by an unchecked stomach-churning display of mockery and faux repentance. A Rubicon has been crossed and there is no turning back. …”
– The Minister of St. Peter’s Free Church in Dundee, David Robertson, writes about the new territory in which the Chirch of Scotland is now travelling. (h/t Reformation21)
On Being Moderately Faithful
“Although the GAFCON movement is firmly rooted in the apostolic faith and the historic reformation formularies of the Church of England, this very clarity has been very unsettling for those whose instincts are first and foremost to preserve the Church as an institution and the whole system of power and patronage which goes with it, formal and informal. The most unsettled are evangelicals who want to preserve the status quo…”
– At SPREAD, Charles Raven answers critics of next week’s launch of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in the UK.
Smart Planting, Right Planting
“It wasn’t so much that anyone called us to prayer, but that the day reminded us all of the way that God is sovereignly growing his church, in all sorts of unexpected places and amongst the least likely of people. God’s word is powerful and his mighty Spirit is transforming lives. …”
– At The Sola Panel, Paul Grimmond reflects on last week’s church planting conference at Moore College.
Why I don’t have a television and rarely go to movies
“But leave sex aside (as if that were possible for fifteen minutes on TV). It’s the unremitting triviality that makes television so deadly. What we desperately need is help to enlarge our capacities to be moved by the immeasurable glories of Christ. Television takes us almost constantly in the opposite direction, lowering, shrinking, and deadening our capacities for worshipping Christ. …”
– John Piper challenges Christians to consider the influence of what they watch – at Desiring God.
A Tortured Existence
“We want our celebrities to start strong and finish weak, to begin with a bang and then fizzle, pop and sputter, all for our enjoyment and entertainment… Jackson gave us so much to talk about, so much to enjoy. More than any other celebrity he embodied the ‘vanities’ of Ecclesiastes. …”
– Tim Challies reflects. (Image: Google News.)
ACNA is the elephant in the tent
“The formation of ACNA is a direct challenge to the legitimacy of The Episcopal Church (TEC). Four dioceses have left TEC: San Joaquin in California, Quincy in Illinois; Fort Worth in Texas and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. The new Province includes 11 Northern Virginia parishes, some of which pre-date the American War of Independence. It is no surprise then that TEC is litigating over millions of dollars worth of property. …”
– ACL Chairman Robert Tong writes at SydneyAnglicans.net
Don’t take your iPod to church!
“Reading the Bible in electronic format makes it easy to chase down cross-references, to read notes related to the content, to find word definitions and so on. But all of this is at the cost of the natural, God-given flow of the text. As we use our iPods in place of our Bibles, we begin to understand Scripture as we do Wikipedia, a text suited more to browsing than deep study.…”
– Food for thought as Tim Challies reflects on how the medium affects how we read the message. Part 1, part 1.5, part 2.
The Anglican Church in North America – Hidden reefs ahead
“The launch of the Anglican Church in North America this week should be a cause of great thanksgiving to God for all who long to see the Anglican Communion united in the gospel, rather than a counterfeit unity engineered through endless ‘conversation’ and artful ambiguity.
However, we can be certain that this new stage of the global Anglican realignment will be opposed. …”
– Charles Raven writes at SPREAD.
A Trite Habit?
“It is a slowly growing pattern of life. So slow in its development that we do not even notice it happening to us. We make a thousand little decisions and finish with a way of living that we never planned or meant to happen. …”
– Phillip Jensen, Dean of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney, writes about the great danger of living in the Western world.
Money, Sex, Indaba: Corrupting the Anglican Communion Listening Process
“The Listening Process, also known as the ‘Continuing Indaba Project’, was announced last month at the Kingston, Jamaica meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council after a briefing by the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Anglican Communion Office (ACO).
The staff of the ACO, under the direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, announced that a $1.5 million gift was given to fund this project-a gift 2-3 times the size of any previous gift received by the Anglican Communion Office for its work… The delegates to the Anglican Consultative Council were told that the money was coming from a grant through the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.
After subsequent questioning at press conferences, it turns out that the Satcher Institute is not the source of the $1.5 million dollars.
So where did the money come from?…”
– Ralinda B. Gregor, writing for The American Anglican Council asks some uncomfortable questions of the Anglican Communion Office.
New Westminster — New Gospel; the ANiC trial
“So for the future, the very clear lesson emerging from this case is that moratoria and incremental negotiation over covenant clauses are futile strategies. The revisionist aim is not, initially, to exclude orthodox ministry, but to neutralise it through defining the church institutionally. …”
– Charles Raven writes at SPREAD.
TEC Presiding Bishop: from whence did the office come?
Christian lawyer A S Haley, who blogs at Anglican Curmudgeon, has done some research on how the office of Presiding Bishop evolved to where it is now. His article is entitled “Know the Enemy”: the Office of the Presiding Bishop and was posted in November 2008.
Last week, he followed up with comments on the huge increase in litigation and in the deposition of ministers.
“What may be surprising to some is that the Presiding Bishop is doing nothing more, and nothing less, than she said she would do if the House of Bishops chose her for that office.”
(h/t Stand Firm. Photo: Episcopal Life Online.)
‘The ACNA Constitution — An Evangelical View’
“I am aware that there are several concerns articulated by various individuals concerning the Proposed Constitution and most particularly by Evangelicals concerning language about the Historic Episcopate being integral or inherent to the nature of the Church. We note it is not the fact of the Historic Episcopate that is the concern.
Anglican Evangelicals have always treasured the Historic Episcopate and delighted in it when it is exercised in faithfulness to the Gospel. I would like to suggest three reasons why, at this last minute, such concerns should not cause any of us to hesitate to support the constitution as it has emerged. …”
– Bishop John Rodgers writes to address concerns over the proposed Constitution of the Anglican Church in North America. (Photo: Trinity School for Ministry.)
A wicked deed in Wichita
“The cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller on Sunday morning presents the pro-life movement in America with a crucial moral test — will we condemn this murder in unqualified terms?…”
– Al Mohler on the murder of an infamous American doctor who performed late-term abortions.
Bishop John Harrower on euthanasia
Is Euthanasia A Morally Acceptable Way To Ease Suffering Of The Elderly?
You probably expect an Anglican bishop to oppose a euthanasia ‘reform’. I do, but maybe not for the expected reasons.
First, some theology: life is a gift from God, a sacred trust, not to be taken by human hand. Read more
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…