Same Sex Marriage: Don’t wait till after the Election
Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in NSW, Kevin Murray, wrote this piece in the current edition of The Pulse, the NSW Presbyterian magazine.
“Each of us should make the time to learn what each party is promising on this issue because it is one that could profoundly affect our life as a nation for many many decades.”
Full text below: Read more
Reflecting on Fifty Years of Expository Preaching in Australia (1965–2015)
“I was a new convert when I attended the CMS Victoria Summer School at Belgrave Heights in January 1965, when John Stott gave those studies in 2 Corinthians. It was the first time I had heard expository Bible preaching.
My response was, ‘That is how to preach the Bible, and that is what I want to do!’
I knew that such preaching would grow churches, and when I went to London in 1972 and visited All Soul’s Langham Place and St Helen’s Bishopsgate, I saw that it worked!”
– At The Gospel Coalition Australia, Peter Adam remembers the impact of expository Bible preaching, as exemplified by John Stott. (Photo: St. Helen’s Bishopsgate.)
Voting on July 2 — David Cook
David Cook, Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, turns to the Federal election in his latest comment:
“It is rare for an election to have as a major issue, a matter of morality, as much as this forthcoming poll.
The single issue is Same Sex Marriage, the ALP has said, that if elected they will legislate in the first 100 days for SSM. The Coalition parties, if elected, promise a national plebiscite on the issue.”
Full text below: Read more
Endurance Needed: Strength for a slow reformation and the dangerous allure of speed
Several people have told us of the encouragement given by Mark Dever’s exhortations on Endurance in Pastoral ministry – at the Together for the Gospel Conference 2016.
Strong encouragement.
Watch it here – or listen at this link.
How a Minority achieved a Majority
“For years leading up to Ireland’s civil partnership legislation, a small nongovernmental organisation (NGO) – the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) – along with its many supporters and collaborators, worked quietly and methodically toward this day. …
In 2005, GLEN received a sizable long-term grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies that allowed GLEN to increase its organisational capacity and to pursue its ambitious advocacy strategy for advancing equality for gays and lesbians in Ireland.
The story of how Ireland’s landmark legislation was achieved for same-sex couples holds insights and lessons for any advocacy group trying to achieve legislative change…”
– This PDF document, available on The Atlantic Philanthropies website, charts how minority groups were able to achieve the goal of Civil Partnership in Ireland back in 2010.
We posted a link to this, and related material, last year. It’s well worth revisiting to be aware of the methods used to shift public sentiment, which resulted a vote to change the definition of marriage in 2015.
Happy 200th birthday to J C Ryle
Today is J.C. Ryle’s 200th birthday.
Church Society is celebrating with the launch of a book.
Three dollars worth of gospel, please
Adam Ford tackles a well-known illustration from D. A Carson.
The Reason for Faith
“Faith may lack a comprehensive knowledge of its object, but unless it is pure folly, it typically can see enough evidence to know that the testimony about it is, at least, likely to be true. It is more than a mere opinion which cannot commit firmly to one position or another…”
– Dr Andrew Leslie at Moore College writes about Faith in the College’s ‘ThinkTank’ Faculty blog.
Budget Considerations
“With an election in the offing it is never surprising that the political rhetoric around the Budget indulges self-interest. While we might expect that, and while we are critiquing the Budget, should we not critique our self-interest and how we became so addicted to ourselves? Budget time seems like a great opportunity to consider our hedonistic materialism…”
– Bishop of Armidale Rick Lewers asks if we should ‘budget God back into our economy’.
A majority of millennials reject capitalism and support Bernie
“After generations of both political correctness and philosophical postmodernism, we now see a generation that seems to be virtually incapable of beginning any sentence with anything other than, ‘I feel like,’ which as is indicated in this article means a retreat from any claim of truth or a fact merely to an assertion of opinion.…”
– Albert Mohler reflects on the belief system (or lack thereof) of many millennials. Insightful and disturbing. From The Briefing, 03 May 2016.
Defence Anglicans Prayer Diary 2016
Our friends who minister to Australia’s Defence personnel would be very glad of your prayers on a regular basis.
The Defence Anglicans Prayer Diary for 2016 is now up on their website.
Be encouraged to download and use it.
The Anglican Communion and GAFCON: Interpreting the Peter Jensen interview
“Peter Jensen, the retired Archbishop of Sydney and the current general Secretary of GAFCON, has given an extensive interview to VirtueOnline in which he expressed frankly some of his views on the current state of the Anglican Communion, and the mission of the Christian church in contemporary culture. The Virtue piece also contains some excerpts from talks that Jensen gave to the recent CANA meeting in Pennsylvania. It is worth giving these comments some analysis, as they give voice to the thinking behind GAFCON, as well as bringing to light some of the problems in global Anglicanism that derive from very different perceptions and interpretations of events…”
– Andrew Syme at Anglican Mainstream provides his analysis of the reported interview with Dr. Jensen.
FCANZ Opening Conference audio
Audio files from the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans New Zealand’s opening conference have now been posted online.
In his closing address, FCANZ Chairman Jay Behan (pictured) reminds his hearers that human sexuality is not the gospel. However it is a gospel issue which must not be ignored.
Take the time to listen, and be urged to pray for our brothers and sisters in New Zealand as they seek godly wisdom for the days ahead.
(The General Synod of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia meets in Napier 06–13 May 2016.)
Preaching or Social Action?
“Can a ‘church’ be a good church if it minimises the importance of preaching? Or if it does not engage with social action?
How does the New Testament help set our priorities for ministry and preaching?
Should a pastor preach on things such as political matters, social matters or current controversies?”
– In the latest Preaching Matters video from St. Helen’s Bishopsgate, Kevin DeYoung looks at the New Testament pattern.
2016 New College Lectures: Jesus and the Ten Gospels
“Some of the most widely published challenges to the Christian faith today have come in the publicity surrounding the ‘apocryphal’ Gospels not included in the Christian Bible.
The idea that there is nothing particularly special about the four New Testament Gospels has appeared in both the popular media and in Biblical scholarship, from references to the Gospel of Philip in the Da Vinci Code, to the publication by the Harvard Theological Review of the so-called ‘Gospel of Jesus’s Wife’ fragment.
These lectures will discuss the relevance of these Gospels outside of the Bible, comparing them with Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”
– New College at UNSW announces this year’s New College Lectures, to be given by Dr Simon Gathercole, Tuesday, 20th & Thursday, 22nd September 2016.
(Photo courtesy Lanier Theological Library.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…