‘Anglicans mad only if they ignore Bible’
“Amid the swirl of opinion around the Anglican General Synod’s decision to commit to finding a way to bless gay couples, the epithets for orthodox Anglicans have mounted: anti-gay, homophobic, wrong, immoral, betrayers of Jesus, unloving, judgmental, intolerant, bigoted, ostracising, unjust and hypocritical. Doubtless an incomplete list, but enough to paint a nasty picture…”
– In this opinion-piece for the New Zealand Herald, Michael Hewat (Vicar of the West Hamilton) argues that the NZ Anglican General Synod has failed ‘the LGBT community’.
Related: Same-Gender blessings: NZ General Synod votes. (May 14 2014)
Who is the most important person in your church?
“Who is the most important person in your church? On one level it’s kind of a silly question to ask. Yet in his book Healed at Last, Scott Blackwell provides an answer that is both sweet and encouraging. He tells about his friend Steve who has been profoundly disabled since birth.”
– Tim Challies draws attention to Healed at Last.
Caring or Killing
“‘Is the baby normal?’ is one of the first questions parents ask the doctor and that’s the last time the parents are happy that their child is only normal!
We don’t want our children to be abnormal or have any abnormalities but we do want them to be above average. We don’t want them to be the high achievers who crash and burn in the blaze of celebrity magazine publicity, but nobody wishes their child to be below average. Everybody’s child is above average in their parents’ imagination, and even higher in their grandparents’ estimation.
However, it is very important that our pursuit of excellence and perfection should never be applied to our humanity…”
– Phillip Jensen looks at some implications of being human.
‘Can I Really Trust The Bible?’ Promo
You might enjoy this promotional video for Barry Cooper’s book, Can I Really Trust the Bible?
When the sermon could have been better
In the latest Preaching Matters video from St. Helen’s Bishopsgate in London, William Taylor speaks about what to do when your sermon wasn’t really up to scratch.
New Proc Trust website
The Proclamation Trust has an updated website with lost of resources.
Keeping up with General Synod
As General Synod meets in Adelaide, here are a few ways you can keep up, if you so desire –
- General Synod media releases
- General Synod program
- General Synod papers
- Sandy Grant atThe Briefing –
1. Drive away and promote,
2. Advice to evangelical Anglican churchmen.
3. Air bags on pokies. - David Ould’s blog –
1. Electing a Primate,
2. A Quest for Unity?
3. Getting Some Clarity?
4. Embracing the Marginalised?
5. General Synod Roundup – A Way Forward? - SydneyAnglicans.net –
1. Freier elected next Primate,
2. Baptism marriage rule to stay,
3. Synod calls for freedom not religious ‘gag’,
4. Governments and churches urged to take more asylum seekers,
5. Synod highlights ‘inactivity’ on gambling.
Biblical Theology and the Sexuality Crisis
“As the church responds [the current moral and sexual revolution], we must remember that current debates on sexuality present to the church a crisis that is irreducibly and inescapably theological.
This crisis is tantamount to the type of theological crisis that Gnosticism presented to the early church or that Pelagianism presented to the church in the time of Augustine. In other words, the crisis of sexuality challenges the church’s understanding of the gospel, sin, salvation, and sanctification.
Advocates of the new sexuality demand a complete rewriting of Scripture’s metanarrative, a complete reordering of theology, and a fundamental change to how we think about the church’s ministry.”
– Albert Mohler writes at the 9Marks blog.
Praying for Moore College
In the latest post at the Moore College ThinkTank, Principal Mark Thompson urges us to pray for the College.
And they’ve been trawling through College audio archives for classic sermons on Prayer. So far, two are online – Graeme Goldsworthy on Galatians 4:6, and John Woodhouse on The Lord’s Prayer. They plan to add another one each week.
Subscribe to the Moore College Classic Prayer podcast on iTunes.
Confident and Equipped: Facing Today’s Challenges in the Church of England
One of the passions of John Richardson, who departed this mortal life at the end of March, was to see the Church of England reclaimed for Christ.
A Thanksgiving Service was held for John at St. Peter’s, Harold Wood on June 11th (Order of Service, PDF file).
It’s fitting that the new book, Confident and Equipped: Facing Today’s Challenges in the Church of England, was available just in time for the service. It’s a volume of papers from the Junior Anglican Evangelical Conference 2013 (which John started).
Lee Gatiss has an outline of the contents – and the book is available in the UK from Church Society (£40.00 for 10, £22.00 for 5, £5.00 for one – contact them for international orders).
Photo: St. Peter’s Harold Wood.
Chaplains in Schools Song by Colin Buchanan
Yesterday’s “Thank God it’s Friday” with Richard Glover on ABC 702 Sydney had Colin Buchanan as one of the studio guests.
The outcry over a topic for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House and the High Court Challenge to School Chaplains came together in Colin’s song.
Identity
“Hello, my name is Bill, and I’m an alcoholic.”
– Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen asks us to consider our identity.
Check out Introducing God 2.0
The new and updated version of Introducing God was launched in March.
The first version was widely used around Australia.
In this video, Tony Payne speaks with Introducing God 2.0 author Dominic Steele about what’s different and why this version might be just the thing for use in large groups, small groups, and one-to-one settings. Check it out.
And here are ten ways you could use the course.
Print edition of ‘Women, Sermons and the Bible’ on the way
Matthias Media advises that a print version of Women, Sermons and the Bible will soon be out. The eBook was published in May. (Table of contents here.)
Andrew Symes on the ACNA Assembly
“The Anglican Church in North America exists as a kairos response to a crisis in a mainline denomination.
The leadership of the official Anglican denomination in the USA and Canada became more and more liberal. Bishops regularly pronounced that Jesus is one of many possible Saviours , that the Bible contains some of the word of God, that Christian mission is to help fulfil the Millenium Development Goals of the United Nations. It became commonplace to have multifaith services where occult pagan practices would be celebrated in Cathedrals as part of Holy Communion Services, as ‘the Spirit’ can apparently be discerned in all faiths and none…”
– Anglican Mainstream’s Andrew Symes reflects on the just-concluded Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…