‘PM misrepresents the Bible’

“Last night, on a serious Australian current affairs program, Q&A, our current serving Prime Minister, a self-professed Christian, grossly caricatured the Bible. ….”

– Sandy Grant responds to the Prime Minister’s statements on Q&A last night.

And Eternity Newspaper’s John Sandeman spoke today with the Prime Minister’s questioner, Pastor Matt Prater –

“I did get attacked a lot on social media last night. And got called a lot of nasty names. I just want to make it clear to anyone reading this that I am not a homophobe. I don’t hate homosexuals. I love everyone with the love of Jesus.”

(Images: ABC TV.)

Update:

The Prime Minister further explained his response (YouTube) in Launceston on Tuesday 3rd September.

Question lands pastor ‘in lion’s den’ – The Australian.

“The first time Pastor Matt Prater interviewed Kevin Rudd, the year was 2006 and the then opposition foreign affairs spokesman was deeply obliging. …”

And Sandy Grant reflects on the whole thing at The Briefing.

The answer to dull and boring preaching

What’s the place of illustrations in preaching? Or emotion? How can we make our preaching better?

Dr Peter Bolt is interviewed for the latest instalment of Preaching Matters from St. Helen’s Bishopsgate in London.

See it here. Invest 10 minutes of your time.

What is the Problem?

“Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, has issued his most serious and straightforward diagnosis of the crisis within the Anglican Communion.”

– The American Anglican Council’s Canon Phil Ashey thinks the Archbishop of Canterbury has made a serious misdiagnosis. Related: Tearing the Fabric. (PDF.)

Church of the Triune God

New from Aquila Press is Church of the Triune God, a Festschrift to honour Dr Robert Doyle.

From the Publisher’s blurb: “Church of the Triune God explores the work of the Trinity in the Church today in conversation with key theologians such as Calvin and Augustine, and explores how the three persons of the Trinity are active in the different aspects of church life, such as prayer, preaching and mission.”

Contributors, sample pages, and ordering information.

Barnabas Fund urges prayer for Syria and Egypt this weekend

“This Sunday (1 September), we are urging churches and individuals to hold a time of prayer for Syria and Egypt’s Christians.”

– Details from Barnabas Fund.

And you can find a prayer for ‘the Forgotten Church in Syria’ here. (h/t Carl Trueman.)

Syria: Archbishop Welby’s speech in the House of Lords

“We have heard already about Lebanon and about Iran, particularly the effect that an intervention would cause on the new Government in Iran as they are humiliated by such an intervention.

However, there is a further point. I talked to a very senior Christian leader in the region yesterday and he said that intervention from abroad will declare open season on the Christian communities. They have already been devastated. There were 2 million Christians in Iraq 12 years ago; there are fewer than 500,000 today.”

– Read it here.

Assessing Christian election guides

Sandy Grant takes a look at four different Christian election guides –

“Thoughtful Christians could benefit from interacting with each one of these election guides, even the ones where they find a considerable amount to disagree with.” – Read it at The Briefing.

Preaching Christ in an age of Religious Pluralism

Church Society has published online the audio of Gerald Bray’s talk at the 2005 Church Society Conference.

The topic: Preaching Christ in an age of Religious Pluralism (Acts 17 v16).

It’s a 38MB / 80 minute mp3 file (direct link).

Notes on Jeremiah by Graeme Goldsworthy

To promote the soon-to-be-released Gospel Transformation Bible, Crossway have made available a free download of the book of Jeremiah, with an introduction and study notes by Graeme Goldsworthy.

– Download it here. (h/t Gary Ware. Photo: The Bible Society.)

What the Hijabi Witnessed (and what she didn’t)

“I have had the pleasure on a couple of occasions of sitting next to a girl wearing a hijab. Typically, this has occurred in departure lounges of airports or on the platforms of railway stations. Never has it happened in a place of worship at the time of a service. Never, that is, until recently. …”

– Carl Trueman has some excellent points about what the girl next to him saw and heard. (Photo: King’s College.)

How to be Polemical — without being a downright Nasty Person

“The chief advances of the Christian faith are due to those moments when leaders and laypeople saturated with Scripture rose up in defiance of the unbiblical trends of their time and place. We have the Nicene Creed, the Apostles’ Creed, the Chalcedonian Creed, and the Reformation confessions and catechisms because, by God’s grace, men and women had the courage of their convictions and dared to be polemical.”

– Terrific article by Michael Horton in Modern Reformation magazine.

Modern Bioethics and its challenge to Christian thought

“Modern Bioethics and its challenge to Christian thought” is the topic for the next Centre for Christian Living open night at Moore College. Dr Andrew Ford is speaking, 7:30pm Wednesday 28th August, $8.

Resource for Australian Voters

The Australian Christian Lobby has released its comparison of policies of the major parties for the upcoming Federal Election. (Since some have asked: The Australian Christian Lobby and the Anglican Church League are quite separate – we just happen to have the same initials.)

Do you feel Called by God? — review

“Michael Bennett’s book is brilliant. I loved it. Let me tell you why. Ever since I became a Christian at age 19 (1989), I have been baffled and confused by the way Christians speak about decision-making. I was always hearing people say stuff like “I feel God is calling me to do X, Y and Z”. They seemed to put an awful lot of emphasis on two words: feel and call. …”