Can banning things lead to tolerance?

“‘London is intolerant of intolerance.’

So said the Mayor of London as he stepped in to ban adverts which drew attention to the existence of people who identify as ‘post gay’.…”

– Peter Sanlon at Oak Hill College asks what principles are involved really being tolerant.

Titanic: A Glasgow church recalls Pastor John Harper

In the icy water, Pastor John Harper asks a man if he is saved, and gives him his life jacket.

Video from BBC News.

And more details from Baptist Press.

The Journalist’s Question

“Last week a journalist came to church. He was covering the compulsory Easter story. He asked one of our staff – ‘Do you think people have stopped coming to church because they have internalised their faith?’

It was a strange question to ask as a huge number of people crowded into the Cathedral…”

– Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen writes in his weekly column.

Women Bishops in the Church of England

“We all know there are within the Church of England those who conscientiously object to the principle of consecrating women bishops. Those people, both lay and ordained, have been reassured on many occasions that they are loyal, faithful Anglicans. They have been reassured there is a place for them – on some occasions it has even been called an honoured place – within the church. They have been told that that place will remain. So far, so good, you may think…”

– Church Society Council member George Curry points out some of the implications of the Church of England’s current trajectory – in the latest issue of CrossWay (PDF file).

7 Lessons from the German Liberal Theologians

“Despite standing in the shadow of the Reformation, many German Protestant theologians abandoned the historic truth claims of biblical Christianity due to the mounting popularity of Enlightenment rationalism.

In so doing, they shipwrecked their own souls while simultaneously devastating the faith of millions of others…”

– Nathan Busenitz draws some sobering lessons from the German Liberal Theologians –

The way to reach skeptics with the gospel is not by watering down the gospel.
True religion can be lost in just one generation.
German liberalism does not represent merely a divergent form of Christianity, but – in actuality – a completely new religion.
The liberals honoured doubt as being noble and intellectually honest. In reality, doubting God’s word is a heinous sin.
German liberalism teaches us that ideas have consequences, and that bad ideas have very bad consequences.
The social gospel of the liberals is still alive and well in many mainline Protestant churches.
Higher criticism, in particular, is built on the notion that the wisdom of man trumps the revealed wisdom of God.

– Very relevant to the Anglican Communion. Read it all at The Cripplegate. (h/t Tim Challies.)

Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ sermons to be available to all

“This is probably the biggest announcement the MLJ Trust will ever make. Starting from tomorrow, April 12th, all 1,600 recorded sermons by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones will be available to download, at no cost, to anyone who wants to listen to them!…”

– all the details via Justin Taylor.

Professor versus Cardinal (#qanda)

“…Q&A on ABC television was an Easter Monday special, featuring Professor Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, and Sydney’s Catholic Archbishop, Cardinal George Pell for a live discussion of faith, science, and morality. The show’s audience was 863,000, its biggest audience since it covered the 2010 federal election. …

Cardinal Pell is creedally orthodox, and conservative on personal and sexual ethics. However I am very unhappy at having him as a spokesman for biblical Christianity. Because on Q&A, he managed to insult the Jewish people, question the existence of Adam and Eve as merely mythological, forget whether or not God actually inscribed the Ten Commands for Moses… stated that atheists can certainly go to heaven, and pushed the unbiblical ideas of purgatory and transubstantiation…”

– read all of Sandy Grant’s comments at The Briefing.

Related: Nathan Campbell, blogging as “St. Eutychus”, comments on Q&A – and links to raw footage of a Good Friday SBS interview with Archbishop Peter Jensen (scroll down).

Image: ABC TV.

A Conversation with Gerald Bray on his new Systematic Theology

At The Gospel Coalition website, Gerald Bray responds to questions put by Matt Smethurst about Bray’s recently published Systematic Theology, “God is Love”.

“God Is Love is very different from any other systematic theology on the market today because it takes the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura seriously. It is not just a question of backing up everything from the Bible but of trying to convey God’s self-revelation in the Bible in a biblical way…”

– Read the conversation here.

Related: Mark Thompson writes:

“Here is a piece of mature theology, concerned for the glory of God, the edification of his people, and the spread of the gospel in the world. What a refreshing change from the posturing and positioning of so much theological writing today. Gerald is not trying to draw attention to himself, make a name for himself or impress his peers in the theological academy or in his ecclesiastical stable. From the beginning the spotlight is elsewhere – something this book has in common with the best of Christian theology through the centuries.”

– at Theological Theology.

The Unashamed Workman

Proclamation Trust has made available four Dick Lucas videos recorded about ten years ago for a set of teaching DVDs.

The theme is “The Unashamed Workman – Instructions on Biblical Preaching”.

They are designed to encourage new preachers as well as seasoned ones.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

Appalled by some Church leaders’ Easter messages

“Each year at Easter I am regularly disappointed by the comments of prominent church leaders in the media here in Australia. Easter is one of only two times in the year when they know that they’ll receive headline prominence in the newspaper, on radio and in every evening TV news bulletin.

So tell me this … why do the majority squander this amazing opportunity by being irrelevant, off message and even (apparently) bored, disinterested and completely devoid of passion in proclaiming the greatest Message of all?…

Now, please understand something. I am not into denomination bashing which is why I’ve deliberately not named the leaders or the denominations to which I refer…”

– Bernie Dymet (ChristianityWorks.com) voices what others may have been thinking.

Authentic wine tasting

“Just as you finished briefing your serving team the clock struck 7.30 and the wine tasters started to arrive. They mingled and sipped for an hour, before you interrupted with three taps on the side of your glass.

You announced that it was time for a talk entitled ‘How Jesus turns us from red to white’. A speaker you had invited spoke for a good 25 minutes on Isaiah 1:18, which had been printed out and left on various tables around the room.…”

– At The Briefing, James Croucher has a thoughtful piece on being – er – open – in our evangelism.

Archbishop Peter Jensen’s Easter Message 2012

Archbishop Peter Jensen has released his 2012 Easter message – a message of wonderful news.

Watch it here at SydneyAnglicans.net (1 minute 20 seconds).

And you can download the message here formatted as 2 x A5 handouts.

Or read the text below –

“You can pay people to do a lot of things for you but you can’t pay someone else to do death for you. And there is no one on earth who can really tell you what it’s like.

They are the facts.

If you want to travel to an exotic place, someone has been there before you and can tell you what it is like, with photos. But there are no travellers into the realm of death who come back.

That’s a fact.

Well, no it isn’t a fact.

There is a man who has been there and come back and told us what to expect. That man is Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.

We Christians love Easter because it is the historical reminder that although Jesus was executed by being crucified and was truly dead, three days later he broke out of his tomb and showed that death is not the last word in life.

And everything is changed. Instead of living in fear and anxiety, it’s as though God has turned the light on and dispelled our fear.

Jesus dies so that we could be forgiven and he lives to give us life beyond the grave.

Now that’s a great fact!

Dr Peter F Jensen,
Archbishop of Sydney,
Easter, 2012 AD.”

Why did Jesus Die?

“On the surface of things, it seems that Jesus was in the wrong place at the wrong time — a victim of circumstance, crushed by political machinations that were far bigger than he could humanly control. …

But history also tells us something else. It tell us that not long after these events, Jesus’ followers reassembled and began boldly proclaiming that on the Sunday after his death Jesus had emerged from his tomb alive again…”

– Dr. George Athas at Moore College asks “Why did Jesus die?”