A Threat to World Anglicanism?

“… she predicts the imminent demise of Sydney Anglicanism in its present form, claiming that it will be brought down by a combination of financial mismanagement, the failure of the current leadership to ensure an equally committed succession and the general fatigue of Sydney lay people, who apparently want their diocese to look more like Perth or Melbourne. …”

– from Gerald Bray’s editorial in the Winter 2011 issue of Churchman. (PDF file.)

His demands are not burdensome

A Christmas reflection from Peter Brain, Bishop of Armidale:

‘He was born outside a small hotel in an obscure Jewish village in the great days of the Roman Empire. The story is usually prettified when we tell it Christmas by Christmas, but it is really rather beastly and cruel. The reason why Jesus was born outside the hotel is that it was full and nobody would offer a bed to a woman in labour, so that she had to have her baby in the stables, and cradle him in a cattle-trough. The story is told dispassionately and without comment, but no thoughtful reader can help shuddering at the picture of callousness and degradation that it draws.’ So wrote J I Packer in his classic Knowing God (1973).

Christmas reminds us of our sin, of that there is no doubt. We needed saving and continue to do so. The fact that we seek to beautify these ugly facts of the Christmas event, and continue to trivialise their importance with a range of activities that leave us too exhausted to reflect and rendered unable to grasp its seriousness by our round of trivial festivities, demonstrates our propensity to crowd God out.  Read more

Christopher Hitchens obituary by Douglas Wilson

“Christopher knew that faithful Christians believe that it is appointed to man once to die, and after that the Judgment. He knew that we believe what Jesus taught about the reality of damnation. He also knew that we believe—for I told him—that in this life, the door of repentance is always open.…”

– Douglas Wilson has written this obituary for Christianity Today. (Photo: Wikipedia.)

The Lure of Rome

Dr. Robert Godfrey, Professor of Church History at Westminster Seminary California, speaks about why some evangelicals and other Protestants in the US are becoming Roman Catholics.

35 minute interview here. (h/t Ligonier Ministries.)

Nathan Tasker’s ‘A Star. A Stable. A Saviour.’

Nathan Tasker’s Christmas EP ‘A Star, A Stable, A Saviour’ is available as a free download for the next seven days, from Grouptune. (h/t Gary Ware.)

What is church for?

“If the word in our Bibles simply means a ‘gathering’ or ‘assembly’, our real question is: What is a Christian ekklesia? What is distinctive about the particular gathering or assembly into which God calls his people?

To answer this we need to look at the key places where God gathers his people together. …”

– Phillip Jensen asks ‘What is church for?” – at The Briefing.

What’s next for New York Churches

“Don’t Leave Our Church Homeless” read the signs distributed during Thursday’s press conference outside New York City Hall. More than 60 churches in New York meet in public schools for their Sunday services. When the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal this week, the churches learned they will need to find a new location before February 12. …

“It’s ironic,” one Brooklyn city official commented at Thursday’s press conference, “that the Klu Klux Klan can meet freely in public schools, but churches, who were the backbone of the civil rights movement, are not allowed.”

– John Starke, the new pastor of All Souls Christian Church in the Upper West Side of New York, asks for prayer for his church and more than five dozen others. (h/t Carl Trueman.)

Love, marriage and the homosexual agenda

“As I write this, the Australian Labor Party has decided to amend its political platform to include a commitment to change the legal definition of marriage.

Under intense pressure from the Greens, with whom they formed a coalition after the last election delivered a hung parliament, from its own left faction, and from a bold and confident gay lobby which has mounted a very sophisticated publicity campaign, the Labor Party has endorsed a right of same sex unions to style themselves ‘marriages’. In a largely successful attempt to claim the moral high ground (an astonishing thought in itself)  this world-wide campaign has adopted the slogan ‘marriage equality’.

It should be abundantly clear that this is not about providing financial and legal security for homosexual relationships…”

– ACL President Mark Thompson writes at Theological Theology to explain why opposing changes to marriage is an act of love.

Exploding Fenella Souter’s Myths of Christmas

“Last Saturday, the ‘Good Weekend’ magazine published by the Sydney Morning Herald (and the Melbourne Age?), ran an article by Fenella Souter entitled “Truth, Lies and Santa Claus: Exploding the Myths of Christmas” (not available online).

It was highly sceptical towards the narratives surrounding the conception and birth of Jesus recorded in the Bible…”

– Sandy Grant at St. Michael’s Wollongong looks at some mistakes and undocumented claims in last weekend’s ‘Good Weekend’ – at The Briefing.

New Evidences the Gospels were Based on Eyewitness Accounts

In March 2011, Dr Peter Williams, Warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge, gave a public lecture at The Lanier Theological Library in Houston.

His topic: New Evidences the Gospels were Based on Eyewitness Accounts. The 62 minute video is well worth watching.

Christmas — Myth or History?

Bishop Paul Barnett responds to an article in last weekend’s newspaper.

“So don’t let the sceptics and atheists take away your hope.”

“You cannot but be impressed with the zeal of the modern sceptic and reciprocally unimpressed with the lethargy of the contemporary Christian. Right on track the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend (3rd December, 2011) has a lengthy and well-researched article, ‘Divine Intervention’ (Fenella Souter) in which she debunks the historical basis for the first Christmas.

Her two main arguments are that there are only two gospel accounts and that they are contradictory, with the addition of many fictional details…”

– Read the full article on Paul Barnett’s website.

Update: If it comes in handy, here’s a PDF version formatted to suit a double-sided A4 sheet.

Dick Lucas at the Autumn Joint Ministers conference 2011

Last week we linked to video of Carl Trueman at the Proclamation Trust’s 2011 Autumn Joint Ministers Conference in Leicestershire.

Dick Lucas also spoke at the conference, giving three talks on 2 Peter, and now video and audio files of his addresses are online.

‘The Love Feasts’

Barry Newman’s latest topic for thoughtful examination is ‘the love feasts’ –

“What exactly did Jude have in mind when he wrote, ‘These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm – shepherds who feed only themselves’ (NIV Jude 12)? In particular what did he mean by ‘love feasts’? This blog series will attempt to examine these and related questions…”

– see the first few posts on the topic at Barry’s blog.

From Reformation to Revival

Lee Gatiss has been speaking in Cambridge at the ‘Saturday School of Theology’ on the theme ‘From Reformation to Revival’.

The audio of the first two sessions is now available, with the third to come. Below are the descriptions of each session:  Read more

‘No more bets at the Glasgow bookies’

More from Carl Trueman – this time on the ongoing train-wreck of the Church of Scotland –

“The official line in the C of S is that the matter of homosexuality has not yet been decided but it is very clear from the above quotation, especially given the context, which way the matter has already practically concluded. It may take a year or two before the procedural shouting dies down but I would assume that the Glasgow bookies are no longer offering odds on the outcome.

That is why men such as Peter Dickson, James Torrens and others are now putting everything they have on the line and leaving…”

– Read it all – including some very sobering matters for prayer – at Reformation21.

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