Two stories on ‘the Culture of Death’

Two disturbing stories – one from the US, and one from the UK.

From Albert Mohler:

“Consider … the fact that 40 percent of all pregnancies in New York City end in abortion (and fully 60 percent of all pregnancies to African American women). Those horrendous and chilling percentages are evidently not enough for the abortion industry and its ideological supporters. They want to shut down crisis pregnancy centers or render them ineffective.”

and this story in the UK’s Mail Online (h/t Bishop John Harrower):

“Can you imagine a lonelier or more frightening place to be trapped in, unable to communicate, than your own body?

These are terrifying times for anyone who cannot speak up for themselves. Whether they know it or not, they are lying prone in a world increasingly seduced by the idea that death is preferable to the life they are living. … But I can. I have lived that life and I know how precious it is.”

(Image: Feggy Art on Flickr.)

Top commentaries on Paul’s letters

Tom Schreiner (Southern Baptist Seminary) has released his list of the three best Commentaries – for students, teachers, and pastors – on each of Paul’s letters. A very handy resource.

Andy Naselli has the list here.

Paul Barnett’s tribute to John Stott

“Two World Wars and the Depression left Christianity in a poor state in the post-World War II era, compounded by the influence of sceptical Biblical Criticism. Amongst those God raised up in these difficult times were C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, F.F. Bruce, J.I. Packer, and John Stott.

Stott was deeply committed to the theology of the Reformation, as may be seen in his magisterial The Cross of Christ and his commentaries on Romans and Galatians. …”

– Bishop Paul Barnett adds his own words of thanks for the life of John Stott.

Evangelism cannot be enough for Evangelicals

John Richardson writes of what it is to be an Evangelical in the Church of England:

“We have an ‘honoured’ place in the institution, but the price exacted from us is to identify ourselves as a ‘tradition’ — one amongst the many different traditions which make up the all-embracing comprehensiveness of the Church of England.

But, … at least from our own perspective, this is a betrayal not only of ourselves but of everyone else. To accept this definition of ‘evangelicalism’ is to cease to be Evangelical. …”

– Read it all at The Ugley Vicar.

 

Iain Murray on reading church history

“The reason church history is not always thrilling is that people do not read it around the flesh-and-blood figures of men and women whom God used to shape its course.

Biographies raise the questions: Why were individuals so used? What made Mary Slessor or William Carey? What are the abiding spiritual lessons? Biographies show that doctrinal belief is not a secondary or theoretical thing; rather, it has vital consequence in the way Christians live. Weak doctrine produces weak lives. Those who ‘turn the world upside down’ are always those ’mighty in the Scriptures.’…”

– from an interview with Iain Murray (the Banner of Truth founder) at Ligonier Ministries.

Christ abolished death

“The death of the evangelical Anglican preacher and author John Stott at the age of 90 has been greeted with acclamatory obituaries in the leading newspapers of the English-speaking world. This was a man named by Time magazine as among the top 100 influential people on the planet in 2005. So what was all the fuss about?…”

– at the ABC Religion & Ethics blog, Michael Jensen writes about John Stott and what made him tick.

‘Commentary’ Summer 2011 from Oak Hill

The latest (UK Summer 2011) issue of Oak Hill College’s Commentary magazine is now available on their website.

It’s a 6.3MB PDF file.

Making Sense of the Senseless

“Last weekend’s bombing and shooting in Norway is awful. The pain and suffering of the innocent citizens and their families is incalculable. The actions were more than painful, they were wicked and evil. There is no excuse.

While there is no excuse, we still search for reasons. From the outset of media commentary, people have been struggling to understand the reason.…”

– Read the full article by Phillip Jensen, Dean of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney.

Evangelical Drift

“This is my 51st and final issue as editor of Cross†Way. The magazine, and those that preceded it in the Church Society family line, have been concerned to uphold Biblical teaching within the Church of England. We might prefer to only concentrate on good things, but we learn from Scripture, more or less from beginning to end, that teaching the truth means opposing what is false. From the beginning of Church Association this organisation has identified itself as evangelical.

It is striking therefore to discover that many now consider that evangelicals are the dominant group in the Church of England and see this being demonstrated in senior appointments. If this is so then what passes as evangelical today is not what our forebears considered such…”

– David Phillips looks at the changes in ‘evangelicalism’ in the last decade or so, in the Summer 2011 issue of Cross†Way. (PDF file.)

St. John’s Vancouver transition FAQ

For your prayers for the members of St. John’s Vancouver as they plan to move to another location — there’s now a Transition FAQ here.

The Doctrine of Baptism – DWB Robinson

Church Society has republished a 1962 paper by Donald Robinson (then Vice-Principal of Moore Theological College, and later Archbishop of Sydney) on the doctrine of Baptism.

“For our Church’s doctrine of baptism we must go first of all to the Thirty-Nine Articles. The Prayer Book services must always be interpreted in accordance with the Articles, and not the other way about.”

– This enlightening paper is available as a PDF file from Church Society.

(This has also been republished as chapter 26 in Volume 2 of Donald Robinson, Selected Works, Australian Church Record / Moore College, 2008.)

One way of looking at it

“On July 10, 2011 clergy of the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) who since May 2008 had been occupying the Anglican Church of Canada building on Guilford Drive in Abbotsford left that building to conduct worship in Grace Church a few blocks away. Worshippers who support those ANiC clergy also left the Anglican Church of Canada building to worship with those clergy…”

– The Bishop’s Warden of the Anglican Church of Canada parish at Abbotsford in Vancouver in a letter to BC Local News. (Photo: Diocese of New Westminster.) h/t Anglican Essentials Canada blog.

No Fault Today, No Marriage Tomorrow

“I do not generally seek advice about marriage from celebrity models, but I could not help noticing that Christie Brinkley said she’ll ‘never get married again’. …”

– Phillip Jensen writes on the end point of the ‘no fault divorce’.

Anglican Evangelism and Evangelical Anglicanism, 1945-2011 — the challenge we face

This week John Richardson spoke at the Evangelical Anglican Junior Clergy Conference in the UK, and he’s posted the text of his first address online. It’s a very interesting overview of Post-war UK evangelical Anglicanism. He includes mention of some help, in the Lord’s providence, from the colonies –

“Many in the Evangelical Anglican constituency were therefore increasingly uncomfortable with the direction being taken by the movement, and in the mid-1980s, under the leadership of Dick Lucas, the Evangelical Ministry Assembly and the Proclamation Trust struck out in a different direction.

The Proclamation Trust aimed unashamedly, and in its own mind principally, at a recovery of preaching. Nevertheless, this inevitably entailed a recovery of theology, and so the speakers invited to address the EMA were often men of theological acumen as well as skilled communicators.

Notably, however, most of them came from abroad — it seemed that in the UK they were in short supply. Many were from America but some, and in the end the most influential, were from the Diocese of Sydney in Australia.

Two key English Evangelicals made some revealing comments about the impact of just one of these visitors, John Chapman, who then headed the Department of Evangelism in the Diocese of Sydney. …”

– Read it all at The Ugley Vicar. (Photo of John Chapman, courtesy of AFES.)

Biblical Authority in an Age of Uncertainty

In this video from The Gospel Coalition, Don Carson, John Piper and Tim Keller speak together about the importance of knowing what the Bible says.

Related: David Ould looks at the debate in the UK on Women Bishops – “It’s Just the Vibe of the Thing” – at Stand Firm.

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