It’s getting dangerous out there — a preacher is arrested in Britain

“We have seen this coming for some time now. The public space has been closing, especially when it comes to Christian speech — and especially when that speech is about homosexuality.

Now, a Christian preacher has been arrested in Britain for the crime of saying in public that homosexuality is a sin. This arrest is more than a news event — it is a signal of things to come and an announcement of a new public reality…”

– Albert Mohler on the wider significance of the arrest of street preacher Dale McAlpine.

J. C. Ryle on SermonAudio

SermonAudio has gathered many readings from J. C. Ryle and posted them on their website.

(h/t Faith By Hearing.)

Songs For Little Rooms

Emu Music Australia has released their latest album, Songs For Little Rooms.

“Songs For Little Rooms presents an intimate live recording of new and classic Emu songs. Our aim is to demonstrate how a small music group can provide a big lead in church and how to use your instruments and singers effectively and creatively.”

Sounds great, and includes a DVD. Details and sample audio from the Emu website.

The AAC’s Bishop Bill Atwood on GSE4

30 April 2010

“And it shall be, on the day when you cross over the Jordan to the land which the Lord your God is giving you,that you shall set up for yourselves large stones, and whitewash them with lime. You shall write on them all the words of this law, when you have crossed over, that you may enter the land which the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord God of your fathers promised you.” – Deuteronomy 27:2-3

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Clearly, when the Jews left the wilderness and crossed the Jordan to enter the Promised Land, their struggles were not over. They still had many challenges and battles to fight, but the passage of crossing the Jordan was a tremendously important one, and the Lord called them to mark it with large stones.

The Fourth Global South Encounter (GSE4) that was just held in Singapore was a huge passage for many, but particularly so for the Anglican Church in North America. I have noted with interest that some people have expressed great disappointment with the lack of “action,” but I’d like to suggest that they may have missed some points of tremendous significance.   Read more

Thomas Cranmer’s ‘True and Catholick Doctrine of the Sacrament’

In 1990, D A Scales wrote a paper for Churchman on Cranmer’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. Church Society has just republished it.

“The doctrine of the Lord’s Supper was not unimportant in Cranmer’s eyes, because that Sacrament speaks of the central doctrines of the Christian faith—of salvation through the atoning death of Christ. It was instituted, in St. Paul’s words, to proclaim the Lord’s death till he come: right views of the death of Christ and right views of the sacrament will tend to go together; false views of the sacrament will tend to obscure an understanding of our salvation through the finished work of Christ…”

See it here – PDF file.

J.C. Ryle on Success, Humility and Ministry

J.C. Ryle, meditating on Luke 10:17-24:

“We learn, from this passage, how ready Christians are to be puffed up with success. It is written, that the seventy returned from their first mission with joy, “saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through your name.” There was much false fire in that joy…”

– read the full quote, posted by Ligon Duncan, at Reformation21.

Related:

“Even though many of his books are still in print, Ryle seems no longer to be in fashion. This is a pity because his kind of teaching is the answer to the superficial atmosphere in which we live, and in which many who call themselves Evangelicals are hardly distinguishable from those who deny the foundation truths of the Gospel.”

– ‘Bishop Ryle and me’ – David Phipps in Cross†Way (PDF file).

‘Why we always lose this debate’

“I’m convinced that we continue to lose the argument about homosexuality and Christianity because the traditionalist almost always makes his case within a conversation that has been framed by the opposing viewpoint. The Christian doesn’t lose the argument at the micro-level. The argument is lost from the beginning because of how the discussion is framed…”

– Trevin Wax, author of Holy Subversion, reflects on an appearance on Larry King Live on CNN last week. (h/t Tim Challies.)

Page CXVI album free download this week

The US-based Christian band Page CXVI has just released a new album of Hymns (called Hymns II) – and to help publicise it, they are making their first album (not surprisingly called Hymns) available as a free download this week.

You can preview their albums before you buy / download. See their website here.

Girls Gone Wise in a World Gone Wild

“This is a wonderful book with amazing insight into the hearts of women (and men!) who feel pressured by today’s ‘wild’ culture – and also deep, spiritual insight into the Bible’s wisdom regarding the beauty of true womanhood as God created it to be.”

—Wayne Grudem on Mary Kassian’s new book, Girls Gone Wise in a World Gone Wild.

More endorsements at Between Two Worlds. Available from Moore Books.

Reaching the unreached

Tim Chester, in Sheffield, writes –

“Last year I ran some posts on the Reaching the Unreached conference organised by the South-East Gospel Partnership at St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, London with a view to raising the profile of mission to the council estates and disadvantages areas in the UK…”

There are also links to last year’s conference audio, and info on this year”s conference. (Melvin Tinkler’s talk is very challenging.)

Singapore: Shadow and Substance

Charles Raven writes on the significance of GSE4 – at SPREAD.

“Although not attended by great fanfare and ceremony, something quite remarkable seems to be happening in Singapore at the fourth Global South to South Encounter. We are seeing the emergence of a global Anglicanism of substance, displacing the shadow Anglicanism of institutional pragmatism.

Institutions which until recently had the appearance of substance – the Anglican Consultative Council, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates meeting and the Archbishop of Canterbury himself – are now taking on an unreal quality as shadows of a discredited past while the GAFCON movement, dismissed by many at its inception in 2008, is turning out to have foreshadowed a fundamental realignment which is now beginning to express itself in new structures…” (more.)

(Note: Charles Raven has updated the text of his commentary slightly on his website.)

Themelios April 2010

Themelios is out and, as usual, is packed with worthwhile articles. The main index is here.

Among the many book reviews are –

Paul Barnett’s review of James D. G. Dunn’s Beginning from Jerusalem, and

Con Campbell’s review of Daniel B. Wallace’s book Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance (“Rarely is a book on Greek syntax enthralling, let alone immensely significant. Daniel Wallace’s new book on the Greek article is both.”).

Mission in your own back yard?

Four Sydney churches say ‘yes’ in this 9 minute mini-documentary from CMS NSW.

(Download it and use it in church! – Sign up to Vimeo and then find the download link on the bottom right of this page.)

Church, mission, evangelism and programs

“… what has become known as the Knox-Robinson doctrine of the church, or the Sydney doctrine of the church, was never just an idiosyncratic expression of Australian anti-authoritarianism. It arose out of the revival of evangelical biblical scholarship following World War II — Alan Stibbs produced some of his material for Tyndale House conferences in Cambridge and Donald Robinson wrote the article on church for the IVF’s landmark New Bible Dictionary.

Nor was it ever exclusively based on a limited word study of the Greek word for ‘church’ in the New Testament, ekklesia (a jibe still thrown about today)…

The current level of confusion, even among some who consider themselves sympathetic to the basic outlines of this exposition of the doctrine, suggests that there is a need for a fresh restatement of it.”

– ACL President Mark Thompson, at Theological Theology, sees many benefits from taking a closer look at the doctrine of the church.

Providence

“If we are uncomfortable with the idea of providence why is that? One reason is because we are influenced by a scientific worldview which can be presented as supporting a mechanistic understanding of the world…”

– David Phillips writes on the importance of a Christian understanding of Providence, in Cross†Way. (PDF file.)

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