‘But I saw it on TV’

Here’s a disturbing report on how the mainstream US media reported a large anti-abortion demonstration in Washington two weeks ago.

From LifeSiteNews. (h/t Anglican Mainstream.)

Sovereign Grace music sale

Sovereign Grace music and books are at reduced prices during February. Of particular interest to Australian readers will be the mp3 album downloads.

Details at Bob Kauflin’s Worship Mattters.

Desiring God Conference for Pastors 2010

The Desiring God Conference for Pastors is currently taking place in Minnesota and as talks are given, audio and video is being made available online.

Here’s John Piper’s invitation to the conference, and the notes on the pre-conference seminar by Paul Tripp are challenging and well worth reading (1, 2).

Engaging with Liberalism

“But within the local church liberalism can be pervasive not because it enters via the pulpits, but via public worship—a softening of the mind and a lowering of the defences through the songs sung, the prayers prayed and the liturgies used. …

It is nearly eighty years since our forebears fought to ensure that the 1928 Prayer Book would not be accepted into the Church of England. Compared to Common Worship*, that book appears to be a compendium of soundness! The ex opere operato view which is pretty well explicit in the baptism service is simply astonishing. This is where at the Synod level evangelicals need to resist such trends and at the parish level refuse to capitulate.”

– Melvin Tinkler points out the bankruptcy of liberalism and offers advice on how to resist it. His 2008 article from Churchman has just been republished by Church Society (PDF file).

* Common Worship is in wide use in the Church of England.

Hitchens explains the gospel

Earlier this month the Portland Monthly in Oregon, published the transcript of an interview with atheist Christopher Hitchens. He spoke with Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell.

One of them rejects Jesus, the other wants Jesus but without ‘all that stuff’ –

Sewell: “When you speak of ‘religion’ in your book God is Not Great it seems to me that you’re generally referring to the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the Scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of Atonement – that Jesus died for our sins, for example. Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?”

Hitchens: “Well, only in this respect: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ – in other words, the Messiah – and that he rose again from the dead and that by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you are really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”

The transcript on the website has been fairly heavily edited and leaves out an exchange immediately following the above. Sewell says she believes…   Read more

Connecting the Mind and the Tongue

“I want to go on record at this point as saying that I understand the attraction of Rome: the sheer mass of the organization (if you’ll pardon the pun); the overwhelming aesthetics; the desirability of belonging to such an august and ancient institution which knows what it is, where it comes from, and where it is going; and the cornucopia of brilliant intellects that have debated, refined, and articulated its confession over the centuries.  All that I understand; all that I find attractive; all that I find superior to what evangelical Protestantism has to offer, particularly in its crassest megachurch and emergent varieties.”

– Carl Trueman contributes “Reflections on Rome Part 1: Connecting the Mind and the Tongue” at Reformation 21. As always, provocative and worth reading.

Al Mohler on The Shack (again)

Albert Mohler has again written about The Shack, with good reason. Here’s the punchline –

“The popularity of this book among evangelicals can only be explained by a lack of basic theological knowledge among us — a failure even to understand the Gospel of Christ. The tragedy that evangelicals have lost the art of biblical discernment must be traced to a disastrous loss of biblical knowledge. Discernment cannot survive without doctrine.”

Read it all here.

Related: More Catechesis, please.

Matt Kennedy on ‘Leaving home’ (part 1)

This time last year, Matt Kennedy and his congregation at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Binghamton, New York, lost their property to the Diocese of Central New York. Matt tells the story of what happened next — at Stand Firm.

(Screenshot from WBNG News, NY.)

Carson on theological study for God’s glory

Don Carson was interviewed last year on studying theology for the glory of God — by Mike Reeves at The Theology Network in the UK. The interview runs for 34 minutes.

Worth hearing – especially if you are considering theological training and wondering where to study.

Gerald Bray on the 39 Articles

ACL President Mark Thompson is encouraged at the new attention being given to the Articles –

“Gerald Bray has provided a brilliant resource for the study of authentic, biblical and evangelical, Anglicanism. His recently published study of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Faith we Confess: An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles (London: Latimer Trust, 2009) should be included on the reading lists of every Anglican theological college.”

(Articles? What Articles? You’ll find them at the back of the Prayer Book – and here.)

Order your copy of the book – or read the Introduction – from Latimer Trust.

Bishop John Harrower on ‘anger at happy clappers’

“A front page article in our State’s major newspaper today illustrates some of the challenges of following Jesus in today’s Tasmania. Newspaper article here, Anger at ‘happy clappers’.”

– Bishop of Tasmania John Harrower on the challenge of making Christ known in Tassie.

(This is a good reminder to uphold in prayer Bishop Harrower, and all who belong to Christ in Tasmania.)

Sermon preparation help

At his Gospel Coalition blog, Kevin DeYoung has been sharing some helpful thoughts on sermon preparation. Part 1, Part 2.

Church statistics: not many dead

“Still, it is worth remembering, as one looks at these dull graphs, that there are on any Sunday at least 100 people in an Anglican church for every member of the National Secular Society.”

– At The Guardian, Andrew Brown tries to put in perspective the latest figures form the Church of England.

The Wonder of Words

“Put simply, then, the question of the importance of words to the Christian church is a question of theology, not methodology: to marginalise preaching in our church life and outreach is to marginalise words; and to marginalise words will inevitably involve marginalising the Word himself.”

– Thabiti Anyabwile quotes from Carl Trueman as he ponders the wonder of how God speaks to us.

Related: Propositional Revelation, the Only Revelation – by D.B. Knox.

Ignorance or historical censorship?

“In teaching about William Cowper to groups of people under the age of 30, I have tried to place him in his historical context.

To my amazement, I have discovered an almost complete lack of knowledge of colonial history.

The names and events of governors Arthur, Bligh or Macquarie, or issues like emancipation, or the exploration of the continent – the crossing of the Blue Mountains, the inland explorers or the journeys of Matthew Flinders – or even the gold rushes, were basically unknown…”

– Phillip Jensen writes about the importance of history. (Also at SydneyAnglicans.net)

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