No Truth without Love, No Love without Truth
“The church’s engagement with the culture involves a host of issues, controversies, and decisions — but no issue defines our current cultural crisis as clearly as homosexuality. Some churches and denominations have capitulated to the demands of the homosexual rights movement, and now accept homosexuality as a fully valid lifestyle. Other denominations are tottering on the brink, and without a massive conservative resistance, they are almost certain to abandon biblical truth and bless what the Bible condemns.…”
– Albert Mohler challenges in his blog.
GAFCON – Game Over or New Game?
John Richardson writes on the lack of media interest in the GAFCON Primates’ announcement of their recognition of the new Anglican Province of North America –
“Some have read this as indicating that GAFCON is washed up. Personally, I believe it is rather because the national press now recognise there is no story in the division of the Anglican Communion — not because the Communion has survived the pressures of recent years but because it quite evidently has not. As a headline, ‘Anglican Communion Faces Split’ is now entirely on a par with ‘Dog Bites Man’.”
New province is a sad reflection on Canterbury & co
“Last week the GAFCON Primates met in London to deliberate on a number of significant issues. However, the most far reaching of their decisions was to recognise the new Province of the Anglican Church in North America. … However, none of the so-called Instruments of Communion have been involved in the formation of this new province in North America.”
– Bishop of North Sydney, Glenn Davies, writes at SydneyAnglicans.net.
(Photo of Glenn on the Mount of Olives by Russell Powell.)
Some thoughts on Discipleship
Bishop Peter Brain contributed these challenging quotes in The Link – the magazine of the Diocese of Armidale –
JESUS said:
– “Go and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19)
– “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” (Luke 9:23-2)
– “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is near.” (Matthew 4:17)
– “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
– “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
What follows are some words of Christians over the years that might challenge and encourage you on the discipleship path. Read more
Watch The Gospel Coalition Conference live
The Gospel Coalition‘s 2009 National Conference in Chicago begins tomorrow (Wednesday) morning Australian time – and video of the main sessions will be streamed live on the web.
Chicago is 15 hours behind Sydney, so, for example, John Piper’s address at 4:00pm CDT can be seen live at 7:00am Wednesday in Sydney. To watch Don Carson’s closing address, you’d need to tune in at 2:00am Sydney time on Thursday. (Or hope for a replay!) Details here.
Re-imagining God in the Shack
“It was at a Maundy Thursday service at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, in 1984, that a four-foot bronze statue of Jesus on the cross was unveiled. But to the shock of the congregation, the image of Christ on the cross was, in fact, an image of Christa. It portrayed Christ as a woman, complete with undraped breasts and rounded hips. …”
– Mary Kassian, well known to Sydney Anglicans from her visits in the 90s, adds her concerns about The Shack. At Girls Gone Wise. (h/t/ Tim Challies)
No cheap grace
John Piper:
“Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a gift to my generation of students. I pray that his costly message will be rediscovered in each generation. …
Bonhoeffer’s book was a massive indictment of the “cheap grace” that he saw in the Christian Church on both sides of the Atlantic. He believed in justification by grace through faith. But he did not believe that the faith that justifies could ever leave people unchanged by the radical Christ they claim to believe. That was a cheap response to the Gospel. …”
– From Chapter 4 of John Piper’s book “Don’t Waste Your Life”.
Available online in PDF format and for the iPhone.
(And, while you’re at it, listen to this challenging message.)
Resources for Bible teachers
The Proclamation Trust recently made available more audio resources – sermons and lectures – as an aid and encouragement for those whose ministry is to open God’s word for others.
See what’s available (much of it without charge) at the Proclamation Trust media website.
April 2009 Australian Church Record online
Latest issue of The Australian Church Record is now online – at the Church Record website. Included in this issue are some interesting nuggets of information recently discovered about the first Chaplain to Botany Bay, the Rev. Richard Johnson.
Issue number 1896 of The Australian Church Record is available as a 700kb PDF download.
Resurrection and Reality
“The secular world has done its best to make a mess of Christmas, but it has largely ignored our celebration of the Resurrection. Where commercialism intrudes, it comes in the forms of eggs and chicks and rabbits — none of which claim any connection with the Resurrection. The fact is, the secular world will attempt to domesticate, commercialize, and tame the babe in the manger — but it will run at breakneck speed from the cross and the empty tomb…”
– Al Mohler on the centrality of the Resurrection. (Photo: Together for the Gospel.)
Leon Morris on worship
“In some quarters today there is a suspicion of doctrine. Men think that religious experience is all-important and put their stress on “the life of the Spirit”. Theologians are held to be dry-as-dust fellows who do their best to fossilize living religion…”
– Forty seven years ago, Churchman published this article on “Christian Worship”, by Leon Morris.
It’s now republished on the web in PDF format (direct link).
A Conversation with Death on Good Friday
Hello, Death, my old enemy. My old slave-master. Have you come to talk to me again? To frighten me?
I am not the person you think I am. I am not the one you used to talk to. Something has happened. …
– from John Piper.
Shadow Gospel: Revelation in the Theology of Rowan Williams
“it is … vital for the GAFCON movement to have a clear understanding of the Archbishop’s theological commitments. His refusal to exercise effective discipline in the aftermath of Gene Robinson’s consecration as the first actively and openly homosexual bishop in the Anglican Communion led directly to the formation of GAFCON.
Was this simply weakness, or did it stem from theological convictions? Could it possibly still be right for the GAFCON Primates to seek to work with Rowan Williams and the Windsor Covenant process, encouraging him to use his powers through the instruments of unity for the reform of the Communion? Or is that hope now futile…”
– Charles Raven at SPREAD asks why it is so difficult to pin down what the Archbishop of Canterbury really believes. Worth reading.
(Photo of Archbishop Rowan Williams in Alexandria: ACNS.)
The Empty Tomb and the Emptied Urn
“While speaking of the Christian belief in the resurrection of the flesh, I called my hearers to reconsider what their funeral plans testified about their hope for the future. I reiterated a position — long-held in the history of the church — that burial, not cremation, best pictures the imagery of death as a sleep from which one is awakened at the last trumpet.…”
– Russell Moore, Dean of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, writes at Christianity Today.
Peter Jensen’s Easter message 2009
Archbishop Peter Jensen’s 2009 Easter Message
We are a bit short of hope today.
People are asking, what is there to look forward to?
The good times are over and we fear the future.
Poor President Obama was described in one headline as ‘the hope of the world’.
But we only ever had one Messiah that good.
And it’s a bit hard to live up to Jesus.
Australia used to be such a hopeful nation.
What’s come over us?
Well it’s hard to go past the fears we all feel about the Global recession.
In the midst of the pain many of us are feeling, we need help and we need hope.
Hope keeps you going.
Try to live without hope and you may as well be in your grave already.
Now the funny thing about real hope is this — it was born in a grave.
They consigned Jesus Christ to his grave after they did away with him.
They sealed the grave.
They set soldiers to watch the grave.
But it was no use.
He broke the power of death and came out of the grave to show us that it can be done.
After all, what is the end?
What’s the worst thing?
To die.
To die without having made peace with God.
To die and to pass into eternity with no one to be a friend.
That’s hell.
But no-one has to do that.
There is someone who died for you and who passed through death for you.
When it comes to your present and your future, when it comes even to death and
judgement, Jesus will stand by you, stand for you, stand with you.
Do you want to connect with Him?
You only have to ask.
Dr Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…