Review: The Air We Breathe by Glen Scrivener

“The western world’s relationship to the Christian faith is like a celebrity marriage—complicated.

At one level, our culture’s rejection of its ancestral faith has never been so enthusiastic, so complete, so aggressive. It looks, for all intents and purposes, like a divorce of the acrimonious variety. And yet, our world remains so deeply Christian. We continue to use the convictions, the thought-forms, and even the metaphysics of the faith we are so keen to reject. …

Enter Glen Scrivener’s new book, The Air We Breathe. In it, Scrivener provides a compelling, well-researched, and confident account of the West’s debt to Christianity and to Christ.”

– At The Gospel Coalition Australia, Rory Shiner provides a brief and encouraging review of a new book by Glen Scrivener.

Image: Glen Scrivener at Speak Life.

The book is available from The Wandering Bookseller.

A good minister — 1 Timothy 4:6-16

ACL Council member and Moore College lecturer Lionel Windsor spoke on 1 Timothy 4:6-16 in Moore College Chapel last week.

He began by speaking one of faithful minister who was recently called home – Neil Prott.

Outline:

Unborn babies have taken another battering in Victoria today

Here’s a media release from The Australian Christian Lobby, 24 May 2022 –

“Commenting on Bernie Finn’s expulsion from the Victorian Liberal Party today, the Australian Christian Lobby’s (ACL) National Director, Wendy Francis, said,

“Abortions are only going to increase whilst pro-life speech is regarded as disrespectful, particularly when it applies to politicians who have the capacity to vote and change laws on life issues. Media reports indicate that Bernie Finn’s commitment to ‘pray for an end to abortion’ was the final straw for the Party who voted to expel him from their ranks today.”

Whilst, sadly, pro-life speech such as this will always sound disrespectful to those that don’t want to hear it, advocating for the child in the womb is perfectly respectful. It’s encouraging to witness  a new, young, pro-life generation rising up around the globe.

“The Liberal Party of Victoria has seriously underestimated the impact this move has had on their pro-life conservative base,” Ms Francis continued. “It will be a tough journey for them to regain their confidence in the leadup to the State election in November.

“Freedom of thought, worship, speech and association are basic tenets of the Liberal Party of Australia. And yet, today, a democratically elected member has been expelled from the Liberal Party of Victoria for exercising these very rights.”

How this Christian is responding to the Federal Election

“Regardless of how one may feel about the election result and who your local MP is or isn’t, there is a Scripture that remains compulsory for all Christians. And it is this,

‘I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— 2 for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 3 This is good, and pleases God our Saviour, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.’ (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

I was reminded of this timeless word by Justin Moffatt, the Senior Minister at Church Hill in Sydney. He said,

‘One of the things I like about the prayers in the Anglican Prayer Book is that we always pray for the government of the day, and we pray the same thing no matter who governs.

It moves effortlessly from one to the next, as though the problem of the world isn’t government, and the hope of the world were found elsewhere.’…”

– Murray Campbell in Melbourne points us to the Christian duty to pray for our leaders.

Also relating to the Federal election –

“The media’s obsession with crucifying Scomo” – James Macpherson, Spectator Australia.

Scott Morrison reads from the Scriptures at Horizon Church, Sutherland, 22nd May 2022.

Humility, ambition and leadership — with Paul Harrington

From The Pastor’s Heart:

“How does humility drive ambition? How can you be ambitious, having a right ambition, not for ourselves, but an ambition to magnify Jesus.

Paul Harrington leads the Trinity network of churches in Adelaide, South Australia. …”

Watch or listen here.

Why is Canada euthanising the poor?

“Since last year, Canadian law, in all its majesty, has allowed both the rich as well as the poor to kill themselves if they are too poor to continue living with dignity. In fact, the ever-generous Canadian state will even pay for their deaths. What it will not do is spend money to allow them to live instead of killing themselves.

As with most slippery slopes, it all began with a strongly worded denial that it exists. …

Even before Bill C-7 was enacted, reports of abuse were rife. A man with a neurodegenerative disease testified to Parliament that nurses and a medical ethicist at a hospital tried to coerce him into killing himself by threatening to bankrupt him with extra costs or by kicking him out of the hospital, and by withholding water from him for 20 days.”

– Yuan Yi Zhu in Oxford writes in The Spectator (UK online edition) about the situation in Canada – which will get worse when changes come in 2023..

Election survey probes parties on faith freedom

“A survey of political parties and candidates on their attitude to religious discrimination has revealed varying levels of support – and in some cases, no support – for measures to ensure religious freedom. …”

– Russell Powell at SydneyAnglicans.net writes about the religiousdiscriminationsurvey.au website.

Related:

The Australian Christian Lobby (not associated with the Anglican Church League – we just have the same initials) has produced a page of “various documents and videos to help you make an informed choice on Election Day”, including this page where they share the answers given to their questionnaire in each electorate as well as each candidate for the Senate.

And not forgetting the call to pray –

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” – 1 Timothy 2:1-6.

Adultery of the heart

“Judgement is not just for the last day. God also judges now. There are contemporary consequences for misplaced sexual desire. For example, when God hands people over to their shameful lusts and sinful desires in Romans 1:24,26, one of those consequences is the increased engagement in sexually immoral physical behaviour. God gives people what they want, which is the punishment. …

We have to stop and listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 5:28, because he takes a blowtorch to our world’s hypersexualised values.”

– Marshall Ballantine-Jones writes at SydneyAnglicans.net (it’s also in the current Southern Cross magazine).

Image: SydneyAnglicans.net

Southern Cross May-June 2022 now out

The May-June 2022 issue of Southern Cross (the magazine of the Diocese of Sydney) will be available in churches this week.

You can also download a PDF version here.

Southern Cross will now be published by Anglican Media Sydney every six weeks.

Lots of encouraging reading.

Processing disappointment in ministry

“How do we process disappointment in ministry? Personally as leaders and with our people?

What about when the church plant fails? Hans Kristensen planted Resolved Church in Newtown, and six years later closed it down.

If we try lots of things, many of them will fail.  But how do we know when to call time? And what part does ego play in all of this?”

– Watch or listen here.

Navigating change management in church – with Raj Gupta

From this week’s The Pastor’s Heart:

“How to navigate change management in church?

We want and need to make changes in our churches. But there are so many war stories of ‘church change resistance,’ where well meaning ministers have had relationships blow up in their faces when they attempted to bring about needed change.

Raj Gupta is the senior minister of St Paul’s in Carlingford in Sydney and a director with Moore College’s Center for Ministry Development and has insights for churches based on John Kotter’s Change Management Framework.”

– Watch or listen here.

How do we read the Bible differently as Followers of Jesus?

“The Christian attitude toward the Bible is part of Christian discipleship. To follow Jesus is to follow him in this too. Put simply, we want to have the same attitude toward the Bible as Jesus had.

We must not pit the authority of Jesus—or the power of the Holy Spirit, for that matter—against the teaching of Scripture. Jesus himself turned to the Scriptures as the final word: sufficiently clear, true, and powerful to make known the person and purposes of God, and to direct a faithful response to what God has done for us in his Son. ‘It is written,’ Jesus said. ‘What does the Scripture say?’ asked his faithful servant, the apostle Paul.…”

– Crossway has published this encouraging article by Moore College Principal Dr Mark Thompson.

It’s adapted from his just-released book, “The Doctrine of Scripture: An Introduction”. (It’s available to order from these booksellers.)

Freedom22 – National Conference 2022

It’s just a week to the Freedom for Faith: Freedom22 Conference in Parramatta:

“Religious Freedom in Australia has reached a crisis point.

The promised protections in the Federal Religious Discrimination Bill have been put on hold, and new State laws have removed several religious freedom rights from faith communities.

These new issues include unprecedented intrusions into prayer, unsympathetic treatment of conscience exemptions, reduced employment rights for religious schools, and a troubling surge in discrimination cases against Jewish, Muslim and other minority faith groups.

Will there be room for authentic expression of faith in Australia’s future?

Register for the Freedom22 National Conference on May 3 at Parramatta’s Park Royal Hotel to hear our distinguished speakers explain the content and consequences of these laws, as well as how we arrived at this cultural moment.

The Freedom22 speakers are:

Book via the Freedom for Faith website.

General Synod and comprehensive Anglicanism

“Some believe that the scriptures are quite clear in their condemnation of same-sex sexual activity and that the Church has no authority to act contrary to the clear teaching of the scriptures. Therefore marriage, in their understanding, must continue to be exclusively between one man and one woman, to the exclusion of all others, for life.

Others believe that what’s at stake here is an important matter of justice and that LGBTI people should be fully included in the life of the Church and allowed to express their sexuality through life-long, faithful, monogamous relationships just as heterosexual people do. Other parts of the scriptures are cited in support of this view.

…

In Southern Queensland we have set as a key focus area promoting ‘comprehensive Anglican identity and purpose.’

This approach recognises that there will be different convictions, understandings and priorities among Anglicans. And it is likely that each of these perspectives includes insights into the truth.

This means that in order to comprehend the whole truth we need these various insights and perspectives to be present and engaged. …”

– Archbishop of Brisbane Dr Phillip Aspinall writes about the upcoming General Synod to be held next month on the Gold Coast – and the range of theological convictions on the question of the blessing of same-sex marriages.

How ‘comprehensive’ can Anglicans be? Worth considering:

From Article 20 of The Thirty Nine Articles:

“… it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree any thing against the same…”

Photo: Anglican Focus.

Tasmania Celebration with Will Graham — May 2022

From the Diocese of Tasmania –

“The Tasmania Celebration with Will Graham is coming up in Hobart on 21 May and in Launceston from 27-29 May 2022.

Since 1950, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has held Crusades all across the globe for one purpose: to proclaim God’s love to people who need Jesus Christ. Today, Will Graham Celebrations continue this life-changing mission. …”

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