Theology in the Margins – Donald Robinson Library Lecture with Mark Earngey

A fascinating and fun Donald Robinson Library Lecture from Moore College a few weeks ago:

“In Theology in the Margins, Mark Earngey, Head of Church History, will be considering how the notes and drawings in the margins of the personal Bibles of the English Reformers can encourage us today to grow our understanding and outworking of God’s word.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s prayer for the second Sunday in Advent asks God to help us read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the holy Scriptures.

Christians today may be familiar with reading the Bible and learning from God’s Word. But what was the significance of physically marking God’s Word?

This lecture will illuminate how and why some of the English Reformers engaged with their own personal Bibles and will draw some conclusions for modern readers of the Bible who may want to learn from the models provided by our sixteenth-century forebears.”

– Watch and be encouraged.

A Light on the Hill

“I love a good biography. It’s always fascinating and often inspiring to read the account of a life of special significance. Yet for all the biographies I’ve read, A Light on the Hill may be the first whose subject was not a person but a church. It surprised me what a blessing it was to read about that church and to see how God has seen fit to bless, preserve, and use it for so many years.

In late 1867, Celestia Anne Ferris, a young member of E Street Baptist Church in Washington, called her friends together to pray for the establishment of a church on Capitol Hill. Only a few people were present that evening and their specific prayers were not recorded, but it did not take long for God to begin to answer them. …”

– Tim Challies reviews a book about Capitol Hill Baptist Church.

Photo: The U.S. Capitol in Washington.

Anglican Mainstream survives “deplatforming attempt”

“A UK Christian charity is urging all charity trustees to urgently risk assess their ‘cyber vulnerability’ after an unsubstantiated attack on their ministry caused Go Daddy, their cyber host, to unilaterally ‘terminate’ their website leading to loss of income and restrictions on ministry.

Anglican Mainstream (AM), a leading Anglican online news service, was informed on February 28 that Go Daddy had received one general complaint about ‘potential breach of copyright’ after it had uploaded links to news articles for educational purposes. …

Go Daddy also informed AM that hundreds of posts that they had hosted over the years had been destroyed – thereby denying AM’s lawyers any opportunity to counterclaim any copyright breach or, to present a legal defence. …”

– This news via Anglican.ink is a reminder of the era in which Christian organisations operate.

Our suggestions for Christian website owners:

This story also a reminder of the value of having a regular backup of all your data which is independent of your hosting provider. (If your backup is with your hosting provider, and they cancel your account, you lose website and backup.)

While the Internet Archive’s WayBack Machine has been saving copies of Anglican Mainstream since 2014, resurrecting a site from that data would be a huge task.

For websites (like the ACL) using WordPress, there are many plugins which will allow you to save complete copies of the database and all files to your own computer or to your cloud storage. One such plugin is Updraft Plus – the premium version of which allows for backups and easy restoring of a website if something goes wrong, or migration to a new hosting company.

If your website is important to you or your organisation, do consider such a plugin.

“We can have confidence as we read these accounts” — Easter message from Tyndale House

Peter Williams, Principal of Tyndale House in Cambridge, shares this Easter message.

Are we post Christian or post Secular? – with Mark McCrindle

From The Pastor’s Heart:

“The new McCrindle report ‘An undercurrent of faith’ says:

Founder and Principal of McCrindle research, Mark McCrindle, says his report shows a new search for purpose and meaning and asks is ‘Australia Post Christian or are we now Post Secular?’

Plus we compare the findings of the national McCrindle report with the recent Sydney Anglican report on Church attendance.”

– Watch or listen here.

The Problem of Sextortion: A Message for Parents and Pastors of Teenage Boys and Young Men

A special edition of Albert Mohler’s The Briefing:

“It’s a special edition of The Briefing for the parents of teenage boys and young men. Not only parents, but the pastors and youth pastors and those who are directly concerned with teenage boys and young men. And this is going to be material I wouldn’t discuss in the way I’m going to discuss it today, in the normal edition of The Briefing.

This is a privileged conversation, but it’s an urgent conversation for the parents of teenage boys and young men, and others ministering to them and who love them, and it’s that love and concern for them that leads to this special edition today. It’s about the problem of sextortion. …”

– Watch, listen, or read the transcript here.

The Best Friday

From Phillip Jensen:

“Holidays are always marvellous opportunities to relax and catch up with friends, but the Easter holiday is even better because it gives us time to think about the greatest weekend in human history: when our Lord and Saviour died and rose again. The death of Jesus was so great that I would call Friday not just good, but the best Friday.”

– Hear Phillip and Peter Jensen in the latest Two Ways News podcast. Well worth listening and sharing.

Conversion Act protest needs to be targeted carefully

“NSW has now joined Victoria in having a Conversion Act come into operation that bans some forms of Christian ministry. The Conversion Practices Ban Act 2024 No 19 aims to “aims to “ban practices directed to changing or suppressing the sexual orientation or gender identity of individuals”,” and created a civil penalties scheme.

Victoria’s act goes further than the NSW one. Despite the NSW Premier Minn’s promise not to ban prayer, certain types of prayer are now against the law in NSW following Victoria. The Other Cheek reported the then-opposition-leader’s promise: “Labor’s Chris Minns promises no ban on preaching, prayer in conversion therapy bill.“

But the prayer promise was not kept. Prayer with an LGBTQIA individual with the aim for them to be celibate or change orientation is clearly defined as illegal in the NSW Act. In the case of sustained prayer, definitely so. …”

– John Sandeman at The Other Cheek adds more on the ‘Conversion Act’ in NSW.

Using Artificial Intelligence

“The [British] Prime Minister said recently that ‘Artificial Intelligence will drive incredible change in our country’ and that he wants to ‘turbocharge’ the industry and make Britain a world leader in this area.

Growth in this arena has really taken off and caught the public imagination in the last few years, and naturally that has led many Christians to be curious and ask questions about it.

So I decided to dig into AI, and did a bit of training…”

– At Church Society’s blog, Lee Gatiss looks at AI.

The Image of God Reconsidered — Two Ways News podcast

From Phillip Jensen:

“One of the most profound and widely quoted verses of the Bible is the creation of Man in the image of God. So, this week Peter and I went exploring some of its implications. It is such a fruitful concept by which to understand humanity, not the least because in the New Testament we find Jesus is “the image of the invisible God”. But before we get there, we need to understand how we are as individuals, male and female, in the image of God as well as how humanity, as a whole, is in his image.

There’s so much fruitful discussion to be had on this passage, we hope our conversation will stimulate yours. …”

– Listen (or read the transcript) here.

The seed that will bear fruit has been planted

“At the turning point in John’s Gospel, Jesus makes a seemingly obscure reference to his death. As we get ready to celebrate Easter, let’s take a moment now to explore a powerful yet often overlooked verse to see in a fresh way what Jesus endured and the life he has won for us.

The moment comes in John 12, when some Greeks visit Jesus shortly after his triumphal entry to Jerusalem. …”

– Callan Pritchard writes at The Australian Church Record in the lead up to Easter.

Marshall Ballantine-Jones: Pastors helping parents to talk to teens on social media, the internet and porn

From The Pastor’s Heart:

“The addictive nature of social media, the mental health impact on teens, distorted identity and comparison, the way the attention economy undermines discipleship.

Parents (and pastors) so often feel out of their depth.

Marshall Ballantine-Jones created the Digihelp school curriculum addressing sexualised media, and the Resist Recovery Program.”

– Watch or listen here – with links.

Pastoral Care that Commends the Gospel, with Sarah Condie

A Gospel Coalition Australia podcast with Jonathan Holt:

“One key part of the ministry we share as the body of Christ is the pastoral care we extend one another. In this episode we are joined by Sarah Condie to talk about how our pastoral care might commend the good news of Jesus.

How do we fulfill the many one-another verses in the New Testament, especially when we often feel burdened with our own concerns, or very aware of our own limitations.

Sarah works with her husband Keith, for Anglican Deaconess Ministries, at the Mental Health and Pastoral Care Institute.”

– Most encouraging. Photo: Keith and Sarah Condie.

Thoughts on Preaching on Good Friday

“The Easter season should be the high point on our church calendars- what an absolute privilege to focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus, the very heart of the gospel message.

Most of our practice during the easter season, would be a lead up to Easter for perhaps 1-2 weeks, then Good Friday, on to Easter (Resurrection) Sunday.

Regarding our preaching specifically on Good Friday, Ive been thinking of a few things, I’d like to share. …”

– Jim Mobbs writes at The Expository Preaching Trust.

The Lioness, the Witch and the Wardrobe

“If Narnia was only fiction, I suspect many would muttter but put up with screwing up a great story. But as we know, C.S. Lewis was doing something more with these books; Narnia is a work of allegory. Narnia is theology through story…”

– Murray Campbell responds to reports that Netflix is in discussions with Meryl Streep about playing the role of Aslan in The Magician’s Nephew.

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