Inside the ‘Compelled to Resist’ movement in the Church of England – with Charlie Skrine
“Charlie Skrine, the senior minister of All Souls Langham Place London, says his church (and other evangelical churches in the UK) are in a world of pain at the moment over the growing split in the Church of England.
Mr Skrine, who is speaking at the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion Conference in Sydney, says All Souls is united in its commitment to biblical teaching on sexual ethics, but divided on what the best response should be.
He says a third of All Souls members are wanting to leave the Church of England now, a third want to stay and fight (never leave), and a further third are confused. …”
And do pray for our brothers and sisters in the Church of England as they consider what must be done.
Wanted: First Minister of Scotland. Christians need not apply
“Before announcing that she was withdrawing from the race to be Scotland’s First Minister, Kate Forbes was given a taste of the opposition she would have faced.
Writing in the Times on Tuesday, Edinburgh-based Kenny Farquharson expressed the respectable middle-class progressive liberal view that whoever becomes the next First Minister, it couldn’t be a Bible-believing Christian. …”
– At The Conservative Woman, Dr Campbell Campbell-Jack, a member of the Free Church of Scotland, comments on the war against Christian believers in Scottish public life.
See also –
David Robertson: Persecuting Kate Forbes – A Response to Kenny Farquharson.
“After the demise of Humza Yousaf as Scottish First Minister, with perverse predictability the witch-hunt amongst Scotland’s wokeratti is on again. It’s time for the ‘Anyone but Kate’ campaign. It appears as though having a Muslim First Minister is something to be celebrated. Having a Scottish Christian Presbyterian is something to be feared, sneered at and viciously mocked. …”
Photo via Scottish Parliament.
John Anderson speaks with Albert Mohler on the US election
Thinking about international affairs, culture wars, and US politics with John Anderson and Albert Mohler. Plenty of food for prayer.
The White House declaration of Transgender Day of Visibility backfires
“You can’t make this up. Late last week the White House released a statement from President Biden proclaiming March 31, Easter Sunday, as the 2024 Transgender Day of Visibility. …
An explosion of controversy quickly ensued …”
– Albert Mohler observes that ‘official’ attempts to promote the transgender movement in the US are meeting with resistance.
Bishop Mari Emmanuel forgives his attacker and endorses freedom of speech and religion
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For ANZAC Day, Bishop Mari Emmanuel of Christ the Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley has spoken out in forgiveness and in support of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
Finnish Christian MP to appear before Supreme Court over ‘hate crime’ Bible tweet
“A Christian politician in Finland will be forced to stand trial for the third time, despite twice being vindicated over allegations of ‘hate speech’ for sharing the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality.
In November, judges in Helsinki found ‘no reason’ to overturn an earlier ruling that upheld Dr Päivi Räsänen’s right to free speech. But the country’s Supreme Court is now set to hear the charges against her for expressing biblical sexual ethics in a 2019 tweet and a 2004 pamphlet. …”
– Report from The Christian Institute.
Sorry, but Christianity must be more than just cultural
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“In 2007, the four men who came to be recognised as the leaders of New Atheism – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens – met at Hitchens’s apartment in Washington DC to affirm their alliance and explore together the nature of their respective anti-theisms.
Hitchens, ever the contrarian, voiced two heretical views at the meeting: first, that as religion is so deeply engrained in humans due to their evolutionary trajectory, it is unlikely that it will disappear; two, that it is undesirable that religion should disappear since arguing with religious people sharpens sceptics’ polemical skills. Hitchens later stated to Doug Wilson, his debating partner on the ‘God is not Great’ book tour, that for the rest of his life he would never forget the look of hostile incredulity on Dawkins’s face when he said those two things. …”
– At The Conservative Woman, Peter Harris points out that “it is not enough to defend those Christian-based moral values … by calling ourselves cultural Christians”.
Image from Dawkins’ LBC interview two weeks ago.
Scotland’s Destiny and the Rewriting of History
“Orwell’s 1984 is more and more sounding like a handbook for Western ‘progressive’ society in the UK.
As a small example of this, take the re-opening last week of the £27 million refurbished museum in Perth, Scotland.
A friend of mine went along and was somewhat shocked to find the following. …”
– David Robertson highlights an example of the re-writing of history in Scotland.
The article was first published in Christian Today.
“Equality” bill — NSW Government Survey
From Freedom for Faith:
“The independent Member for Sydney, Alex Greenwich, has introduced his ‘Equality’ bill, which would significantly undermine religious freedom in NSW.
In collaboration with the heads of churches and a wide range of faith groups, Freedom for Faith has coordinated a campaign to call, write and meet with local MPs. We are also directly engaging with the Government and opposition on the future of the bill, and resourcing faith leaders in their advocacy.
The legislation has been referred to a Parliamentary Committee for Inquiry. The first stage is a public survey. We encourage everyone to participate, it will take less than a minute and help the Government understand our objections to this damaging legislation.”
The ‘Equality’ bill is a different piece of legislation from the ‘Conversion Practices’ legislation which passed a couple of weeks ago.
The NSW Legislative Assembly’s Committee on Community Services Survey is open until Sunday 14th April 2024.
Emphasis added.
“I’m a cultural Christian”, says Richard Dawkins
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“ ‘When you give up Christian faith, you pull the rug out from under your right to Christian morality as well. This is anything but obvious: you have to keep driving this point home, English idiots to the contrary.’ (Nietzsche)
Richard Dawkins is now a self professing, ‘cultural Christian’. …”
– What does it mean? Murray Campbell follows some threads. (Dawkins does think that Christian claims about Jesus are ‘nonsense’.)
Here’s the interview. Image: LBC.
If you want to know how and why sex is dividing the church, read this book
“If you want to know how and why sex is dividing the church, read this book.
It begins by showing how sexual identity has become the beating heart of how most Westerners understand themselves and their place in our world. This helps explain why our culture has clashed with the traditional teaching of the church on sex.
Yet, not all Christians agree on how to respond to this strange new world …”
– At SydneyAnglicans.net, Jodie McNeill highlights a new book by Mark Durie in Melbourne.
Read more – and see where you can get the book – at Mark Durie’s blog on Substack –
“The focus is on Australian churches, but the principles are the same all over. This book is about several things. It’s about what it means to be human. It’s about how churches are structured and how they can divide. It about combatting religious illiteracy. It’s about the law and freedom of religion. It’s about the future of Christianity.”
The Sexular Age never sleeps: Here are its four stages so far
“Like rust, The Sexular Age, never sleeps.
Inching forward with cancerous intent, it has only one intention: To so completely hollow out the vision of humanity that is drawn from the biblical framework, that no one would believe such a framework possible.
The Sexular Age creeps forward, inch by inch, sometimes faster, sometimes slower. But always moving forward. Stages come and are cemented in place. And then the next stage begins.
Let’s map out those stages in four parts, and – not surprisingly – all four have been publicly demonstrated in that one arena of life that for many Westerners is their true religion: Sport. …”
– Stephen McAlpine takes a look at one front in the Sexular Age wars.
Scotland’s New Hate Crime Law is no Laughing Matter
“Most people and hopefully all Christians would agree that hate is bad. So, at a superficial level, it would seem that we should all be rejoicing at a Scottish government bill which bans hate. But as is so often the case in the world, things are not quite what they seem and words have different meanings.
None more so than in The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, passed three years ago. It was the brainchild of the then justice secretary for the Scottish government, Humza Yousaf. Yousaf is now the Scottish First Minister and his bill is about to become law on April 1st.
Sadly it is no joke – other than to make Scotland a laughing stock throughout the world. It is one of the most draconian, authoritarian measures passed by a democratic government in recent times – and it has profound implications for the Church. …”
– David Robertson at The Wee Flea re-posts an article he wrote for Christian Today.
Challenges to Religious Freedom: Conversion Practices law passed, ALRC report released
From Neil Foster at Law and Religion Australia:
“A brief update on two significant challenges to religious freedom which have emerged over the last few days.
First, in NSW, the Conversion Practices Ban Bill 2024 has been rushed through both Houses of Parliament, receiving final approval on Friday March 22 after an all-night debate in the Legislative Council, and is now awaiting the Royal Assent.
…
The second concerning development is that on Wednesday 21 March the Australian Law Reform Commission released its report Maximising the Realisation of Human Rights: Religious Educational Institutions and Anti-Discrimination Laws (ALRC Report 142). Far from “maximising” human rights, the report (as expected by those who spoke to some of its researchers) would have the effect, if adopted, of seriously impairing the operation of faith-based schools around Australia.”
– Read here.
Related:
Response to the Australia Law Reform Commission report on Religious Educational Institutions – Media Release from the Diocese of Sydney, 21 March 2023 –
“The ALRC deserves a fail for the report and recommendations produced.
We are deeply disappointed that the recommendations fail to understand the ethos of faith-based schooling and would, if implemented, significantly impair schools’ ability to carry out their charter. …”
Federal ALRC Report Released – Freedom for Faith, 22 March 2024,
“On Thursday 21 March, the Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus tabled the final Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) Report following their Inquiry into Religious Educational Institutions and Anti-Discrimination Laws (see below).
On Tuesday 19 March, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was reported saying that he would not act on the ALRC report or a Religious Discrimination Bill without bipartisan support.
A draft of the Religious Discrimination Bill has been shown to the Opposition and key faith leaders, but is not public. …”
NSW Conversion Practices Bill — risks to religious freedom
“The NSW government has introduced a Conversion Practices Ban Bill 2024 into the Parliament, with the apparent aim of moving it through very quickly. Legislation of this sort has been introduced in other jurisdictions around Australia and elsewhere.
The aim of banning oppressive and violent practices designed to ‘convert’ someone’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual is good, of course. But those practices, while they may have existed some time ago, are really no longer around. The problem with these laws now is that their drafting can be so broad that they interfere with the ordinary teaching of religious doctrines and life within families.
These laws are also often premised on the assumption that ‘gender transition’ is a good thing which should be freely available to children, whether or not with parental permission. They raise important issues of concern to all those interested in the welfare of children, whether or not from a religious perspective.
But laws of this sort can in particular have significant implications for religious freedom.…”
– At Law and Religion Australia, Associate Professor Neil Foster highlights important ways the proposed legislation can be greatly improved.
Do read the full article, and – since the legislation is likely to be debated today – urgently contact your Member of Parliament if you desire.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…