General Synod calls on MPs to oppose euthanasia

“The General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia has reaffirmed its principled opposition to euthanasia or physician assisted suicide.

The strong statement came as the NSW Parliament considers a Bill to allow for such a practice. …”

– Story from Russell Powell at SydneyAnglicans.net.

(Photo: James Levingston via SydneyAnglicans.net.)

Anglican General Synod votes ‘yes’ & in so doing discredits controversial Victorian Law

“While the bishops’ decision to block the motion on marriage is grievous, other and related issues have been discussed and decided, and these have ramifications beyond what the General Synod may realise.

Two motions have been adopted by an overwhelming majority.  …

What makes these two motions interesting is that their application in the State of Victoria is illegal.”

– Murray Campbell watches the developments at General Synod from the State of Victoria.

Waiter, can I get some more ‘Anglican’ in this activism?

“In what sense is an Anglican school that rejects Anglican teaching in order to keep non-Anglican families happy still an Anglican school?

That’s the question Sydney Anglicans are wrestling with as opposition to Christian teaching on sexuality and gender grows.…”

– James Macpherson at The Spectator Australia responds to reported comments in a recent Sydney Morning Herald article. (Subscription, but several free views allowed for non-subscribers.)

Image: A sketch of Richard Johnson’s schoolhouse in Sydney.

Bishop Julian Dobbs on when Doctrine goes Bad

“I’ve been this week at the conference of the Anglican Diocese of the Living Word (ACNA), led by Bishop Julian Dobbs.

The bishop gave his annual address on Friday morning, and … Lord have mercy, if only ten percent of bishops and pastors talked like this man, we would be living in a different country. I present to you here the entire text…

Imagine a bishop talking like this! Catholics and Orthodox can scarcely wrap our minds around it. I asked the diocesan communications director to send me the text, which was so extraordinary. Here it is…”

– At The American Conservative, US conservative writer Rod Dreher shares his gratitude at hearing an address by Bishop Julian Dobbs.

Bishop Dobbs has seen what happens when a denomination turns away from the Bible to embrace the surrounding culture.

From his address –

“One of the many reasons why I am so sensitive to wokeness and this pattern of capitulation within the Anglican Church is because I am, and many of you are, refugees from a church that lost her way when she began to succumb to appeals for compassion, tenderness and a capitulation to culture as the justification for dismantling the faith ‘once for all entrusted to the saints’.

I am a refugee from a church that deposed the late Dr. J.I. Packer from the ordained ministry. I am a refugee from a church that put our own assisting Bishop William Love on trial for believing the bible. And I am a refugee from a church which just three days ago reaffirmed its commitment to the murder of unborn babies and said, ‘As Episcopalians, we have a particular obligation to stand against Christians who seek to destroy our multicultural democracy and recast the United States as an idol to the cruel and distorted Christianity they advocate.’

Brothers and sisters, when doctrine goes bad, so to do hearts, minds, churches, nations and eternal destinies. That is why this matters. …”

Read it all. Or, better, watch it all. Most edifying.

“In Canada, death is cheap”

“Canada refers to ‘euthanasia’ and ‘assisted suicide’ by the friendlier-sounding term of ‘medical assistance in dying’ (MAID). The MAID programme was first introduced to end the suffering of terminally ill people, but its mission creep is now undeniable.

Denise (not her real name), a 31-year-old Toronto woman who uses a wheelchair, is nearing final approval for a medically assisted death. She only applied after her many attempts to move from her apartment, which she says worsens her severe sensitivities to household chemicals, all failed. …”

– Heartbreaking story from Spiked. See also this video report from CTV News.

‘The Judgement to Choose to Abort a Child’: President Biden Accidentally Speaks the Truth about the Pro-Abortion Argument

In his The Briefing for Wednesday 4th May 2022, Albert Mohler comments on the responses to Monday’s leaked document from the US Supreme Court.

Baylor University charters LGBTQ group

“The news that Baylor University has officially chartered Prism, an LGBT student organization on campus, marks an important moment in Christian higher education in the USA.

To be fair to Baylor, Christian colleges and universities have a very difficult task in the current climate. Institutions of higher education are meant to be places for free discussion and exchange of ideas. With sexual identity politics now a central component of wider public discourse, freedom of discussion inevitably means that sexual identity discourse will take place on campuses. But there is a difference between students discussing these issues in the context of, say, a debating society or a mainstream political club, and discussing these ideas in an official LGBT group. To receive an official charter is to receive a formal imprimatur. …”

– At First Things, Carl Trueman writes about Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Started in 1845, Baylor is private Christian University.

From the Baylor website:

“During the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, prestigious institutions of higher education founded on Christian principles began a relentless retreat from their spiritual heritage. During that time and into the Twenty-first Century, Baylor has remained one of the few to persist in the belief that not only can its Baptist heritage inform a vital approach to life in general, it can also inform the life of the mind specifically.”

and their Statement on Human Sexuality.

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.

Three things Christians can do about physician-assisted suicide

“The Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021 is currently being considered by the NSW Legislative Council. The Bill was introduced in the Legislative Assembly on October 14, and five days later was referred to the Standing Committee on Law and Justice for inquiry and report – with the report due by the first sitting day in 2022.

Notwithstanding the fact that this inquiry was still in process, the Legislative Assembly went ahead with its consideration of the Bill last year, and the Bill was passed by that house with some relatively minor amendments on November 26. …”

– At SydneyAnglicans.net, Bishop Michael Stead writes that there is a limited window of opportunity for Christians to act.

One thing you can do is to sign this e-petition which closes on Monday 25 April.

Image: Bishop Stead on The Pastor’s Heart.

ePetition: “Please unanimously reject the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021”

In order to oppose and stop the passage of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021 through the NSW Legislative Council, an ePetition has now been launched.

The text reads:.

“To the President and Members of the Legislative Council, the petitioners of New South Wales state that that they are completely opposed to the passage of the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021, in any form, which provides for state sanctioned/funded assisted suicide/euthanasia.

A cornerstone of our legal system is that ALL human life has inherent value and must be treated with dignity and respect. The petitioners request that the House unanimously oppose the bill, in any form, and reject it.”

The ePetition can be accessed via the Legislative Council’s ePetitions page.

Those signing the ePetition need to declare that they are a resident of New South Wales.

The ePetition closes on 25th April 2022. 

Related:

Kevin Conolly, MP for Riverstone, explains the NSW euthanasia bill – AP.

Kevin Conolly explains the NSW euthanasia bill – part 2.

The religion of self-worship

“Steve Chalke of the Oasis Trust, and former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, have with others written this in a letter to the Prime Minister:

To be Trans is to enter a sacred journey of becoming whole: precious, honoured, and loved, by yourself, by others and by God.

In one sentence this brings into the open what a good deal of the LGBT+ movement has become: it is now a sacred quest, an agenda no longer driven science, common sense, or simple compassion; but by a transcendental vision, a desire for mystical fulfilment and a metaphysical belief in unseen realities. This is, more than anything else, a religion.

But it is not Christian religion. …”

– Matthew Roberts at The Critic looks at the worldview behind a recent letter that’s been making news in the UK.

Photo: Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

See also:

‘To Be Trans is to Enter a Sacred Journey of Becoming Whole’: A Former Archbishop of Canterbury and the Liberal Enthusiasm for Transgender Ideology – Albert Mohler’s Briefing for Thursday 14 April 2022. See Part 3:

“This is a public statement made by someone who had held major public responsibility in an historic Christian Church, and he basically here is offering a theology that is directly contrary to scripture and he is doing so believing that the message that he is bringing will lead to human happiness, wholeness, and flourishing.”

and

Why the Christian argument for a ban on transgender conversion therapy fails. – Anglican theologian Martin Davie.

“I very much regret having to disagree with Archbishop Rowan Williams. He is someone whom I deeply respect and from whose writings I have learned an enormous amount. However, as part of my responsibility as a theologian, I feel that I need to say publicly that I disagree with the Christian argument for a ban on transgender conversion therapy put forward by Archbishop Williams and thirteen other Christian writers in their recent open letter to the Prime Minister. What they say in the letter is deeply misleading and they completely fail to make a convincing Christian case for such a ban. …”

How the Person Became a Self

“In 2020, while the world was on lockdown due to COVID-19, Carl Trueman published one of the most important books of the last several decades.

In The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Trueman built on the insights of contemporary thinkers such as Philip Rieff and Alasdair MacIntyre to show how modern thinkers … gave expression to a worldview … that made possible and plausible the arguments of the late-modern theorists who shaped the postmodern sexual revolution …

It is a penetrating analysis of recent intellectual history that shows why people are willing to believe ideas today that our grandparents would have rejected out of hand—without need of argument, evidence, or proof—just two generations ago.

The only problem? The book is over 400 pages long. … I knew that many of Carl’s potential readers would not have the time or appetite to wade through so many of his finer, nuanced discussions. So I emailed Carl, praising the book as essential reading. But I also suggested that he consider writing a shorter, more accessible version of the basic argument for non-specialists. Carl has now produced that volume with Strange New World, and it sparkles on every page. …”

– If the length of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self put you off, Strange New World might be just what you need. Ryan T. Anderson writes at First Things.

The book is available widely – here are some booksellers.

Does ‘Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin’ Still Work?

“There is a clear connection between the sexual revolution and the growing antipathy evident in our culture toward freedom of religion.

Perhaps the first time this caught the news headlines was in early 2015 when the Indiana state legislature proposed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act that was in part designed to protect the rights of business owners with religious objections to LGBTQ+ lifestyles with regard to hiring policies. The proposal met with swift and widespread condemnation …”

– In this article adapted from his new book, Carl Trueman asks a very relevant question.

‘Take a stand’ – says Michael Youssef

“The problems in America all started in the pulpits … when the authority of the Scripture ceased – with it came the confusion that we are facing now.” – Dr Michael Youssef.

From The Pastor’s Heart –

“‘Stand for Christ. Stand for the truth. And let the chips fall where they may.”

Senior Pastor of Atlanta’s Church of the Apostles, Dr Michael Youssef, has a prophetic call to share with evangelical pastors today. It is to not give up trust in the scriptures in the face of contemporary challenges on sexuality.

Dr Youssef tells the story of leading his church to depart the US Episcopal Church when the denomination moved against biblical teaching on sexuality, and the way God has blessed them since.

In light of all this, Dr Youssef quotes 1 Samuel saying, ‘Those who honour me I will honour.’

Speaking in terms of the Sydney Anglican Church, Dr Youssef says, ‘I know this diocese, I love this diocese, and I know that God will continue to bless this Diocese even more… when you take a stand.’

Dr Youseff says, ‘Everyone I know who honoured the Lord and took a stand, God blessed that.’”

– Very encouraging.  Watch or listen at The Pastor’s Heart.

Do watch it all. Dr. Youssef also speaks of his first days in Sydney and those who had a huge influence in his life – including Donald and Marie Robinson, Moore College, and learning Biblical Theology.

How ‘voluntary assisted dying’ would change our culture and values

“The introduction, last year, of Independent MP Alex Greenwich’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill (2021) (the ‘Bill’) is a momentous shift in medical practice and community expectation. It marks the final abandonment of one of the cornerstones of Western civilisation: the sanctity of life. The idea that all human life is inherently precious was not generally affirmed in the world into which Jesus Christ was born. It spread with the growth of early Christianity and finds expression today in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Advocates of Voluntary Assisted Dying (a deeply misleading cluster of words) have emphasised not the sanctity of life, but quality of life as subjectively experienced, and the primacy of autonomous choice.  Recently, a man said to me, ‘Archbishop, if you don’t want to choose assisted suicide you don’t have to, but don’t get in the way of those of us who want the right to choose’. I understand the depth of feeling and the logic.

But this way of arguing – ‘if you don’t choose it, it won’t affect you’ – is naïve.…”

– Archbishop Kanishka Raffel writes at SydneyAnglicans.net.

See also:

The Archbishop joined The Hon Damien Tudehope MLC (Leader of the Govt in the Legislative Council Professor), Professor Margaret Sommerville AM FRSC (Bioethicist) and Dr Frank Brennan MBBS, DCH, Dip Obs, FRACP, FAChPM, LLB (Lawyer and Palliative Care Specialist) in a special event at St. John’s Parramatta last night.

Watch the full video – and share with friends.

Likewise, please see and share: ePetition: “Please unanimously reject the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021”.

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