Atheists play their hand — Probability
The news first broke last year, when atheists in Great Britain announced the intention to put their message on London’s famous city buses. Atheist celebrities including Richard Dawkins and A. C. Grayling joined the campaign and enjoyed the publicity. Now, the atheists are taking their advertising campaign throughout Britain, with 800 buses carrying their message. …
In some sense, this campaign almost looks like a joke on atheists planned and performed by believers in God.
– Al Mohler is not convinced.
As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
“Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it’s Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.
It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I’ve been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I’ve been unable to avoid since my African childhood.…”
– The Times columnist Matthew Parris makes some interesting observations.
(Photo: Times Online.)
Goodbye Larry King, hello Jerry Springer!
The hoo-hah over President Elect Obama’s choice of Rick Warren continues unabated, with most of the critics focussing mainly on Warren’s attitude to homosexuality and gay marriage. …
As Don Carson commented recently, American Christians have yet to wake up to the fact that the gospel really is despised by the world. And I would add: in a culture where everyone seems to need to be liked, affirmed and, above all, agreed with, that realisation is going to be very hard and challenging for the evangelical establishment to take on board.
– Carl Trueman writes at Reformation21. (Seen at Between Two Worlds.)
Why the Church of England cannot lose its ‘Head’
“Even if the Church of England were disestablished, even if Prince Charles became King and took the title ‘Defender of Faith’, even if his son converted to Islam and duly became our first Muslim monarch, the situation would be unchanged …”
– John Richardson writes at the Ugley Vicar.
The Tragedy of the faux-Evangelicals
Matt recently pointed us to a post by Christina Rees, chair of the women’s ordination pressure group WATCH (Women and the Church). The piece by Rees is one of several in the last week for the Guardian newspaper’s “Comment is Free” section.
Last week the question was raised “What should evangelicals believe?” This is, of course, a key question. Much of the fracturing amongst those who are opposed to the innovations of TEC and others in the Anglican Communion comes about because this simple question cannot be answered clearly. …
– David Ould writes at Stand Firm.
The Pope a Protestant?
About once a week, the Bishop of Rome, Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger), holds a “general audience” in St Peter’s Square in which he gives instruction (catechesis) to Roman Catholics. In three of the more recent of these catechetical audiences he has sounded themes that might be taken as Protestant. …
On 19 November, as part of a larger series on Paul’s theology, he gave the first of two brief addresses on justification. …
… doubtless many readers will be tempted to stop reading and to rejoice that the Reformation is over. … That would be a mistake.
– R. Scott Clark, Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary California, looks at the Pope’s teaching in its context – at The Heidelblog.
(Image: The Vatican website.)
Presiding Bishop taps Episcopal lawyers to fund TEC lawsuits
“According to the Executive Council minutes from February and October 2008, they have pulled $900,000 in trusts just to re-establish the three dioceses – San Joaquin, Pittsburgh and Ft. Worth – that have seceded from TEC.
There will not be enough money to litigate the AMiA, CANA, Southern Cone, Kenya parishes still in their buildings, said the source. …”
– Story from VirtueOnline. (Photo: Episcopal Life Online.)
The Secularisation of the Church
… As The Times [London] reported the story:
The Church of England should be open for use by people of any religion or none, like a hospital, says Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York.
There is a strong case for regarding the Church as a public body that does not exist simply to serve believers, he argues. Whether or not most people attend regularly is irrelevant.
This is a strange and pathetic vision of the church. No longer the assembly of believers, the church is now defined merely as a public utility.…
– Al Mohler comments. (Photo of Archbishop Semantu: Archbishop of York’s website.)
Sola scriptura minus the scriptura
I knew we had to take a look at this week’s Newsweek’s cover story when I read the first line. It was just that bad. It was written by senior editor Lisa Miller who oversees all of the magazine’s religion coverage. Which is pretty shocking when you look at the unbelievable ignorance on display in her grossly unfair first paragraph…
– Mollie Hemingway at Get Religion. (hat tip Between Two Worlds.)
Newsweek goes for Gay Marriage
Newsweek magazine, one of the most influential news magazines in America, has decided to come out for same-sex marriage in a big way, and to do so by means of a biblical and theological argument. In its cover story for this week, “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage,” Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller offers a revisionist argument for the acceptance of same-sex marriage. It is fair to say that Newsweek has gone for broke on this question. …
– Southern Baptist Seminary President Al Mohler comments at his blog. (Photo: Together for the Gospel.)
A new model for a new Province
The news of the unveiling of the constitution of the new Anglican Church in North America the first week in December has generated a great deal of excitement and a lot of speculation on the Internet. …
While it may be rather late to be proposing a model for the new province, one model the Common Cause Partnership Council might want to consider for the new province is a modification of the Australian model for an Anglican province. …
– Robin Jordan writes at VirtueOnline.
What’s going on in Sydney?
Sydney Diocesan Synod passed a resolution in October that recognized that it is both legal and desirable for those in deacon’s orders to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. This has raised again the issue of lay people presiding at the Lord’s Supper, which has long been a strongly held view in the Diocese of Sydney.…
– Canon Chris Sugden writes for Evangelicals Now. Read it at Anglican Mainstream.
Anglicanism upside down Down Under? – understanding Lay Administration
“Conservative evangelicals, such as those typically found in Sydney, do not see themselves as bound to tradition as their High Church friends. Indeed, they are more than happy to reject Tradition if they understand it to be contrary to the Scriptures, as they understand Cranmer and his peers felt impelled to do.
It is no surprise that Sydney is a place that, while having a very low rate of usage of the Prayer Book, has a very high allegiance to the 39 Articles and the theology of the Prayer Book.…”
– David Ould explores Sydney thinking on Lay Administration – at Stand Firm.
Lambeth 2008 – a retrospect
“… The most blatant example of TEC’s attempt to influence the conference occurred in the Lambeth Witness, published by Integrity USA, which as the only daily publication on campus, was often mistaken to be the official Lambeth Daily, which had no paper edition in 2008. In the Lambeth Witness, Bishop Catherine Roskam from TEC suggested that statistically at least some of the bishops at the conference were wife-beaters, and that there were incidences of wife-beating in some African nations. This was widely seen as an attempt to undermine the Sudanese and other Africans who had been outspoken on issues of sexuality…”
– Chris Sugden offers some insightful reflections on Lambeth 2008 – at Anglican Mainstream. Worth reading.
What we do matters
One impact of Tractarianism has been that practices that had not happened in the Church of England for 300 years were reintroduced, tolerated, permitted and now in a few cases almost prescribed.
Although evangelicals at first opposed these things as springing from a different gospel, along the way many seem to have become numbed to them and even adopted the practices for themselves…
– Church Society General Secretary David Phillips writes on vestments, eucharistic practice, and international Anglicanism. (Direct link to PDF file, courtesy of Church Society.)
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…