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.)
Praying for President-elect Obama
Well, my country and much of the rest of the world are electric with the election of Barack Obama as the new President of the United States of America. To say that it is historic, is a gross understatement.
Justin Taylor and Al Mohler, have both inspired some reflection on the question of how we as Christians –Bible-believing, Reformed, Christians– ought to pray for him, and I have freely borrowed many of their words and thoughts on this. But here are some ideas for leading our people to pray for our President-Elect. Barack Obama…
– At Reformation21, Ligon Duncan offers some initial thoughts on how Christians must pray.
(Photo: First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi. Hat tip: Justin Taylor.)
America has chosen a President
… Evangelical Christians face another challenge with the election of Sen. Obama, and a failure to rise to this challenge will bring disrepute upon the Gospel, as well as upon ourselves. There must be absolutely no denial of the legitimacy of President-Elect Obama’s election and no failure to accord this new President the respect and honour due to anyone elected to that high office. Failure in this responsibility is disobedience to a clear biblical command.…
– Al Mohler writes on the responsibilities ahead for Christian people after yesterday’s US election.
Will Apple’s stance on ballot measure come back to haunt it?
Apple made headlines when it donated $100,000 to defeat a measure appearing on Tuesday’s California ballot that would ban gay marriage in the state.
But even more noteworthy than the size of Apple’s contribution was the promience given the decision—Apple posted a statement on its Hot News page outlining its opposition to Proposition 8…
– Macworld reports on Apple’s public stance on homosexual marriage in California.
Sobering words from Robert Gagnon
“If Obama is elected President this Tuesday he has made it a priority of his administration to pass legislation that will make war against Christians and persons of other religious convictions who believe that homosexual practice and abortion are immoral acts. Persecution will take many forms, as indicated by actions that have already taken place in parts of the United States, Canada, and Western Europe…”
– Sobering words from Robert A. J. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary tonight’s election. (h/t Anglican Mainstream)
Can Conservative Evangelicals and Traditional Anglo-Catholics really work together?
In 2 Corinthians 6:14-16, the Apostle Paul asked some searching questions of believers who wanted to take their new-found freedom in Christ too far:
For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?
Right now, a lot of people are asking the same question about any possible cooperation between Conservative Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics over the issues of women bishops and, to a lesser but still significant extent, same-sex relationships and their effect on the global Anglican Communion…
– Conservative Evangelical John Richardson gave this Address to the Annual Meeting of the Lincoln branch of Forward in Faith yesterday.
How others see us: What’s up Down Under?
“The recent decision of the Diocesan Synod of Sydney, in the Anglican Church of Australia, to allow the administration of Holy Communion—i.e., the celebration of the Eucharist—by deacons and eventually laity seems outlandish to many overseas Anglicans. It makes considerably more sense within the context of Australian Anglicanism, which has a very different history than The Episcopal Church (TEC) and its various offshoots (I will get to that later). Australian Anglicanism is exceptionally diverse as a result of that history, and its diversity has led the Anglican Church of Australia to adopt a unique pattern of organization.
Just as some Episcopalians are frustrated when other Anglicans cannot understand TEC’s particular form of synodical governance, so I expect Australians feel when outsiders try to apply their own context to matters Down Under. I write the following as an American outsider, but one who has long been fascinated enough by the local variations on the common Anglican theme to make a study of them. (I hope that any Australians who read this will take the trouble to correct my inevitable mistakes by commenting below.)…”
– A thoughtful piece by Dale Rye in Covenant. (Photo: Covenant.)
Hat tip: Anglican Mainstream.
The Badder the Bad…
Over the weekend I read Michael Horton’s new book Christless Christianity. I greatly enjoyed reading it (despite chapters that were slightly longer than my attention span) and found that it gave me a lot to think about. A few days earlier I had read a new book by Rick Warren, The Purpose of Christmas. What a contrast there was between the two of them…
– Tim Challies writes at Challies.com.
Voting for generations of children and their right to live
“What would you think if a politician said ‘I’m not pro-rape, I’m simply prochoice about rape. And though I would not choose to rape a woman, I believe that every man should be free to rape a woman if that is his personal choice.’ And what would you do if that politician promised the rape lobby that if he is elected president, the ‘first thing I would do’ is to sign legislation that would invalidate all the state laws that restrict rape in any way?…”
– Randy Alcorn writes persuasively about choices facing voters in the US election.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…