Holy smoke! What a headline!
Again and again, we need to stress that newspaper reporters rarely, if ever, write the headlines for their stories.
I mention this because of a stunning headline in The Telegraph about the pre-Lambeth strategy meeting that conservatives are having right now in Jerusalem (after making a quick exit from Jordan, for complicated and perhaps political reasons). There are many complex angles to the Global Anglican Future Conference, or GAFCON, which is why this particular headline simply leaps off the page:
Anglican church schism declared over homosexuality
– Terry Mattingly at GetReligion comments on some of the more sensational reports about GAFCON.
23 Minutes in Hell – a review
No, it’s not an experience of a particularly bad sermon – Tim Challies reviews a sure-to-be-popular book –
I suppose it was inevitable that, with a bestselling book describing an author’s “90 Minutes in Heaven,” one would soon follow detailing a journey to hell. Sure enough, Bill Wiese follows Don Piper’s 90 Minutes in Heaven with his own 23 Minutes in Hell.
Wiese’s story is simple. One night, while sleeping, he was transported to hell. There God showed him hell in all its horror and terror. He was thrown into a barred cell, he was abused by demons, he was shown lakes of fire, and he saw people suffering torment. After a brief visit with Jesus, he was transported back to earth in order to tell people that Jesus is returning soon and to assure them that hell is a real place (and one that exists in the center of the earth, apparently). Wiese’s hell seems to be equally influenced by the works of Ray Comfort, Mary Baxter and Gary Larson. …
– Already available in Australia at some Christian bookshops. Read the review at Discerning Reader.
Should orthodox C of E bishops still go to Lambeth?
Four Episcopal dioceses, three in California and the Diocese of El Camino Real, have come out with ringing endorsements of the California Supreme Court’s recent ruling on same-sex marriages. …
There is little doubt that the behaviour of these bishops, in this regard, renders them unacceptable to any council of Christian bishops. Can you imagine the Council of Jerusalem or the Council Nicaea sitting down with these bishops? The question must be raised, on what grounds are the orthodox Bishops prepared to meet with them in this fashion? – David Virtue at VirtueOnline.
Other ways of talking about the divine?
“I am a deacon in the Sydney Anglican Diocese. In the Anglican Church I have found my life enriched and my faith strengthened. Yet that has not always been because of the teaching of its leaders in Sydney. …”
– Plenty for discussion in this Opinion piece by Susan Emeleus in The Sydney Morning Herald and Brisbane Times.
Impact of the Manchester report
For those, such as WATCH, advocating the Manchester Report’s ‘Single Clause, Code of Practice’ option as the way ahead on the consecration of women bishops, there is just one question that should be asked: “Do you accept that men opposed to women’s ordination will continue to be consecrated as bishops in the Church of England?”
The answer must surely be “No.” Indeed, given the tiny handful of such consecrations which have taken place in the last few years, despite the 1993 Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod, any other answer would have to be seen as reflecting either self-delusion or the intention to delude others.
That Act established that “no person or body shall discriminate against candidates … for appointment to senior office in the Church of England on the grounds of their views or positions about the ordination of women to the priesthood.” Yet there is no doubt that it has been consciously and deliberately ignored. The ‘stained glass ceiling’ for ordained women has been as nothing compared with the cast iron version for traditionalists in the last decade.…
– Read John Richardson’s full article at The Ugley Vicar.
Who needs a Creed?
‘Who needs a creed?’
The answer to that question from many in the broad sweep of Christendom, would probably be, ‘Not us!’ Such ancient documents are seen at best as outdated and at worst an irrelevance in an age that is more interested in the present than the past …
– Mark Johnson calls for a return to confessional Christianity – at Reformation21.
‘A woman bishop’ – Compass
Kay Goldsworthy, consecrated in Perth last week as an assistant bishop in that diocese, was interviewed on ABC TV’s Compass on Sunday night. The transcript of the programme is now available.
Geraldine Doogue: Why do you think really at base there is still so much ambivalence among some people about the notion of a woman playing a headship role in the church?
Kay Goldsworthy: Well that’s a mystery to me. Just is a mystery to me. And I couldn’t really say why.
David Ould has some comments over at Stand Firm. (Photo: Diocese of Perth.)
When human life isn’t just cheap, it’s on special offer
“Let’s have no more of this footling about over abortion. The issue isn’t how old a baby has to be before you cannot kill it. It is whether you think it’s right to do away with another human to suit your convenience.
Those who wonder what they would have done if they had lived at the time of some terrible injustice now know the answer. We do live in such a time. And we do nothing. …”
UK Commentator Peter Hitchens speaks out in Mail Online. (Hat tip to Anglican Mainstream.)
The sad legacy of Krister Stendahl
Krister Stendahl, former dean of the Harvard Divinity School, and one of the leading liberal theologians of the last century, died in Boston last month.
The New York Times published an obituary on April 16.
(Photo credit: James Solheim of the Episcopal News Service took this photo at the consecration of Gene Robinson in 2003. Bishop Krister Stendahl is seated immediately to the right of the then Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold.)
What (or Who) is missing in VeggieTales?
Have you ever seen the episode of VeggieTales in which the main characters are martyred by anti-Christian terrorists? You know, the one in which Bell Z. Bulb, the giant garlic demon, and Nero Caesar Salad, the tyrannical vegetable dictator, take on the heroes for their faith in Christ. Remember how it ends? Remember the cold dead eyes of Larry the cucumber behind glass, pickled for the sake of the Gospel? …
– Russell Moore, Dean of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, reflects on who’s missing in the popular children’s show – and much contemporary preaching. See his article at The Henry Institute website.
(On a lighter note, you might enjoy this.)
Why I am not signing the Evangelical Manifesto
So why am I not going to sign An Evangelical Manifesto? As usual, the devil is in the details. As I grow more mature in years I am more and more aware of just how wise Billy Graham’s policy is of never signing statements you haven’t written yourself. …
– Richard Land writes for Baptist Press. See also our earlier item.
Philippi or Corinth: Where is the Anglican Communion?
As I sit here at the beginning of May, one major question is facing all those who want to uphold the truth of the gospel in the Anglican Communion: should we go to Lambeth? Of course, for most of us that’s an academic question – we don’t have an invitation (although that’s not stopping some).
Nevertheless we have an emotional investment in the issue, for the question of how much we associate with those that we disagree with is (or at least should be) a constant dilemma for those who take the Scripture seriously, especially where there is clear evidence of willful unrepentance in the matter of public sin. …
– David Ould responds to those who “make a case for orthodox attendance at Lambeth by framing the current divisions in the context of Paul’s letter to the Philippians”. Read it at Stand Firm.
Why ‘evangelicals’ are returning to Rome
The February 2008 edition of Christianity Today ran a cover story about evangelicals looking to the ancient Roman Catholic Church in order to find beliefs and practices. What was shocking about the article was that both the author of the article and the senior managing editor of CT claim that this trip back to Rome is a good thing. …
– Seeing strong parallels with Hebrews, Bob DeWaay writes, “The Roman Catholic Church has tangibility that is unmatched by the evangelical faith, just as temple Judaism had.”
‘How about a fresh cup of reality?’
Among Anglican bloggers, there has been a great deal of comment on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s video about his hopes for Lambeth. American Anglican blogger BabyBlue has posted an entertaining, but serious, comment –
Something is missing from the video. It’s often called the “Elephant in the Room,” … the question we ask is how can any bishop trust another bishop when the chief pastor bishop cannot even admit that there is “division of the first magnitude” going on outside his palace gates? …
What we see here instead, is an Archbishop of Canterbury who has created an environment free from bishops suing laity, bishops suing clergy, bishops defrocking clergy, bishops deposing bishops, bishops suing bishops, bishops wigging out so much that judgment flies out the window and they start threatening to defrock the general editor of the English Standard Version of the Bible, for heaven’s sake. Hello? Apparently, none of that is visible from inside this ivory tower. Pull up a comfy chair. A full course of denial is on the menu.
See her full post – complete with The Parrot Sketch – here.
Liberal theology and theological education
President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Al Mohler, tells a cautionary tale of what can happen to formerly strong evangelical theological colleges –
“Andover Theological Seminary was indeed the first freestanding seminary in the United States … ‘started by orthodox Calvinists who fled Harvard after it embraced Unitarianism’. But then look at the fact that today one-fourth of the students enrolled in the school are Unitarian-Universalists. The school is also tied to the United Church of Christ, the nation’s most liberal mainline denomination. The school now represents the very beliefs its founders sought to oppose. …”
– from Al Mohler’s blog.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…