John Stott on Same-sex Relationships – review

“Churches have been slow to get thoroughly informed about this whole area until recently, despite the battles raging in the Anglican Communion about it. Give people this book to read; it’s super, and will do them good!”

– Wallace Benn reviews Sean Doherty’s revised and expanded edition of John Stott’s writing on this subject for Churchman.

Loving your church family: Some thoughts for the shy, the socially nervous, the introverted and the sinner!

“We have all felt disappointed when others have failed to care for us. Perhaps you have even been disappointed by someone today! I have been pondering the ways I could be more thoughtful in my daily activities in an effort not to be the one who inadvertently disappoints.

Of course, this begs the question: why do I not love those around me as I should and in the process become a source of disappointment? After all, we are called to love others and to be actively seeking to imitate Jesus. Well, the bottom line is I am a sinner. I manage to actively do and say things that cause disappointment. I also fail to do good – there is often an absence of action. …”

– At The Australian Church Record, Felicity Leslie ponders how we do better at relationships in church.

Ruddock Report (part 4): overview and the Big Three areas

This evening, a packed room of Sydney Synod members heard Associate Professor Neil Foster present an overview of the leaked recommendations of the Ruddock Report.

He identifies the three most important areas of reform flowing from those recommendations as:

Rec 15, that the Commonwealth enact a Religious Discrimination Act (and rec 2, on principles to follow in drafting such an Act);
Recs 5-8, that religious schools generally remain free to run their schools consistently with their religious ethos; and
Rec 9, concerning parents being given notice by schools of teaching which might be contrary to their beliefs.

See his full post, with links to his paper and Powerpoint summary – at Law and Religion Australia.

Rebirth of the Gods: The Sexual Revolution

“The presupposition of our world right now is that we create our own identities and our own values. Therefore, if you make a statement of judgment, that’s seen as a personal attack. It’s a very delicate place to be as a Christian; if we make any kind of statements, we are dismissed as being hate-filled.

Behind all this is the attack on the binary. Stanford University offers a course entitled ‘Destroying Dichotomies: Exploring Multiple Sex, Gender and Sexual Identities.” Two lesbians write an article, ‘Can We Put an End to the Gender Binary?’ This is, of course, the notion that is currently driving our culture in terms of sexuality. A short time ago, a public school department in Texas sent a message to its schoolteachers, telling them they must no longer refer to children as boys and girls.

What’s going on here?…”

– Dr. Peter Jones has published the third article in his series ‘Rebirth of the Gods’ at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals’ Reformation 21.

(Dr. Jones is the Director of the Christian think tank truthXchange.)

Is God Green?

“Almost 50 years ago, in 1972, the crew of the Apollo 17 space mission took the first full-view photo of planet Earth as they made their way to the moon.

For the first time ever, humanity saw an image of the whole planet from afar. They saw the clouds, the land, the oceans sitting there: whirling, powerful, innocent, vulnerable.

This view from above was emblematic of a revolution taking place in the hearts and imaginations of millions around the planet. …”

– ACL Council member Dr. Lionel Windsor introduces his new book, Is God Green?

(Available from Matthias Media. Photo by Harrison H. Schmitt.)

‘Growing Sydney’ — Synod video 2018

This video from the Diocese of Sydney Mission Property Committee was shown to the Synod on Tuesday afternoon.

Thanks to SydneyAnglicans.net, you can watch it above – or download it to show your congregation / home groups.

More info at the New Churches for New Communities website.

How to run an effective evangelistic course

“So you want to reach the lost with the gospel?

Fantastic! Evangelistic courses are an effective method of doing so – particularly in a post-Christian culture.

The following are small but crucial steps you can make to ensure you maximise the effectiveness of your evangelistic course. …”

– Here are some very useful, practical tips from Dave Jensen, at GoThereFor.com.

A Hell of a Difference: How our understanding of Hell affects the Christian life

From Moore College’s Centre for Christian Living:

“What does the Bible teach us about Hell? Does our view of Hell change our view of God? How should our understanding of Hell influence how we live now?

Hell can be a difficult, awkward subject. It’s easy to talk about why we’re looking forward to Heaven at church morning tea, but there’s likely to be award silence if we try to open a discussion on Hell. Jesus, however, spent a lot of his time talking about Hell, so perhaps we need to think about it and talk about it more.

On the evening of Wednesday 24 October, Paul Williamson will help us to start this discussion.”

– Details from Moore College.

The great need of the hour

“I’m confident that the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is being regularly preached in Sydney Anglican pulpits.

But that is not quite the same as giving adequate, let alone urgent priority to the task of evangelism. How much of the ministry team’s time is spent in relationship with people who are not yet followers of Jesus?

I need to quite deliberately make time to spend with my friends of other faiths and none – and the same can be true for church members who can just as easily find themselves with few non-believing contacts.”

– There are many helpful takeaways from this article by the Dean of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel. Read the full article at The Australian Church Record.

Ruddock Report (part 3): religious schools and gay teachers

“Following the recent debate about whether religious schools in Australia should be entitled to expel gay students on account of their sexual orientation alone (as to which all seem to be agreed the answer is, No), there is now a push to remove the freedom of religious schools to make staffing decisions on these issues.

The ALP has announced that they want to pursue this issue when amendments relating to students are debated in Parliament. It even seems that some members of the LNP Government are unclear about the issue. …”

– Associate Professor Neil Foster writes at Law and Religion Australia.

Later in the same post, he writes,

“Of course the community at large has now indicated its support for homosexuality in changing the law to allow same sex marriage. But in the course of those debates, it was regularly claimed that allowing same sex couples to marry would not have a wider impact on those who disagreed with this change…”

Read it all.

The game-changing question for every evangelistic conversation

“Who killed Jesus?”

At some point in every single evangelistic conversation I have, I make a point of asking this question.

In fact, over the years, I’ve realised that nearly every part of every evangelistic conversation I have is in fact leading to the point where I can ask this question. …

– At The Australian Church Record, Dave Jensen asks “Who killed Jesus?”.

(Photo via All Saints’, Belfast.)

Ruddock Report (part 2): changing the law on religious schools and gay students

“Following my previous post on this issue, press reports indicated that the Prime Minister is proposing that the Parliament urgently amend the provisions of s 38(3) of the Sex Discrimination Act1984 (Cth) which allow religious schools to expel students on the basis of sexual orientation.

If this goes ahead, there is still a need to protect the legitimate interests of such schools in not seeing the religious ethos of the school undermined.

In this post I want to suggest some ways that could be achieved. …”

– The latest from Neil Foster at Law and Religion Australia.

Peter at the Cross: An Eyewitness Tells All — studies by David Mulready

CEP has released “Peter at the Cross: An Eyewitness Tells All” by former Bishop of North West Australia, David Mulready.

From the publisher:

“In Peter at the Cross: An Eyewitness Tells All David Mulready explores the historical events surrounding the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, mostly through the eyewitness accounts of the Apostle Peter.

These 40 daily reflections can be used for personal study as well as by groups, with the use of sets of discussion questions. Eight sermon outlines are included which may be useful in the preparation of Bible talks.”

Available here.

The Greek New Testament — from Tyndale House

“Academic heads have recently been turned by a new edition of the Greek New Testament, produced by a team of evangelical scholars, based at Tyndale House, Cambridge.

The Tyndale House Edition (THE) has a number of advantages over other editions of the Greek NT, relevant for scholars, pastors, students and any Christians keen to read the Bible in its original languages. …“

– At Church Society’s blog, Michael Dormandy reviews the new edition of the Greek New Testament from Tyndale House, Cambridge.

More information from Tyndale House.