Is a mother different from a father?

“Australia has celebrated Mother’s Day and Father’s Day annually since the 1930s. Some might think that these days are a bit of a relic from the past, when traditional gender roles were more accepted and family structures were much less diverse. Couldn’t we now just have a Parents’ Day instead?

I don’t hold particularly strong opinions on whether observing these days is ultimately positive or negative for us as a society. But I do think that having separate days for mothers and fathers offers an opportunity to celebrate something that is increasingly absent from our community: the recognition that a parent is not just a generic, substitutable role. A parent is either a mother or a father. …”

– Just in time for Mother’s Day, The Australian Church Record has published this excerpt from Jocelyn Loane’s book on Motherhood.

The Temple of the Holy Spirit — Our embodied future

From Phillip Jensen –

“The commandments of 1 Corinthians 6:15-20 are obvious: flee sexual immorality and glorify God in your body.

However, Paul does not simply give commandments; he gives the rationale behind them. The rationale has to do with the meaning of the body in his thinking in terms of our creation, our resurrection, and our marital union with Christ.

This densely argued paragraph provides for us a Christian understanding of ourselves as well as our motivation to live Christianly.”

– Listen at Two Ways News.

On ‘Worship Nights’

Mikey Lynch at The Gospel Coalition Australia shares some observations –

“I have observed an uptick in stand-alone ‘worship nights’ in Australia in the 2020s—that is, Christian prayer and praise communal singing events. I hear of churches and inter-church conferences hosting special ‘worship nights’; there are even once-off inter-church events, often hosted by informal parachurch groups.

These kinds of events have strong appeal among those under thirty.

In this article, I give some notes on this phenomenon, concluding with words of caution and calls for discernment. …”

– Read here.

The clarity of Scripture and church gatherings

James Chen writes at The Australian Church Record –

“In the wake of the technological developments that churches went through during the COVID lockdowns, I explored different live and recorded videos of gatherings that occurred locally and globally. What it provided me was an insight into the flavour of church services across denominations and regions.

Something I was struck by was the disproportionate number of Protestant gatherings that would say, or have on their church website, something to the effect of how much they valued God’s word, yet would then have no more than one section of Scripture read in the service, usually a Bible reading preceding the sermon. …”

– A challenge and an encouragement for all churches.

Context, Context, Context — Applying biblical thinking

From Phillip Jensen –

“Hard passages of the Bible are great passages. The reason that they are hard is because we are not thinking biblically. Wrestling with these hard passages gives us the opportunity to change our thinking in order to be aligned with biblical thinking.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 is notoriously difficult, and over the next two weeks, Peter and I are going to try to unravel some of its complexities.

We start today by looking at the context.”

– Hear Peter and Philip discuss at Two Ways News.

AI is coming for your Systematic Theology

Tim Challies warns of the dangers already present –

“A recent article at The American Scholar asks Who Is Blake Whiting?

Whiting appears to be the most prolific scholar of our age, sometimes publishing up to 13 books a week ‘on a host of complex archaeological and historical subjects, ranging from the collapse of Near Eastern civilizations in 1177 BCE to the recent discovery of a huge Silk Road-era city in Central Asia.’ He must be quite the individual!

But as you no doubt guessed, he is not an individual at all. Rather, Blake Whiting is fabricated, and the books under his name have been generated using AI. …

I want you to know about these books because I want you to be aware that this is happening. I want you to know it’s happening because it’s likely that things will get far worse before they get any better. I’ll first introduce you to this slop theology, then discuss the threat these books represent, and then tell you how you can identify them.”

– Read it all here.

Judging the Unrighteous — Exclusion from the kingdom of heaven

From Phillip Jensen –

“If ever there is a passage of the Bible that has caused controversy and division today, it is 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

There is not much doubt as to what the passage says or means, yet the application of this passage in the church and in society has led to great conflict.

In today’s episode, Peter outlines something of the background of the conflict within the Anglican Communion over the last two decades, before we turn to the real pastoral importance of this passage in the lives of the leaders.”

– Peter and Phillip Jensen discuss this very sobering topic at Two Ways News.

Widows in the household of God

From the Priscilla and Aquila Annual Conference 2026 –

“A deep dive into 1 Timothy 5:3-16.

Working closely through the passage, Lionel Windsor addresses key questions and tensions – how it relates to the rest of Scripture, what it means to honour widows, and how the church is to order its life as God’s family.

The talk highlights the importance of honour, responsibility, and care, and challenges the assumptions we often bring to age, family, and independence.

We are reminded that the church is not simply a gathering of individuals, but a household shaped by God’s word – where men and women are called to honour one another and live out the implications of the gospel together.”

– Fascinating and helpful.

The liturgical shape of authentic Anglicanism

Original published in The Australian Church Record’s Easter 2026 Journal, Andrew Leslie reflects on authentic Anglicanism –

“When you look beyond the Sydney Diocese at national or global Anglicanism—and you can get a glimpse of this within the Sydney Diocese too—you might imagine that the denomination is so diverse in liturgy, in theology, and in practice, that defining ‘Anglican’ could be like asking, how long is a piece of string? And you’d be right.

In the face of that reality, it might be tempting just to sit on your hands, or throw them up in the air, or perhaps even make a virtue of the increasingly fragmented, almost totally amorphous comprehensiveness of global Anglicanism—as if to be authentically Anglican amounts to little more than  ‘everyone does as they see fit in their own eyes’, to borrow from the book of Judges!

Forty or fifty years ago, people would often try to solve the riddle by saying that at least the denomination has some kind of global coherence through communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. But now even that’s no longer a given. …”

– Read it all here.

Image: Archbishop Thomas Cranmer by Gerlach Flicke.

Judgement of the Unrighteous

From Phillip Jensen –

“1 Corinthians 6 opens with a very challenging issue of disputes within the congregation. The Corinthians seem to have blown up these minor disputes into lawsuits against each other.

This raises for us a plethora of issues about resolving disputes inside the church and when it is appropriate and right to take issues beyond the church into public law courts.

I’m sure you will find this issue as complex as Peter and I discovered in our conversation.”

– Listen to Phillip and Peter discuss – at Two Ways News.

JUST WAR & the US, Israel, Iran and Ukraine – with John McClean, Rob Smith & Grant Dibden

From The Pastor’s Heart –

“How should Christians think about war? How does the Biblical Framework of Just War help us understand how we should react to what is happening in the Ukraine, Iran, Israel and south Lebanon.

We go back to first principles drawing on the work of Augustine of Hippo Thomas Aquinas – asking when is it right to go to war — and how must war be conducted? And how do those principles evaluate what’s happening in today’s conflicts?

Joining us are:

• John McClean, Vice Principal of Christ College Sydney,

• Rob Smith, theologian and ethicist and

• Grant Dibden, Anglican Bishop to the Australian Defence Force.

Together we explore how Just War thinking has shaped Western military ethics and whether it is quietly being sidelined.

Plus we examine what the Just War doctrine says about individuals conduct in war, in light of the controversy surrounding Australian Soldier Ben Roberts-Smith.

And how should Christians respond when the emotional weight of real-world conflict hits close.”

– Watch or listen here.

Revelation 12 and Easter

Mark Powell at AP, the Australian Presbyterian online journal writes,

“It’s easy to become so familiar with the person and work of Jesus that we fail to appreciate the cosmic significance which it had. In particular, what did Christ’s person and work look like from a heavenly perspective? This is where Revelation 12 is so helpful with its ‘unveiling’ regarding the true spiritual significance of what took place in history approximately 2000 years ago.

While I’m sure not many preachers would choose this particular part of God’s Word to preach on at Easter, Revelation 12 has often been viewed by scholars as ‘the centre and the key to the entire book’. In short, as Greg Beale summarises: ‘As a result of Christ’s victory over the devil God protects the messianic community against the Devil’s wrathful harm’.

That’s a message which surely goes to the heart of what the Gospel is all about! Too many preachers shy away from the book of Revelation, so I would like to exhort us to lean into its contents as a powerful way of preaching the victory of Jesus who is the Christ. …”

– Read it all here.

The Arrogance of the Moral

From Phillip Jensen –

“Christians in Western society have had a large say in public morality. When appointed the Dean at our cathedral, I was told by several people that my role was to be the moral conscience of society. I thought I was supposed to preach the gospel, but what is the relationship of the gospel to public morality and of the church to the rest of society? 1 Corinthians 5 raises these issues for us; I hope you enjoy our discussion.”

– Hear Peter and Phillip Jensen”s discussion – at Two Ways News.

Getting Authority and Care Right – Peter Orr on Today’s Pastor

From The Pastor’s Heart –

“ ‘Authority’ and ‘care’-  the two big words New Testament lecturer Peter Orr says belong together at the heart of real shepherding.

Lecturer at Sydney’s Moore Theological College, Peter Orr, has told the Nexus Conference, that one of the great confusions of our moment is confusion about the role of the pastor.

He asks whether in circles like ours, with a strong and right emphasis on every-member ministry, we accidentally downplayed the distinctiveness of the pastor?

What does it mean to say that a pastor has real authority, but that it is derived, limited and for care? How to avoid harshness, being too soft and lazy.”

– Watch here.

Radical Kinship – Plenary sessions from the 2026 P&A Annual Conference

Simon Flinders (Archdeacon to the Archbishop of Sydney) spoke at the recent Priscilla and Aquila Centre Annual Conference at Moore College. The theme was Radical Kinship – Men and Women in God’s Family.

Videos of the Plenary Sessions have now been published by Moore College –

Plenary Session 1.
Discipleship as new love – Jesus’ invitation to radically rethink “family”.

In a culture that elevates family as the ultimate source of identity and fulfilment, Jesus offers a radically different vision. In this talk, Simon Flinders explores how discipleship to Christ reorders our deepest loves and loyalties. With clarity and care, he shows that belonging to God’s family is not secondary, but central to the gospel—and a gift that reshapes every other relationship.

Plenary Session 2.
Church as family – The apostles’ invitation to live as siblings.

In a world where church can easily be seen as an event or institution, the New Testament presents something far richer. In this talk, Simon Flinders shows that the church is not like a family—it is family. Drawing on the language of adoption and new birth, he explores the depth of our shared identity in Christ and the practical implications for how we love, serve, and care for one another as brothers and sisters in God’s household.

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