A Christian light in the Westminster gloom
Posted on September 9, 2019
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“In a House of Commons dominated by anti-Christian political correctness, it is important to celebrate any attempt, however small, to stand up for countercultural Christian orthodoxy.
Conservative MP Sir John Hayes has recently given a reason to thank God for a cheeringly cheeky move to promote traditional Christianity in Parliament. …”
– The Rev. Julian Mann is grateful for some in Parliament who seek to hold the Church of England to its founding doctrines.
Falls Church Anglican opens new church home
Posted on September 8, 2019
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Long-time readers will remember the saga of Falls Church Anglican in the suburb of Falls Church, Virginia, just outside Washington.
After leaving the Episcopal Church of the USA (TEC) over that denomination’s rejection of the Bible’s teaching on human sexuality, in 2012 they lost their historic building and grounds.
Today, after much work, and with great thanksgiving to God, their new church building is being consecrated to be a centre of gospel ministry.
Earlier:
The Costly Faithfulness of The Falls Church – The Gospel Coalition, May 2012.
“The Falls Church is one of hundreds of congregations across the country that have given up their buildings rather than stay affiliated with a branch of their church they believe denies the final authority of Scripture. …”
Stories of sacrifice from the USA – GAFCON, May 2017.
“Despite the split, [the Rector, John] Yates II and his bishop almost reached an agreement in which The Falls Church Anglican could keep their property and continue in gospel centred mission. However, disaster struck when newly elected presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori directed TEC to adopt an aggressive stance with ‘rebel’ congregations.
The deal was off, and as with The Good Shepherd, a long and costly legal battle ensued. The outcome was seemingly disastrous. Everything was lost, the prayer books, the sound equipment, and the $2.8 million in cash that members had donated to church accounts specifically designated not to go to the Episcopal Church. They were also forced to vacate their colonial building and the Yates’ lost their rectory. It was all gone.
What happened next? Well, their response can be summed up in two words – church planting. …”
Photo: Falls Church Anglican.
Australian Church Record Journal for Spring 2019 now out
Posted on September 8, 2019
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Download your copy of the latest Australian Church Record Journal for Spring 2019 here.
Contents:
Thank God for Ordinary Pastors
Mark Earngey
Wangaratta Defies National Church
Kanishka Raffel
The Opened Eyes of Wilberforce
David Ould
Evangelism in the Upper Mountains
Jon Guyer
Gospel Growth through ANeW
Sam Broadfoot
New Life in an Ancient Parish?
Ben Wilkinson
Contending side by side
Tom Habib
Some Observations for Ordinary Pastoral Ministry
Archie Poulos
The Christian and His Worship
D. Broughton Knox.
Motion to condemn abortion bill voted down at NSW Liberal State Council meeting
Posted on September 7, 2019
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“New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has urged party unity at the New South Wales Liberal State Council meeting, in the face of dissent over the bill to decriminalise abortion. …
Liberal backbenchers Tanya Davies and Kevin Connolly have said they will move to the crossbench if amendments are not made to the bill. …
Ms Berejiklian escaped potentially damaging criticism, after a motion to condemn the bill was defeated before it was debated.
Delegates voted it down 236 to 217.” [53 % to 47%]
– Report from ABC News.
Mark Short gives his first Presidential Address as Bishop of Canberra & Goulburn
Posted on September 7, 2019
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With the title of “Across the Divides: Engaging a World of Difference with the Love and Truth of Jesus”, Bishop Mark Short has given his first Presidential Address to the Synod of the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn. Read it here (PDF file).
The Synod meets in Goulburn until tomorrow.
Related:
Media release from the Diocese: (docx file)
New Canberra Goulburn Anglican Bishop Plans to Engage the World with the Love and Truth of Jesus.
Canberra-Goulburn’s Anglican Bishop has called on church-goers to engage a diverse and sometimes divided world with the love and truth of Jesus.
“We live in a world where we increasingly differ from each other, as globalisation brings us into greater contact with a diversity of experience and worldviews. We are increasingly a world where we differ with each other. Sometimes alongside, sometimes in reaction to globalisation there is a re-assertion of the local and the particular”, said Bishop Mark Short is his opening address to the Diocesan Synod in Goulburn today.
Bishop Short said that rather than retreating from the world or erecting barriers between them and the world Christians needed to move out into their neighbourhoods and communities.
“I suggest three ways in which we can engage our world with the love and truth of Jesus.
- seeing what matters to God – encountering the world’s needs with mercy and compassion. No longer is it about choosing to be with the people we want to love; instead it’s loving the people we do not choose to be with.
- hearing what matters to God – modelling an approach to faith-sharing that begins with careful listening and proceeds through a shared journey around the story of Jesus revealed in Scripture.
- feeling what matters to God – encountering Jesus in Scripture and the shared life of following him with an open-ness to recognition and transformation.”
The Bishop hopes to implement this pattern of see/hearing/feeling in 2020 in a number of missions. Working in partnership with churches and agencies he envisages a period of engagement that involves: (i) meeting with members of the wider community to help us see the needs around them; (ii) inviting members of the wider community from all backgrounds into a conversation about questions of faith; (iii) welcoming members of the wider community to an experience of hospitality where they have an opportunity to meet Jesus.”
Archbishop urges Anglicans to join the Stand for Life Rally
Posted on September 6, 2019
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“Archbishop Glenn Davies has warned of the dangers of the Bill which allows abortion up until birth, urging Christians show support for the life of the unborn before the Upper House considers the Bill. … Dr Davies urged promotion for the ‘Rally for Life’ on Sunday afternoon, 15 September in Hyde Park.”
Promotional flyer (PDF file).
See the Promotional video on Facebook or on Vimeo.
CMS Summer School 2020
Posted on September 5, 2019
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CMS NSW & ACT has posted this video to encourage people to come to the 2020 Summer School.
“Send a strong message to our Parliament” — Stand for Life Rally, Hyde Park, Sunday 15 September
Posted on September 4, 2019
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Archbishop Glenn Davies has written to all clergy in the Diocese of Sydney concerning the “misleadingly entitled” Reproductive Health Reform Bill 2019, which he says, “in its current form [will] do great damage to our society in the legalisation of the death of innocent lives in the womb”. Read more
Hillsong Global Chief Marketing Officer to be new Bible Society Australia CEO
Posted on September 4, 2019
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“Bible Society Australia today announced the appointment of its new Chief Executive Officer, Grant Thomson.
Grant Thomson resigned from his role as Global Chief Marketing Officer for Hillsong Global to take on the CEO position of Bible Society Australia…”
– Press release from Bible Society Australia.
‘Liberal MP threatens to derail Berejiklian’s government over abortion bill’
Posted on September 3, 2019
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“A New South Wales Liberal MP has threatened to defect to the crossbench, potentially derailing Gladys Berejiklian’s stronghold, if ‘essential amendments’ are not made to the state’s abortion bill…”
– Report from Nine News.
John Lovell to be new General Secretary of CMS NSW & ACT
Posted on September 3, 2019
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News from CMS:
“The President of CMS NSW & ACT, Archbishop Glenn Davies is pleased to announce the appointment of Rev John Lovell as the new General Secretary of the Branch.
John is a gifted Bible teacher who has had a long association with CMS NSW & ACT, including 10 years in his current position as a CMS missionary in Spain. John is delighted to be taking up this new role. …
For the past eight years, John has been pastoring a local Anglican church in Valencia…”
– Read more at the CMS website.
Cathedral Conversations — Choices — the video
Posted on September 2, 2019
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The video from tonight’s Cathedral Conversations on “Choices: The conversation about abortion we need to have”, at St. John’s Cathedral Parramatta, is now available to watch at David Ould’s website.
The introduction starts about 6 minutes in. Archbishop Glenn Davies speaks from 87 minutes. He makes it clear that the issue is a matter of life and death.
Vote by Synod of the Diocese of Wangaratta ignores ‘clear words of Scripture’
Posted on September 2, 2019
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Anglican Diocese of Sydney
Public Statement
Response to a vote by the Synod of the Diocese of Wangaratta
The Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Glenn Davies, has issued a statement in response to a vote by the Synod of the Diocese of Wangaratta to authorise a service to bless civil marriages. The Bishop of Wangaratta has claimed this service would allow for a blessing of same-sex unions and that he personally intends to use it for that purpose.
Archbishop Davies said,
“It is highly regrettable that clergy and lay people in the Diocese of Wangaratta have chosen to follow their Bishop rather than the clear words of Scripture concerning God’s design for human sexuality (Matt 19:4-12).
The doctrine of our Church is not determined by 67 members of a regional synod in Victoria nor is it changed by what they may purport to authorise.
Time and time again, the General Synod has affirmed the biblical view of marriage as the doctrine of our Church. To bless that which is contrary to Scripture cannot, therefore, be permissible under our church law.
The circumstances of this event are reminiscent of the actions of the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada in 2003. It is now universally acknowledged that those events were the beginning of the ‘tear in the fabric of the Anglican Communion’.
Moreover, to claim the authority of our Church to carry out a service of blessing contrary to the biblical view of marriage and the doctrine of our Church will certainly fracture the Anglican Church of Australia.
Dr Glenn N Davies
Archbishop of Sydney
2 September 2019.”
– Source: SydneyAnglicans.net.
Legal Reflections on The Religious Discrimination Bill
Posted on September 2, 2019
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Akos Balogh from The Gospel Coalition Australia spoke with Neil Foster (Associate Professor of Law at the University of Newcastle), about the Morrison Government’s proposed Religious Discrimination Bill –
“Going into the last election, the Morrison Government committed to implementing most of the recommendations of the Ruddock Review on Religious Freedom. In particular, they promised that they would move quickly on a ‘Religious Discrimination Bill’, and refer issues around the religious exemptions applying in other discrimination legislation (especially, but not solely, related to religious schools) to the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC).
They have now started to keep their promise by releasing, on August 29, an Exposure Draft Religious Discrimination Bill 2019 (‘RD Bill’), along with two other Bills making related and associated amendments. …”
– Read the full interview here.
Mark Calder announced as Bishop of Bathurst
Posted on September 1, 2019
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An announcement from Archdeacon Brett Watterson, Administrator of the Diocese of Bathurst:
“We look forward to the Rev’d Mark Norman Calder’s consecration as a Bishop in the church of God, 7pm Thursday 21 November in St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney and installation, 11am Saturday 23 November at All Saints Cathedral, Bathurst.
Mark was born in Broken Hill, when his parents were running the BCA hostel. Moving to Sydney and settling in Eastwood, he attended Eastwood Primary school and Epping Boys High. After 6 years working in the television industry, he studied at Moore College from 1984-87. Following nearly four years working as an assistant minister – first at Lalor Park and then at North Sydney – he was appointed rector of St Andrew’s Roseville in September 1991. During this time, he served on the council of the northern region of the diocese, the Anglican Media Council, the council of Shore school and on the standing committee of the diocese.
He became rector of Noosa on the Sunshine Coast in the diocese of Brisbane in November 2009. Wanting to learn from other traditions within the Anglican church, he immersed himself in the life of the diocese, serving at various times as area dean, diocesan nominator, General Synod rep and member of the council of St Andrew’s Anglican College Peregian Springs. Concurrent with his appointment at Noosa, he served for four years as priest-in-charge of the neighbouring parish of Cooroora.
Mark and Susan celebrated 30 years of marriage in July this year. They have three children: Philip – married to Sidney – lives in Townsville; Emily – married to Anthony – lives in Ipswich; and Michael lives in Toowoomba. Mark and Susan love being grandparents to Emily and Anthony’s children, Mackenzie (3) and Charlie (1).
Mark enjoys his family, God’s glory in creation, many aspects of today’s technology and long drives!
Mark communicated his desire for the diocese of Bathurst in this way:
My prayer is that under my leadership, the Diocese will grow communities of faith, full of people who have confidence in their forgiveness through the life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and joyful assurance of spending eternity with God by his grace. I trust that in every city, town and village, the Anglican church is known and loved, present in the community and valued for its contribution. I pray that as a result, more and more people will become disciples and grow strong and clear in their relationship with the Lord Jesus, to the glory of God.”
See also:
A new role for our minister – Anglican Church of Noosa.
Sydney helps Bathurst – SydneyAnglicans.net, 15 October 2018.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…