Meet the Nativity – A Christmas Comedy in Four Parts

Posted on December 25, 2017 
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The final cut of Meet the Nativity is now available on their website.

Christmas in a time of change

Posted on December 24, 2017 
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“Christmas and its message have never been more relevant than at this moment in time. 

There have been such rapid changes over the past decade—technological, cultural, social, and political changes—that the current level of nervousness and uncertainty is only to be expected.

There is a growing tone of fear and anxiety in much commentary both here and around the world. …

Change and uncertainty exist at so many points as 2017 draws to a close that it is easy to understand why some are overwhelmed.

Yet it was precisely into a world of change and uncertainty, of military muscle and politically motivated injustice, where long-held verities were under challenge and immorality was endorsed at the highest level, and where economic disadvantage seemed to be permanently entrenched by those with power, that ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’. …”

– Be mightily encouraged by this brief article from Moore College Principal, Dr Mark Thompson. Well worth sharing widely.

Archbishop of Sydney’s 2017 Christmas message – tweet it to your friends

Posted on December 24, 2017 
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Anglican Church Diocese of Sydney
2017 Christmas Message

Twitter now seems to be the preferred method of communication for at least one of our world leaders.   Read more

The Condition of the Stable

Posted on December 24, 2017 
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“As we enjoy the sounds and smells of our Christmas — roast turkey, excited children, and the amicable throng of the communion table — they are different from the first Christmas. Its outward smells and signs are dung, urine, and the sounds of fear as a child is born under reprobate appearance.

But nothing we have can match the glory of that Bethlehem Christmas. For here the Son of God has come into the world …”

– A Christmas editorial from The Australian Church Record, December 1986.

A Church Near You

Posted on December 23, 2017 
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The Church of England has a dedicated website to find your closest Anglican church – with the message that, for most people in the UK, their local church is less than a mile away.

If you are looking for an Anglican Church in Sydney this Christmas, check out Sydney’s own ChurchNearYou.com.au.

‘Get with the Program’ — The Church of England votes to ordain Women Bishops — 2014

Posted on December 23, 2017 
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“Writing about the age of John Milton, the British author A. N. Wilson once tried to explain to modern secular readers that there had once been a time when bishops of the Church of England were titanic figures of conviction who were ready to stand against the culture.

‘It needs an act of supreme historical imagination to be able to recapture an atmosphere in which Anglican bishops might be taken seriously,’ he wrote, ‘still more, one in which they might be thought threatening.’…”

– This 2014 piece from Albert Mohler is worth re-reading to remember how much has changed in such a short time in the Church of England.

And do pray for those gospel-minded leaders in the C of E, that they will be filled with wisdom, and will stand firm in the faith.

Related:

St. Helen’s Bishopsgate relationships with other deanery churches ‘temporarily impaired’.

Anglican Unscripted #357 – Welby revokes Carey’s Permission to Officiate.

NTE17 talks

Posted on December 23, 2017 
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AFES has posted the main session talks from the 2017 National Training Event in Canberra – talks by Richard Chin and Gary Millar – on its Vimeo account.

Very encouraging.

Can Evangelicalism survive Donald Trump and Roy Moore?

Posted on December 22, 2017 
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“For centuries, renewal movements have emerged within Christianity and taken on different forms and names.

Often, they have invoked the word ‘evangelical.’ Followers of Martin Luther, who emphasized the doctrine of salvation by faith alone, described themselves in this way.

The Cambridge clergyman Charles Simeon, who led the Low Church renewal movement within the Church of England, adopted the label. The trans-Atlantic eighteenth-century awakenings and revivals led by the Wesleys were also often called “evangelical.” In the nineteen-forties and fifties, Billy Graham and others promoted the word to describe themselves and the religious space they were seeking to create between the cultural withdrawal espoused by the fundamentalist movement, on the one hand, and mainline Protestantism’s departures from historic Christian doctrine, on the other.

In each of these phases, the term has had a somewhat different meaning, and yet it keeps surfacing because it has described a set of basic historic beliefs and impulses…”

– In The New Yorker, Tim Keller lays out what ‘evangelical’ means – in the context of the label being used by every man and his dog.

Fisking Bishop Fearon: The Lambeth Establishment takes on the Global South

Posted on December 21, 2017 
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“Three remarkable letters appeared this past week from Anglican sources:

These letters have to do with an important question: who is an Anglican, and in particular what is the status of the Anglican Church in North America?

The answers of the three authors could not be more divergent. …”

–  Professor Stephen Noll assesses the response of the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council, Dr Idowu-Fearon, to the GAFCON Chairman’s December letter.

He warns that the Secretary General is ‘edging towards papalism’ by making relationship with Canterbury ‘the unique feature of Anglicanism’.

A letter of congratulations to the new appointee to the See of Canterbury from a leading Evangelical (1860)

Posted on December 21, 2017 
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“I would like to extend my congratulations and best wishes to the Reverend John Henry Newman on his appointment to the See of Canterbury. Although we may differ over what some might consider trifles … I am sure that the Reverend Newman loves the Lord Jesus, and more crucially, loves the Church of England.”

– Melvin Tinker has written this satirical letter from ‘Bishop John Charle Ryle’.

And a good reminder to pray for the Church of England.

PrayerMate in 2017: Giving Thanks

Posted on December 21, 2017 
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Andy Geers at PrayerMate gives thanks for the way the app has been used this year, and foreshadows new content for 2018.

If you don’t use PrayerMate, be encouraged to check it out.

‘New Bishop of London … refuses to say where she stands’

Posted on December 20, 2017 
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“The controversial new Bishop of London refused yesterday to say where she stands on the the Church of England’s most damaging division.

The Right Reverend Sarah Mullally left tens of thousands of worshippers in her new diocese guessing about her views on gay rights after giving a high-profile broadcast interview. …

Bishop Mullally said the CofE has ‘a real diversity’ and is entering ‘a period of reflection’.

Bishop Mullally withheld her own thinking in an interview for BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme in which she was repeatedly pressed for her opinion. …”

– Story from Mail Online. Photo: Diocese of London.

Related:

Which Way, Evangelicals? There is Nowhere to Hide – Albert Mohler.

“There will be no place to hide. The forces driving this revolution in morality will not allow evasion or equivocation. Every pastor, every church, and every Christian organization will soon be forced to declare an allegiance to the Scriptures and to the Bible’s teachings on marriage and sexual morality, or to affirm loyalty to the sexual revolution.”

When ‘Discernment’ Leads to Disaster – Albert Mohler.

Bishop-elect’s radio interview struggle reveals Church’s unresolved dilemmas – Andrew Symes.

“She would have known that it would come. She would have prepared for it, rehearsing her lines, perhaps with coaches, wanting to appear wise, generous, compassionate, authoritative. It came, finally, at the end of the interview; the dreaded ’Tim Farron question’ – ‘do you think homosexual relationships are sinful?’

Like an England batsman in the nets in Australia she had practiced for this moment … I felt for her as she attempted to answer the inevitable question, and she flannelled and waffled, a combination of the cringeworthy and the hilarious (see transcript below).”

Listen from 1 hour 52 minutes into the audio.

New book by Paul Williamson makes it into IVP’s Top 10 of 2017

Posted on December 20, 2017 
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“Dr Paul Willamson’s latest book has just been published.

Based on the material he presented at the Annual Moore College Lectures in 2016, the book is titled: Death and the Afterlife: Biblical perspectives on ultimate questions. It has been published as the most recent volume of the New Studies in Biblical Theology series, edited by D.A. Carson.”

– Good news from Moore College to round out the year.

See IVP’s top ten books for 2017 listed here.

Religious groups and employment of staff

Posted on December 20, 2017 
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“Can a Christian secondary school require that its teachers not openly advocate a sexual lifestyle that is contrary to the Bible’s teaching? Can an Orthodox Jewish preschool ask its teachers to live in accordance with Orthodox moral principles? Can a Protestant church refuse to hire someone to act on its behalf in political advocacy when that person does not share their religious beliefs?

These are all issues that have come up in recent months. Two of them are dealt with in decisions in connection with judicial proceedings, one in the UK and one from the European Court of Justice. One has been raised by media reports in Australia. In this post I want to flag these three cases briefly and to comment on the issues they raise for religious freedom, and how they should be resolved. …”

– Valuable resources from Assoc. Professor Neil Foster at Law and Religion Australia.

Meet the Nativity Episode 4 released

Posted on December 19, 2017 
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See it, and the earlier episodes, at meetthenativity.com, and be encouraged to share the link.

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