Voting on July 2 — David Cook
Posted on May 13, 2016
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David Cook, Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, turns to the Federal election in his latest comment:
“It is rare for an election to have as a major issue, a matter of morality, as much as this forthcoming poll.
The single issue is Same Sex Marriage, the ALP has said, that if elected they will legislate in the first 100 days for SSM. The Coalition parties, if elected, promise a national plebiscite on the issue.”
Full text below: Read more
NZ Anglican Synod ‘fails to approve gay marriages’
Posted on May 12, 2016
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“Gay Anglicans are reacting with a mix of fury and resignation after the Anglican Synod today failed to approve the blessing of gay marriages. …
This week’s synod voted to set up yet another working party to report back on the issue at the next synod in 2018…”
– Report from The NZ Herald.
See also this report from Anglican Taonga:
“The Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia has tabled the ‘A Way Forward’ report on blessings of same-sex couples until General Synod 2018, ‘with a firm expectation that a decision to move forward will be made’ at that time.
Archbishop Brown Turei, Archbishop Philip Richardson and Archbishop Winston Halapua will appoint a working group to establish a structure that allows both those who can and cannot support the blessing of same-sex relationships to remain within the church with integrity.
‘We are aware of the considerable pain that this decision will cause to those most affected,’ said the three archbishops today.
‘But we are confident that our determination to work together across our differences will bring us to a place of dignity and justice for everyone.’
(Photo courtesy Anglican Taonga.)
‘What Frozen needs is a lesbian Elsa’
Posted on May 12, 2016
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This opinion piece in The Guardian has provoked an online petition, “No Princess for Queen Elsa”.
(Photo: Not a Disney character.)
Endurance Needed: Strength for a slow reformation and the dangerous allure of speed
Posted on May 12, 2016
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Several people have told us of the encouragement given by Mark Dever’s exhortations on Endurance in Pastoral ministry – at the Together for the Gospel Conference 2016.
Strong encouragement.
Watch it here – or listen at this link.
How a Minority achieved a Majority
Posted on May 12, 2016
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“For years leading up to Ireland’s civil partnership legislation, a small nongovernmental organisation (NGO) – the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) – along with its many supporters and collaborators, worked quietly and methodically toward this day. …
In 2005, GLEN received a sizable long-term grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies that allowed GLEN to increase its organisational capacity and to pursue its ambitious advocacy strategy for advancing equality for gays and lesbians in Ireland.
The story of how Ireland’s landmark legislation was achieved for same-sex couples holds insights and lessons for any advocacy group trying to achieve legislative change…”
– This PDF document, available on The Atlantic Philanthropies website, charts how minority groups were able to achieve the goal of Civil Partnership in Ireland back in 2010.
We posted a link to this, and related material, last year. It’s well worth revisiting to be aware of the methods used to shift public sentiment, which resulted a vote to change the definition of marriage in 2015.
NZ “Anglicans’ last-ditch bid to avoid split over gay marriage”
Posted on May 10, 2016
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“The Anglican Church is in yet another last-ditch effort to avoid a split over blessing gay marriages.
The Church’s two-yearly General Synod, meeting in Napier, yesterday failed to approve a contentious report from a working party which spent the past two years developing a proposed liturgy for “blessing” same-sex marriages — a compromise which stopped short of actually performing the marriages in a church.
Instead, another small working group has been set up to report back to the synod tomorrow on amendments that might somehow keep the Church together…”
– Report from the NZ Herald.
Happy 200th birthday to J C Ryle
Posted on May 10, 2016
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Today is J.C. Ryle’s 200th birthday.
Church Society is celebrating with the launch of a book.
Three dollars worth of gospel, please
Posted on May 9, 2016
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Adam Ford tackles a well-known illustration from D. A Carson.
The Reason for Faith
Posted on May 9, 2016
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“Faith may lack a comprehensive knowledge of its object, but unless it is pure folly, it typically can see enough evidence to know that the testimony about it is, at least, likely to be true. It is more than a mere opinion which cannot commit firmly to one position or another…”
– Dr Andrew Leslie at Moore College writes about Faith in the College’s ‘ThinkTank’ Faculty blog.
Budget Considerations
Posted on May 8, 2016
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“With an election in the offing it is never surprising that the political rhetoric around the Budget indulges self-interest. While we might expect that, and while we are critiquing the Budget, should we not critique our self-interest and how we became so addicted to ourselves? Budget time seems like a great opportunity to consider our hedonistic materialism…”
– Bishop of Armidale Rick Lewers asks if we should ‘budget God back into our economy’.
Petition calls on Bill Shorten to support a marriage plebiscite
Posted on May 8, 2016
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The Australian Christian Lobby has launched an online petition calling on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to support the proposed plebiscite on same-sex marriage.
As the Australian Christian Lobby’s Managing Director Lyle Shelton notes, under current policy, an ALP win in the Federal election would mean same-sex marriage being legalised in Australia by early October.
Photo credit: ALP.
‘The Bathurst Diocese decision and legal personality of churches’
Posted on May 6, 2016
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“Today at the Law and Religion Scholars Network (LARSN) Annual Conference (5 & 6 May, 2016) at the Cardiff University School of Law and Politics, Cardiff, Wales I presented a paper discussing a recent Australian case on the ‘legal personality’ of churches and how they are held accountable for debts. …
The abstract is as follows:
In the NSW Supreme Court decision of Anglican Development Fund Diocese of Bathurst v Palmer [2015] NSWSC 1856 (10 Dec 2015) (the Bathurst Diocese case), a single judge of the Court held that a large amount of money which had been lent to institutions in the Anglican Diocese of Bathurst, and guaranteed by a “Letter of Comfort” issued by the then Bishop of the Diocese, had to be repaid by the Bishop-in-Council, including if necessary by that body “promoting an ordinance to levy the necessary funds from the parishes”.
The lengthy judgment contains a number of interesting comments on the legal personality of church entities and may have long-term implications for unincorporated, mainstream denominations and their contractual and tortious liability to meet orders for payment of damages. The paper discusses the decision and some of those implications.”
Read Neil Foster’s post, and download the linked files, at Law & Religion Australia.
A majority of millennials reject capitalism and support Bernie
Posted on May 6, 2016
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“After generations of both political correctness and philosophical postmodernism, we now see a generation that seems to be virtually incapable of beginning any sentence with anything other than, ‘I feel like,’ which as is indicated in this article means a retreat from any claim of truth or a fact merely to an assertion of opinion.…”
– Albert Mohler reflects on the belief system (or lack thereof) of many millennials. Insightful and disturbing. From The Briefing, 03 May 2016.
Defence Anglicans Prayer Diary 2016
Posted on May 5, 2016
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Our friends who minister to Australia’s Defence personnel would be very glad of your prayers on a regular basis.
The Defence Anglicans Prayer Diary for 2016 is now up on their website.
Be encouraged to download and use it.
The Anglican Communion and GAFCON: Interpreting the Peter Jensen interview
Posted on May 4, 2016
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“Peter Jensen, the retired Archbishop of Sydney and the current general Secretary of GAFCON, has given an extensive interview to VirtueOnline in which he expressed frankly some of his views on the current state of the Anglican Communion, and the mission of the Christian church in contemporary culture. The Virtue piece also contains some excerpts from talks that Jensen gave to the recent CANA meeting in Pennsylvania. It is worth giving these comments some analysis, as they give voice to the thinking behind GAFCON, as well as bringing to light some of the problems in global Anglicanism that derive from very different perceptions and interpretations of events…”
– Andrew Syme at Anglican Mainstream provides his analysis of the reported interview with Dr. Jensen.
What we believe
The message at the heart of Christianity is really quite simple…