Christmas messages from around Australia

Posted on December 19, 2011 
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Advent / Christmas messages have been published by various bishops of the Anglican Church of Australia. Here are some we’ve spotted so far –

Bishop to the Australian Defence Force – Len Eacott.
Armidale – Bishop Peter Brain.
Newcastle – Bishop Brian Farran.
Rockhampton –Bishop Godfrey Fryar.
Riverina –Bishop Doug Stevens.
Bendigo – Bishop Andrew Curnow (page 2 of PDF).
Canberra & Goulburn – Bishop Stuart Robinson.
Tasmania – Bishop John Harrower.

(Image: Anglican Church of Australia.)

A Threat to World Anglicanism?

Posted on December 19, 2011 
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“… she predicts the imminent demise of Sydney Anglicanism in its present form, claiming that it will be brought down by a combination of financial mismanagement, the failure of the current leadership to ensure an equally committed succession and the general fatigue of Sydney lay people, who apparently want their diocese to look more like Perth or Melbourne. …”

– from Gerald Bray’s editorial in the Winter 2011 issue of Churchman. (PDF file.)

His demands are not burdensome

Posted on December 17, 2011 
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A Christmas reflection from Peter Brain, Bishop of Armidale:

‘He was born outside a small hotel in an obscure Jewish village in the great days of the Roman Empire. The story is usually prettified when we tell it Christmas by Christmas, but it is really rather beastly and cruel. The reason why Jesus was born outside the hotel is that it was full and nobody would offer a bed to a woman in labour, so that she had to have her baby in the stables, and cradle him in a cattle-trough. The story is told dispassionately and without comment, but no thoughtful reader can help shuddering at the picture of callousness and degradation that it draws.’ So wrote J I Packer in his classic Knowing God (1973).

Christmas reminds us of our sin, of that there is no doubt. We needed saving and continue to do so. The fact that we seek to beautify these ugly facts of the Christmas event, and continue to trivialise their importance with a range of activities that leave us too exhausted to reflect and rendered unable to grasp its seriousness by our round of trivial festivities, demonstrates our propensity to crowd God out.  Read more

Christopher Hitchens obituary by Douglas Wilson

Posted on December 16, 2011 
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“Christopher knew that faithful Christians believe that it is appointed to man once to die, and after that the Judgment. He knew that we believe what Jesus taught about the reality of damnation. He also knew that we believe—for I told him—that in this life, the door of repentance is always open.…”

– Douglas Wilson has written this obituary for Christianity Today. (Photo: Wikipedia.)

The Lure of Rome

Posted on December 16, 2011 
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Dr. Robert Godfrey, Professor of Church History at Westminster Seminary California, speaks about why some evangelicals and other Protestants in the US are becoming Roman Catholics.

35 minute interview here. (h/t Ligonier Ministries.)

Bishop of Tasmania’s Christmas message

Posted on December 14, 2011 
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John Harrower, Bishop of Tasmania, climbed the Cathedral tower in Hobart to record his Christmas message. See it on his blog.

Nathan Tasker’s ‘A Star. A Stable. A Saviour.’

Posted on December 13, 2011 
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Nathan Tasker’s Christmas EP ‘A Star, A Stable, A Saviour’ is available as a free download for the next seven days, from Grouptune. (h/t Gary Ware.)

What is church for?

Posted on December 13, 2011 
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“If the word in our Bibles simply means a ‘gathering’ or ‘assembly’, our real question is: What is a Christian ekklesia? What is distinctive about the particular gathering or assembly into which God calls his people?

To answer this we need to look at the key places where God gathers his people together. …”

– Phillip Jensen asks ‘What is church for?” – at The Briefing.

New church plant in Newcastle

Posted on December 13, 2011 
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The Diocese of Newcastle website reports on the new church plant in Newcastle, headed by Archdeacon Arthur Copeman.

The clear goal… is to reach out to people who are outside the present church and to be able to tell them of God’s love for them in the Lord Jesus.

And from Bishop Brian Farran’s Newcastle Synod Charge in October:

“Archdeacon Copeman is establishing a church plant in Newcastle that will reach out to younger families. … Given the broad sweep of Anglicanism, it is appropriate that there be an Anglican Church in Newcastle City that is of the Anglican Evangelical tradition.”

(Arthur is leading a session at the Provincial Mission Convention in Canberra in January. His topic: ‘Starting from Scratch: Church Planting with a Team of One’.)

What’s next for New York Churches

Posted on December 11, 2011 
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“Don’t Leave Our Church Homeless” read the signs distributed during Thursday’s press conference outside New York City Hall. More than 60 churches in New York meet in public schools for their Sunday services. When the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal this week, the churches learned they will need to find a new location before February 12. …

“It’s ironic,” one Brooklyn city official commented at Thursday’s press conference, “that the Klu Klux Klan can meet freely in public schools, but churches, who were the backbone of the civil rights movement, are not allowed.”

– John Starke, the new pastor of All Souls Christian Church in the Upper West Side of New York, asks for prayer for his church and more than five dozen others. (h/t Carl Trueman.)

December 2011 Church Record online

Posted on December 9, 2011 
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The December 2011 issue of The Australian Church Record is now available from their website.

Love, marriage and the homosexual agenda

Posted on December 9, 2011 
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“As I write this, the Australian Labor Party has decided to amend its political platform to include a commitment to change the legal definition of marriage.

Under intense pressure from the Greens, with whom they formed a coalition after the last election delivered a hung parliament, from its own left faction, and from a bold and confident gay lobby which has mounted a very sophisticated publicity campaign, the Labor Party has endorsed a right of same sex unions to style themselves ‘marriages’. In a largely successful attempt to claim the moral high ground (an astonishing thought in itself)  this world-wide campaign has adopted the slogan ‘marriage equality’.

It should be abundantly clear that this is not about providing financial and legal security for homosexual relationships…”

– ACL President Mark Thompson writes at Theological Theology to explain why opposing changes to marriage is an act of love.

Exploding Fenella Souter’s Myths of Christmas

Posted on December 7, 2011 
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“Last Saturday, the ‘Good Weekend’ magazine published by the Sydney Morning Herald (and the Melbourne Age?), ran an article by Fenella Souter entitled “Truth, Lies and Santa Claus: Exploding the Myths of Christmas” (not available online).

It was highly sceptical towards the narratives surrounding the conception and birth of Jesus recorded in the Bible…”

– Sandy Grant at St. Michael’s Wollongong looks at some mistakes and undocumented claims in last weekend’s ‘Good Weekend’ – at The Briefing.

New Evidences the Gospels were Based on Eyewitness Accounts

Posted on December 5, 2011 
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In March 2011, Dr Peter Williams, Warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge, gave a public lecture at The Lanier Theological Library in Houston.

His topic: New Evidences the Gospels were Based on Eyewitness Accounts. The 62 minute video is well worth watching.

Christmas — Myth or History?

Posted on December 5, 2011 
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Bishop Paul Barnett responds to an article in last weekend’s newspaper.

“So don’t let the sceptics and atheists take away your hope.”

“You cannot but be impressed with the zeal of the modern sceptic and reciprocally unimpressed with the lethargy of the contemporary Christian. Right on track the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend (3rd December, 2011) has a lengthy and well-researched article, ‘Divine Intervention’ (Fenella Souter) in which she debunks the historical basis for the first Christmas.

Her two main arguments are that there are only two gospel accounts and that they are contradictory, with the addition of many fictional details…”

– Read the full article on Paul Barnett’s website.

Update: If it comes in handy, here’s a PDF version formatted to suit a double-sided A4 sheet.

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