Christianity Explored

Posted on February 5, 2010 
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Kevin DeYoung at the Gospel Coalition is enthusiastic about Christianity Explored.

‘But I saw it on TV’

Posted on February 4, 2010 
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Here’s a disturbing report on how the mainstream US media reported a large anti-abortion demonstration in Washington two weeks ago.

From LifeSiteNews. (h/t Anglican Mainstream.)

Sovereign Grace music sale

Posted on February 4, 2010 
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Sovereign Grace music and books are at reduced prices during February. Of particular interest to Australian readers will be the mp3 album downloads.

Details at Bob Kauflin’s Worship Mattters.

Packer on The Fall

Posted on February 4, 2010 
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“It may fairly be claimed that the Fall narrative gives the only convincing explanation of the perversity of human nature that the world has ever seen.”

– This excerpt from J I Packer’s Concise Theology is a good reminder of what’s wrong with the world and why all need to hear of Christ.

Desiring God Conference for Pastors 2010

Posted on February 3, 2010 
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The Desiring God Conference for Pastors is currently taking place in Minnesota and as talks are given, audio and video is being made available online.

Here’s John Piper’s invitation to the conference, and the notes on the pre-conference seminar by Paul Tripp are challenging and well worth reading (1, 2).

‘My voice is like a useless cry in the wilderness’

Posted on February 2, 2010 
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Archbishop of Egypt, Dr Mouneer H. Anis, has resigned from the ‘Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion’ and has given his reasons –

“After much prayer and consideration, I hereby submit my resignation from the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion (SCAC). I have come to realize that my presence in the current SCAC has no value whatsoever and my voice is like a useless cry in the wilderness…”

Read his letter. (h/t Stand Firm.)

– and also this reaction from Dr Stephen Noll –

“The letter from Bp. Mouneer Anis is a bombshell in the midst of the Covenant process…”

Update: Response from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Photo: ENS.

Suffering well: Faith tested by pastor’s cancer

Posted on February 1, 2010 
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“Another cancer patient Chandler has gotten to know spends his time in radiation imagining that he’s playing a round of golf at his favorite course. Chandler on this first Monday in January is reflecting on Colossians 1:15-23, about the pre-eminence of Christ and making peace through the blood of his cross.”

– from a surprisingly good AP article about Matt Chandler.
(h/t Gordon Cheng.)
Related: J C Ryle on Sickness (from the old part of our website.)

Speaking of liberalism…

Posted on February 1, 2010 
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“Washington Episcopal Bishop John B. Chane’s announcement that he expects to retire in the fall of 2011 wraps up nine years at the helm of a diocese he acknowledged had not grown or prospered during his tenure. …

Bishop Chane took the helm of the diocese in 2002 with a series of confrontational moves. …

Once installed, the new bishop imported a number of liberal clergy onto his staff, including retired Massachusetts Suffragan Bishop Barbara Harris. He quickly commissioned a diocesan same-sex marriage rite and performed it himself in June 2004.”

– report by Julia Duin in The Washington Times.

Related: Diocese of Washington announcement.

Engaging with Liberalism

Posted on February 1, 2010 
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“But within the local church liberalism can be pervasive not because it enters via the pulpits, but via public worship—a softening of the mind and a lowering of the defences through the songs sung, the prayers prayed and the liturgies used. …

It is nearly eighty years since our forebears fought to ensure that the 1928 Prayer Book would not be accepted into the Church of England. Compared to Common Worship*, that book appears to be a compendium of soundness! The ex opere operato view which is pretty well explicit in the baptism service is simply astonishing. This is where at the Synod level evangelicals need to resist such trends and at the parish level refuse to capitulate.”

– Melvin Tinkler points out the bankruptcy of liberalism and offers advice on how to resist it. His 2008 article from Churchman has just been republished by Church Society (PDF file).

* Common Worship is in wide use in the Church of England.

Hitchens explains the gospel

Posted on January 30, 2010 
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Earlier this month the Portland Monthly in Oregon, published the transcript of an interview with atheist Christopher Hitchens. He spoke with Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell.

One of them rejects Jesus, the other wants Jesus but without ‘all that stuff’ –

Sewell: “When you speak of ‘religion’ in your book God is Not Great it seems to me that you’re generally referring to the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the Scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of Atonement – that Jesus died for our sins, for example. Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?”

Hitchens: “Well, only in this respect: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ – in other words, the Messiah – and that he rose again from the dead and that by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you are really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.”

The transcript on the website has been fairly heavily edited and leaves out an exchange immediately following the above. Sewell says she believes…   Read more

Pray for Moore College

Posted on January 30, 2010 
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Vicki King in the Development Office at Moore College writes –

“Please pray for our new 1st Year students beginning at College on Monday. We have approximately 100 full time students who would value your prayers:

In addition, we have almost 50 part-time students who have registered. This is the first time part-time study has been available at Moore and so it’s very encouraging that so many have taken advantage of this excellent opportunity to grow in knowledge of the Bible while being able to continue on with work and other responsibilities.

It’s not too late for people to register for the part-time courses so if you know of people who would benefit from this type of study, please direct them to the website or have them call Alex Cowling on 9577 9928.”

Connecting the Mind and the Tongue

Posted on January 29, 2010 
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“I want to go on record at this point as saying that I understand the attraction of Rome: the sheer mass of the organization (if you’ll pardon the pun); the overwhelming aesthetics; the desirability of belonging to such an august and ancient institution which knows what it is, where it comes from, and where it is going; and the cornucopia of brilliant intellects that have debated, refined, and articulated its confession over the centuries.  All that I understand; all that I find attractive; all that I find superior to what evangelical Protestantism has to offer, particularly in its crassest megachurch and emergent varieties.”

– Carl Trueman contributes “Reflections on Rome Part 1: Connecting the Mind and the Tongue” at Reformation 21. As always, provocative and worth reading.

Al Mohler on The Shack (again)

Posted on January 28, 2010 
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Albert Mohler has again written about The Shack, with good reason. Here’s the punchline –

“The popularity of this book among evangelicals can only be explained by a lack of basic theological knowledge among us — a failure even to understand the Gospel of Christ. The tragedy that evangelicals have lost the art of biblical discernment must be traced to a disastrous loss of biblical knowledge. Discernment cannot survive without doctrine.”

Read it all here.

Related: More Catechesis, please.

Archbishop Kwashi on the violence in Jos

Posted on January 27, 2010 
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“Brethren: be fully assured that our faith in Christ is intact, and shall remain so in life and in death. We have a gospel to proclaim, a gospel that brings light in darkness, hope in despair, courage in danger, and joy in sorrow.”

– At Christianity Today, Archbishop Benjamin Kwashi talks about the violence in Jos, reminds us who is really behind it, requests your prayers, and re-states his trust in Christ. (Photo: Church of Nigeria.)

Closing churches on Vancouver Island in ‘transformation’

Posted on January 27, 2010 
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From the Report (PDF) of the Diocesan Transformation Team of the Diocese of British Columbia –

“Our Bishop’s creation of the Diocesan Ministry Resources Team (DMRT) in 2004 was his response to the fact that the Anglican Church is failing to reach the majority of people on these islands in life-changing ways; that we are failing to fulfill Christ’s ‘Great Commission’ to all his disciples. The reasons for this failure are many and complex.”

The Anglican Essentials Canada blog has news reports on the Diocese’s plans for Vancouver Island.

See also this News Release (PDF) from the Diocese.

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