Letter from America
Righteousness exalts a nation
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 May 2016
Are you familiar with the story related to American self-awareness historically?
It’s about the Pilgrims, the Founding Fathers, manifest destiny, etc. If so you will know that there has long been a sense of ‘exceptionalism’ in America regarding its disproportionate blessings, as well as responsibilities to the rest of the world. The Puritans thought of it as a ‘city on a hill’, taking of course cue from Jesus’ language to that regard, Matthew 5.14.
Letter from America
Maturity and gospel centre
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Apr 2016
I’m a big fan of the gospel.
No secret there – it’s all over everything
I’ve done. I’ve said time and time again that
the gospel is not just the ABC, it is the A–Z
of the Christian faith. What, however, does
that mean with relation to Christian spiritual growth or ‘maturity’? How do we encourage growing up and growing deep and
becoming more like Christ?
Letter from America
Cultural engagement
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Mar 2016
It used to be simple.
Or at least it looks like that in hindsight. America was founded on, broadly speaking, Judeo-Christian lines. The framers of the Constitution may well not have all been ‘evangelicals’ but they were all influenced by the King James Bible, as well as by the thinking on ‘freedom’ that grew out of John Locke and other Enlightenment tolerance proponents that, while in some cases certainly radical (the French Revolution), were themselves also operating within or reacting to the same basic set of principles and assumptions.
Letter from America
The gospel and race
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Feb 2016
It would take an ostrich to not be aware that the issue of race has been prominent in recent months in America.
The matter of race has been one that has troubled humanity itself down through the eons. Obviously, the ante-bellum slavery has left its own nefarious trail of dehumanisation, bitterness, and defensiveness, and at the same time other racial/racist attitudes pervade other cultures too.
Letter from America
Reading the Bible – radical!
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Jan 2016
In my prized possession is
a letter from John Stott.
He was replying to say that he supported
me, as the new President of the Cambridge
Inter-Collegiate Christian Union,
in my
desire to revitalise the daily Bible reading
and prayer life of the Union. Hardly radical
stuff. Or is it?
Letter from America
How much has changed?
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Nov 2015
Yet another survey of American religious beliefs has come out recently.
This was a telephone survey of 1,000 adults that purports to show that most Americans (no surprise here), including those who do not affiliate with a denomination of one kind or another, believe in a ‘Creator’*.
Letter from America
How should Christians vote?
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Jun 2016
Many Christians at election season scratch their head and wonder exactly what sort of principles are to guide them as they face the ballot box.
This is particularly true at this election season, not only in the UK with 'Brexit' but also in America as citizens here begin to face up to the likely options that they will have on the table. What does it mean for a Christian to vote his or her conscience? What sort of guidelines can be given regarding voting that do not stray over the line of partisanship?
Crossing the Culture
Many Beautiful Things
Angeline Liles
Date posted: 1 Sep 2016
‘Many things begin with seeing, in this world of ours.’
Lilias Trotter, little known artist-turned-missionary of the 19th century, has her long-forgotten story told in director Laura Waters Hinson’s latest film. Through interviews with Trotter experts from North America and the UK and character narrative supplied by Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey) and John Rhys-Davies (Lord of the Rings), Many Beautiful Things unfolds the events and relationships of Trotter’s life, which took her from painting protégé to North African missionary.
Letter from America
Caesar, Planned Parenthood & God
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Oct 2015
Jesus famously said: ‘Render
unto Caesar that which is
Caesar’s, and to God that
which is God’s.’
Scholars have long debated the exact significance of this phrase. Certainly it was a brilliant, Houdini-like, escape from the trap that
was set for him. He took a coin, showed them
the face on the coin, and pointed out that it
might not be so immoral after all to give
Caesar taxes, given that the money they were
using was distributed by Caesar anyway. But
at the same time he made it clear that allegiance through all and above all was to God.
Letter from America
Out of Africa
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Apr 2015
This week a man nicknamed ‘Africa’ was shot by police in Skid Row in Los Angeles.
Unusually after such incidents it emerged that there was a video of the event that had been posted online. No doubt, there will be discussion as to what exactly took place and why the man was shot. The police say that he was grabbing one of the policemen’s guns.
Letter from America
WWJD about Ferguson?
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Jan 2015
The slogan WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) was popular some years ago.
It was a way of attempting to summarise a complicated ethical challenge to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. For all its brevity, and inevitable inaccuracy (there are some ways that the answer to what Jesus would do cannot be applied to mere mortals like you and me – walking on water, for one thing) it is an interesting question to ask about the current crisis taking place in Ferguson.
Letter from America
First they came for the fire chiefs...
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Feb 2015
The year was off to such a good start.
Finally we said goodbye to Newsweek’s scandalous butchery of the multi-faceted academic debate regarding the historical reliability of the Bible – a reliability that has eminent, respected and authoritative defenders from the late great F.F. Bruce to the esteemed denizens of Tyndale House in Cambridge University. Perhaps the New Year would usher in a season of common sense to Western culture. No such luck.
Letter from America
Mars Hill – tell it not in Gath
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Dec 2014
From a distance, the Mars Hill story looks an imponderable mess.
Who did what, when, why, how, and (what’s more) why on earth could it have been allowed to get to this level of angst? These are questions that people like you and me, who are outside the celebrity inner circle, ask but are unlikely ever to find answers.
Letter from America
Light on gay marriage
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Nov 2014
The U.S. Supreme Court has just decided to not decide on gay marriage.
As anticlimactic as a non-decision decision is, this was nonetheless of great significance. Effectively, the Supreme Court has legitimated the decisions of States to allow gay marriage by refusing to intervene (one way or another). Commentators have wondered whether this was motivated so as not to be tarnished with a Roe v. Wade like stigma which the Court has carried ever since its decision on abortion in the eyes of the conservatives.
Letter from America
USA: head in sand over ISIS
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Oct 2014
Observing the conversation regarding the abhorrent evil that is ISIS, I have come to two conclusions.
One - worldview matters. Two - some, even when their worldview is patently failing, will continue to stick their head in the sand.
Bedside table
Ruth Williams
Date posted: 1 Jul 2015
What’s the last thing you do at night? Ruth Williams sets us a challenge
What does your bedside table look like?
Letter from America
Holy internet debate
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Jul 2014
The text, ‘be holy as I am holy’, is perhaps one of the most old-fashioned sounding in the Bible.
But it is newly alive with interpretative complexities. How are we to be holy? Can Christians be called to be holy? What is the most effective means by which Christians are urged towards holiness? Is it legalism to urge the use of the law in Christian discipleship? Are Christians supposed to put effort into their holiness?
Letter from America
Meet the president!
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 May 2014
Josh Moody interviews David S. Dockery, the newly appointed president of Trinity International University.
This university in Illinois, USA, includes Trinity Evangelical Divinity School where Don Carson is a professor.
Letter from America
Death of a... communicator
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Apr 2014
Arthur Miller’s famous play, Death of a Salesman, has come to mind recently in a somewhat facetious, but applicable way.
The first time I was aware of it was when a then-famous preacher asked me what my role was at College Church. This in itself was not particularly unusual. Titles for positions of church staff are sometimes opaque, and it makes sense to delve a little further.
Captured by terrorists
Rebecca Davis
Date posted: 1 Mar 2015
What would you do if you were kidnapped and held at gunpoint? Russell Stendal faced that experience.
In 1959, at the age of four, Russell Stendal prayed for God to call his parents to be missionaries.
Letter from America
Gordon-Conwell
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Mar 2014
Josh Moody interviews Dr. Dennis Hollinger, president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
JM: What do you love about Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary?
Letter from America
Moody on Moody
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Dec 2013
In coming issues, this column will profile significant American ministries.
In this month’s column, Josh interviews Dr. Paul Nyquist, president of Moody Bible Institute.
