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Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Sep 2010

A book which deserves a much longer review is James Davidson Hunter’s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Later Modern World.

As I say, I cannot possibly do this book justice in these few words, other than to say that if you are interested in the problem of cultural change in our day you really should read it. I don’t agree with everything that Hunter says. For instance, it is frustrating that Hunter (so sure footed elsewhere) makes if not monumental gaffes in historical summary, at least takes a particular side in the historical debate about particular events without seeming to realise that the side he is taking is far from non-controversial. He seems to regard it as an open and shut case that Luther was at least partly responsible for the German genocide of the Jews, and that Calvin was entirely responsible for the judicial execution of Servetus on religious grounds. As a historian (admittedly my period being a century or so later among the Puritans and the early Evangelical Awakening), those two statements are debatable and not to be taken at face value. That frustrates me, because to some extent it undoes a lot of the good work that Hunter does, of significant service to the church. Talking of the Puritans, you would also think that a brief survey of Protestantism would mention them quite a bit, especially writing as an American.

The US debt crisis has dominated the headlines for months.

First, because of the wrangling between the two main parties that took the US economy to the brink of a theoretical default (which everyone knew all along was more posturing than reality). But then in the aftermath, as the implications of the crisis — and the way it is being handled — have continued to send aftershocks through the world economy.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Aug 2010

Let me talk about an important book bearing on the American scene.

Sebastian Junger’s War (New York, 2010) is a specifically non-religious book, but with great relevance to assessments of the effects and experience of war in Afghanistan for American troops. Junger ‘embedded’ himself with the ultimate front line troops in a far flung outpost of Afghanistan to experience daily life in combat.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Mar 2013

Recently I have been involved in an international conference in Kiev, Ukraine, seeking to develop a ‘Ukraine Without Orphans’.

Why describe this, you ask, in 'Letter from America'? Because American Christians, too, are becoming focused on adoption. Russell Moore, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, emphasises this point in his teaching. And recently Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, sparked no little controversy by banning adoption of Russians by Americans.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 May 2013

I grew up in a boarding school. My father was a boarding school house master, and we lived on the grounds of this community.

I did not grow up in a manse or vicarage or parsonage. My children, of course, are growing up ‘Pastor’s Kids’ (PKs). How can I help them flourish in that environment?

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Feb 2013

Ah, wasn't life easy when it was assumed that Billy Graham would give the inaugural prayer?!

Non-political, widely respected, eminent, senior, an establishment figure who could also appeal across generations. Those dulcet Southern tones mixed with the gravitas of a man who had also prayed with everyone from the President of China, you would think, to the piano repair man next door.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Jan 2013

As I write, this day Washington legalised marijuana use.

Predictably there will be a whole host of commentary about it, both from the secular media, and also from Christian pundits. What does the Bible have to say?

The prospect of same-sex marriage (SSM) becoming law is troubling.

The reasons for this are largely unknown even among Christians. With a few encouraging exceptions (such as the excellent C4M), many evangelicals with a high view of Scripture, which forbids homosexual practice, remain oddly passive. They believe this issue can be addressed by ‘gospel preaching’ and actions which ‘build the Kingdom’. Neither adequately addresses the challenges.

What would they have to change? Friends? Career? What they watch or read? How would you help them make those decisions?

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Dec 2012

‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s...’ This is the famous pronouncement of the Master in response to a particularly intense period of Pharisaic grilling. But what precisely does it mean as Christians in America negotiate a cultural landscape that appears less friendly to traditional Christian values and the message of the gospel than in the recent past?

The blogosphere is not short of answers, but I suggest that 1 John, in particular, provides a compelling look at the right way to respond. In the context in which John was writing, there was an incipient ‘Gnosticism’ that was advocating a toned down spirituality, denying that Jesus was the Christ in ‘flesh’, and therefore that it was possible to be spiritual without actual practical commitment to the local church or, indeed, without practising righteousness. In other words, in response to pressures from a pagan environment, the church was susceptible to a form of teaching that allowed it to live in a less combative fashion with its neighbours — understandable in its own right — but by means of denying core doctrines (‘Jesus is the Christ’) and core moral behaviour (‘practising righteousness’).

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Nov 2012

Is everything wrong with practically everything these days?

You can hardly turn over a blog page, or flip through a list of scrolling tweets, or listen to some startling statistic, without being given the impression that this is the case.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Oct 2012

Many at this stage in the election cycle are cynical of the motivations of our elected leaders.

Some may despair of finding effective (let alone godly) government. Yet, here are five reasons why you should pray for the government.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Jun 2012

A group of pastors gathered in Wheaton, outside Chicago, in May for a three-day course on Bible exposition.

Vaughan Roberts from Oxford and yours truly provided the instruction sessions and expositions for this course, but the real heart of this Simeon Trust workshop is the small group ministry that takes place. Dave Helm, head of the Simeon Trust in America, has provided a wonderful set of material and a framework which serves many pastors up and down the country to encourage them to preach the word faithfully.

So far we have identified three issues which cause problems. These are theological ignorance, the work of false teachers, and an unfettered pragmatic approach to ministry as possible reasons for the current theological crisis in evangelical mission organisations. However, there are other factors which may support the spread of heresy and problematic mission strategies.

Low view of local church

Sometimes it is a low view of the local church and its role in world mission that fosters unhelpful strategies and even heretical views in the mission field. For many years mission organisations have been reminding local churches in the West of their responsibility for world mission. Local churches, they rightly argue, must be mission-minded.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Apr 2012

Suffering is hateful. Bloody. Nasty. Indiscriminate. Horrible.

Just ask Job if you don’t believe me. For all the books out there on suffering — and there are many — it is a topic that will not go away because the easy answers do not work.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Jan 2012

One of the strange delights of living in a country where you did not grow up is the joy of exploring a whole different sporting culture.

For instance, take basketball. Well, when I went to school, basketball was played as distinctly second-rate also-ran game. For an Englishman I was not that bad. But I remember an American we had with us who was on our team and seemed to spend the whole time running up and down putting the thing in the appropriate basket. I could catch, pass, but throwing the ball through the rim was a whole different ‘ball game’.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Feb 2012

When John Stott’s memorial service in America took place, I was fascinated to hear the influence of British evangelicalism.

Person after person who spoke talked about how some of the luminaries known to readers of this paper — John Stott, Dick Lucas, and others — have had an outsized influence on developing a thinking person’s approach to biblical Christianity. The work of the Simeon Trust (www.simeon.org) generates similar conferences to that of the Proclamation Trust and frequently quotes Dick Lucas aphorisms.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Dec 2011

Watching St. Paul’s from a distance has been an interesting experience recently.

I was then intrigued to discover (from Challies.com) that a Christian street preacher in Calgary was comparing his treatment with that of ‘Occupy Calgary’ — anti-capitalist occupiers who have been left to openly flout many of the same bylaws that he has been routinely arrested for.¹ Artur Pawlowski comments: ‘I have stood over 70 times in the courts. We have been charged over 100 times. Eight arrests’, he says. ‘Just because I believe in Jesus Christ, I’m treated differently.’

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Nov 2011

Serious economic activity indicators are all around us, and earnest disciplined parents drive their children to succeed.

When such is the case, it is easy to feel that life is about working hard and forget the adage that ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’. I came across this quotation from C.S. Lewis recently: ‘It is only in our “hours-off”, only in our moments of permitted festivity, that we find an analogy. Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant down here; for “down here” is not their natural place. Here, they are a moment’s rest from the life we are placed here to live. But in this world everything is upside down. That which, if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends. Joy is the serious business of heaven’.

Josh Moody

Date posted: 1 Oct 2011

To even attempt to broach this demanding topic in a few hundred words is to rush in where angels fear to tread.

So first a preliminary word: this will not be exhaustive. It will not be ‘exhausting’ either, for which you may breathe a sigh of relief, because of its appropriate brevity.

General

A famous letter was written in AD 112 by Pliny, the governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor, to the Roman emperor Trajan, asking for advice concerning the attitude to take in relation to groups of Christians in his province. This is a fascinating and vital piece of evidence concerning the activities of early Christians and the attitude of the Roman authorities to them.

Thomas Helwys founded the first Baptist congregation in Spitalfields, London, in 1612. He advocated the principle of religious liberty, and for this was thrown into Newgate prison, where he died by 1616.