politics & policy
Countdown to killer robots?
James Mildred
Date posted: 1 Jul 2023
In December last year, OpenAI launched Chat GPT-4. It’s the most advanced chatbot yet, employing cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI).
You can ask it any question and it will come up with an answer, because it has access to a colossal amount of data. This extends even to the finer points of Baptist covenant theology, as I discovered recently.
‘The car careered out of control’
Kicked out of college and hooked on drink and drugs, Pauline Hamilton drove recklessly towards a cliff near her home to end it all. At the last moment, her tyre blew out, leaving her stunned in the stationary car.
Pauline’s life changed forever. She turned at once to the God who had rescued her and, in grateful amazement, offered her whole life to Him. This dedication would eventually take her to China, where she would serve for over 30 adventure-packed years as a missionary. Through many trials Pauline never lost sight of the God who had promised never to let her go.
earth watch
Feather-brained folly?
Simon Marsh
Date posted: 1 May 2023
If you look round a typical Sunday congregation, I suspect you won’t see many women wearing hats.
Although you would never have seen my granny in church without a hat, with changing fashions, and perhaps a more relaxed interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11: 13, it’s a rare sight other than at weddings. But in the 1880s hats were de rigeur for women, and the latest millinery fashion that was storming polite society was hats with feathers. Feathers of birds like grebes and egrets, and in more extreme cases even whole birds, adorned voluminous headgear in late Victorian and Edwardian society.
history
Are evangelicals utterly ignorant of the Middle Ages?
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 1 Mar 2023
A number of years ago I was invited to give two talks at a major Reformed conference in America.
I was thrilled by the invitation as I had enormous respect – and still do, I need to add – for the ministry behind the conference.
ten questions: dismantling our tribalism
Jonathan Lamb
1. How did you become a Christian?
‘Hundreds of millions will be severely affected as… the climate changes’
John Emyr & John Houghton
Date posted: 1 Apr 2022
Back in 2014, Sir John Houghton (1931 – 2020) agreed to be interviewed by John Emyr. That interview was translated into Welsh and appeared in the Welsh-language magazine Cristion. It now appears for the first time in English.
JE: Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. When, and under what circumstances, did you first acquire a personal faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord?
history
Evangelical weaknesses?
Michael Haykin
Date posted: 1 Mar 2022
When did Evangelicalism as a movement emerge?
Is it a relative newbie, as some would assert, a creation of the 1940s out of the ruins of Fundamentalism or is it even more recent, a product of the Sixties? Or does it have much older roots?
I am same-sex attracted, committed to celibacy: please hear my voice
This article is written by a conservative evangelical committed to Biblical truth on issues of sexuality. Written in the context of the Church of England’s ‘Living in Love and Faith’ debate, it addresses issues pertinent for evangelicals in all denominations. The article is reproduced with permission, but anonymously.
I have found myself wanting to set out some thoughts from the perspective of one who experiences same-sex attraction, and who is and has always been committed to the Biblical view of sex and marriage. What I write here is personal, in the sense that I’m not claiming to represent anybody else or any group. It is perhaps not very theological, and is addressed primarily to those in the church who share my conservative evangelical position, and to encourage further reflection and prayer.
Josep Rossello: what’s next?
Nicola Laver interviews the South American bishop who came to the UK on a mission which has unfolded in unexpected ways
An exodus of evangelicals from the Free Church of England (FCE) continues against the backdrop of serious fraud allegations and a culture of secrecy against its senior leadership. Both the police and the charity regulator are investigating a range of allegations against Bishop Primus John Fenwick, who is resisting calls to resign.
John Stott: Abrahamic and apostolic?
Chris Wright
Date posted: 1 Apr 2021
Chris Wright suggests the scale and scope of Stott’s ministry were epic
‘I am a great believer,’ John Stott would often say, ‘in the importance of B.B.C. Not the British Broadcasting Company, nor Bethelehem Bible College, nor even Beautiful British Columbia. But “Balanced Biblical Christianity”.’ In my own assessment of John’s life and ministry I suggest a Biblical balance of Old and New Testaments by saying that the scale and scope of John Stott’s significance within the global church has been both Abrahamic and apostolic.
Jim Packer – a personal memoir: from Puritanism to Winnie-the-Pooh
Tony Baker
Date posted: 1 Sep 2020
Tony Baker reflects on several decades of friendship with J.I. Packer
The first time I heard Dr Jim Packer must have been at midweek talks he gave to the CU in Oxford (OICCU) in the 1950s.
Christmas and literature
Felicity Carswell
Date posted: 1 Dec 2019
Felicity Carswell highlights the great opportunity that Christmas brings to put good material into the hands of our non-Christian friends
I love Christmas – the tunes, the smells, the tastes, even the cold weather that brings with it cosy evenings by the fire.
Letter from America
Wars and rumours of wars
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Dec 2017
Many of us would suppose that we live in unusually disturbed times.
A leading relief organisation in America estimates that they are dealing with, on average, far more serious crises in the early part of this century than in previous decades. There appears to be a growing flame of upsets, civil wars, brutality – and downright barbarism. Not to mention North Korea: what on earth is the world going to do about that most unstable situation?
Letter from America
Fear & loathing in Las Vegas
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Nov 2017
When there is an event like the recent shooting in Las Vegas, a national conversation begins.
It takes fairly predictable lines and moves along standard patterns. The anti-gun lobby comes out in force, as does the pro-gun lobby, and the majority of people mourn and scratch their heads in wonderment that anything so awful could be perpetrated by a human being. Such socio-cultural events seem to have increased in frequency in recent years – whether they are events of violence, race, sexuality and gender, or scandals of one kind or another. And the church is increasingly being asked by a secular society to provide moral leadership with regard to these various ‘cultural issues.’
Letter from America
The Sovereign Plan or the plans of mice and men?
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Oct 2017
Perhaps the most frequent question I have received as a pastor in America over the last year or so is a version of ‘What on earth is going on?’
It is not hard to understand why variations along the lines of that kind of question are being asked by people today. We have clear indications of cultural change all around us, as well as a grievous lack of decorum and even basic civility in cultural battles. We have a multi-polar global scene with nations jostling for influence and power culminating in various wars or regional conflicts. We have terrorism continuing to spread its blight of vicious evil on the unwary. We have political populism that has thrown up global leaders who have caught many people by surprise.
Letter from America
Trumped
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Dec 2016
I am a ‘legal alien’, I carry a Green Card and all our children have been born here, but I cannot vote in America.
With that in mind and also being a pastor, it is inimical, unwise, and probably unedifying for me to talk about party politics.
defending our faith
A letter from Lewis
Chris Sinkinson
Date posted: 1 Jul 2018
Sorting through the dusty boxes of old book stock in our Bible College library we came across a real gem.
Tatty and heavily inscribed, with the spine sadly coming adrift, was a first-edition copy of Broadcast Talks by C. S. Lewis. Published in 1942 it is essentially a transcript of a series of BBC radio addresses delivered by Lewis during the war.
Letter from America
‘Peace on Earth’
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Jun 2017
‘Peace on earth’ (Luke 2.14)
is a well-known Christmas
text that is often read with
a feeling of slight disbelief.
In what sense did Jesus bring peace on
earth? If he did what he claimed he would
do, why is it that we still have ‘wars and
rumours of wars’ (another biblical text that
hints that the first text is not to be understood woodenly)?
Letter from America
The forgotten art of listening
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Mar 2017
As I write, the signs look ominous for much of our world.
I’ve just come from a search of a recent news story seeing college students holding up placards saying ‘This is WAR’. As many will know, America has been embroiled in a low-simmering ‘culture war’ for many decades now, one that could boil over – the tensions seem to be escalating and the troubles mounting.
Letter from America
Violence, justice & church
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Feb 2017
I live in a city that had more
murders last year than New
York City and Los Angeles
combined.
In 2016 alone, Chicago had 3,550 shooting
incidents, 762 homicides. That’s two
murders and ten shootings per day. Per day.
What is more, that number (762) has surged
considerably from the previous year: in 2015
there were – I cannot say ‘only’ – 496 murders.
Now, given the huge population of Chicago,
the actual murder rate per capita is not even
close to the highest
in America. But the
combination of
sheer numbers of
those
killed and the dramatic increase over the last
year has many understandably concerned.
There is a ‘we must do something about this’
moment approaching.
Letter from America
Changing your life
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Jan 2017
Life is on the wrong track.
Many people today feel that way for one
reason or another. Whether it be politics,
cultural issues, moral matters or more prosaically economic
realities, much of
the
Western world senses that times are not so
much a’changing as a’worsening.
Letter from America
Under-appreciated virtue
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Nov 2016
Suicide is second only to
accidents as the leading
cause of death among
adolescents.
This according to the journal Pediatrics, and
Internet use exceeding five hours a day has
been linked to suicide and depressive thoughts.
Letter from America
Exciting times
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Oct 2016
It’s common place.
Rarely a day goes by without someone commentating on the declining religious interest of the upcoming millennial generation. Much is debated: Are the statistics reliable? Do they reveal a decline in vital faith, or do they expose a dying religious nominalism being replaced by vital evangelical Christianity? Most perti-nently, what (if anything) do we need to do about it? Well, at God Centered Life Ministries, we are excited to call a new generation to centre their lives upon God.
