news in brief
Bangladesh: murdered
On 5 June, Sunil Gomez, a Christian grocer, was murdered inside his shop in a Christian neighbourhood in the district of Natore.
On 7 June, Ananda Gopal Ganuli, a Hindu religious leader, was killed in Jhenaidah after performing his regular religious rites in a temple in the Naldanga area, where he served as a priest. Attacks on religious minorities by extremist groups in Bangladesh have escalated rapidly in recent months. Responsibility for the murders has reportedly been claimed by Daesh (Islamic State).
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.
Australia: church statements – home and away
Peter Riddell
Date posted: 1 Mar 2016
As Australian churches entered the New Year, the attention of the church media was devoted to several pressing issues of debate, both domestic and international.
The push in Australia for the somewhat euphemistically named ‘same-sex marriage’ has been increasing in momentum in recent times. Opposition is coming from various quarters, including the different Australian churches, in partnership with other faith communities.
Slide of society
Mike Matthews
Date posted: 1 Feb 2016
Dear en,
I read with interest your article by Edward
Vines in the October en on the ‘Slide in
Society’, with many illuminating views and
quotations.
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.
Disagreement or departure?
The Global South Conference planned for
Tunisia from 12–18 October was targeted
by a credible terrorist threat and cancelled.
The Global South Primates therefore met
in Cairo from 14–16 October. They claimed
to represent the majority of the active membership of the Anglican Communion.
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.
Locating Lambeth?
Chris Sugden
Date posted: 1 Dec 2014
Transition of leadership is always a testing time for organisations.
This is certainly true for the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), which came into being in 2009. Following the consecration to the office of bishop of a man who was in a samesex relationship, those who could not accept this within a Christian church formed a new church, faithful to Anglican teaching. It was recognised by the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (GAFCON), which first met in 2008 in Jerusalem.
Letter from America
Letter from America
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.
Letter from America
Mark Johnston
Date posted: 1 Sep 2011
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.
Letter from America
From the mouth of hell
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Oct 2013
The prosperity gospel seems
to be straight from the
mouth of hell.
Trained as I was to prize moderation,
intellectual sophistication, cultural nuance,
and deliberate, careful articulation of the
truth, I, nonetheless, can do nothing else but
say this.
Letter from America
Letter from America
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.
