Church and State
The Revd Mark Smith
Date posted: 1 Jul 2014
Dear Sir
It is perhaps not surprising that an article written from a self-confessedly non-conformist standpoint should decide against the idea of Establishment (‘Breaking the Church/State Link’, EN, June). Even so, a few brief points may be made in response.
Breaking the Church / State link
JEB
Date posted: 1 Jun 2014
Given the rise of secular ideas, should the Church of England be disestablished?
David Cameron looks upon Britain as a ‘Christian country.’
Was Adam for real?
Mark Johnston
Date posted: 1 Sep 2013
America is not only noted for its being a melting pot of culture, it is also one of the great melting pots of theology and has been for almost the past 200 years.
Some of the greatest theological seminaries and colleges are located in the US, and so too are many of the great Christian publishing houses. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that it provides fertile soil for theological debate. One of the most recent issues to rise to the surface has been the question of whether or not the Adam of Genesis was a real historical figure.
Letter from America
Good news for orphans
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.
news in brief
Algeria: arrested
A Christian man, Sofiane, from the Algerian
city of Biskra, was arrested on August 23 by
the National Gendarmerie at a checkpoint
near Biskra, according to a member of the
Protestant church of Algeria (EPA).
Sofiane, married and father of one child,
was in a shared taxi from the city of Oran
when he was arrested. He was taken to
Biskra for questioning. The Christian community in Algeria, including EPA officials, is
concerned by the news of the arrest and by
the fact that Sofiane is still in custody.
Letter from America
Growing up in the manse
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?
news in brief
Australia: euthanasia
New South Wales (NSW) will once again be
subjected to an attempt to legalise euthanasia, it was reported in May.
Catherine Faehrmann MP (Greens NSW
Party) in late April announced her intention
to submit legislation titled Rights of the
Terminally Ill Bill 2013 for NSW’s Upper
House to discuss. Previous such attempts in
NSW have been defeated by a wide range of
cross-party opposition.
Letter from America
Inaugural prayers
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.
Letter from America
High on God
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?
Same-sex marriage scares me
Lisa Nolland
Date posted: 1 May 2013
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.
Letter from America
Caesar salad
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’).
Letter from America
The courage to encourage
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.
Letter from America
Five reasons you should pray for the government
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.
Letter from America
Simeon in the USA
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.
Mission - quo vadis?
Thorsten Prill
Date posted: 1 Oct 2012
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.
Letter from America
Pastoring those in pain
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.
Letter from America
Tebowing!
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’.
Letter from America
The great and the good
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.
Letter from America
Occupied?
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.’
Letter from America
Time to play
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’.
Letter from America
9/11 anniversary lessons
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.
Christian anniversaries 2012
Joy Horn
Date posted: 1 Jan 2012
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.
Letter from America
Expansive not expensive?
Josh Moody
Date posted: 1 Jul 2011
The American economy has had a lower than expected increase in employment.
Other indicators from around the world seem to contribute to an expectation that if this economy is improving, it is doing so slowly.