Anglican Mainstream

By N T Wright, Touchstone

Reflections on a Master Apologist After 60 Years

I once found myself working closely, in a cathedral fundraising campaign, with a local millionaire. He was a self-made man. When I met him he was in his 60s, at the top of his game as a businessman, and was chairing our Board of Trustees. To me, coming from the academic world, he was a nightmare to work with.

He never thought in (what seemed to me) straight lines; he would leap from one conversation to another; he would suddenly break into a discussion and ask what seemed a totally unrelated question. But after a while I learned to say to myself: Well, it must work, or he wouldn’t be where he is. And that was right. We raised the money. We probably wouldn’t have done it if I’d been running the Trust my own way.

A Great Debt

I have something of the same feeling on re-reading C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. I owe Lewis a great debt. In my late teens and early twenties I read everything of his I could get my hands on, and read some of his paperbacks and essays several times over. There are sentences, and some whole passages, I know pretty much by heart.

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Shofar Joburg newsletter editorial

Lately, the strangest thing has been happening to me. I keep seeing children in the faces of adults I pass by.

Now I don't mean this in a freaky "I see dead people" kind of way. It's more like God has baptised my eyes with grace so that when looking at a drunk beggar on a street corner, or someone being bundled into the back of a police van I see in their faces a 6-year-old child. But I really SEE it. I see a little face filled with hope, innocence and promise and my heart at once swells, and crashes, with such compassion and such pain. I see a little one who lost hope, who was suffocated by the forces of this world.

I thought it was just my imagination at first. Until, while watching a secular TV series, I heard the cop in the show saying how when she shoots someone, at the point of death she sees not the face of a hardened criminal but of a small child, about 6-years-old, looking at her as if to say "Why, why did you do this to me?". Her partner responded by saying that it's the hardest thing in their line of work, to know that every bad man you shoot was once someone's little boy.

And then in a Philip Yancey book I read about how when God looks at us He sees his children. Something clicked inside of me.

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In June Wayne Grudem will be in the UK to encourage biblical thinking about why and how Christians should speak out on moral issues. The tour comes at a time when Christian beliefs are increasingly squeezed to the margins

From Christian Institute

Thursday  24 June
5.30pm – 7.00pm
London
St Helen’s Bishopsgate (EC3A 6AT) (1)

Friday  25 June
7.30pm – 9.15pm
Liverpool
Bridge Chapel (L19 4XR)

Saturday  26 June
10am – 1.30pm
Sheffield
Christ Church Fulwood (S10 3RT)

Monday  28 June
10am – 1.30pm
Cambridge
Eden Baptist Church (CB1 1ER)

Tuesday  29 June
7.30pm – 9.15pm
Peterborough with Stuart Townend (2)
Kings Gate (PE1 4YT)

Wednesday 30 June
7.45pm – 9.15pm
Chessington with Stuart Townend  (2)
The King’s Centre (KT9 2GZ)

1 Event will follow the Evangelical Ministry Assembly (EMA).

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[...] Singer, it seems, finally falls foul of the problem which affects many atheists, that they just do not want to act like one. A world without human beings is, for Singer (if you’ll pardon the pun) inconceivable, even if the only justification for its continuation is the blind hope that “things can only get better”.

By Karen McVeigh, Guardian

The campaign, which aims to reach 40 million people, shows a scan of a foetus with a halo above its head. It will feature on billboards over Christmas and reads: "He's on his way: Christmas starts with Christ."

From The Telegraph

An ultrasound picture of Jesus in the womb – complete with halo – is to be used for a Christmas advertising campaign.

The ChurchAds.net image, with the words ''He's on his way'' is the latest in a series of Christian Christmas advertising campaigns and follows an image last year of the nativity as a bus stop.

Francis Goodwin, chairman of ChurchAds, said: ''This is the kind of thing proud 'parents-to-be' show their friends and family – passing round the scan of the baby, or even pinning it up in the office.

''Our poster reflects this new way of announcing the news of a new arrival and places the birth of Christ in an ultra-contemporary context.''

The Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, the Bishop of Reading, said: ''For many parents pregnancy gets real when you see the image from the ultrasound scan. It tells you something is actually kicking off.

''We've got so used to the tinsel wrapped cosiness of the carefully packaged 21st century consumer-fest Christmas, that its astonishing reality – an actual pregnancy, a God come down to Earth – is easily missed".

By Dennis Prager, Front Page Magazine

One of the many beliefs — i.e., non-empirically based doctrines — of the post-Christian West has been that moral progress is the human norm, especially so with the demise of religion. In a secular world, the self-described enlightened thinking goes, superstition is replaced by reason, and reason leads to the moral good.

Of course, it turned out that the post-Christian West produced considerably more evil than the Christian world had. No mass cruelty in the name of Christianity approximated the vastness of the cruelty unleashed by secular doctrines and regimes in the post-Christian world. The argument against religion that more people have been killed in the name of religion than by any other doctrine is false propaganda on behalf of secularism and Leftism.

The amount of evil done by Christians — against, for example, “heretics” and Jews — in both the Western and Eastern branches of Christianity — was extensive, as was the failure of most European Christians to see Nazism for the evil that it was. The good news is that Christian evils have been acknowledged and addressed by most Christian leaders and thinkers.

But there were never any Christian Auschwitzes — i.e., systematic genocides of every man, woman and child of a particular race or religion. Nor were there Christian Gulags — the shipping of millions of innocents to conditions so horrific that prolonged suffering leading to death was the almost -inevitable end.

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From Premier Christian Radio

Peter Hitchens is a writer and regular columnist for the Mail on Sunday. Unlike his atheist brother Christopher, Peter is a committed Christian having himself been an atheist in younger years.

His new book "The Rage Against God" challenges the anti-theism of his brother and the 'new atheism', taking as its starting point a debate they both took part in two years ago.

He debates with atheist Adam Rutherford, a scientific broadcaster and writer, on whether society can function without a God-given moral compass at its centre. They cover issues such as faith, secularism, the church, atheist states and abortion in this wide ranging discussion.

Listen here

From Ruth Gledhill, Timesonline  By Clifford Longley

All three party leaders carefully explained to the nation, half way through one of the live television debates before the election, where they disagreed the Pope.

The fact that they all felt it necessary to give this particular demonstration of 'not doing God', to adapt Alistair Campbell’s famous interruption when Tony Blair was asked a question about his faith, perhaps confirms that they shared Mr Blair’s fear that to speak otherwise was to risk being branded a 'nutter' – or worse still, of offending the aggressive secularism of the London metrosexual intelligentsia by being seen as pro-Catholic.

More to the point, however, they didn’t tell the nation how much they agreed with the Pope, which would have been more interesting.

They didn’t say they’d all had copies of Choosing the Common Good, a pre-election document from the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, or that all three had responded warmly to it.   Read here

By Fr Edward Tomlinson

History teaches that placing complete trust in man-made philosophy has terrible consequences. Joseph Stalin proves this point for he did not set out to be a tyrant but to create a better world. Indeed he was so completely convinced that socialism was the way in which to create utopia on earth that he grew blind to all and any other perspectives…it is this that led to his downfall.

In sophisticated language we would say he became a ‘millenarian’ –one who believed he could usher in a period of peace and prosperity through a great political shift. We might also call him a ‘Gnostic’ for his belief that he and other ‘enlightened’ souls could usher in a higher state of being. And so he dedicated himself to establishing socialism in his native land and in the early days he was happy. Decay only arrived when Stalin was forced to face failure. When utopia was not established he, and those he had convinced, grew deeply frustrated. Unable and unwilling to concede that socialism was the problem and thus blind to truth they created a scapegoat and it was this that led to dire misery and death in the dastardly gulags.

We love to think that the left and right wings of politics are radically different but that is simply not true. Both are man made philosophies and both are unable to create utopia on earth because that demands the transformation of multiple souls, something I would argue requires deep, personal and living faith. Which explains why, in Adolf Hitler, we can tell an almost identical story to that of Joseph Stalin. He too found a political system (albeit very different to Stalin’s) that captivated his imagination and made him blind and deaf to other perspectives. He too persecuted all dissenters of his creed and he too was at first happy to usher in his brave new world. But predictably he also grew deeply frustrated when utopia never materialised and so he made the Jews his scapegoat and the horrors of Auswitch became a reality.

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They tell the truth but do not rant at abortionists and gay rights activists. They control their tongues and lungs not because killing babies and killing marriage is right, but because their goal is to change hearts.

Third brothers ask pointed questions, and here are ones for each of us to answer:  Am I a younger, elder, or third brother? Can we, through God's grace, leave behind elder- and younger-brotherism?

A classic from Marvin Olasky World Magazine (28 February 2009)

Part of the evangelical problem is knowing which brother we are, 

As Tim Keller points out in The Prodigal God (Dutton, 2008), the parable of the prodigal son should have a plural in its name: sons. We all know of the younger brother's libertine living, but the elder brother has a more subtle problem: He is self-righteous and lacks joy.  Read here

A wickedly witty satire, The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death and Atheism chronicles the conversion of a young adult Christian to atheism. Amid the many current books arguing for or against religion, social critic, and writer Mary Eberstadt's The Loser Letters is truly unique: a black comedy about theism and atheism that is simultaneously a rollicking defense of Christianity.

…So You see, one other reason for my own former resistance to Secularism and Atheism – and a big reason why many other believers resist us too – was just this: it seemed plain as the ring in my nose that the so-called Sexual Revolution, which is celebrated to a man (again, not a typo; more on that later too) by every Atheist, turned out not to be the benign bacchanal everyone said it would be; it was not the nonstop party of so many panting descriptions; it was not even the "Love Shack" of the B-52's; it was instead, from the point of view of many of the believers, proof that Secular so-called morality once unleashed would do some real damage in the world.

I mean, even Christians can count on their fingers, You know, about things like the number of peers from broken homes who seemed to have "issues" that the ones from intact homes didn't; the number of girlfriends unhappy about their abortions, their sexually transmitted diseases, their inability to treat men as dispos-ably as they were treated themselves; the number of men who turned out to make particularly crappy boyfriends because they'd been around the block one or ten or twenty too many times; the number of marriages split by the kinds of things consenting adults do when they're consenting with people outside of it – all just for instance.

Does any of this sound familiar? I'm sure it doesn't, because it's a part of sexual reality that Atheists never mention! But that's exactly why I'm harping on it. If our Movement is really going to go around arguing that the sooner we get rid of all those rules, the happier humanity is going to be, we're going to get blown away by this kind of counterevidence. Read here

From The Christian Institute

In June Wayne Grudem will be in the UK to encourage biblical thinking about why and how Christians should speak out on moral issues. The tour comes at a time when Christian beliefs are increasingly squeezed to the margins.

Wayne Grudem is the author of bestselling Systematic Theology and is prominent in the ESV Bible translation team. Sign up today to receive reminders about events on his UK tour.

Details here

By Albert Mohler

May the power of the cross and the victory of the empty tomb fill every pulpit, every pew, and every Christian heart — and may the Good News of the Gospel be received with joy by sinners in need of a Savior.

The Christian faith is not a mere collection of doctrines — a bag of truths. Christianity is a comprehensive truth claim that encompasses every aspect of revealed doctrine, but is centered in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And, as the apostolic preaching makes clear, the Gospel is the priority.

The Apostle Paul affirms this priority when he writes to the Christians in Corinth. In the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul sets out his case:

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By David Ould, Stand Firm

Here in Australia, considerable attention was given to the recent Global Atheist Convention held in Melbourne. The event generated a lot of interest in the local media, particularly focusing not so much on the arguments made but on the (allegedly) unnecessary insults handed out by prominent platform speakers. One Australian, Christian senator was described by Richard Dawkins and Robyn Williams as having

the intelligence of an earthworm

a comment which was met with rapturous applause by the delegates.

It's interesting that atheist commentator I reference above considers this sufficient demonstration that

we were all open to rational debate

By Kim Trobee, CitizenLink

Chuck Colson talks about founding the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, the importance of a relationship with Jesus Christ and how that relationship affects our views.

1. Tell me about this vision that has become the Colson Center for Christian Worldview.

Years ago I made an amazing discovery: Christianity is more than a relationship between Jesus and me. It is an overarching view of all of life. It is, in short, a worldview.

I first discovered this when I realized they were building prisons faster than I could get volunteers to work in them. I wondered what was fueling the huge increase in the prison population. Sociologists said crime was caused by poverty and environment and racism. But a study came out in the late '70s showing that crime was caused by people making wrong moral choices. A second study was done at Harvard in the mid '80s which said crime is caused by lack of moral training during the formative years.

For me, that was an eye-opening moment. I realized that crime is being caused as people in America live by a false worldview. Families are declining; moral standards aren’t being upheld. That was really the genesis of the Colson Center.

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By Damian Thompson, Telegraph

From The Catholic Herald (Hat Tip: Barbara Gauthier)

Rory Fitzgerald meets the controversial former Bishop of Rochester and unofficial leader of conservative Anglicans

(Clip) Dr Nazir-Ali was Bishop of Rochester until March last year, when he retired. He still lives in Kent with his wife and two children and now ministers to persecuted Christian minorities abroad.

"Christians in this country are becoming aware of the persecutions of Christians abroad. I think partly because they are experiencing something of it themselves," he says.

Dr Nazir-Ali speaks weighty words at a hypnotic pace, each word enunciated with a trace of a soft Pakistani accent. You know that you are in the presence of a profound and incisive mind. I refer to Churchill's speech in 1940 and ask whether he feels that Christian civilisation is now endangered.

"I used to speak of a moral and spiritual vacuum that was created by the catastrophic loss of discourse in terms of the Judaeo-Christian tradition in the public place," he says.

"I think that vacuum is now giving way to a hostility to the Judaeo-Christian worldview. "I am pursuing a twin track on this: on the one hand you have to uphold the Judaeo-Christian tradition as a basis for making the most important moral decisions that need to be made.

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by Lillian Kwon Christian Post Reporter

I'm sick and tired of the fact that people can attend church for ten to 20 years and never change," said NewSpring Church Senior Pastor Perry Noble.

A Practical atheist, or Christian atheist, is defined as someone who believes in God but lives as if He doesn't exist.

Groeschel calls himself a recovering Christian atheist. He says in The Christian Atheist that "Christian Atheism is a fast-spreading spiritual pandemic which can poison, sicken, and even kill eternally."   Read more

By Amy Sullivan, USA Today

A man with a machete attacks and kills your family. Repeat this scene on a genocidal scale. Would you forgive? Could you? Rwandans are, as human instinct and faith intersect in this African nation.

KIGALI, Rwanda — Rosaria Bankundiye and Saveri Nemeye are neighbors in the tiny village of Mbyo, south of Kigali. On a steamy morning, they sit in the cool living area of the clay house Saveri helped build for Rosaria just a few years ago. Two of his sons roll around on the floor while the adults talk. At one point, Saveri leans over to say something to Rosaria and she starts laughing, her smile wide. They have known each other for a long time.

Nearly 16 years ago, during the genocide that wracked this African country of 10 million people for 100 days in 1994, Saveri murdered Rosaria's sister, along with her nieces and nephews. Genocidaires also attacked Rosaria, her husband and their four children with machetes and left them for dead. Only Rosaria survived. Yet when Saveri came to beg her forgiveness after he was released from prison in 2004, Rosaria considered his request and then granted it. "How can I refuse to forgive when I'm a forgiven sinner, too?" she asks.     Read here