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No doctrine, please, we’re Greenbelt

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The Greenbelt Festival, to be held on 28th-31st August, has raised eyebrows because of its invitation to Bishop Gene Robinson to speak.

According to its mission statement, ‘Greenbelt is an independent Christian charity working to express love, creativity and justice in the arts and contemporary culture in the light of the Christian gospel.’

As a distant observer, I am scarcely qualified to comment on Greenbelt’s faithfulness to ‘the Christian gospel’.  After all, we are reminded: ‘you’ll never really ‘get it’ until you come along.’…

The friendship of Jesus

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The Puritan writer John Flavel says, ‘there are certain things in which one friend manifests his affection and friendship to another, but there is not one like Christ. For,

1. No friend is so open-hearted to his friend as Christ is to his people: he reveals the very counsels and secrets of his heart to them. Jn 15:15. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knows not what his Lord does; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you.…

John Stott and Charles Simeon

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Timothy Dudley-Smith, in his fine biography of John Stott, draws some striking parallels between John Stott and  Charles Simeon (1759-1836).

‘Both were privileged sons of comparatively affluent parents, educated at public schools, undergraduates at Cambridge.  They shared a transforming experience of conversion to Christ, early and and severe trials and testing, and virtually a lifetime’s ministry in a single church.  Each cultivated habits well beyond the norm for early rising, disciplined prayer and the study of Scripture. 

…

Sin

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‘If you have not learned about sin,’ writes J.I. Packer, ‘you cannot understand yourself, or your fellowmen, or the world you live in, or the Christian faith.’

The Bible (apart from the first two chapters) is about God’s answer to sin.

It is not easy to have clear views about sin, because

  • the biblical doctrine of sin is uncomplimentary to us
  • the biblical doctrine of sin emerges from the biblical doctrine of God’s holiness, and there is little understanding of that
  • the biblical doctrine of sin has been secularised; the word has ceased to convey the tought of an offence against God

The nature of sin. …

1 Cor 15:1-11 – The most important thing in the world – sermon notes

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One of life’s minor frustrations is over-hearing other people’s phone conversations and trying to work out what is going on:

Hi Paul, how are you?
Oh no, when did that happen?
Oh you poor thing. So where is it now?
About 1, you say. Ok, I’ll leave it under the rabbit hutch.

Reading Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians is a bit like listening to one side of a phone conversation. The apostle spends much of his time dealing with problems and answering questions that have been raised by the people at the other end of the line – the Christians in Corinth.…

Personal salvation ‘a heresy’

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According to US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, belief in personal salvation is a ‘heresy’.  The grace of God, she is reported as saying, is given to the believing community, not to the individual Christian.

Of course, she may have been misreported.  It wouldn’t be the first time that the religious press has made someone out to be less orthodox than they really are.

Or possibly she just expressed herself badly.  Maybe she just meant to say that rampant individualism (a besetting problem in post-enlightenment liberalism as well as evangelicalism) is sub-biblical and sub-Christian. …

We must preach Jesus

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Jared Wilson has a post in which he outlines the ways in which Christians generally, and preachers in particular, can leave Jesus out of our message.  To summarise:-

1.  We speak in vague spiritual generalities.  We talk about love, joy, hope, peace, blessings, but divorced from Christ himself as the incarnate, crucified and risen Saviour and Lord.  Our message is pleasant and up-beat; inspirational, even.  But, separated from Christ, who is himself our joy, our hope, our peace and so on, it’s rubbish.…

Watching the English do Religion

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Kate Fox, in her book Watching the English (Hodder, 2004, pp 353-357), offers a fascinating account of the ‘rules’ underlying English behaviour.  The book is full of witty and insightful observations.  After all, Fox writes as a trained anthropologist (which she defines as a being a professional ‘nosey parker’).  She talks engagingly about how we English converse about the weather, the way we approach humour, the rules that govern our behaviour regarding driving, work, dress, sex, and so on.…

Sir Edward Downes and assisted suicide

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Distinguished conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife Joan died last Friday at the Swiss right-to-die centre, Dignitas.  She was suffering from terminal cancer.  He was not dying, but was losing his sight and hearing.

I have admired Sir Edward’s work from a distance, acquainted only with a number of his recordings.  He had a special interest in Russian music, and I have particularly relished his championship of the cheerfully and unprogressively tuneful Rheinhold Gliere.

I don’t have anything particularly profound to say about this latest instance of assisted suicide, but I do think it’s both sad and alarming.…

The Gospel – its content and communication

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J.I. Packer explores this topic with cross-cultural evangelism in mind.  Here’s a summary.

1. Three preliminary thoughts

(a) The communication of the gospel must be determined by its content

The content includes a diagnosis of the human condition, value-judgments on the life that is, and the life that might be, lived, and a call to respond in radical commitment.  Now this content must be verbalised, and it must be preached (i.e. explained and applied).  Such media as instrumental music, pictures, sculpture, or dance may reinforce the message, but only preaching can communicate it. …