Category Archives: Church

Pastors, not priests

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The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches see their clergy as priests, especially in relation to their role at the eucharist.  The Council of Trent affirmed that the mass was a sacrifice offered to God, and the human priest who offered it represented Christ and his sacrifice of himself.  The Second Vatican Council endorsed this view, stating that priests are given power to offer sacrifice.

The word hiereus’ (sacrificing priest) occurs many times in the NT, with reference to pagan priests, Acts 14:13, to the Jewish priesthood, and to Christ, our great High Priest, Heb 10:12. …

Two Cheers for the Charismatic Movement

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For some people, the charismatic way is the best way, the biblical way, God’s way for us today.  They want all Christians to be charismatic Christians; they want all churches to be charismatic churches.  This is the stance of John Leach, for example, in his delightful book entitled, The Spirit Comes (as part of the package), (Marshall Pickering, 2001).  Some might think that such people have gone too far.  Actually, I don’t think they go far enough, and here’s why.…

Why does God bother with the church?

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I like a couple of illustrations that Philip Yancey uses to  explore what God might think of the church, with all its imperfections:-

The composer Igor Stravinsky once wrote a new piece that contained a difficult violin passage.  After several weeks of rehearsal the solo violinist came to Stravinksy and said that he could not play it.  He had given it his best effort but found the passage too difficult, even unplayable.  Stravinsky replied, “I understand that. 
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Adiaphora: agreeing to disagree

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In my short piece on Faultlines in Evangelicalism, I mentioned post-modernism’s distrust of ‘certaintist’ positions.  This contrasts with evangelicals’ perceived desire to be certain about everything.  I was interested to see John Stott in his book Evangelical Truth make a plea for evangelicals to distinguish carefully between essentials of the faith which cannot be compromised and those matters of secondary importance – adiaphora – in which there is a sincere disagreement amongst evangelicals as to what Scriptures teaches.  …

Carson on MacLaren

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I’ve been reading (well, listening to, actually, on my MP3 player) Brian McLaren’s book, A Generous Orthodoxy. McLaren is a leader in the Emerging Church movement and is an engaging writer and speaker. I found D.A. Carson’s review of McLaren’s writings in Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church, 158-182, to be fair and perceptive. Carson evidently thinks that McLaren, in his generosity, is giving too much away. I’m inclined to agree with him. Anyway, here’s a summary of Carson’s comments.…

Fault-lines in Evangelicalism

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We have been witnessing a number of important trends within evangelicalism. I’ve been trying to sort out in what I fondly call my mind what some of these trends might be, and how they might be connected to each other. The following basic analysis emerged.

1. New ways of doing church. This trend reacts against traditional passive/conformist approaches, and prefers authenticity to slick professionalism. Interested in developing ‘fresh expressions’ of church. It emphasises development of communities of faith, not just individual salvation.…