Abandoning hell

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A while ago, Dr Sam Wells wrote this article for the Church Times in which he explores the implications of a Christianity without belief in hell.

Wells begins with the words of Jesus in Jn 10:10 – “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  This, he says, supplies an excellent mission statement for the church:

‘Jesus is our model of abundant life; his life, death and resurrection chart the transformation from the scarcity of sin and death to the ab­un­dance of healing and resur­rection; he longs to bring all humankind into reconciled and flourishing relationship with God, one another, themselves, and all creation.’
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Christian ethics – creational or eschatological?

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In seeking to develop and refine biblical ethics, are we supposed to look back, to how things were when God created the heavens and the earth, and pronounced all things good?  Or should we look forward, to our perfected life in the new heavens and new earth?

Sam Wells would like to see ‘backward-looking’ thinking replaced by ‘forward-looking thinking.’

There is no getting away from the fact that Jesus and the apostles do look back to creation to support and explain their ethical teachings.…

Homosexual practice – a moral or social issue?

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Loveday Alexander helpfully clarifies the difference it makes when we regard homosexual practice as social phenomenon (as we tend to do nowadays) compared with seeing it as a moral issue (as is the case in the Bible).

‘We don’t talk (as a church) of being ‘inclusive’ towards murderers (say), or of repenting of negative attitudes towards financial fraud. (We will of course want to stress that the church is there for sinners — but we don’t thereby condone the sin.)

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Romans 1:26-27 – ‘Natural’ and ‘unnatural’ sexual relations

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Rom 1:26 For this reason God gave them over to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged the natural sexual relations for unnatural ones, 1:27 and likewise the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed in their passions for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

These verses are important in the debate about homosexual practices.  The discussion turns, to a considerable extent, on what Paul means by ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ in this context.…

Leviticus 18:22; 20:13 – Homosexual acts prohibited?

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Lev 18:22 – “You must not have sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman; it is a detestable act.”

Lev 20:13 – “If a man has sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman, the two of them have committed an abomination. They must be put to death; their blood guilt is on themselves.”

What do these texts mean, and what is their relevance to homosexual practice today?…

Genesis 19 – What was the sin of Sodom?

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Gen 19:1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening while Lot was sitting in the city’s gateway. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face toward the ground.
19:2 He said, “Here, my lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house. Stay the night and wash your feet. Then you can be on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they replied, “we’ll spend the night in the town square.”…

Train a child in the way that he should go

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According to this article in Christian Today, half of American Christians think that casual sex is ‘sometimes or always’ morally acceptable.

More than half of American white evangelicals say that cohabitation is acceptable if the couple plan to marry.  And almost half of evangelical Protestants aged 15-22 who were not currently cohabiting or married said they would probably or definitely cohabit in the future.  (But Christian commitment did make a big difference: those young people who attended church at least twice a month were least likely to approve of cohabitation).…

Simon Peter – fall and rise

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Robert Traill invites his hearers and readers to consider the following aspects of Peter’s failure and restoration:

1. His reaction to being called by the Lord Jesus, Lk 5:8f.  Is there any hope that Christ and this man will ever be acquainted together, when at his first meeting, the first prayer that the man makes is, Lord, be gone, and leave me?

2. The bad counsel that he gave to his Master, Mt 14:22f. …

Gender identity and the new gnosticism

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David Shepherd writes (on Ian Paul’s blog):

Gnostic dualism contrasted the ethereal other-worldly goodness of spirit and light with the transient worthlessness of flesh and matter. Consequently, Gnostics held that anything which perpetuated our God-given physical embodiment (including marriage and procreation) was to be rejected as evil, or, at best, inconsequential by comparison with spiritual pursuits.

Fast forward to the 17th Century and Descartes’ mind-body dualism (‘I think, therefore I am’) gave precedence to the mind over the body, conceiving the former to be essential and indicative of the true person, whereas the latter is relatively inconsequential to who we really are.…

Homosexual relations: the argument about justice and rights

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Some argue for homosexual relations on the basis of justice.  John Stott examines this argument:

‘The justice argument runs like this: “Just as we may not discriminate between persons on account of their gender, colour, ethnicity or class, so we may not discriminate between persons on account of their sexual preference. For the God of the Bible is the God of justice, who is described as loving justice and hating injustice. Therefore the quest for justice must be a paramount obligation of the people of God.

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