When did you last doubt the truth of Christianity?
Notice that I asked when, not if, because I’m assuming that this is one of the temptations that is common to man—the temptation to turn away from God, to doubt his goodness, his faithfulness, even his reality. (more…)
I’ve just started reading (rather belatedly) What is the Mission of the Church? by Kevin de Young and Greg Gilbert. From what I have read so far, and from the reviews I’ve seen, it promises to be an excellent book on the relationship between disciple-making and social action. (more…)
This week we’ve had a young man with us on work experience. One of the things we asked him to do was to read Keep the Faith and write a book review of it. Paul is only in Year 10 at School, but we think he’s done such an excellent job that we want to give it a wider audience. Here’s his review…
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The name and ministry of Philip Hacking may not be well known to readers of The Briefing. (This reviewer certainly did not know of Philip before reading this book.) To set the record straight, Philip Hacking has been a faithful minister of the gospel for more than 40 years in the Church of England, serving in the parishes of St. Helens, Edinburgh and Sheffield. The essays making up The Renewed Pastor survey various aspects of pastoral ministry and were presented to Philip in appreciation of his ministry. (more…)
Redeeming Singleness: How the storyline of Scripture affirms the single life
Barry Danylak, Crossway, Wheaton, 2010, 256 pages.
Some Christian topics seem to engage our interest and time more than others. Predestination is a classic; marriage and singleness is another. With so many books already written on this subject does Redeeming Singleness bring anything new to an already crowded ‘relationships’ section of your local Christian bookstore (if you still have one)? (more…)
In recent decades, the fights that many churches have had over musical styles have been termed the ‘worship wars’—typically cast as a battle between traditionalists on one side, who wish to retain the noble beauty and heritage of historic church practice, particularly in music; and modernizers on the other, who want church services to be contemporary, relevant, engaging, and so on. (more…)
It’s hard to think of anyone better equipped than Tim Challies to write a book about the impact of technology on the Christian life. He’s a husband, father, and pastor; a web designer by trade; and a popular evangelical blogger (at challies.com). Living a life interrupted by the ‘beep’, in the glow of the latest iDevice, he began to suspect his technologies owned him as much as he owned them. The Next Story is the fruit of his reflections. Its goal is to enable us to live in the “sweet spot” where practice, theory and theology overlap, helping us to use technology in a way that’s thoughtful and biblically informed. (more…)
Muriel Porter has been attacking Sydney Anglicans for years. In synods, committees, and in print, she has vociferously opposed the position of the Diocese of Sydney on a whole range of issues. Never very far from the surface, though, is her anger at the diocese’s attitude towards female priests and bishops. (more…)
“Labels are for boxes and dieters” a friend told me after I asked him his theological
persuasion. Many of my new Christian friends tell me basically the same thing. Most of them are under the age of forty, and none of them want to be labelled. They don’t want to identify themselves as Baptist or Presbyterian or Calvinist or conservative. They just want to be known as Bible-believing Christians. (more…)
Love and judgment are not opposites. Love and indifference are opposites. Those ideas are well-known but still worthwhile to state. Connecting love with judgment helped me work through some of the theological obstacles I had when I was a younger Christian (i.e. the “how can a loving God judge people” ones). (more…)
Things don’t always go to plan. You try to do your Christmas shopping in October, but somehow you’re still looking for gifts on the 23rd of December. You mean to ask that couple from church around for dinner, but the weeks go by and the invitation slips your mind every Sunday. This is the year you’re going to exercise more and eat better… how did another kilogram sneak on to the scales? (more…)
Thanks to the CASE team (CASE = Centre for Apologetic Scholarship & Education) at New College, I’ve enjoyed receiving their quarterly journal for the past few years. Each one has a theme, and they’ve had some real winners in the last two years, including on: (more…)
Unless you’ve been hiding in a cocoon for the past ten years, you can’t have failed to notice the New Atheists and their public challenge to religion and Christianity in particular. Men like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris (to name perhaps the three most famous examples) have proclaimed from whatever atheistic minaret they could find their call that the very idea of God is a delusion, that the God of the Bible is not great, and that ‘faith’ should be at an end. (more…)
When my grandfather was a boy, porn was something that was, for most people, hard to come by. It was the postcard passed around, the naughty story shared. While there was a sex industry—prostitutes, strip clubs, and the like—for most people this was the dark side of society, a place they never visited, rarely talked about. It was certainly not mainstream. (more…)
Am I Really a Christian?