Did Christianity really decline?
Review
The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding secularization 1800–2000
Callum G. Brown
Routledge, London and New York, 2001, 256pp.
It’s an ironic title, is it not? After all, Britain is still, obviously, a place where a mainstream publisher will take on a book which is entirely about the social significance of Christianity and which argues against the assumptions of secularist theory. Moreover, the first chapter, which describes “the Christian churches in crisis”, quotes,
Planting the Café Church
Pastoral Ministry
Editing sermons
Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel
Being an editor doesn’t have many occupational hazards. A bladder weakened by coffee over-consumption perhaps; or bruises on the upper arm from having been punched by your teenagers for pointing out yet another appalling lapse of grammar or pronunciation on their part. (more…)
Cumber
Life, Word Watch
‘Cumber’ is a rather quaint, old-fashioned word that we don’t hear much any more. We still talk occasionally about something being an ‘encumbrance’, but ‘cumber’ (the shorter verb from which this noun is constructed) has largely disappeared.
Seven financial habits of gospel-minded people
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Sons laid down their lives
Thought
Something heartbreaking happened to a family at Black Point at Easter two years ago.
Black Point is an isolated place, accessible only by four-wheel drive, on the south coast of Western Australia, and the Stallard family travelled there to fish. The parents, Ron and Debbie, lived in the south-west of the state, but their two sons, 25-year-old Paul and 19-year-old Andrew, lived in Perth. So the fishing trip was something of a family reunion too.
Is polygamy a sin? A consideration of polygamy and the Bible
Thought
Conservative Christians in the Anglican Communion—especially those in Africa—have fought a long, hard battle against the acceptance and blessing of homosexual activity. Now, some Western Anglicans are charging the Africans with hypocrisy for arguing against one sexual deviancy whilst accepting another—polygamy.
Social involvement and evangelism (Part III): Some final reflections
Thought
So far, we’ve looked at the strong cases that can be made for both evangelism and social involvement, and at how they relate together. Mike Raiter concludes our series by reflecting on the recent Lausanne conference, and on some lessons from history.
Social involvement and evangelism (Part II): How they relate
Thought, Sola Panel
In the first part of this essay (in Briefing #316), Tim Chester looked at the strong case that can be made for Christian social involvement, as well as the strong case for proclamation of the gospel being central. We now come to the question that has bedevilled evangelical discussion of this subject for the past 30 years: What ought to be the relationship between social involvement and evangelism in Christian ministry and mission?
Bowels
Life, Word Watch
As a young Christian, I was torn between bafflement, amusement and embarrassment when the good old King James Version was read aloud in church, and we heard Paul telling the Philippians that he longed after them “in the bowels of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:8). I mean, it almost sounds blasphemous, doesn’t it? Or, at the very least, an invasion of privacy. Did we really need to hear that in church? And then a bit later on in the same letter, Paul is at it again: “If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies …” (Phil 2:1).
Social involvement and evangelism (Part I): Two strong cases
Thought
Let me introduce Albert. Albert calls himself a post-evangelical. He says there are many good things about the evangelical church in which he grew up, but he himself has grown out of evangelicalism’s narrowness. Like his postmodern friends, he is wary of truth claims and instead he wants to emphasize symbols and images. This makes him much more comfortable with social involvement than evangelism. Evangelism makes him uneasy because, as he puts it, ‘we are all on a faith journey’ and he thinks that evangelism among the poor is simply manipulative. His catchphrase is ‘don’t force your truth on others’. Instead we should walk with the poor, care for them and help them on their faith journey while expecting them to enrich our own faith journeys.
Reason vs. prejudice
Couldn't Help Noticing, Life
I recently had the pleasure of sitting in on a preaching workshop with David Jackman from the London-based Cornhill Training Course. David made some telling points from a survey of apostolic preaching from Acts 17-20, and one in particular struck me.