Justice and Truth in the Public Square
It is fearful how often the condition of ancient Israel resembles that of the modern world. One example of this is found in Isaiah 59: ‘Justice is turned back, and righteousness is far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey’ (Isa.59:14-15a). A modern journalist could have written these words, assuming there is a modern journalist with some understanding of these things. Because Dietrich Bonhoeffer became involved in the conspiracy against Hitler, he had to be unnaturally guarded in all relationships, and…
Lawmakers want to force churches to embrace LGBTQ ideology instead of the Bible
Lawmakers in California are pushing a new resolution in the state Assembly Judiciary Committee which essentially gives the state the power to dictate the moral positions of the Church, regardless of where the Bible stands. CBN News reports: “The Assembly Concurrent Resolution 99 (ACR 99) calls on ‘counselors, pastors, religious workers, educators’ and institutions with ‘great moral influence’ to stop perpetuating the idea that something is wrong with LGBT identities or sexual behavior. ACR 99 also condemns attempts to change unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion as ‘unethical,’ ‘harmful,’ and leading to high rates of suicide.” A number of individuals…
How do the Old and New Testament fit together?
Many people in the Christian Church have wondered how the Old and New Testaments are to be connected. Partly this is because of the widespread teaching of the German liberal Protestants who had no idea how to tackle this issue. One of the few who was not personally anti-Semitic was Adolf Harnack whose famous lectures of 1899 asked the question What is Christianity? He answered in terms of the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the infinite value of the human soul, and had little time for the evangelical emphasis on the death and resurrection of the God-man, Jesus…
WATCH: Pastor arrested after angry mob protest ‘offensive’ Christian message
A pastor in Toronto, Canada was arrested last week after his gospel message offended a nearby mob. Pastor David Lynn of Christ Forgiveness Ministries was at Church-Wellesley Village on June 4, as part of the ministry’s outdoor preaching tour throughout 22 districts in Toronto. The entire incident, including Pastor Lynn’s arrest, was live-streamed on Facebook and later uploaded to YouTube. The video shows Lynn sharing the gospel with people on a street corner when a group of belligerent LGBTQ protesters began to form a blockade around the pastor and shout down his message. “We are here to tell you that…
The Horrors of History Bear Witness, Not to the Cruelty of Christendom, but the Cruelty of Humanity When They Deviate From Christianity
Opponents of Christianity often appeal to the horrors of history to suggest the Christian faith is inherently dangerous and immoral. Examples are presented of prominent “Christian” figures throughout the past who’ve acted unjustly towards others, as though their actions were inspired by an overly zealous commitment to biblical instruction. Today, there’s an expectation that Christians ought to be ashamed of their history, and even apologetic for the sins of yesterday’s professing believers. But that shouldn’t be the case. Christianity doesn’t need to apologise for injustices orchestrated by professing Christians, because every injustice ever committed is carried out contrary to Christianity.…
Christianity is a hoax if Jesus did not rise from the dead
The historian, Philip Schaff, is often cited regarding the resurrection of Christ: ‘Truly, Jesus Christ, the Christ of the Gospels, the Christ of history, the crucified and risen Christ, the divine-human Christ, is the most real, the most certain, the most blessed of all facts. And this fact is an ever-present and growing power which pervades the church and conquers the world, and is its own best evidence, as the sun shining in the heavens. This fact is the only solution to the terrible mystery of sin and death, the only inspiration to a holy life of love to God…
Hell Makes No Sense to a Society That Thinks the Only Sin Is Condemning Sin
“The difficulty that the modern man has in accepting the idea of hell is that we’ve almost entirely given up on the notion of sin.”
Is there more to existence than just the physical world? Fascinating video looks at the spiritual realm and its impacts on earth.
We live in a society that often pretends there’s nothing more to reality than the physical stuff we’re made of. Apart from the fact that this notion can’t be rationally sustained, we hardly ever practically live it out in the real world. For instance, we all get angry when people do “evil” or “unjust” things. But what are these concepts in a purely material universe bound by the fixed laws of chemistry? Concepts such as “evil” and “injustice” cannot exist. They can’t exist because what happens in a purely material world, can only ever be the result of purely material…
A Message to Brian Houston: The World Doesn’t Need More Watered-Down Christians
This week Brian Houston, founder of Hillsong, penned an open letter to Israel Folau criticising the rugby star’s “judgmental” approach to sharing the gospel on social media. Brian then sent the letter to the Sydney Morning Herald who published it under the title: A message to Folau: The world doesn’t need more judgmental Christians. The piece divided opinions, and many, including some of Brian’s own supporters, expressed disappointment in his decision to distance himself from Folau. But that’s not the most concerning aspect of Brian’s letter. Brian doesn’t just take issue with Folau’s approach, he quickly turns his attention to…
The Message of Israel Folau, Notre Dame and Good Friday
It’s wonderful news that all of a sudden Rugby Union Australia believe in God, Heaven and Hell. Many of us had been under the distinct impression they were largely indifferent to Christian theology and doctrine. All that was cleared up marvellously though when they judged the record try scorer of all time, Israel Folau, to be more immoral than the philandering, drunken cokeheads which litter the various Australian football codes. His unconscionable crime was that of claiming to know of an objective standard by which Scripture warns all men are measured, a standard accepted and preached for centuries, if not…
It Takes a Lot of Blind Faith to Not Believe the Bible
Have you ever stopped to consider why so many people believe the Bible to be true?
All Men Seek Happiness, Even Those Who Kill Themselves
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”
“Trump of the Tropics”, President of Brazil says: “Christian values help move society in the right direction”
President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, nicknamed “Trump of the tropics” has said society is thirsting for real truth. Bolsonaro told CBN News, in 2015 he started travelling around the nation, like an itinerant evangelist or a minister of the gospel, bringing truth to people. “That was very well received by all segments of society,” Bolsonaro said. “The peasants… even people who work and live in the forest, as well as in large urban centres. Everyone seems to be thirsty for the truth.” The president also said he “believes in the Word of God,” and that “Christian values do help us…
Where God’s revelation meets the West and all the rest
Karl Barth and Roger Scruton make unlikely conversation partners. Barth, was a Reformed Swiss theologian, who held up the distinction between theology and philosophy, and Scruton, is a British philosopher, talks theology, but knows his limits on the subject. The meeting between the two takes place in Barth’s On Religion and Scruton’s, The West and All the Rest. Together they provide a telescopic view of modern religio-politics and the socio-political landscape of contemporary Western society. One big theme for Scruton is the relationship between the ‘social contract’ and Creed communities (or communities bound by religious law). One clear example of…
China vows to crack down on Christianity and rewrite the New Testament: ‘One more Christian, one less Chinese’
A senior Chinese official who oversees state-sanctioned churches has vowed to purge Christianity in China of any Western “imprint”, calling for further “sinicisation” of the religion. Xu Xiaohong, chairman of the National Committee of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), attacked the “Western influence” on Christianity saying, “[We] must recognise that Chinese churches are surnamed ‘China’, not ‘the West.’” “The actions by anti-China forces that attempt to affect our social stability or even subvert the regime of our country are doomed to fail,” Xu told delegates to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference at the Great Hall of the People in…
Faith and reason are NOT polar opposites, they are connected
In the minds of many people today, faith and reason are polar opposites. Richard Dawkins, for example, maintains that ‘Faith is an evil precisely because it requires no justification and brooks no argument.’ We are meant to believe that no Christian has any reason to be a Christian; it is all a matter of blind faith. And atheists are presented to us as illustrations of Matthew Arnold’s ‘sweet reasonableness’ – or reasonableness at least. Since Dawkins is keen that those with faith should argue, let us do just that. How does reason connect to faith? God is the source of…
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Christian Anarchist stand against the faceless collective and the group-think that controls them
While most of us are fans of ‘The Hobbit‘ and ‘Lord of the Rings‘ novels, some of us probably aren’t as up to date on the rest of J.R.R.Tolkien’s work and thought. The majority would know that he was friends with C.S. Lewis, and was part of the Inklings. An Oxford circle of writers, who would meet on an informal basis in order to compare and critique each others’ writing. The group informally (and unconventionally) included the straight-talking, Dorothy Sayers, and is said to have centred around the groups’ shared Christian faith and Christian values. Though Sayers apparently never attended the Inking…
ABC’s Q&A and Labor Senator says: Catholicism is more harmful than Islam.
Over the weekend the ABC’s Q&A asked their Twitter followers if Catholicism had done more harm to Australia than Islam. Attached to the question was an article from The Guardian with the implied answer. The piece, written by Labor’s Kristina Keneally, and published back in February 2017, was titled: “Catholicism has done more harm to Australia than Islam.” At the time, Keneally wrote in defence of the ABC’s Yasmin Abdel-Magied after she was criticised following an appearance on Q&A in which she claimed that Islam was the most feminist religion. Has Catholicism done more harm to Australia than Islam? via…
Three reasons you can’t be a Marxist and a Christian
On ABC’s episode of Q&A this week, feminist columnist Van Badham boldly declared that she is both a ‘Marxist’ and a ‘Christian.’ Whilst many applauded, I sense that deep down a large percentage of viewers were rightly questioning this oxymoronic admission. One of those people was Jordan Peterson. Reflecting on his participation on the Q&A panel in his 12 Rules for Life seminar the next night, Jordan Peterson highlighted the impossibility of being both a Christian and a Marxist due to the inherently contradictory claims of each worldview. While I believe Peterson is right, I am convicted that we must…
Christian social policy should consist of more than just demanding the freedom to say some things in our own little corner of the public space.
As Western society becomes more bullying in its attitude towards Christians, there has been an increasing tendency on the part of many believers to be content with arguing for our space in the public square. There has been a reluctance to call on unbelievers to repent, and even an assumption that unbelievers cannot be expected to hold the same moral views as Christians. It is true that without the Holy Spirit, the Christian message will simply seem to be foolishness to those who hear it (1 Cor.2:14). However, God has written His moral law on the hearts of all human…