Details

Written by: Jill Firth

Jill Firth writes about options for ministers who would like to refresh their ministry by further study.

A variety of options are available for those who hold a three year theological qualification, from enrolling in a Graduate Certificate to a PhD.

David has recently been appointed Vicar in his parish and is interested in upgrading his skills in Christian theology and leadership. Rachel is preparing a study series on Isaiah and wonders what has happened in Isaiah scholarship since she graduated a decade ago. Ian ministers in a remote location and wishes he could have more interaction on biblical and ministry topics to stimulate his thinking. Jan has long service leave coming up and wants to use it in a way that will refresh her ministry in the coming years.

David, Rachel, Ian and Jan are some of the people in ministry who have been attracted in the past few years to return to theological college for further study in biblical and ministry subjects.

Read more: Enriching Ministry Through Further Study

Details

Written by: Pauline Dixon

Why we must pay attention to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

Pauline Dixon is an Executive Manager in a Not-For-Profit agency working with families andChildren in WA. She attends St Matthew's Shenton Park. 

Over the last two years Australia has been subject to a gradual awakening of what makes up part of our history, a history that has until now, remained out of the public realm. News items depicting courageous abuse survivors of major institutions involved in the public hearings have shaken the community, the church and those who work with families and children. The public hearings are only one part of the work of the Royal Commission, with survivors having the option of private hearings. As of 1st of October, 2016, the Royal Commission has received 34,863 calls, 19,848 letters and emails, 5,961 private sessions and has made 1,703 referrals to authorities including the police.

The commissioners have made a number of key note presentations at conferences during this time and even for those who work in the field and are aware of the consequences of abuse, the stories have been harrowing. Case studies paint a picture of vulnerable children and the breach of trust by adults who should have been caring for them. They tell complicated stories that unfortunately implicate many of our churches and people in authority who either were active abusers or could have managed the disclosures differently. The work of the Royal Commission is ongoing. Although many of the stories happened in the previous century when there was a different understanding of children, much of what has been learned is applicable today. We ignore it at our peril.

Read more: Why we must pay attention to the Royal Commission

Details

Written by: Stephen Hale

One of the big challenges for many evangelical churches at present is the large cohort of Baby Boomers who make up the mix of people who participate in our churches. Many churches that embraced a contemporary approach to worship in the 1980’s now have a reasonable cohort of baby boomers. There are many challenges and many opportunities associated with this phenomenon. At St Hilary’s we have several hundred baby boomers. What this means is that we are now seeking to minister to multiple generations in the same congregation at the same time while still seeking to be family friendly and attractive to younger families. As you are probably aware this is a big challenge! One of my colleagues Mark McDonald has done some interesting thinking in this space.

As a Baby Boomer myself I’d like to think that I’ve got the right outlook about the future so that I can continue to learn and grow as well as contribute for many years to come.  I recently wrote to following piece for our church newsletter, which captures something of this unique challenge for me and many others.

‘The Age newspaper recently ran an article suggesting that by 2057 the average life expectancy for newborn girls born in the UK will be 100. 50 percent of today’s 20 year olds can expect to live to 100. In response two English writers, Andrew Scott and Lynda Gratton have just written a book ‘The 100-Year life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity.’ The book is an examination of the seismic shifts that will – must – occur as the population ages.

“We are saying we have a tremendous opportunity to use this amazing gift of time, but we must do so wisely and that means the deferral of gratification: saving more, exercising more and eating less.’

‘Personal reinvention in all spheres will be very much part of the new world order. The 100-Year Life focuses on a protracted ‘juvenescence’, or state of being youthful, open, flexible and adaptable to change.’                                                    The Age June 7, 2016

I, personally, like the idea of ‘personal juvenescence’. If God blesses me with a longer life than I had previously mentally expected then one needs to be juvenescent to embrace it. It needs to be added, of course, that it is the Lord who numbers our days and none of us knows how long that will be. Not all will enjoy good health and some will face significant challenges in growing older due to health challenges. At the same time as the authors suggest we need to be thinking about these extra years the Lord may bless us with and be open to new possibilities as we move into the third phase of life 1-30 years (Childhood to Young Adulthood) 30-60 years (Adulthood) 60-90plus years (Mature Adulthood).

As a faith community we have a smaller percentage of people who in the past were referred to as ‘Seniors’ compared to most churches. At the same time we have quite a group of people who have retired in recent years or who are/will be retiring from full time work either at present or shortly. Over time our percentage of ‘Seniors’ will become larger. All of this has significant implications for the shape of our ministries as well as how we continue to renew our churches life. There are many new possibilities but also many new challenges for us as a church. One of the most obvious will be how we sustain our ministry financially.

If we are to be juvenescent both personally as well as a church then we can each benefit from being members of a cross generational community where we mix with younger people as well as our peers. As a church we have a strategic priority called ‘Boom’. The idea is to support people to pray, plan and think creatively about these extra years that God is blessing them with. We want to be a community that is committed to extending God’s kingdom in all sorts of ways especially amongst those who are being given the gift of extra time in this life?’

Stephen Hale

Details

Written by: Ian Hore-Lacy

The Plausibility Problem – the church and same-sex attraction,
by Ed Shaw, IVP 2015.
Review by Ian Hore-Lacy

This book answers a question I have been worrying about for several years as evangelical brethren have been grappling intellectually with discourse on gay marriage in relation to the church. They seem not to address the question of what positive things can be said to a strongly same-sex attracted (SSA) Christian beyond “just say ‘no’!”. How should they live as full members of the church?

The answer here is not with increasingly-accepted rationalisation, nor in covenanted relationships, but in full celibacy and warm acceptance. But the author, who is in this position himself and pastor of a congregation in Bristol, puts the heat on the church to make some significant changes so as to enable SSA celibacy rather than hinder it or degrade its proper upbeat character. He expounds nine missteps that the church has made which exacerbate the challenges for SSA evangelicals, and which drive most of them from the church altogether or into ‘affirming’ congregations. The book rings true in most respects to me, in the light of conversations I have had over the last 15 years.

As Vaughan Roberts says in the Foreword: The author’s “sights are not set on the predictable target – compromising liberals – but on those who belong to his own evangelical tribe.” Few will be convinced of the rightness of the orthodox Christian position on homosexuality unless they are persuaded of its plausibility. This is what the book addresses, uncomfortably. Both Vaughan and the author are part of http://www.livingout.org

The author suggests that even with some staple biblical teaching, the church is much more shaped by the world and the spirit of the age than by the gospel, and it is this which makes SSA faithfulness (more than anything else) implausible and unreasonable today.

The nine missteps he addresses are matters of church teaching, emphasis and culture, as follows: Where there is undue emphasis on us being sinners rather than saints, depraved and rebellious rather than permanently-adopted children, then how does an SSA person avoid understanding their sexuality as their identity, and being desperate?  And how do we understand family?  A mum, dad and 2.4 children, or in practice - not just empty rhetoric - the local church? Marriage is temporary, for this age, union with Christ is eternal. And if a person is ‘gay’, surely in this postmodern era it is natural and OK for them to express it sexually? This ignores the fact that we are all born with the innate ability and desire to sin, by nature, and there is no area of sin where we are not all held accountable – SSA folk and the rest of us in ubiquitous solidarity.

And surely God wants us to be happy? What’s the point otherwise? So we respond to the circumstances of life accordingly. “Today’s ruling authority is our short-term happiness – both outside and inside the church.” Shaw says that evangelicals have been more subtle than liberals in reconfiguring God to fit in with this, but real happiness in God’s purposes is through all of us being countercultural in many respects, not just SSA people being the odd ones out.

Arguably his central chapter is on intimacy, with both biblical example and current experience showing this is not merely sexual, even if our culture focuses it there. The church needs to witness to relationships which are so much more than sex, and thus minimise any sense of sexual deprivation by our SSA members. “Intimate relationships … are often closed off to me by our society and sexualized culture.” “But what’s been hardest is how the church often discourages non-sexual intimacy too,” by unduly glorifying sexual intimacy in marriage. Proper intimacy outside the marital unit will strengthen marriages, and churches must promote it, not simply for SSA celibates.

The complementarity of male and female is basic to God’s creation and sexual difference is designed to help us grasp the passionate love of God for his people. “God has put sex on this planet to make us want to go to heaven” – sex as heartfelt longing, not just the practice. “Our view on the morality of same-sex unions needs to rest on this sort of solid biblical anthropology.” “But in the evangelical church, godliness is heterosexuality,” which is a very dangerous attitude, and “spiritually life-threatening for people like me.” Churches are hypocritical in seeing homosexual sex as worse than heterosexual adultery, and Shaw rightly says that SSA Christians should not be held to a higher standard than anyone else in the church.  But celibacy has an image problem, and nowhere more so than in the church today. Which is plainly irrational, given that both Jesus and Paul were single, as have been some of the most wonderfully influential Christians in recent decades.

Finally, and as a counterpoint to happiness, suffering is to be avoided. “Our Christian lives are more about self-gratification – seemingly denying the existence of Jesus’ words” in Mark 8: 31-34. “Our contemporary Christian lives of comfort are not the Jesus way. He couldn’t make that any clearer in these verses.” So the real suffering of sex-deprived SSA Christians is actually used by God “for my good rather than as a bad thing he has cruelly afflicted me with.”

In conclusion, Shaw says that “we should begin to see both the people who experience [SSA] and the controversy that it brings as a gift to the church. As a divine gift, because it’s just what we needed at this time in our history to help us see the whole series of tragic missteps we have taken to the detriment of us all, as well as to the world we are trying to reach.”

An 18-page Appendix on the plausibility of the traditional interpretation of scripture in understanding creation, rebellion, redemption and perfection in relation to SSA earths the book exegetically, and a 10-page Appendix on the implausibility of the new interpretation of scripture complements it.
This is a book of great pastoral merit and timeliness. He makes a strong case for the church needing to be more biblical and more countercultural in some key respects, with the need to avoid driving out SSA members and those sympathetic to them – arguably a high proportion of those under 30 years old - highlighting the priority of this. Not incidentally, the church will then more readily be blessed by the great gifts of both SSA people and others who choose celibacy to serve it. They are a humbling inspiration, as I said to one in his 30s recently.

May 2016

Details

Written by: Chris Appleby

Beyond Belief
How we find meaning, with or without religion
Hugh Mackay, Pan Macmillan, 2016

According to the 2012 census 61 percent of Australians identified themselves as ‘Christian’. However, in practice only 15 percent attend church once a month or more (p. 7). Hugh Mackay’s book Beyond Belief is written for that missing 46 percent.  That is, almost half the Australian population who relate to the Christian faith in some way, yet are “doubters, sceptics, heretics, agnostics and religious fringe dwellers.” (p. 2) The goal of Beyond Belief is to provide spiritual encouragement and direction for those who no longer wish to receive such instruction from the church.

This conflicted and rapidly changing attitude to spirituality is a fascinating aspect of Australia society that deserves greater attention and research.

Unfortunately, Mackay’s book is undermined by a lack of detail, pop-culture theology and a fundamentally flawed process.
I consistently found myself frustrated at the lack of data on display throughout Beyond Belief. What proportion of these ‘Christian agnostics’ come from Protestant backgrounds? What proportion from Catholic families? How does commitment to the tenets of faith vary between country towns and the inner-city; the old and the young? And what of those who remain committed to exclusive truth claims if, as claimed, they stretch credulity to breaking point.

For instance, Mackay acknowledges the growth in Pentecostal churches but writes it off as being as much about the ‘bandwagon’ effect of their communities as specific beliefs (p. 7). Really? Could it not be that explicit Pentecostal doctrine is driving their growth and thereby creating vibrant communities?

Mackay frequently quotes from respondents to his research, which helps make a human connection to those who identify as SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious). However, he does not give any space to laying out his research methods or extent, so the end result is the book feels anecdotal and partial.
Mackay admits upfront that his book is unlikely to appeal to either committed Christians or atheists and he certainly makes good on that promise. His analysis of Jesus’ teaching manages to present him as a secular humanist whose goal was to dismantle the stuffy institutional religion of his day. His reading of the Sermon on the Mount is particularly galling. I don’t mind him creating a secular spirituality based on pop-psychology but would he mind not using Jesus to endorse it?

He clearly esteems Christian ethics, especially Jesus’ ‘Golden Rule’ but wants to provide a spiritual option for those who find the Christian worldview unreasonable when it accommodates miracles a resurrection and a virgin birth. He therefore discards the Bible’s truth claims in favour of myth as a means for reinterpreting the Christian faith in a way that is acceptable to modern sensibilities.
However, even though Mackay acknowledges it, he ignores the fact that abandoning the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection for a mythical interpretation undercuts the ethical framework of Christianity entirely. (p. 216) After chopping down the apple tree Mackay’s conclusion is to tell us to go on making cider, because it’s delicious and refreshing and he likes it a lot and other people like it too.
Beyond Belief is also undone by its fundamentally flawed process. Mackay surveys the opinions of the non-churchgoing ‘believers’ and attempts to combine them with teachings of spiritual gurus (such as Jesus) into a quasi religion-for-all based on faith in something (anything) and communal compassion.

But how will people have faith in something greater than themselves if the basis of this movement is their own experiences and preferences. And how will anyone adopt a genuinely selfless attitude if it is driven by the recognition that my welfare is bound up in yours and we are all one?
I fear that the conclusion that love is enough will prove to be empty or unattainable for those who adopt Mackay’s way forward.
Nevertheless, Mackay’s research is important. He gives a voice to people who have abandoned organized religion but still experience deep yearning for spiritual fulfilment.

The chapter ‘Anyone for church?’ cuts close to the bone as Mackay articulates the reasons for Australians lack of church-going. Institutional abuses, the treatment of women and a judgmental and exclusionary church culture are all highlighted as prima-facie reasons why we must explore a new spiritual path. Churches must come to grips with this new cultural landscape and Mackay’s book presents these attitudes in a clear and compelling way.
In a roundabout way, Beyond Belief reminded me again of the brilliance of God’s grace. For the Christian, genuine humility and the freedom to love others are built upon the free forgiveness offered in the historical death and resurrection of Jesus. Without such foundations they necessarily fall. Mackay offers nothing as powerful or transformative as the doctrines he discards.
Jeff Hunt

Details

Written by: Bp Anthony Nichols

INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION by JOHN CALVIN
Translated from the first French edition of 1541 by Robert White, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 2014.

“A prophet is without honour in his own country”. Jesus’ words have proved true of Jean Calvin, the greatest Frenchman. They also resonate with regard to his brilliant Australian translator, Robert White, former Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Sydney. Robert who came to Christ in a John Stott mission in 1958, gained Honours in Latin and French at SU before proceeding to post graduate studies in Paris in the 1960s. His doctorate from the Sorbonne was for his work on an obscure, bohemian French playwright. But it was in those years that he began a lifelong study of the  Reformation in French speaking areas of Europe. An extraordinarily modest scholar, we can be grateful that his specialist articles in overseas journals attracted the attention of publishers in the USA and UK. Robert White has now produced at least four books on Calvin’s sermons, the latest being his Sermons on Titus, also published by The Banner of Truth Trust (2015).

Why another translation of The Institutes, you may ask? Most of us encountered Calvin through Henry Beveridge’s version of 1845 or the two volumes by Ford Lewis Battles published in 1960.  Both of these were based on the last Latin edition of 1559. All told, The Institutes passed through six Latin editions and three French before receiving their final form. The massive treatise of 1559 is five times the length of the concise primer of 1536. Qualitatively however, there is no fundamental change. Scripture still determines both the content and scope of Calvin’s enterprise. The grace and glory of God remain his theme. The growth from edition to edition reflects Calvin’s pastoral experience, his exegetical reflection, and the unceasing pressure of theological debate both within and outside the churches of the Reformation.

The French version (1541) of The Institutes which Robert White translates, is significant in that its target audience is no longer limited to educated Latin readers, but reaches out in a more familiar style to a broader constituency. Although it recasts the original “catechism” of 1536 into a more ambitious, thorough and methodical exposition of Christian Theology, it is less daunting for modern readers, White suggests, than the final edition of 1559 has proved to be (Karl Barth called it, somewhat harshly, a “primeval forest”!). The last chapter on the believer’s walk with Christ is a model of pastoral insight and was destined to enter the last edition of The Institutes virtually unchanged.

Robert Whites fresh translation of Calvin’s French Institutes makes the Reformer live again. The reader will be impressed by the power and relevance of his Biblical teaching for modern Christians. For the doubtful, I suggest the reading of Calvin’s Preface – his appeal to the King of France. It is surely one of the most moving letters ever penned.
Anthony H Nichols.