Set Apart In Christ

I’ve focussed my last two posts regarding the debate on " Q and A " ( here  and here ) on Professor Richard Dawkins more than Cardinal George Pell. For this final post I would like to suggest where I would have answered differently to Pell on a couple of points. Can an atheist go to heaven? At one point, Cardinal Pell was asked this question. Pell firstly tried to avoid the question, and then once pressed answered “Certainly”. I would like to suggest, firstly, that I would not have avoided this question myself as it provided a great opportunity for Pell to share a positive message about Christianity. Secondly, I would suggest that I agree with his answer, but I would want to qualify it. Admittedly, Pell wasn’t given the opportunity to do so, but neither did he press for one either. The way I would answer this question I’ve summarised as “optimistic exclusivism” – that is, I believe it is only possible to be saved by Jesus Christ (hence the ‘exclusivism’), but the way...

During a meeting this morning my wife and I exchanged a brief conversation between ourselves. It went a little something like this… Adam: “I really need to go to the toilet.” Megan: “You should have gone beforehand” Adam: (With a smug smile because I knew that’s exactly what my wife would say) “You’re so predictable.” Megan: (With lightening quick wit) “So are you.” I’ll return to this momentarily. Richard Dawkins writes the following in The God Delusion The sin of Adam and Eve is thought to have passed down the male line – transmitted in the semen according to Augustine. What kind of ethical philosophy is it that condemns every child, even before it is born, to inherit the sin of a remote ancestor? Augustine, by the way, who rightly regarded himself as something of a personal authority on sin, was responsible for coining the phrase ‘original sin’. Before him it was known as ‘ancestral sin’. Augustine’s pronouncements and debates epitomize, for me, the unhealthy preoccupati...

Earlier this year Dr Ken Collins of Asbury Theological Seminary was in Sydney for the Booth  College Summer Seminar. He suggested there (and I was dubious of the claim at the time) that he’d never heard of a debate between an atheist and a Christian being “won” by the atheist. In the light of that, perhaps Monday night’s episode of “ Q and A ” was groundbreaking. But then, no one really “won”. To suggest that anyone actually “wins” in these things is an erroneous assumption. I had the privilege of sitting in the studio audience for the “debate” between Cardinal George Pell and Professor Richard Dawkins aired on ABC Australia’s program “Q and A”. I want to share some thoughts on the night as someone who was present in the room.

I've posted this for the last two years (originally written in 2010), and repost it today as the 27th March is the 12th Anniversary of this event. _______________________________________________________________________________ It's been 10 years since the disastrous events of my honeymoon and in that time I've told this story plenty of times, but have never actually sat down to write it out. I thought that since it's now 10 years since my diagnosis I would take the time to write out what happened to my wife and me on what was supposed to be a celebration of our new marriage... So here goes...  Megan and I were married on the 18th March, 2000 having been together since 1994. Megan was 15 when we started going out at The Salvation Army's Music Camp and I was 17. We've been together ever since. The weather on that mid-March Saturday was a scorching 35 degrees. The men in the bridal party had been out playing golf the day before and we all got sunburnt. So I wa...

Over the last few years I've had the privilege to watch my wife's giftings as a worship leader blossom. She is a wonderful woman of God and leads people right up to the throne of God since it's a place she knows very well. She loves to worship and she loves to lead others in worship. Another gift I have seen her begin to use is the ability to resource other worship leaders. After a little bit of encouragement she has begun a new blog entitled "worshipingwell' to broaden her horizons and share these wonderful gifts to a wider audience. I would encourage you to bookmark this site and return to it regularly as I'm sure there'll be a lot to come that will benefit you. http://worshipingwell.wordpress.com

Today was a Retreat Day at the School for Officer Training at Booth College , with our guests for the day being Colonels Wayne and Robyn Maxwell. Robyn referred to Numbers 8:1-4 and the creation of the golden lampstands used in the tabernacle for worship. It made me think of the Most Holy Place in both the Tabernacle and later the Temple . I imagine that this would have been a very dark place, but paradoxically the place where God was symbolically “closest” to his people. I imagine the High Priest entering behind the curtain, having meticulously prepared everything required on the Day of Atonement, ready to sprinkle the blood on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. The sound of the bells on his linen robes gently tinkling but also letting others outside know that he was still alive (entering God’s holy presence was dangerous work). They were ready to pull on the rope attached to the High Priest’s leg if they heard the sound of his dead body crashing to the floor with a sound ...

“Without Christian worship, there would be no Bible. The Bible is the product  of the early church’s common prayer. The earliest Christian communities circulated among themselves and read in common worship stories of the life and ministry of Jesus and the early apostles. They wanted to hear these stories and respond to them.” [1] This quote gets straight to the heart of an important matter with regard to Christian worship – the place of Scripture within worship. The point is well made. The texts that make up the Scriptures have a history behind them. Each of the ‘books’ that make up the Bible was considered sacred because through them God spoke to his people. It may come as a surprise to some but the Bible did not, as N.T. Wright has so eloquently put it, fall “from the sky in King James Authorised Version, bound in black leather and complete with maps”. [2] That’s a much later development. In reality, these texts were written for a specific audience to be read out loud and ...