It really is as bad as they said

I sometimes have a suspicion that Christian apologist overstate the evil consequences of following humanist reasoning. For example, to say that holding a relativistic moral outlook implies that Hitler's views must therefore have been ok since he really believed in them, seems a bit of a misrepresentation of moral relativists.

However, have a look at this. Peter Singer, a philosopher from one of the most respected universities in the world, is actually advocating infanticide. He is doing it in his own words. It is not just where his views lead to, these are his views.

Facebook: Connection without community?

Interesting article found at Christianity Today.com entitled The Facebook Fast. It poses the question "Can community happen online?"

Have a read and let me know what you think.

Tim Keller at Urban Plant Life

Dr. Keller did not disappoint. He delivered helpful talks on preaching, the city and integrative ministry. I have never received such full handouts at any conference I have attended. He clearly has spent a lot of time thinking about ministry in a city context.

One example of his creatively orthodox approach to preaching, can be found in how he handles the kinds of topics that our culture finds offensive.

He talks about "A" doctrines and "B" doctrines. "A" represents those doctrines that a culture finds attractive and "B" those that it finds offensive. These differ from culture to culture. For example, in the West people find the Christian emphasis on forgiveness an attractive doctrine, whereas God's justice and judgment offends. In other cultures it is the other way round.

He says that we can communicate the "B" doctrines on the back of "A" doctrines. He compares these two categories of doctrine to a pile of stones and a pile of logs that you want to get across a river. If you try to float the logs on the stones, it doesn't work. However, if you tie the logs together and put the stones on top, you can float the whole lot across the river.

The logs are the "A" doctrines and the stones are the "B" doctrines.

He used an example from a sermon he delivered recently on abortion. He based his appeal on the Western idea of human rights founded on the image of God in man - which Westerners find attractive and presented his pro life position (which is a divisive issue in our culture) on that basis.

I thought that approach was really good. The whole day was worth it for that one insight!

Thanks to London City Mission for hosting the event.

I hope that the talks will be made available to download. Some previous Keller talks at LCM can be found here

Tim Keller in London

Off to London today to hear Tim Keller speak at a church planting conference.

This really is a big treat. Keller has been a hero for a while and is becoming a very influential figure in the Western evangelical world. I'll let you know how I get on.

Monday Fun

A quick video fable about temptation.

Duty, discipline and legalism

The Between Two Worlds blogsite has a very thoughtful post on duty and legalism by John Piper.

There is a tendency in the church today to dismiss duty as some sort of manifestation of legalism. The result is sometimes, perhaps often, that we ditch disciplined Bible reading and prayer as "legalistic". Unfortunately in our desire to avoid what we mistakenly think to be a legalistic approach to prayer and Bible reading, we don't get around to doing much of either. Devotional practice becomes spasmodic rather than habitual.

You can read what Piper has to say here

The Death of Facebook?

I've just discovered RelevantMagazine.com. It seems worthy of the occasional look.

One article that caught my attention is entitled The Death of Facebook. You can read it here. It begins with some thoughts - critical - about the Facebook '25 Random Things' phenomenon (I admit that I hadn't heard of it before) and goes on to pan social networking facilities, specifically Facebook and Twitter.

Would love to know what you think of the article, especially if you're on Facebook.

Check out the the Relevant Media Group here

The Gathering 09

Over the last few years Serious4God has held an event called The Gathering. Its aim is to bring together young people from all over the country for worship and teaching. At one Gathering event in recent years over 1000 young people made a first time commitment to Christ.

The above is the third of four video promo trailers for the event. Together they all make a mini soap. I'll post the fourth instalment closer to the event.

This year the event is being held in Telford. You can check out the details at the S4G website. Some free downloads from last year's event will give you an idea of what you can expect.

You can find S4G director Mark Pugh's blog here

The Gathering 09 takes place over the weekend 13th - 15th March 2009 at the Telford International Centre.

Running

Back in the 80's a Bible College in Dallas produced a whole series of praise and worship tapes which at the time would have been considered "cutting edge". The name of the college is Christ for the Nations Institute.

I wondered if they were still around and producing praise and worship material, so I did a search on YouTube. I found some excellent clips there of what they have been doing.

It's good stuff. This song is called Running. For me the clip above exemplifies charismatic / pentecostal praise and worship at its best. Led rather than driven / performed. Focused outwardly - on Jesus, rather than inwardly - on me and my hang ups. Structured yet spontaneous - the spontaneous bit lasts for over five minutes. And best of all everyone is entering in.

Catching Up

Weekend before last I was preaching in Cheshire - Crewe to be exact. I had the opportunity to catch up with Julian Ward and his wife Margaret. For those of you who don't know Julian, he is a heavyweight theologian who taught at Regents Theological College for many years.

The church I spoke at was one I was familiar with from Bible College days. West Street Christian Fellowship, as it is now called, has for a long time been a strong, outward looking church with a real desire to touch the surrounding community.

I spoke at three services: a traditional communion service at 9.30, a more family oriented service at 11.15 and then an evening celebration type service at 6.30. People were very friendly and I felt that what I had to say was well received.

I was impressed by the commitment of the people and their leaders. There was an openness and sensitivity to the Spirit which was refreshing.

One of the most outstanding characteristics of the church was the spectrum of people who are part of it. Elderly and young. Young families and older families. Students and singles. Not easy to build and hold together such a diverse church, but by God's grace the people of West Street have managed to do it. Well done West Street Christian Fellowship!

You can find out more about West Street here .

Monday Fun

I'll leave you to work out the gender of the drivers.

Speaking your mind

This time last week if you had asked me who Geert Wilders was I'd probably have guessed that he was a little known 16th century Dutch artist or a minor member of the 1974 Dutch world cup squad who was never going to be a Johan Cruyff and who never actually appeared in any of the games.

But now anyone who watches the news or reads the papers knows that Mr. Wilders is a Dutch M.P. who has made a film about the dangers of Islam. He was recently invited to the House of Lords to show his film to some peers and was told he could not come into this country because the Home Office wants to, quote, ""stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country". An objective like that could shut the doors to many a movie director!

Whether one agrees with Wilders analysis of Islam or not is not the point. The point is whether we live in a country where we are free to think for ourselves, discuss issues and make our own decisions without fear of censure or prosecution.

Another story highlighted the question of whether or not we are still free to think and express our ideas without fear. It concerns a mother who was suspended from her secretarial job at a school because she sought prayer support in an e-mail when her child was told off by a teacher for talking about God and heaven. You can read coverage of the story here

This isn't a left / right issue. It is a debate about the sort of society we want to become.

The following links cover opinion from across the political spectrum that argue for free speech: The Guardian has a piece. Ex-Islamist Ed Husain makes the case in The Independent .

And on the right, The Telegraph's perspective can be found here

You can find Wilders film here. Make up your own mind.

Mixed Icons

I found a fascinating and informative article by Phillip Blond in the February online edition of Prospect . It's a bit mind bending in places and I'm not sure I understood the whole thing. I think that the gist of his argument is that the conventional politics of the UK since the last war, have made the working classes poorer and made society more divided and alienated. What he says about returning power to local people and institutions is thought provoking. If his ideas gain any traction, then there is an opportunity for Christians to get involved in shaping their local communities in a way that is perhaps not possible at present.

The quotes below will give you a taste of his argument.

"Insofar as both the Tories and Labour have been contaminated by liberalism, the true left-right legacy of the postwar period is, unsurprisingly, a centralised authoritarian state and a fragmented and disassociative society. "

"The erosion of our society extends way beyond the dysfunction of the underclass. A study last year by Danny Dorling showed how normal anomie has become, concluding that "even the weakest communities in 1971 were stronger than any community now." This is, indeed, a broken society. "

I have to admit that the combination of thoses icons of the right and left, Lady Thatcher and Che Guevara, made we want to read - and write something on this blog!

The whole Prospect Article can be found here

For a taste of the Danny Dorling quoted above, here's a quote from an interview he gave to the Guardian in 2006:

"Ask people [of my generation] to imagine their grandchildren's lives," he suggests. "Grandchildren who by 18 will have 100 times less wealth than [some] other 18 year olds. That is where we are heading, and very quickly." You can read the whole thing here

Sincerely unhelpful

One of the upsides of stuff like The God Delusion is that it has brought faith back into the public eye. It has also given some first rate Christian apologists like Alister McGrath and John Lennox the opportunity to engage people like Richard Dawkins in debate.

The downside is that sometimes our emotions get the better of us.

The Guardian reports that Sir David Attenborough has received hate mail from people who profess to follow Jesus. Not only is this sort of contribution morally wrong, it simply does not in any way help the Christian case.

Modern Day Slavery

The free Christian Audio download this month is the audiobook Not for Sale, by David Batstone. It's a book about modern day slavery and those who are trying to bring it to an end. Download it here for free.

In recent years various individuals and organisations have helped to raise our awareness of modern day slavery. According to an article article on the U.N. website, modern day forced labour affects millions of people. Admittedly it is hard to measure the extent of a phenomenon that is clandestine due to its criminal status. The estimates range from 2.5 million up to 27 million. Even taking the lower figure it is a truly shocking statistic.

To find out more vist the Stop the Traffik website. Also some personal stories in a Guardian article.

Monday Fun

This is the truth about Barack O'Bama. The truth they've tried to hide from us.