Don’t grumble

This is a short but sweet post that says exactly what you imagine it would.

The false gospel of assuming the worst of others

‘Constantly imputing guilt to others—they are the bigots, the phobics, the fascists, the white supremacists, the communists—offers a subjective sense of something that may feel close to, and yet is far from, what Christ offers us in the gospel. Rather than our justification coming from Christ alone, we seek our own “not guilty” verdict by transferring all guilt onto the other side of the sociopolitical spectrum. When we project evil onto others to feel like good people ourselves, we’re looking to something other than Jesus for our moral status.’

You are right Rev Macrae, bad theology does kill

Stephen McAlpine: ‘The decision by the mainlines to follow the cultural trend on sex over the past six decades has been an abject failure. Everywhere. That decision has lost it the church. It has won it the politics and the culture, and perhaps that’s what they wanted in the first place. But the church? Fuggedaboutit. Bad theology has played a huge part in killing off the mainlines. Yet the message they deliver constantly is that if only the church could more align with the culture on sexual mores, it will rediscover its vigour and people will start attending again. I mean, how long do you keep that failed strategy going? Until it’s times to turn off the lights?’

How should we respond to the Archbishop’s national call to prayer?

I was going to write on this myself, but there is no need as I co-sign this one from John Stevens: ‘

Kill your son, Abraham: making sense of a shocking command

Lots of people struggle with this story. This one offers a helpful explanation of what is going on.

Five truths about the Holy Spirit

Alistair Begg does what this one says on the tin.

From the archive: Learn to embrace mess

‘We are very quick to make people conform to the culture of our church. We claim people are welcome as they are but are swift to point out when the way they are is not how we do things around here. We also tag a lot of ‘how we do things around here’ – that is our church culture – onto scripture as though our particular church culture is the definitive outworking of any given principle. This tends to mean anybody who doesn’t toe the line, or appear the same way, is viewed as behaving unbiblically (as opposed to what they are actually doing, which is challenging our church culture). When it is made apparent that they don’t fit in – and similarly clear that they are in the wrong for not fitting in – we are surprised when they don’t stick around.’