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Resistance Thinking Faith
It is through the Jesus lense the Resistance Thinking seeks to explore truth about the world in which we live. In this faith section you will find articles, news and reivews that will help you explore the complexities of the Christian faith.
We will cover a broad range of topics, including: theology, church, leadership, devotions, classic Christian literature, prayer, everyday faith, apologetics, church history, Christian living, Old Testamnet, New Testament, creation, fresh expressions, epistomology...the list could go on and on!
If there is any topic you would like the Resistance Thinking team to go to work on please shoot us an email. If you have any work that could help us all to be more effective 'Resistance Thinkers' please send it in for our team to review.
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." CS Lewis
Please browse through the articles below
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Wednesday, 19 December 2007 21:16 |
The Pope urges caution in the face of global warming hysteria and encourages us to care for the environment with responsible freedom, with the 'good of all as a constant guiding criterion'.
The Pope vs. Global Warming
Front Page Magazine, Joseph Hippolito, December 18, 2007
London’s Daily Mail reported on December 12 that the Vatican released the remarks the pope will make in his annual January 1 address, “The Human Family, A Community of Peace.” The release coincided with the December 11 opening of the United Nations’ conference on climate change in the Indonesian resort of Bali.
“We need to care for the environment,” Benedict writes. “It has been entrusted to men and women to be protected and cultivated with responsible freedom, with the good of all as a constant guiding criterion.”
That responsible freedom rejects both the panic motivating global warming activists and a radical environmentalism that demands humanity’s subjugation to ecology.
“Human beings, obviously, are of supreme worth vis-à-vis creation as a whole,” Benedict continues. “Respecting the environment does not mean considering material or animal nature more important than man.
“It is important for assessments in this regard to be carried out prudently, in dialogue with experts and people of wisdom, uninhibited by ideological pressure to draw hasty conclusions, and above all with the aim of reaching agreement on a model of sustainable development capable of ensuring the well-being of all while respecting environmental balances.”
Australian Cardinal George Pell, the archbishop of Sydney and one of the church’s more conservative prelates, was less diplomatic in his Feb. 18 column for Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph.
“We have been subjected to a lot of nonsense about climate disasters as some zealots have been painting extreme scenarios to frighten us,” Pell wrote. “What we were seeing from the doomsdayers was an induced dose of mild hysteria, semi-religious if you like, but dangerously close to superstition.”
Pell cited data suggesting that the evidence for global warming is weak. Data from a NASA satellite demonstrated that the Southern Hemisphere had not become warmer over the past 25 years, and the climate research unit at Britain’s University of East Anglia noted that the earth’s overall temperature did not rise between 1998 and 2005.
Pell’s conclusion? “The science is more complicated than the propaganda!”
The pope directed his remarks not only to scientists but also to Catholics who enthusiastically embrace the fashionable attitudes about global warming. Among them is Archbishop Harry Flynn of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
“Global warming is a threat, one that will affect generations to come,” Flynn said at a meeting of religious leaders in November 2006. “Those of us living in the United States should be leaders in efforts to curb global warming, not resistant followers.”
Flynn has gone so far as to create a “Global Warming Action Team” for the archdiocese that “will be the ‘leading edge’ of a coordinated and strategic Catholic effort to measurably reduce the carbon that is emitted in the state,” according to the archdiocese’s Web site.
Continue reading at front page magazine |
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Monday, 10 December 2007 20:41 |
Figures on church attendence are released with mainstream churches experiencing a considerable plunge. Academics suggest business and the treatment of religion as a product to shop around for as major reasons for the trend.
Too busy for worship
Courier Mail, John McCarthy, December 06, 2007
MAINSTREAM churches are losing their grip on Brisbane and the booming consumer society has been blamed. Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows people who classify themselves as having no religion outnumber Anglicans in Brisbane.
The data shows the number of Anglicans fell about 8000 in the five years to 2006 to 331,000, despite solid population growth in Brisbane and southeast Queensland. |
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Read more... [Too busy for worship]
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Saturday, 08 December 2007 00:18 |
The Church breaks into the 21st Century with 'cinema advertising', attempting to meet people where they are at.
Now at a screen near you: Jesus the ad campaign
Sydney Morning Herald, Linda Morris, December 7, 2007
JUST as the federal election advertising blitz fades from screens, Christian churches are set to launch campaigns to snag your soul, not your vote. The Catholic Church's first cinema advertising campaign began in 36 movie theatres nationally yesterday with 15-second advertisements screened with Jerry Seinfeld's animated feature, Bee Movie, until December 19.
They will also show alongside the film adaption of Ian McEwan's Atonement that shows from Boxing Day, the biggest day of the movie-going year. The cinema advertisement shows a montage of images of Catholic life while asking, "Have you ever wanted to know what Catholics believe?" |
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Read more... [Now at a screen near you: Jesus the ad campaign]
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Wednesday, 05 December 2007 21:49 |
Bill Muehlenberg restates the case for Christian social and political involvement. For other great articles by Bill check out culture watch.
Salt and Light Business
Bill Muehlenberg, December 2007
Every once in a while I seem to need to restate the case for Christian social and political involvement. Mind you, I have made it numerous times in the past, but I keep getting critics – some friendly, some not so friendly – who let me know that they think what I am doing is at best, not so helpful, and at worst, a waste of time.
The critics can be both believers and non-believers. Here I want to address the former, those who think the Christian life is about only one thing: proclaiming the gospel, whatever exactly that means. They suggest that to take on the moral, cultural and political issues of the day is not what Christians should be involved in, and we need to cease and desist from such activities.
Consider a recent remark I received from a friendly, believing, critic. He said that the activities I am involved in were not what believers are supposed to be involved in. He said, “I am concerned that Christians are distracted in their allegiance to Jesus when they believe they must ‘stand up against’ the sin of not-yet Christians while the church still wreaks of the stench of its own sinfulness. Our only mandate is to love as Jesus loves. He never stood against the prostitutes or tax collectors etc, publicly or privately, only the self righteous Jewish leaders (and there He had the right as He was also a rabbi.).”
Now let me say that there are at least one and a half things said here that I agree with. The first concerns the church: it certainly is in a mess. No quarrels there. It does reek at times, and there are major problems in the church. We have much to be ashamed of.
But what is this critic suggesting? That only when the church gets its act together, then it might be allowed to speak to the rest of the world? If so, can I humbly argue that it never will. The church will never be perfect, because the church is made up of saved sinners. And saved sinners will never be perfect in this lifetime, as much as we try to become more and more Christlike.
So if anyone thinks we have to wait till the church fully gets its act together before believers can engage in any number of activities, then these will just never happen. The command to be salt and light was not given under the condition that the disciples first set up a perfect fellowship of believers. Sure, we are all to strive to be the best believers that we can, so that we can present to the world the best church that we can. But any idea that the church’s perfection must be in place first is simply mistaken.
The second idea is that we are only called to love as Jesus loves. Well, yes and no. Actually there are many commands directed to believers in the New Testament, and many from Christ himself. And what exactly does this critic mean by loving as Jesus loved? I am not sure. From the rest of this critic’s email, it means something about being compassionate and non judgmental. But that too is unclear.
Was Jesus non-judgmental when he cast out the money-changers? Was he being non-judgmental when he challenged the leaders of the day – both religious and non-religious? Will he be non-judgemental when he judges the nations, separating the sheep from the goats?
Was Paul non-judgmental when he challenged Peter to the face? When he said anyone who preaches another gospel should be accursed? Jesus said we should judge with righteous judgment. Paul said we should judge (test) all things. The examples are many.
And is it true that Jesus never challenged any lifestyle or behaviour of non-believers? It seems he did on many occasions. He could say to the woman caught in adultery, “go and sin no more”. He made it clear that the condition for forgiveness was repentance. That obviously involves a change of behaviour, of action, of habit.
My critic thinks that when believers stand against the immorality of the day they are being judgmental and un-Christlike. We must not do this, or we will be out of the will of God, my critic in fact implies. But is this really the case? Let me provide just a few examples to tease this out a bit.
Is a believer out of the will of God and un-Christlike when he seeks to oppose the slave trade as Wilberforce did? Was he being unbiblical and sinful to seek to free the slaves? Was he out of God’s will for seeking to show the love of Christ to these slaves in very real and practical ways? Was he guilty of mere moralising and judgmentalism?
Is a believer out of the will of God and un-Christlike when he seeks to oppose a brothel being opened next to the local kindergarten?
Is a believer out of the will of God and un-Christlike when he seeks to oppose more gambling venues in the neighbourhood which are destroying lives and ruining families?
Is a believer out of the will of God and un-Christlike when he seeks to oppose drug dealers peddling their wares in the local schoolyard?
Is a believer out of the will of God and un-Christlike when he seeks to oppose laws which would mandate that unbelievers teach in the Sunday school?
Were Christian missionaries wrong to set up hospitals, schools, literary programs, prison reform, help for women and children, and other charitable works as they preached the gospel with words as well? Are Christians “distracted in their allegiance to Jesus” when they do these things? I would have thought they were reflecting the love and holiness and righteousness of God in seeking to stand up for what is right and help people in their need.
Now is this all the Christian is called to do? Of course not. But it is a part of it. It is part of obeying Jesus when he said we should be salt and light. It is part of our calling as believers. Is it a question of either proclaiming the gospel or being involved in social action? I do not think so. It is not either/or but both/and. We are called to evangelise and we are called to be salt and light, simultaneously.
I fail to see how believers can drive a wedge between these two. I fail to see how one is seen as biblical and one is not. I fail to see how we can be salt and light if we are just supposed to stand back while all manner of evil is taking place. When I read church history, I see believers up to their ears in all sorts of social involvement.
But some believers just do not approve of such involvement. Indeed, Wilberforce was criticised almost as strongly by fellow believers as unbelievers. They felt that what he was doing had nothing to do with the gospel. Lord Melbourne for example told Wilberforce, “Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade public life”.
Many critics sought to dissuade Wilberforce from the work of opposing the slave trade. “You are just moralising and being judgmental. Why don’t you just preach the gospel?” they would have complained. I dare say million of blacks both then and now are very, very glad that Wilberforce ignored his critics and did what he felt his Lord was calling him to do.
Having said all that, has the church at times come across as too harsh and too unloving and too judgmental? Yes, at times it has. But some of these complaints are justified, some are not. If a believer pleads for the life of the innocent, whether the slave, or the unborn, some will always find that judgmental. That is the nature of the case. Indeed, if a believer proclaims the unique salvation that comes only in Christ, the non-believer will find that to be intolerant and judgmental.
In one sense, the Christian will never be free of charges of being judgmental or divisive. Jesus was accused of being divisive and narrow. His whole ministry was one of division and separation, wherein people either were attracted to him or repulsed by him. That must be the case with believers as well as we seek to proclaim truth, live lives of integrity, and act as salt and light in a corrupt and broken world.
We can always do better. We can always be more like our Master. We can always be more loving. But with all due respect to my critics, I think they are simply wrong when they say we must drop everything and just proclaim words about Jesus. Words and deeds go together, and often both will be rejected by those who prefer darkness to light, error to truth, self to God.
Continue reading at culture watch
(Used with permission) |
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Wednesday, 05 December 2007 21:21 |
Catholic church begins a self-analytical process due to the exponential rise of membership in Pentecostal groups.
Church told 'look inward' as rivals rise
The Age, Vatican City, November 25, 2007
A TOP cardinal has urged a critical self-examination by the Roman Catholic Church in the face of the "exponential" rise of Pentecostal groups.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, who heads the Vatican's council for relations with other Christian faiths, told a gathering including Pope Benedict XVI and 143 cardinals that the church should undergo a "self-critical examination of conscience". |
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Read more... [Church told 'look inward' as rivals rise]
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Friday, 30 November 2007 22:45 |
Newly elected Prime Minister reveals how he will make his decisions saying his faith would not play a major role.
Public servants will advise me, not God: Rudd
Daily Telegraph, November 30, 2007
KEVIN Rudd makes no secret of his religious beliefs, but as prime minister he says he'll take advice from public servants, not God. The committed Christian says he is not praying for guidance on how to run the country.
Mr Rudd said he would keep religion and politics separate. |
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Read more... [Public servants will advise me, not God: Rudd]
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