Gospel. Community and the Cyberchurch of God

If I may blow my own trumpet for a minute... I've got an article in the latest CASE magazine. "Gospel, Community and the Cyberchurch of God". Pages 20-21 in CASE Newsletter no. 15. In it, I examine the recent phenomenon of Cyberchurches - Christian communities on-line.

CASE is the Centre for Apologetic Scholarship and Education. It's the apologetics arm of New College, the Evangelical residential college at the University of New South Wales. It provides training courses, and the CASE magazine, in order to help Christians engage the non-Christian in an intelligent, informed way; and also challenge non-Christians with a coherent world-view in dialogue with their own.

I highly recommend becoming a CASE associate - which subscribes you to the mag, and gets discounted (sometimes free) enrolment into CASE courses. See http://www.case.edu.au/.

Comments

Barfights in the public square

Everything in the public square seems to be increasingly conflicted. We seem to be operating with less and less shared values. It feels like we're less and less sure of what holds us together as a 'society.' A retreat into 'tribes' both drives this social fragmentation and is a result of it. Post-modern scepticism towards metanarratives, which has now become culturally normal, significantly contributes to this fragmentation. If we no longer believe that objective truth, independent of our individual or tribal perspectives, exists, we will no longer believe we can appeal to that objective reality as common ground for debate. All we will do is exert power to magnify ourselves and punish those who disagree with us. Because we believe that our cause is right, we will always think of ourselves as the victim of other people's aggression. Therefore, as Stephen McAlpine says, we will always think we're punching "up." We'll valorise ourselves as the ...

Wax and Wright on the definition of "mission"

Trevin Wax has written a clear, simple, and charitable introduction to a debate about the nature and boundaries of the kinds of Christian activities that validly should be called "mission." In brief: Should we use a broad definition, where "mission" encompasses all the various purposes which God calls Christians and the church in general to perform, e.g. being ethical at work; general acts of care and charity; standing against systematic oppression and working towards justice instead? If so, "evangelism" is only one part of the church's mission - a central, necessary, and irreplaceable part, but only one part nonetheless. The latter kinds of activities don't save anyone for eternity, but they do genuine good in this world which please God. And that kind of good makes a real difference in many parts of the world which have not benefited from the kind of Christian moral transformation which the West benefited from - the kind of moral transformation...

Backlog of blogs

This is ridiculous. I have a backlog of some 30 half-baked blogs that I haven't published 'coz I feel I haven't thought them out well enough yet. I'd forgotten that blogs are supposed to be timely & personal, not necessarily scholalrly and precise. I thought I'd poll my readers (helloooo - is anyone out there...?). What would you prefer: occasional serious thought-through stuff, or regular ignorant ravings? Personally, I'd prefer regular thought-through comments... but my lack of posts in October demonstrates this is unrealistic.

Multicultural Ministry Matters

Search This Blog