Down-under round-up: 27 January 2016

Issue of the week

I’m giving Murray Campbell a double!

• Following Australia Day, here’s his reflection on Stan Grant’s speech on racism, and why we must respond.
• I’ve resisted sharing on the US-based Wheaton College controversy, but the issue of whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God is an important one to think through, and Murray does it from Australia.

Making disciples of Jesus

Hopefully many of us Australians are refreshed at the moment coming out of our summer holiday period. But here, from Scotty Smith, is a prayer for days when we have more weariness than energy.

I don’t make a frequent habit of pushing articles published on GoThereFor. So I simply note that I know of no one else in our Aussie circles thinking and writing as regularly in the area of evangelism as Stephen Liggins. Please check out his articles for some stimulus.

Akos Balogh has supplied a short, thought-provoking interview with Andrew Cameron, Director of St Marks Theological Centre, Canberra, on key challenges facing the western church in the areas of evangelism and religious liberty.

I think Andrew is better at diagnosing the problems than prescribing the solutions, at least in the article, and I'd like to hear Akos and Andrew grapple more with some concrete suggestions for addressing the challenges.

And keeping things simple, here’s Matt Smethurst’s reminder '3 ways to share the gospel this week': family, friendship, contact.

While ‘labelling people’ is often disliked, I agree with Ian Paul when he explains why labels are important.

Martin Foord, of Trinity Theological College in Perth, has just supplied a three part review of Tom Wright’s recent, Simply Good News: Why the Gospel Is News and What Makes It Good. Part 1 works at summarizing the book, and Part 2 and Part 3 supply Marty’s respectful but clear critique.

In my opinion, Part 2 is the most important part of Marty’s review, where he shows the problem of God’s judgement being marginalized in Wright’s gospel. He shows that Wright works more in a ‘Christus Victor’ paradigm for the atonement. Marty knows that the victory over Satan theme is certainly true, but what I found most interesting is how he showed how Wright seems to miss, completely and puzzlingly, how the Devil’s defeat in Scripture is linked in Scripture to the removal of his right to accuse us over our sins, through the blood of Christ (Heb 2:14-17; Col 2:14; Rev 12:10-11). Problematic indeed.

Via the GAFCON website, Paul Mayo explains and applies the gospel of Jesus expansively and gently to the issue of our time: sexuality and humanity. Here are his headings: beautifully made, tragically broken, expensively rescued, called to die and promised a glorious reward.

Image of the week

Another good cartoon from Adam Ford: “I could never believe in a God who would…”