Much of New Zealand’s election on Saturday, and discussions around it, forms parables for the church. First the difference: anyone can examine detailed political statistics, drill down, and analyse them. But, although NZ Anglicanism keeps some localised statistics (diocese by diocese), it insists on keeping no national statistics. Saturday’s NZ election result was a surprise.
Learning From The Election Read More »
Some time this week or next week most will be reflecting back on Holy Week and the Triduum (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil), and writing up notes for improvements next year. Holy Week and Triduum online A friend of mine wanted to go to an Anglican church for Easter. She looked up the diocesan
Reflecting on Holy Week Read More »
Spoilers. At the end of the Noah film the final frame had the usual disclaimer: persons and events represented are fictitious, any similarities to anyone living or deceased was unintentional. So this is a film about someone who just happened to have the same name as someone else who, in a famous story, went through
Kodak dominated photography for over a century. Then in 2012 it filed for bankruptcy. Why? What happened? While it was instrumental in the invention of digital photographic technology, it failed to recognise its significance. In the late 1990s sales of photographic film declined and Kodak was slow to transition to digital photography. The Swiss dominated
Church: Kodak’s mechanical watch Read More »
A conservative evangelical facebook friend shared an image with a “LOL!” about three wise women arriving at the Bethlehem scene – asking directions, arriving on time, helping deliver the baby, bringing sensible gifts, cleaning the stable, making a casserole,… and there would be peace on earth! I began to wonder how my friend would react
What if Jesus were a girl? Read More »
Is the Anglican Church “catholic”, “protestant”, or both? How does it describe itself, and does that matter? Regulars will know, I am always particularly wary of uses of the categories: catholic, orthodox, charismatic, protestant, evangelical. Often what one person says, using one of these terms, is quite different to what another person hears – sometimes
Anglican Catholic Protestant Orthodox? Read More »
Over the weekend in Auckland and Christchurch Anglican diocesan synods met. Some of the most intense debate was around… homosexuality. Why homosexuality? Why not evolution? Didn’t Jesus clearly believe and teach Adam and Eve are historical persons (Matthew 19:4-6 – incidentally the same proof-text repeated to argue against marriage equality!)? Does Jesus’ claim that God
Why homosexuality? Read More »
Antitheists are getting restless again. It’s back to an oldie but a goodie: trying to prevent religious and values education happening on NZ State School property (eg. here and here). Don’t expect any consistency from them (of course). It’s not like they want to prevent students singing hymns to God! With both New Zealand’s national
Religious Studies in Schools? Read More »
UPDATED four times and now with a related post: God’s wrath – satisfied? At our recent synod meeting, one of the songs was Stuart Townend and Keith Getty’s In Christ alone with the words: “Till on that cross as Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied” Those words as understood by many (if not
the wrath of God was satisfied? Read More »
This is a sort of Liturgy and Law 3.5 post (See here, here and here). I have been suggesting a model of liturgical law as being more descriptive than prescriptive. And I hedge that about with cautions so that this model in itself doesn’t become prescriptive! So let’s be honest with ourselves and describe what
supply, demand, and fit survivors Read More »
