BLT

Okay so I’ve heard it a few times during recent weeks but I reckon we’ve got a pretty awesome national anthem.

Though after a bit of digging I was quite surprised as I came to the conclusion that its lineage is not quite as clear cut as most people think.

God defend New Zealand was written as a Poem by Irish born Thomas Bracken in 1870.

After a range of jobs around the new “colonies” during the gold rush days (an experience which reflected richly on his writing) Bracken ended up in Dunedin and after some of his poems gained some recognition he began working in 1875 for the “Saturday Advertiser” which had as one of its primary aims “to foster a national spirit in New Zealand and encourage colonial literature.”  He ended up as editor.

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Sorry but it just has to be said - my firm hope is that Israel will make it to the Promised Land this Sunday.

(Go the good guys!)

Oh and glad we don’t have a Moses in the team – (assuming a red card would be in the offing if we did.)

Don Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

You might find this a bit rich coming from the likes of me but I would say that any book by Don Carson can be trusted to be theologically sound.

Don’t be put off by the fact he’s an academic – he may have been ensconced in academia for quite some time but of late I’ve found “the Don” to have really got into the groove when it comes to writing his books for a wider audience than academic boffins.

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Whatever you do please don’t go and tell what I am going to say to the kids.

Now most people know that Santa Claus is basically a fancy name for Saint Nicholas.

You know – the fat guy in a red suit who jumps down our chimneys to give us all presents.

He’s actually a saint – forget about the Roman Catholic version of saints – that’s a croc – a saint according to the Bible is a person who is counted as one of the faithful in Christ Jesus (refer to the start of Ephesians if you want to check me out on that one)….he’s a Christian…

The red suit think apparently comes via Coca Cola – but I’m not going to chew the fat on that one now.

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I’ve just finished the New York Times best seller by A.J. Jacobs – The Year of Living Biblically – One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible.

It is a light hearted book by a non believing New Yorker of Jewish heritage to follow the Bible down to the nitty gritty.

And although not exhaustive – it was pretty interesting – and very funny at times.

At the outset Jacobs acknowledges he is not a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob;

I was agnostic before I even knew what the word meant.  Partly it was the problem of the existence of evil.  If there is a God, why would He allow war, disease, and my fourth-grade teacher Ms. Barker, who forced us to have a sugar free bake sale?  But mostly, the idea of God seemed superfluous.  Why do we need an invisible, inaudible deity?  Maybe He exists, but we’ll never know in this life.P4

I’ve rarely said the word Lord, unless it’s followed by of the Rings.  I don’t often say God without preceding it with Oh My.P21

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I know how much you jokers love free stuff.  Me too!

Just saw this – check it out some free publications from the Don (Carson).

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2011/09/17/the-inclusive-language-debate/

I recently had the privilege of spending a few days of sitting under the teaching of Anglican Bishop Peter Brain from the Armidale Diocese over in Australia.

Bishop Brain, the author of the fairly well known book “Going the Distance” had an awful lot of wisdom to impart.

Being close to retirement age he had some inter-generational observations on the generation of today which I felt were worth repeating.

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An observation of mine with regard to the internet age is that we have an awful lot of information at our finger tips.

I’m not that old but I still remember back in the days before computers were widespread – we had a Pears Cyclopedia in our front room – that was always my first port of call for any reference matters…..I thought it was amazing.

Who could have imagined that within twenty odd years we’d have such things as Google and Wikipedia at our fingertips.…even more amazing.

At the mere keying of a few words we have more information than we can wave a memory stick at.

Fantastic!

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Just over a month after the Rugby World Cup final there will be a general election.

Regardless of whether or not the All Blacks win the Rugby World Cup I reckon National will romp in.

And the main reason I say that Labour won’t get within a “bulls roar” is because, to be frank, I just don’t think Phil Goff is much chop as the leader of the Labour Party.

Sorry to offend any of you “Micky Savage on the wall”, Labourites but the current polls would appear to concur with me on that one.

With this in mind I thought to myself the other day; why on earth doesn’t John Key make a public relations meal of this mismatch?  Why doesn’t he get some mileage out of this?

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How relevant are the ideals of the reformation to the church today?

And while we are there – what actually are the ideals of the reformation?

If these are questions which on occasion have irked you, then here is a book which presents to you the opportunity to act on that conviction.

First published in 2000 this has now been republished in 2011.

This book is really a theological refreshment of the ideals of the sixteenth century reformation.

It was derived from a series of lectures at a conference at the Evangelical Theological College in Wales in July 2000.

In summary it is a good little book and I think is worth reading.

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To say that this year has been an unusual one for Kiwis would have to be a massive understatement.

For me personally as a Canterbury resident it’s been huge.

In less that a minute I lost my work, ten workmates, my doctor, my home and my church.

I attended seven funerals in a week.  I’d never seen such grief.  It’s been a sobering experience for me personally.

My faith has indeed been sorely tested.

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Anyone that knows me will know I like to have noise wherever I go.

If I had a psycho therapist they’d probably have a field day with that.

(I put it down to being the third child).

Anyway we digress.

Here’s the story right.

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A seminal moment occurred during the recent credit crunch when Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve in the US and messiah and champion of free markets, admitted that he had been taken aback by the failure of rational self interest to regulate risk taking in the banks.

Some would say it’s a shame the messiah of the free markets didn’t adopt the argument long put forward by the behavioural school of economics that investors are not rational (being subject to a whole range of emotional biases).

With the benefit of hindsight – it wasn’t clear to many of these fund managers, who’ve since gone down the gurgler, what a “rational” decision should be.  They “had to make choices in situations of overwhelming choice, information overload and information uncertainty.”  While making these decisions, they also found themselves under pressure from clients who were demanding short term success and daily feedback in the form of share price movements that caused even the market professionals to doubt their own reasoning.

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I relived a little bit of my youth the other night.

In particular I rediscovered on YouTube one of my old favourite albums from a band called “World Party”.  The album was called “Private Revolution” and even though it came out in 1986 (man I’m getting old) I still quite like it.   In fact I still have it on vinyl in my garage.  (Sadly, in case you are wondering, even though I have the vinyl I don’t have a turntable so I had to resort to YouTube).

Anyways – you may not remember the band but if you’re old enough you may remember what is probably their most memorable song from that album; Ship of Fools.

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John Stott passed on last week.

His life and passing may not seem like a big deal for you.  I didn’t see any obituaries in the secular New Zealand media about him.  I’m underwhelmed at the media coverage this got even in the secular media in the UK for that matter.  (..then again he wouldn’t care….and he’d be right).

But if you are a committed Christian I reckon chances are his humble hard yards behind the scenes have edified you.

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I love you guys too!

Let me lay my cards out on the table and state at the outset of this article – if you want to put me in a box – I am an Evangelical Christian.

There you have it – I felt it appropriate to lay it down upfront – If you want to paint me into a corner (and put a bulls eye on me while you’re at it) – then goody for you – but if you could read on a tad I hope it may help.

Anyway let’s move on before things get awkward…

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Subordination.

What comes to mind when you think of the word subordination?

The popular perception of subordination is not very nice.

It’s akin to asking a lamppost what it thinks of dogs.

Most people associate the word with some unpleasant experience they’ve had to endure from those in authority.

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I brought this one a while back – but it sat on the shelf for quite a while before it got read.

That’s odd for me – in the past Tim Keller books have been devoured up within a week of receiving them – he is an excellent writer.

(I don’t know what a psychologist would make of that they’d probably have a field day….thankfully though I can’t afford one)

On reflection perhaps I was a little uncomfortable with the title of “Generous Justice”.

For many congregations in New Zealand it seems that social justice is not just an outworking of the gospel on the believers heart – it actually is the gospel. And it is this misunderstanding that has resulted in many churches (particularly the liberal ones) in New Zealand functionally teaching salvation by works instead of the great protestant bulwark of justification by faith.

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A new edition of Christianity Explored is on the way – supposed to be released around May 2011. Check out the trailer;

See the following links for more info:

Barry Cooper Article

Gospel Coalition Article

Tim Challies some interesting comments here