Category: International
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Theological Controversies Influencing US and NZ Churches [2]
An article in “The Atlantic” in October 2021 highlights huge division in US evangelical churches, which is a high price to pay for years of craven obeisance to conservative politics. The author lays the blame squarely at the feet of Donald Trump in the present term whilst also acknowledging that the issue has been steadily…
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Ecclesiastical Polity: Diversity In Structure & Governance [1] – Intro
Today we want to write the introduction to a new series about church governance and structure. This is a controversial area of discussion within the wider Church as it essentially governs the relationships between leadership and laity, which has important parallels in wider society in what is generally known as the political realm. Church governance…
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Conservativism vs Humanitarianism In Church Theology [3] : Compromise vs Courage
Between 2016 and 2020, the US presidency of Donald Trump divided the Church like no president ever before. Trump proved to be more willing to step over an unconscionable line than any of his wiser Republican predecessors, all of whom (as well as all Democrats) professed at least a nominal level of adherence to the…
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Conservativism vs Humanitarianism In Church Theology [2] : Narrow & Broad Churches
The narrow church / broad church paradigm fits pretty well with the conservative/humanitarian theological split. Conservatives tend to prefer working within their own limited sphere of similar theologies within the Church as a whole, whilst humanitarians are generally more disposed to outreach and working with people from across a range of different denominational and theological…
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Conspiracy Theories and Christian Nationalism Contrarian To Church Growth [5]
This is the longest series of posts ever written on this blog, but that’s not been intentional. It just seems this theme keeps on going with new events and insight, and so a new part is added. The annual Southern Baptist Convention is being held this weekend in Nashville, TN, and will have to address…
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Conspiracy Theories and Christian Nationalism Contrarian To Church Growth [4]
The most important aspect of this discussion is to realise that US dispensationalist theology that points to present and future theocracy, as seen now in the country’s strong support for the present day State of Israel and its expectations of millenial rule as claimed by dispensationalists from the Book of Revelation, is inherently flawed, and…
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Russell Moore Resignation Draws Attention to Southern Baptist Coverup of Racism and Abuse
It seems since this blog has formed a lot has been written about events in the United States. The intention of this blog is to focus on topical issues across the entire Christian church. America ends up getting more focus than anywhere else because there is more theological controversy there than anywhere else, regrettably. News…
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Conspiracy Theories and Christian Nationalism Contrarian To Church Growth [3]
Continuing on this theme, the key political alignment for Christians in the US is with the Republican Party, and this is despite the failure of Christians to see much commitment from Republican presidents. Voters in the last term got possibly more from Trump than from a good many of his conservative predecessors, but it is…
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Conspiracy Theories and Christian Nationalism Contrarian To Church Growth [2]
In the first part of this series we took a look at the issue of conspiracy theories and how by feeding into a Christian Nationalist narrative, actual growth of the Kingdom of God is hindered rather than helped. As is often the case on this blog, further reflection on this subject has led to a…