Unbounded church articles
Standing in the shopping mall, those tomb-side words on that chill first Easter morning came to me, “They have stolen Him away and we don’t know where they have put Him”, words true for most contemporary Australians. But worse, society’s degraded state of spiritual desiccation is now so far advanced that most don’t even know there has been a theft!
There seems to be a general ignorance of, or a deliberate unwillingness to accept, that the lamented loss of ‘Western values’ is the result of the decline of Christianity and the corresponding loss of the biblical moral operating system essential to the control of western democracy. Thus, and here is the key issue, the restoration of a biblically controlled democracy and the values flowing from it, requires the re-evangelization of Australia.
"C.T.'s life stands as some rugged Gibraltar — a sign to all succeeding generations that it is worthwhile to lose all this world can offer and stake everything on the world to come. (C.T.’s) life will be an eternal rebuke to easygoing Christianity. He has demonstrated what it means to follow Christ without counting the cost and without looking back.”
The cultural principle needed for our 21st century mission to local communities can be summed up with this slogan – ‘Their place, Their style, Their language, Their time’
Essential to the nature of God is that He is Truth, that is a singular noun, not Truths. However, to use the words of Daniel, in our society ‘Truth has been cast down’ (Daniel 8:12). Indeed, the West is now largely a people ‘who suppress the truth by their wickedness’, and being that God is Truth, the retreat from one singular Truth, is a retreat from God himself.
As we celebrate receiving the benefits of the exquisite love-borne agony of the Cross, we should remember that the reception of that gift requires signing up as a ‘Soldier of Christ’, and soldiers must fight!
Easter is a certainly is a time to laugh and dance with joy in what Jesus did for us, but it is also a time to weep Jesus’ tears for people like Jack, our family, friends, colleagues who have rejected Him.
To rebuild western civilization we need to go back to what made western civilization such a powerful force for good and prosperity and that is the Judeo-Christian world view. This is complex as many want the values without the Saviour.’
How many are there in the church today, who have been members for fifteen or twenty years, but have never done a solitary thing for Jesus Christ? . . . . they cannot point today to one single person who has ever been lifted up (to heaven) by them.’
Standing in the shopping mall, those tomb-side words on that chill first Easter morning came to me, “They have stolen Him away and we don’t know where they have put Him”, words true for most contemporary Australians. But worse, society’s degraded state of spiritual desiccation is now so far advanced that most don’t even know there has been a theft!
