sparc
Posts: 2088
Joined: April 2007
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To extract the really strong TARD one has to add "porn" or "sex" to the search queue.
Then you find GEMs (sic!) like this:
| Quote | Colleagues:
For weeks and weeks, I was simply unable to get to effective writing on this unit, on matters close to my heart for 30+ years. The poisonous atmosphere that views Bible-believing Christian faith with the suspicion more properly devoted to IslamIST terrorists, has been a particular challenge.
It is hard to write into a poisonous atmosphere, but I believe we must.
And, it has not helped that several points that I believe must be seriously addressed are inevitably controversial. I invite reasoned comments, not towards resolving what has not been resolved for decades or centuries, but to help see if we can find a good balance that is respectful and moves us forwards.
Likewise, I think that discipleship has been a major gap in our systematic theologising.
Over the past week by God's grace I have had a sense of release to work on this unit, thanks for the prayers.
I have now initially completed it, cf below and attached.
I invite your suggestions and counsel.
And I believe with this unit now complete on an initial basis -- after almost a year and a half of steady slogging, we are over the hump, and have the outlines of an example course from the AACCS in a way that shows how such a course can be pursued.
I more and more believe we need this, and that we have to equip a critical mass of Christians in our region to a new level of instruction, if we are simply to stand in the face of the tidal waves that are upon us.
But as the very focus of this unit underscores, much more than that is at stake, we must be going out as equipped disciples in our region and beyond, in the power of he upwelling and overflowing Spirit, ministering repentance, renewal, revival and reformation!
In our region and beyond, with particular attention to our potential to field 8,000 missionaries; where we are especially suited to the 10/40 window and to the lands of the North that are rapidly moving into a post-Christian age. And the spiritual earthquakes connected to that process are sending tidal wave surges of dechristianisation into our region.
(Just for starters, do we know what this generation of teachers in our schools are teaching our children, especially at secondary level? Just maybe, there is a reason why so many youngsters are turning away from the gospel and the church across the teen years! And, are we equipped to help them answer the sort of issues and challenges they are meeting in history, social studies, sex education, science, current affairs, debate competitions, news and views programming, Facebook, and more? Just yesterday evening, I had to deal with an assignment for my son that is so loaded ideologically, that it is astonishing. And the teacher in question is thinking in terms of "right" answers that are not, probably does not even realise the many worldview level and theoretical issues that lurk behind the apparently simple questions and obvious answers that are being taught to our kids. Much less the consequences.)
I believe it is time for us to come together and see if and how we can pull something serious together.
That is going to need some serious decisions, including institutional support, technical support and funding, in the context of agreeing that we have to create a strategic regional initiative, or face the withering of the church in the Caribbean, to everyone's detriment. Also, we have to face the challenge of growing up into our potential in the global mission of the church. That includes helping to call the most troubled regions in the world to repentance and renewal, to peace and god-blessed progress.
On these thoughts, too, I invite comment.
Grace to all
Gordon |
A prophet within a virtual carribean Yahoo parallel universe with 15 members.
There must be a God.
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"[...] the type of information we find in living systems is beyond the creative means of purely material processes [...] Who or what is such an ultimate source of information? [...] from a theistic perspective, such an information source would presumably have to be God."
- William Dembski -
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