This is a booklet about the BEC and Affinity. In it, the author, Ruth Palgrave, quotes extensively from the late Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones about the need for Evangelicals to separate from unbiblical ecumenism. She describes in detail the robust stance taken by the BEC against the World Council of Churches’ ecumenism and references her…
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BBC BBQ’d The publicly funded national broadcasting giant has been brought into deep disrepute as a result of inquiries into the lifestyle of its former presenter Jimmy Savile. Hundreds of men and women have come forward with their testimonies and allegations of sexual abuse against Savile, as part of a huge investigation into whether…
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Guest Column Peter Milsom ‘Lead us not into temptation’ — Christians and the internet Christians today face some significant new challenges. One of these is the internet and the way we use it. For people of all ages, and especially the young, the internet is an important part of their daily lives. Recently, I…
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Baptist men On Saturday 10 November, more than 90 men assembled at Borough Green Baptist Chapel to attend a conference intended to help Christian men fulfil their God-given responsibilities. They came from all points of the compass. Some travelled from as far away as Birchington in the east and Greenwich in the west. A…
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Ministering in Brazil Following a 10-hour overnight flight from Chicago to Sao Paulo, Brazil, my husband (Joel Beeke) and I had a three-hour car ride, half of it through windy, hilly terrain to Lindoia. This was my husband’s third FIEL Conference. Editora FIEL was begun in 1967 by missionary Richard Denham Jr. Its…
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Missionary conference The 2012 autumn European Missionary Fellowship (EMF) conference was different to previous ones. This is because we invited some of our missionaries who find it difficult to attend EMF’s European field conferences to spend a long weekend at the EMF’s headquarters, Guessens, in Welwyn, Hertfordshire. Friends from Greece, Switzerland, Belarus and…
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Reformed Anglicans in Brazil In November last year, the Reformed Anglican Church of Brazil (RACB) had its third Synod, which met near to São Paulo city, Brazil. The Synod was a special time of refreshment and renewal for its members, as they sought the Lord and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It was…
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PTS call The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Rt Rev. Justin Welby, must teach absolute scriptural truth, the Protestant Truth Society (PTS) has said. In a statement at its annual general meeting in London, in November, the PTS called on the new archbishop — the former bishop of Durham — to uphold the articles of…
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Zeal for missions I was recently gripped by the heart-rousing, burning spirit which Charles H. Spurgeon had for the gospel and missions. His spirit should awaken us from our sleepiness and slumber. Would to God that it would also waken the Christian church of our nation from her spiritual lethargy, deadness and worldliness! Spurgeon…
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Preparing for UK Mormon Pageant 2013 ‘Would you please tell me what Jesus means to you?’ This is the question I asked many Mormons on their way to their seats to watch the Manti Miracle Pageant, in June 2012. This is an event held by the Mormon Church — full title, ‘The Church of…
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Furtive haste The Government’s plans to legalise same-sex civil marriage is expected to be voted on in Parliament in December after the Prime Minister decided to rush it through. According to a senior source, quoted in the Daily Mail, ‘The prime minister and the deputy prime minister have agreed to get on with it.…
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Religious education Teachers across England are struggling to deliver quality Religious Education (RE) lessons, a poll from Oxford University has found. RE has already been excluded from the English Baccalaureate, along with arts and creative disciplines, and already state-maintained schools are reporting a decline in RE provision. According to the survey, nearly two-thirds, 64…
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Reformation Today November-December 2012 saw the 250th issue of Reformation Today (RT). We feature Erroll Hulse’s editorial (with permission). While Evangelical Times does not align itself with secondary distinctives that separate Reformed Evangelicals, it commends RT for the eirenic spirit with which it here reviews books on baptism.RT is a 40-page magazine which began…
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Enchanted ground In his famous work, The Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan very perceptively opens up an important issue for the people of God by explaining the dangers of spiritual lethargy, under the idea of ‘Enchanted Ground’. Charles H. Spurgeon elaborated on this when he exhorted his congregation in New Park Street Chapel from the…
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Pontardawe Mount Elim Evangelical Church in Pontardawe played host to roughly 300 people last year, when the church witnessed the ordination and induction of Steffan Jones to the pastorate. The service was led by Rev. Derrick Adams of the Welsh Evangelical Church in Aberystwyth. David Sercombe gave the history of the call and Mr…
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The story of ‘Amazing Grace’ 2013 marks the 240th anniversary of John Newton’s extraordinarily popular hymn ‘Amazing Grace’. This currently holds the world record for the most number of different recordings — more than 3000, in the Chasanoff/Elozua collection at the Library of Congress. This article is an insight, or rather hindsight, drawn from…
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Not so simple Barack Obama may have won a second term, but the Democrat party’s policies — some of which were passed at the same time as his re-election — have upset voters of all beliefs. According to reports from the New York Times, voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington State approved the Democrat-supported…
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Aycliffe pastor On Saturday 22 September, a service of induction and ordination for Tony Simpson was held at Aycliffe Evangelical Church, Newton Aycliffe, County Durham. Newton Aycliffe is ‘the oldest new town in the north of England’, founded in 1947. Visitors came from the town and local churches, and as far away as…
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Facing the future The term ‘fear not’ is found many times in the Bible. There are almost as many ‘fear not’ statements as there are days in the year. I feel that each of these statements is there for me, because I am not a brave person. I am intimidated by others, terrified to…
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Political correctness in 2013 Political correctness (PC) is closing down freedom in many areas. The great upward path of Western society to produce a society in which, within the rule of law, individuals enjoy liberty of thought and of expression is being put into reverse… We are beginning to see this bite with the…
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LTS bursary fund The London Theological Seminary (LTS) is extending the scope of its Lloyd-Jones bursary fund to help more overseas students from poorer countries. In a letter to supporters, Robert Strivens, principal of LTS, said the change was a result of the new visa regime operating in the UK, which has caused a…
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The Synod of Dort In recent years, Calvinism has acquired a new level of energy and interest. In 2009 Time magazine (12 March 2009) called Calvinism one of the top ten ideas changing the world. But what is Calvinism? Broadly speaking, Calvinism (named after the sixteenth-century Genevan reformer John Calvin) is a biblical world-and-life…
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Salisbury Conference The two-day 16th Salisbury Conference last year was themed ‘The biblical doctrine of conversion’. The chairman was Rev. Malcolm Watts and the guest speaker Dr Gerald Bilkes, professor of New Testament and biblical theology, at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, US. We welcomed friends from England, Wales and Ireland, and were…
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Personal view: The evangelical priesthood We have identified some symptoms of evangelical decline — the downgrade of preaching and an accompanying overemphasis on music in worship (September & November 2012 ETs). We now consider a further disturbing element. Put simply, this is a departure from the historic and biblical view of the ‘Christian ministry’.…
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Closet theists Nearly 25 per cent of atheists believe in the concept of a human soul, according to a wide-ranging report commissioned by think-tank Theos. The 34-page report, Post-religious Britain?: the faith of the faithless, written by Nick Spencer and Holly Weldin, found that many claiming not to have a faith still demonstrated ‘patterns…
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Women bishops Almost half the lay people who, last year, voted against legislation to allow female bishops in the Church of England were women, voting records have shown. Figures released by Church House show that 33 of the 74 General Synod lay members who voted ‘no’ were women. A report in the Guardian said…
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Vote-loser Nearly 120 Conservative MPs are likely to oppose plans to redefine marriage, according to figures from campaign group Coalition for Marriage. This came as a survey from pollsters ComRes found that among Conservative voters, 68 per cent opposed the Prime Minister’s policy, while 58 per cent of Labour voters and 52 per cent…
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John Owen Centre Following a successful conference last year, all of the talks from the 2012 Conference — ‘Adam — in the Bible, the church and the world’ — are now available free on the John Owen Centre web site. The four given on the first day are: David Green on Adam in…
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Trinity RPC welcomes new minister Trinity Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPC) in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland, was packed full for the installation service of their new minister, Rev. Warren Peel. The Trinity congregation had been vacant since their former minister, Rev. Prof. Edward Donnelly, retired in September 2011, after a long and fruitful ministry during…
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Developing the church’s spiritual life during 2013 (1) This title implies our churches are not as spiritually healthy as they should be. And isn’t it true that many evangelical churches have lost spiritual focus and confidence in God, and are retreating into what is safe, comfortable and sanitised? We are becoming too cerebral; our…
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The finished work of Christ While walking home late at night recently, I passed a shopkeeper shutting up his store for the night. His body language suggested he was relieved that his day’s work was over. Daily work is both a blessing and a bane. We are grateful for it as it enables us…
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OAM annual meetings The 159th Annual Meetings of the Open-Air Mission (OAM) took place in October last year, when roughly 240 supporters gathered at the Samworth Academy in Leicester. You might think that two sessions of more than an hour and a half each, containing reports from 12 men all engaged in the…
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Facebook freedom A Christian council worker who was demoted because he wrote something on his Facebook page opposing gay weddings has won a court case against his employers. Last year, Adrian Smith wrote that gay weddings in churches would be ‘an equality too far’. The post was made outside working hours and was not…
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Evaluating Christian views of origins (1) Ever since the time of Darwin, there have been debates among Christians about how Genesis (and in particular chapters 1-11) should be interpreted. Should we search for harmony between Genesis and modern scientific accounts of origins? And, if so, what are the options available to us? In…
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Morley mining disaster Nearly 50 people gathered on a Sunday afternoon last year at the former Caphouse Colliery in West Yorkshire, now the North of England Mining Museum. They were there as the guests of Morley Community Church and the International Miners Mission (IMM), to take part in a unique evangelistic…
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Dr Griffith John Ebenezer Baptist Church, Swansea, recently celebrated a centenary on from the death of a missionary, who went out from Ebenezer when it was a Welsh Congregational Church. Griffith John was in 1861the first Protestant missionary to commence work in inland China. He was a contemporary of Hudson Taylor and appeared…
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Orissa need Hundreds of Christians in Orissa, India, who were made homeless after an outbreak of violent persecution, are now living in houses built by Barnabas Fund. According to the charity, during the past 18 months many homes have been built in the Kandhamal district. It was here that Christians were targeted by Hindu…
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Warm-hearted Presbyterians On October 20, roughly 150 people gathered for the 2012 London Presbyterian Conference in Oxford Street, London. This was to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England and Wales (EPCEW), initially known as the Presbyterian Association of England. Rev. Ian Hamilton, minister of Cambridge…
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Marriage: ‘equality’ and ‘sameness’ are different things I believe passionately in the immense importance of marriage as ‘the voluntary union of one man and one woman for life, to the exclusion of all others’. I remember learning this definition as a law student in 1966 from the case of Hyde v. Hyde 1866, when…
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Pastoring the pastor. Tim Cooper & Kelvin Gardiner Christian Focus 208 pages, £7.99 ISBN: 978-1-84450-784-8 Star rating: 3 stars There seems to be a growing awareness of the need for ‘pastoring pastors’. That need arises from the way in which pastors are frequently viewed these days. Some church members seem to view…
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Intended for good – The providence of God Author: Melvin Tinker Publisher: IVP 176 pages, £8.99 Star rating: 4 stars Professor D.A. Carson, in his foreword to the book, highlights the change of attitude that has taken place in society towards the doctrine of providence. Two hundred years ago, students in most history…
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Darwin and Lady Hope: The Untold Story L.R. Croft Elmwood Books 153 pages, £12.99 ISBN: 978-0-9568089-2-9 Star Rating: 1 star Rumors of Charles Darwin’s deathbed conversion to Christianity and repudiation of evolution date back to 1882, the year he died. None are more detailed than the account published in 1915 by Elizabeth Cotton,…
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Discovering the Hidden Lamb Gill Jacobs Day One Publications 112, £6.00 ISBN: 978-1-84625-333-1 Star Rating: 4 This book is part of the new Day One youth fiction series “Faith Finders”, which the catalogue recommends for 8-12 year olds. That’s probably an accurate reading age bracket, but I’m looking forward to reading it to my…
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Unconverted sons and daughtersCarl MullerDay One Publications, 96 pages, £5.00, ISBN: 978-1-84625-307-2 The subject of this book is one close to the hearts of many parents. When asked to review it, I had a special interest, as both our children have long ago abandoned their profession of faith. It is a small volume, made…
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Reviving the heart Richard Turnbull Lion Press, 192 pages, £9.99, ISBN: 978-0-7459-5349-6 There are few episodes of church history more fascinating than the eighteenth-century Evangelical Revival in Britain. Richard Turnbull’s brief account of the revival is an introduction to its main events and characters and it ought to inspire those new to the material…
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