‘The truth isn’t
sexy’ is a campaign that was launched in Parliament on Tuesday 20th
March. It is primarily about raising
awareness of the truth surrounding human trafficking into the sex trade. We are celebrating the abolition of the slave
trade this year – 200 years – and it is right to celebrate. William Wilberforce was one of the foremost
prophetic evangelical voices in
Fulcrum is a
fantastic website which will give you up to date news on Anglican Communion, Church
of England and general world stuff. If
you are interested in why being an Anglican is one of the best ways of doing
‘church’, then this is the place for you.
It will also show you some really good reasons why being an Anglican can
be a right royal pain in the butt, but heh, that’s
community (communion) living for you.
The forums are fun and generally we speak nicely to each other, ha ha.
by Dave Walker Also a fantastic website, for those who want to know what is going on in
the CofE/AC, but need it not to make them too grumpy, I suggest that you get
yourself down to Dave’s. He does some superb cartoons which say so much
more than words alone could ever say about us weird Anglicans.
Following on from the above campaign – these
are the guys who have launched ‘The truth isn’t sexy’. Protest4 is a group of activists who, as the
slogan says, are protesting for a more just world. These guys are in this for the long haul, not
simply for the length of the above campaign, which, I think, is running for
2007, to coincide with the celebration of the abolition of slavery. Protest4 will go on beyond the campaign. Whilst primarily protesting about human
trafficking, Protest4 seems to embody the idea of forward movement in the
restoration of our world. It seems to me
that this is part of who we are, if we are Christian. God has called us into partnership with Him,
particularly when He began to re‑new His world through the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus. We should
respond to His call to pray, speak and act
to bring about His purposes for His world, His whole world. Prophetic
voices, radical love.
Mars Hill is the home of Rob Bell who is an
incredibly effective communicator from the other side of the pond. He has written some resources called NOOMA, which are
probably best described as talky type things (well, who said I was going to
describe it well) Basically Rob sits in front of a camera in
some venue which is relevant to what he wants to engage with and, well, talks.
It’s good, it’s engaging and he has invented the best word of all – brickianity – by which he means when we turn all our
doctrinal questions into bricks and then make walls
out of them, keeping people out of God’s kingdom and effectively putting our
learning about God at an end – well, a brick doesn’t grow, does it? Actually, that word comes in his book velvet elvis, which I can
thoroughly recommend. The Mars Hill
website has loads of downloads of talks and stuff which you might find
interesting.
As evangelicals we are used to engaging with
the Scriptures as a central part of our discipleship and this is a very good
thing. There are other spiritual
disciplines which are part of the Christian tradition and Renovare is committed to the notion of a balanced
spiritual life which draws from six well known traditions in Christian
Spirituality: contemplative, holiness, charismatic, social justice,
evangelical, incarnational. This approach allows us to affirm and
acknowledge our own tradition, which for me has been the evangelical stream of
spirituality, whilst seeking to be nourished from the goodness to be found in
the others. Their motto is Credo Ergo Ago which means ‘I believe
therefore I do’ and they challenge us to ask each other ‘How is it with your
soul?’