Author: admin
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Recap: Governance and Accountability [2]
Just a short update on this, the issues of church governance and accountability are super relevant at present in the wake of current scandals involving a prominent South Pacific megachurch. Most churches of this type have relatively limited accountability because of their leadership structures, which often place one person at the top as an apostolic…
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Recap: Governance and Accountability [1]
So in the last month there has been a lot of debate in the church worldwide about governance and accountability. This is an ongoing issue that has never not been controversial because these issues really cut to the heart of how churches are run and who they are run for. Jesus spoke very strongly about…
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NZ Churches Seek Judicial Review of Government Covid Protection Framework (Traffic Lights) [2]
In the first part of this series we briefly examined the circumstances of the establishment of lodging court cases against the Government’s vaccine mandate policies by two separate groups of Christians. These groups are FreeToBeChurch, and the much more widely known Family First. The purpose of this part is to dig into some of the…
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NZ Churches Seek Judicial Review of Government Covid Protection Framework (Traffic Lights) [1]
The New Zealand Government in October 2021 announced the Covid-19 Protection Framework, otherwise known as “traffic lights”, for managing the impacts of Covid-19 in the community. The system was brought into effect on 2 December 2021 with most of NZ at the Orange level at that time. Nationwide pro-family lobby group Family First organised a…
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Christians Vs Conspiracy Theories [1]: Intro
Everyone knows that there are lots of conspiracy theories circulating in the world. While those specifically relating to Covid-19 are prominent at present, conspiracy theory is an ongoing issue for Christians rather than just a current set of events. This post attempts to explain this blog’s views on why Christians should not engage with these…
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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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Theological Controversies Influencing US and NZ Churches [1]
It’s very plain and has been for many years that churches in New Zealand are theologically influenced by viewpoints that originate from the USA. Whilst these ideas may be mainstream with the overall culture of society in America, they begin to look rather odd when imported into another country where cultural values are very different.…
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Anti-vaxxers Polarise NZ Christian Community
We all have heard the arguments against the Coronavirus response worldwide, including vaccines. Much of the opposition to this is coming from within churches, from particular groups of Christians, almost all of whom follow obscure and rather extreme theological viewpoints, generally ones which, like many of the anti-arguments, have been bulk-imported from the USA. Unfortunately…
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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…