Apologies for the slowdown in delivery of posts from this blog in 2022. The authorship has experienced many distractions, much of which have been personal family circumstances. These have been overcome enough by now to resume blogging. A faultline that has emerged this year in the US over evangelical engagement with political culture in the… Continue reading Political Faultlines Continue To Divide US Churches
Category: Theology
Is the State clamping down on Christians in NZ?
At the end of June, a well known Christian activist group in New Zealand failed in a legal challenge to the removal of their charitable status (registered with various government agencies). The revocation of this status is said to be due to their involvement in political advocacy, which is generally held to be non-charitable in… Continue reading Is the State clamping down on Christians in NZ?
US Theocracy Movement Gets A Boost [3]
As outlined previously, the shift towards Dominionism / theocracy gained considerable momentum during the term of the Trump presidency and the lingering effects continue to the present day, not least because Trump is likely to seek a second term of office and has never ceased campaigning. Previous Republican presidents, however, saw the potential for the… Continue reading US Theocracy Movement Gets A Boost [3]
US Theocracy Movement Gets A Boost [2]
Along with the previous post in this series expounding the many problems that the current direction of the SCOTUS is creating, it’s time to take a fresh look at the impetus for theocracy and the divisions between different groups of orthodox / conservative Christians along theological and political lines. This is mostly over dominionism/theocracy and… Continue reading US Theocracy Movement Gets A Boost [2]
US Theocracy Movement Gets A Boost [1]
Recent decisions by the US Supreme Court intentionally push North America further in the direction of a theocracy. As explained in previous posts in this blog, the current ideal of theocratic government is strongly intertwined with the significant following that dispensationalist theology has gained in the US since the mid-19th century. The USA is an… Continue reading US Theocracy Movement Gets A Boost [1]
Against Gun Idolatry – David French
David French has written another informed commentary about the gun violence situation in the US, and here we see again the contrast between New Zealand and the American nation, and our different heritages. French sees the key problem as it happens in America today as being one of gun idolatry, and perhaps that is a… Continue reading Against Gun Idolatry – David French
David French’s Take On Critical Race Theory
Critical Race Theory (CRT) has become the latest conservative evangelical bogeyman in the American church ever since the Trump Administration, whereby a relatively obscure and mostly unknown set of concepts (outside of the legal profession, where it has been taught at academic level for some decades) suddenly attained a very questionable amount of prominence as… Continue reading David French’s Take On Critical Race Theory
Megachurch Series [1]
So CCNZ will have a series of posts looking specifically at megachurches, in light of the ongoing controversies. This has included, in NZ where this blog is authored, the leaders of a Wellington based megachurch having stood aside for a period of review in the wake of negative publicity, and subsequently resigning from the church… Continue reading Megachurch Series [1]
America Stumbles Towards Theocracy
The big news in the USA in the last few weeks has been the possibility of the conservative-dominated Supreme Court repealing current federal abortion law (Roe v Wade). This is far from an open-and-shut case for theologians, despite the widespread support for this direction from conservative evangelicals in the US and worldwide. That’s because the… Continue reading America Stumbles Towards Theocracy
Ecclesiastical Polity: Diversity In Structure & Governance [2] – Episcopal / Presidential / Apostolic Leadership Structure
Carrying on from the first part of this series with a change of title, polity varies a lot between different churches. The early church in the New Testament appears to have had a congregational type of polity. There is not enough detail there to confirm this and there are naturally differing interpretations due to the… Continue reading Ecclesiastical Polity: Diversity In Structure & Governance [2] – Episcopal / Presidential / Apostolic Leadership Structure