A day of news and debate in the dear old C of E

You know sometimes when you are opening a present and you expect it might be something quite exciting and then you open it and you've simply no idea what it is. That well describes my emotions at the announcement of my two new Bishops having been told by a few that I would be very pleased. I know nothing about either man I'm afraid. One of them has a blog which is called The Republic of Heaven which I will enjoy reading. I will be praying for both these men and can be nothing but hopeful about the things God may do through them. It is shaping up as an exciting new season for the Church in London- it surely has to be given the state of the things.

The Church Mouse is back out of retirement with one post called Ladies Hats which is worth reading.

I responded a while back to Driscoll's critique of the British Church with a long post called Politeness. Don Carson, possibly one of the greatest living protestant theologians has tipped in a measured reflection on the state of the British Church. It is interesting that he does not have HTB nor others in the charismatic stream at all on his radar in his analysis. Perhaps because he has had no contact with these tribes but there may be other factors at work. He does make a slightly superior sounding point at the start of his piece (presumably vis a vis Driscoll's more limited knowledge of UK culture) about his understanding of the church in our land which I have no doubt is pretty refined. However, he reveals his knowledge/perspective to be slightly limited in making no mention of other evangelical movements but that might be because his audience is a conservative evangelical one. To suggest though only conservative pulpits have good preaching is far from the mark in my opinion though the point on their zeal for planting is well made. His comments about church attendance in Yorkshire being less than that in Japan is one for us all to ponder. As an aside, he apparently has memorised the NT in Greek so frankly who cares what I think. Haven't quite got around to that myself :)

Then there is The Letter to the Times that is causing quite a curfuffle. I am sure retired Colonel's all over Wiltshire choked on their bran flakes yesterday morning. This issue is constantly on and off the agenda and so often those on both extremes of it seem to me to miss the gospel. Tim Keller puts that statement into rather more erudite words than I could ever muster.