Setting up a personal website is a troubling business. I am not speaking about the trouble of rummaging through thirty years of hard and soft files of miscellanea, much of it occasional in purpose and often only half-finished. No, the trouble is deeper: what is a Christian minister, make that a Christian of any stripe, doing exalting himself on the worldwide web? Well, here are my excuses.
Author: Stephen Noll
DIVORCE IN THE ANGLICAN FAMILY: A Look Back at the Break-Up
In September 2019, Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, shared some reflections with clergy and laity in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles on the state of the Anglican Communion. “I am saying ‘Anglican family’ rather than ‘Anglican Communion’ …
CLAUSE 13 IMPLICATIONS: Reply to a Clergyman in the Church of England
I received the following comment on my Contending Anglican blog from a clergyman in the Church of England with regard to my post on Jerusalem Declaration clause 13. I am posting his comment and my reply with his permission. NOTE: …
THOUGHTS ON THE JERUSALEM DECLARATION 1: Gafcon and the Church
My purpose in this essay is to contend that in the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration, the Gafcon movement is claiming to have an “ecclesial” identity, that is, the marks of a church. The Gafcon fellowship, to be sure, is not …
THOUGHTS ON THE JERUSALEM DECLARATION 2: Proposing a Life-and-Death Amendment
Here is my proposed wording for an additional clause: "We acknowledge God as the Lord of life and death: ultimately he gives and he takes away. We support and hail the efforts of physicians and medical researchers when their work …
THOUGHTS ON THE JERUSALEM DECLARATION 3: Should Clause 13 Be Excised?
The Jerusalem Declaration contains fourteen clauses. One of them, clause 13, is a downer. It reads: "We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and …
WALKING TOGETHER … TO THE CITY OF DESTRUCTION: A Word from the Bishop Smooth-It-Away’s of the Anglican Church of Canada
“Walking together” as proposed by the Bishop Smooth-it-away's of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Anglican Communion is a deadly ruse. Disciples of Jesus will stick to the hard and narrow way of obedience to His Word.
++YORK ON INTERPRETING THE BIBLE: Moral Equivalence and Moral Equivocation
The paradigm of disagreement, as he poses it, is a matter of moral equivalence. “Some say this, some say that.” “Some say God made sex for marriage, some say love conquers all.” “Who am I to judge?”
CALLED TO UGANDA: Twenty Years On
On the last Sunday in June 1999, I preached a sermon at the chapel of Uganda Christian University. My wife Peggy and I were on an exploratory trip, our first ever to Africa, to look at theological colleges in Uganda …
ENCOUNTERING FALSE TEACHINGS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT: Bishop Michael Fape
N.B. In light of some current discussion of the Church of Nigeria and the “prosperity gospel, I am posting a relevant presentation from GAFCON 2013 by Bishop Michael Fape, who is author of Powers in Encounter with Power: Spiritual Warfare …
IMAGE-BEARERS FOR GOD: Does Biblical Language for Man Matter?
My goal in this essay is to make a case from Scripture for traditional language for man and for understanding how men and women, each in a particular way, are “image-bearers” of God.