On this weeks Kitchen Table Steve and I discuss my earlier article on Civic Religion
The Kitchen Table 32 – Judgement Day
This is the song I mentioned….
The Blog of David Robertson
The Blog of David Robertson
On this weeks Kitchen Table Steve and I discuss my earlier article on Civic Religion
The Kitchen Table 32 – Judgement Day
This is the song I mentioned….
The fact that they would preach about a spiritualist’s exeriences in a sermon is obscene.
I am gutted.
This isn’t Christianity.
It is a sham.
The Anglican Church has betrayed God.
You might all feel stunned and shocked but I am just numb.
I knew the SEQ Anglicans have been taken over by oddballs and cranks (I met Peter Catt once and he is very eccentric) and I knew about depraved activities like the Gay Pride services but nothing has prepared me for this.
By using a satanist’s visions to illustrate a sermon they have moved complete beyond the pale. They are sick.
There is no way they can call themselves Christians. Anglicanism has become a joke anyway (look at how they try to worm there way out of the ten commandments and the condemnation of homosecual activity) but this is a turning point where they have become something truly grotesque and anti-Christian.
People need to engage with the aanglicans to hopefuly bring some of them to Christ befoore God strikes the entire diocrse down. Their spiritual dabblings with yoga and meditation and occult references in sermons show that Anglicanism in Queensland is the antithesis of Christianity and the epitome of wickedness.
I’m too upset by them to write any more. My thoughts aren’t coherent at the moment. This is the most evil thing I have ever come across.
I read THAT sermon. It is the worst thing the Brisbane Anglicans have ever done, which is really saying something. The other srrmons are just disgusting too. Appalling.I just can’t consider them Christians after this. Their beliefs have strayed too far. Occult spirituslism in Christian worship? Madness!
I’ve just come here to read it all for myself, especially ###the### sermon. All of the examples are shocking though. What the Brisbane Anglicans are preaching is simply disgusting.
Wow – I had no idea the Brissie Anglicans had fallen this far. That last sermon is a real eyeopener to put it mildly – it is blatantly satanic, anti – christian material. It is a ‘ jump the shark ‘ moment, to use the modern phrase. How can any Christian associate with Anglican Church Southern Queensland after that?
I am shocked by what has happened in the cathedral and I know other people who will be too. The trouble is, its not just the cathedral. That satanic sermon is the most extreme case and I certainly don’t know of the equivalent to it happening elsewhere but the other things spoken of are occurring throughout the diocese, though often in watered-down form, so we see doctrine rejected, feminism, religious plurality, and ‘ tolerance ‘ ( a codeword for accepting homosexuals and gender diverse people – or else! ) promoted throughout the diocese. That cathedral sermon has set a whole new precedent though of what the diocese considers acceptable and it will shock many people. As others have said above it is pure, unmitigated evil. For a Christian denomination to preach and endorse something of that nature shows just how corrupted by sin and the spirit of anti – christ Anglican Church Southern Queensland has become.
This is heartbreaking. It is scandalous that Anglican Church Southern Queensland allowed this to occur in the cathedral – or anywhere for that matter – and endorsed it by their silence. If Brisbane Anglicans think the occult is okay now, I’m getting out.
I’ve been to Anglican parishes throughout Bris and Southeast QLD on my travels and I know they are nearly all less than orthodox but I never thought I’d see a scandal like this.
I stand with Christ my Lord.
Shocking behaviour by the Brisbane Anglicans. That’s all I have to say.
Disgusting. Its not a one-off incident for the Brisbane Diocese either as the other comments show. These aren’t the actions of Christians. Sickening. Enough said.
Madness. This isn’t Christianity. The Brisbane Anglicans will have to finally decide if they serve God or the devil. If they decide they want to serve God they [both laity and preachers] will need to get serious about it. Until that time this scandal has destroyed my faith in the church.
This has all come about because the Brisbane Anglicans don’t have a firm foundation built upon Biblical doctrine. They have made an idol of their human reason and this has ultimately led to materialistic scientism and secular humanist ethics on the one hand and spiritualism on the other. They may still believe in some of Christ’s teachings but they have rejected Christ Himself as they do not believe His claims about Himself or that He is the only way to the Father. Now their credibility is destroyed.
The fact is I know many Brisbane Anglican congregants and a few priests outside of the elites who do believe in Christ and accept Him as their Lord and Saviour but even these people do not uphold Biblical doctrines. This situation could easily have been avoided if there were Christians in the Brisbane Anglican Church who had faith and obeyed Christ, listened to what is taught in the Bible and actually applied it to their lives. As it is, now they are going to have to live with the consequences of this scandal. It is a self-inflicted tragedy and will have repercussions for the Brisbane Anglicans for decades to come.
It’s great you’ve exposed what’s going on in the Anglican Church in Brisbane and backed up all your claims with evidence. Thx. xxx
Yes that sermo was absolutely disgusting. You can see where they are heading.
WRT Gregory Jenks and AB Philip Aspinall, I refer you to this older sermon: https://gregoryjenks.com/2012/08/26/taking-the-bible-seriously-but-not-literally/
“As was clear from the Archbishop’s charge to Synod, central to this whole program is the belief that we need to take the Bible seriously, but should not make the mistake of taking it literally.”
As you can see in the rest of the sermon, Dean Jenks attacks docttinal statements, the reliability of the Bibke and the ability of parishioners to read it discerningly.
“Ignatius of Antioch (Phila 8:2) prefers the “unalterable archives” of Jesus’ death and resurrection over the written documents of the church.”
This is an interesting quote since Dean Jenks denies the boduly resurrection of Christ too!
“This does not mean we find Jesus hiding under every rock in the Old Testament, but it does mean we read those ancient Jewish texts with Christian eyes. We respect their Jewishness, and affirm the Jewish readings of their own sacred texts which are also the larger portion of our own Bible—but we read the Bible as Christians; indeed as Anglicans!” This is a more kaudable statement IMHO but it begs the question as to what kind of Anglican given there is clearly a huge gulf between the Progressives and Anglo-Catholics and the Evangelicals these days. Jenks seems intent on marginalising evangelical views.
It is interesting people like Jenks consider the Bible the province of learned readers like himself when it has proved lifevgiving and transformong for slaves and peasants from the days of the Roman Empire and then when it was put into their hands again during the Reformation. Would, say, a Welsh peasant girl like Mary Jones, have been able to grapple with the complexiyies and nuances Jenks raises? No but I daresay she read it more correctly than he does because it spoke to her heart and she believed with faith in the Resurrection.
The statements by Jenks and Asponall are part of theur continued assault on evangelicalism and, by extension, the reformation and doctrinal Christianiy. They are undermining people’s faith through their academic and political games and their blatant distortions of the truth.
They also seek to reject the aspects of the Bible that are no longr fashionable because they are “patriachal” and “homophobic” and argue Genesis is myth a view not believed by the earluest readers such as Irenaeus, Basil or the leading figures of either the Antiochian or Athenian Schools of interpretation.
“At the other end of the spectrum, we have high-level commissions of the national and international church comprising a careful balance of well-qualified people from different theological perspectives, seeking to determine the meaning of Scripture for the church today on controversial questions.”
So only the enlightened elites (like Jenks himself, even though he is considered a very marginal fringe figure in academia) can interpret the Bible for us in Jenks’ view. How is this much different from the Roman Catholic magisterium? Isn’t Jenks just returning us to the darkness of an authoritarian church that tells people how the Bible is to be read? Truly frightening views promoting a power grab by the church and a denial of freedom of conscience. They want to drag us back into the darkness of the pre-reformation period. It is all there between the lines.
Here is another sermon by Dean Jenks of Brisbane, now at Grafton Cathedral: https://gregoryjenks.com/2021/01/02/we-three-kings/
“Matthew decided to combine the Markan narrative with another early Christian document, the Sayings Gospel which later scholars would call “Q”. This would address the lack of teaching from Jesus, with material such as the Sermon on the Mount.”
What annoys me is that Jenks presents such theories as facts when there is no solid evidence or scholarly consensus on the matter. It is just an opinion.
“This story which is so familiar to us was totally unknown to Paul, Peter, Mark, John, Thomas and even Luke (who says he researched everything before writing his own Gospel not long after Matthew). I dare say it would have been news to Mary and Joseph as well.
This story is not about an actual event in the first weeks of Jesus’ life, but it is very much about real life events in Antioch more than 100 years later.”
The idea that the infancy narratives are fictional preludes to tge Luke anf Matthew Gospels are theories from the Roman Catholic scholar, Raymond Brown, made popular by Borg and Crossan.
“The truth beyond historicity concerns our love for the past, our compassion for others alive now, and our revolutionary belief that the only authority that matters is the power of divine love which not even violent imperial regimes can suppress.”
Although opinions are diverse in a large community, thus reflects the orthodox opinion among Brisbane Anglicans that the Christmas stories lack historicity. It is also the majority opinion among Anglicans in the goobal west these days.
However, it is kot the majority opinion among western Christians. Calvinists and Lutherans argue for the historicity of the Christmas stories. Joseph Ratzinger, a friend of Raymond Brown’s, dedicated a whole book to proving the case that the Christmas stories are historical records. Of course, many minor denominations duch as fundamentalist and literalist groups too. The Anglicans and the Uniting Church really do stand largely alone in their opinion that the Christmas stories are pious fictions and the prophecies of the Old Testament were not actually fulfilled by Christ’s birth. Not only does this undermine Christ’s claims to deity (unless one takes an adoptionist approach) but it would mean the early Christians were guilty of idolotairy, which is unthinkable given they werepious Jews in a strictly monotheist culture. Jenks is presenting academic conjecture, with no strong evidentual basis, as fact. Although this may now be the dominant opinion among Brisbane Anglican clergy and laity, it does not make it any more fact.
Aye, Tyack’s sermon is a game-changer. If you are a Christian, how can you remain in the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane knowing that it is acceptable for a priest to preach on an occult vision? You can serve only one master. Which will it be? For me, this day I choose God.
I knew Anglican Church Southern Queensland was pretty dodgy but this conversation has been a real eye opener to see just how bad they are.
I’ve just been reading their latest sermons. There is nothing as bad as the satanic sermon or the rejection of the Ten Commandments but they are still pretty bad:
* Promotion of priestesses and having a shot at Sydney and Moore College for not ordaining women.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wU5J0bB_N-V9wzuOpAZ5EblFbqB4AF4t/view?usp=sharing
* Brisbane Anglicans are so woke that even John 3:16 can bother them. God will clearly have to apologise to the Brisbane Angkicans for the poor wording of the verse that has so offended their precious sensibilities.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c3esA4n7_Uk5ZqEF8Z_wZS4S3rOleDQ8/view
* Peter Catt gors on another virtue-signalling crusade – this time gor women’s rights. He opposes male headship, claims women in the workforce hasn’t ked to higher unemployment and twists the story of the grain growing hidden in the soil to be about oppression of women in Australian culture, rather than using it to proclaim the growth of the Kingdom. Talk about twisting Jesus’ words! In his discussion of workplace culture, I wonder if Catt reflects on the culture of bullying in his ownall too evident in our discussion on here.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hR7deC2VY6_6TVBpeMHXENHe_iT1ALC3/view
As ‘Diamond’ says, the occult sermon definitely is a game-changer.
What I am seeing from Anglican Church Southern Queensland though is a gradual inversion of all traditional Christian teachings in defiance of Christ:
* Women are ordained
* Homosexuality is celebrated
* Transgenderism/transvestism is celebrated
* Christ’s deity is denied leaving Him as just a wisdom teacher
* The Resurrection’s historicity is denied
* The Ten Commandments are rejected
* Spiritualism is endorsed where once early converts burnt their books of sorcery
* Christ as the only pathway to God is denied leading to idolatory
* Euthanasia is endorsed in principle
* Doctrinal truths are rejected in total by JJF and others in favour of living lives of tolerance and diversity
* The Apostle’s Creed is rejected
* Where Christ was apolitical (refusing to support or denounce the Roman Empire and taking both zealots and collaboraters as disciples) and showed up the politicking and traps set by the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Progressive Christians are very political.
* The idea that scripture is Spirit-breathed is denied
* Historicity of Christmas is denied
* Historicity of most (all?) miracles is denied
* God’s character as portrayed in much of the Old Testament is denied
* The afterlife, at least as traditionally understood by Christians, is denied.
That really doesn’t leave much, does it? Everything has been reversed to conform to this world. Even now, as neo-paganism comes into fashion, they are hopping onto that bandwagon too. They really are building an anti-Christian secular state religion. I am genuinely terrified but I know in my heart Christ shall overcome.
To faithful Christians who still remain in Anglican Church Southern Queensland,given the magnitude of evil and fse twaching in your Diocese, I would sadly suggest these words of Paul very much apply to you:
2 Corinthians 6:14-17 “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
“I will live with them
and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they will be my people.”
Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.“
Leaving aside the other blatantly occult preaching, with the way these people are adding New Age elements to services, like ‘singing bowls’, yoga and meditation, they don’t seem to believe Christ alone is sufficient for their congregations.
No wonder – if they are throwing out large portions of Scripture they don’t agree with because it doesn’t fit social mores they are starving their congregation of God’s Word. ‘Man cannot live by bread alone…’ They are using these hollow man-made rituals as substitutes for their hunger for spiritual things because they will not accept God’s Word. They are ashamed of it because it doesn’t fit in with liberal social values.
This is a good academic study on the links between Anglo-Catholicism and homosexuality:
http://anglicanhistory.org/academic/hilliard_unenglish.pdf
It throws a lot of light on Queensland Anglicanism when read in this light. It certainly puts cathedral sermons like this one in perspectice, especially when mixed in with Foucault’s philosophy as people were discussing on your blog a few days ago:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Mde7J5IVCS4UGdrbcexFgcDceb7dEeHU/view
🙁 They even try to pre-empt criticism on blogs like this. There is not a single mention of sin or repentance, just talk of empowerment and privilege. The sermon is a text book case of calling god evil and evil good and trying to vet the moral upperhand in dking so. 🙁 Utter wickedness, despite McMahon’s attempt to pre-emptively block such accusations. It is interesting that an organisation as powerful and as linked to the Establishment as Anglucan Church Southern Queensland attempts to portray itself as speaking out against the “religious and political elite” and those who have the “upper hand”. They pretend to be outsiders who speak for the marginalised but flex their power to intimidate the marginalised themselves. Vile hypocrites.
Looking through the cathedral sermons, there’s a deep focus on mysticism as well and liberal theologians like John Dominic Crossan. Didn’t someone once say something like mysticism leads the average person to flights of fancy and the intellectual to fanaticism? 🙁
Some other sermons noone’s mentioned yet:
Graham Warren starts a sermon on the pacifist Evelyn Underhill by very inappropriately acknowledging “brave warriors” who won an “honourable fight” nearby. Oh, they were Aborigines defeating white people, so that’s okay then for the woke Anglicans. 🙁
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F8NhYgQM1nGTmDNbqX-CrVSkv9L_HvJ2/view
Graham Warren also promotes the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin’s proyo-New Age nonsense:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1F3yJ01F-sSrlsQE_hgLFUcFYhz8QqL-4/view
Attack on normative Christian relationships and gender roles:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JD4tVA52QCfnATPojuzew9S5lLjuQoR7/view
Praise of a transgender “woman”:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/187t7R5owOALgyRAxnPRbKFPZnZVQGr3c/view
Bishop Cam preaching a Muslim poet:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ea-tTxc-71X53VEAGXYcVs9_TscUuYgA/view
Sue Wilton refutes anthropocentrism with more Teilhard-style mystical waffle about the universe:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a4jGJ-k9WcvMAUi6NfAgTuFk3_rswIAM/view
More on the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin, this time by Peter Catt:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzzEexwPHeU8Wk9wbEphMG9wRzQ/view
Catt tries to politicise the Gospel. Again he is drawing on Foucault’s ideas of power. He also attacks Scott Morrison’s “Quiet Australians”:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cXtHmyZ7KZWy-idAT71RhU0a_nRYS51q/view
More Jesuism. It looks like they are a major influence on Brisbane Anglican thought. It is unsurprising since I’ve heard the Jesuits can be both very militant (think liberation theology) and very liberal these days.
Inkpin on the news – switches from Anglican to Uniting Church:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-31/reverend-jo-inkpin-making-history-in-uniting-church-role/13282256
They are attacking Margaret Court here and denying you can separate sport and politics – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A1UP6rJ1WNfrZcx6q0r5FNp12K8rzbOk/view
Catt cebrates Lemaître who was another Jesuit apparently. Also, instead of proclaiming God’s Kingdom, Catt wants to work for his more politically correct ‘Commonwealth on Earth’ – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MQ-RBebnfPRXj0sRYtLBRZsoZvOlxPB4/view
Catt focusing on icons to again, no doubt, alienating protestants – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nNz2oEelP6BLCIdmbML69WlY2Xlecgoc/view
Another sermon that says the Ten Commandments are too patriachial for today – this time by a male – https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzzEexwPHeU8cG5FNWtpTzNlQ0U/view
They are so Anglo-Catholic they celebrate coepus christi. I wonder if that means they believe in transubstantiation? It would be interestingbif they believevin this idolatrous ‘miracle’ when they deny Bibkical miracles. – https://drive.google.com/file/d/15-bSsURvzUC702ldmWEipBO8AdmNjqv5/view
Catt accuses the Bible of misogyny. He just can’t reconcile the Biblical worldview with his feminism, so he’d rather reject or reinterpret/twist the Bible instead to say somethinv it diesn’t say. He has made an idol of his feminism – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BBh-ag7RFG7rmH-20BsaUhr9LZZuQBI7/view
In favour of Aboriginal rights and trying to argue that not being engaged with them is a political act too. Note for all their ‘tolerance’, there is actually no room for dissent with Brisbane Anglicans. If you argue they are overepresented in crime figures – as statistics show – the Brisbane Anglicans claim you are scapegoating them and sinning – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CB_GT3Ft7LsNB9J2nhWtfdsiONwAu5EF/view
Attacking democracy – dismay that someone as uniquely unqualified as Trump was made President by the Americans – this mars an otherwise good sermon, ironically on peace given Trump turned out to be the least bellicose President in 40 years, so again only certain political views are tolerated in the Brisbane Anglican world – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O1x5vla60mpuT6Sq8xB3xXsqX0kiCjd7/view
Catt argues for blind fate or luck rather than God’s miraculous interventions or the part of Divine Will in our lives – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wyby8FTBMlbmkvg-DFrrxXtgi8vwr9Wd/view
There was one more sermon but I’ve closed it and can’t find it again now, where they saidvthat people who are uncomfortable with homosexuality can just leave ‘and there is nothing wrong with that’! 🙁
Still nothing is as awful as the occultic, spiritualist quote though Catt denying Gid’s soveteignty and active intervention in the world is another low point.
Another priest the cathedral also wuoted the occultist Jung and the dark “shadow energy” from our consciences: https://drive.google.com/file/d/121HA5OTNa0vz9WfZb0KUqmwsqwsefg8A/view
Hi from Ipswich.. I’ve been taking advantage of the Brisbane covid lockdown to read through this thread after I was told about it & look at other sermons on the cathedral website over the last hour or so. I’ve heard the horror stories over the years & even had a young woman who grew up in the Anglican church come up to me & say she was never even taught how to be saved until she left & went to a pentecostal church. It is incredible to see how bad the Anglicans are for myself though. The spiritualist vision was the most shocking thing of course as was the rejection of the ten commandments but here’s a few other items that stood out.
** https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PCrtToSTp9iRD4JEkBNtgfJevMFJ8P7u/view
Here they misrepresent Luther’s actual criticism of James. The straw comment had more to do with the lack of Christology in the epistle. ^
** https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nNz2oEelP6BLCIdmbML69WlY2Xlecgoc/view
Catt launches an attack on Protestants for ‘desecrating’ churches with their iconoclasm in the Reformation. No, Peter Catt, it is YOU who desecrate the cathedral with your false teachings as you lead people straight to hell, you evil, weak, little man. ^
** https://drive.google.com/file/d/19bu1JW9kYK67sOI6WCGHAZTkPFiVXwtg/view
More panentheism is on display here as the priestess argues ‘God’ is found in everything from an ember to a dead kangaroo. ^
** https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qA_tIGnzwixO6UAhM4mOvsOK3PG42ZnR/view?usp=drive_open
Catt calls Satan a ‘what’ rather a ‘who’. He seems to think ‘it’ is an impersonal force. This goes with his other discussion of crowd violence you all found earlier. ^
** https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ogQFtUumUGDNbeHLTAjge-QXmIbyMg_u/view
Cat is another promoter of Jesuit theology. He discusses Ignatius’ disgusting exercises in this sermon. ^
Beyond those specifics, there are other attacks on white males and the patriarchy sprinkled throughout the sermons & even attacks on the Bible for supporting the ‘patriarchy’ & repressing women & there’s the rub of it–the Bible & Christianity have shaped western culture in the past but Catt & his pals want to ‘progress’ & embrace postmodern feminist secular humanist ethics (with a thin Christian veneer) but now they find the Bible is ‘holding them back’ from embracing the new antichristian ethics so they are in a bind. To adopt secular humanism they have to dump large chunks of the Bible while keeping up the masquerade that they are still predominantly Christian in outlook. To do this they have to either ignore huge chunks of the Bible, reject them as false ‘manmade’ teachings by early communities who did not really understand God or come up with highly fanciful new interpretations. They are doing all three.
Meanwhile they neglect salvation as they are more focused on political correctness and social justice in the here & now. They claim they are fighting for the underdog which is laughable when you think about how much power they have, how they’ve ignored & undermined child sexual abuse victims & how they bully anyone who stands up to them. They pretend to be anti-establishment but they are the very body of the establishment. You can find photos of Aspinall’s mansion online & pictures of him dining with the QLD governor, to say nothing of all the church’s links to the Brisbane legal fraternity. These are all just games they are playing, to the detriment of people’s salvation, like my young friend & it makes me mad!
It is a devastating when a church betrays its own worshippers. The copious evidence you’ve supplied in the form of sermons and pew letters shows how much its teachings have departed from Christian norms.
Galatians 1 8,9 ~
`But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.’
I feel like God wants me to quote from Jude here, too. With its dire warning about false preachers who promote immorality, shepherd only themselves, preach arrogantly, scoff at orthodox Bible believers and promote worldly values, it seems like a frighteningly accurate prophecy of what we are seeing now in ACSQ, very sadly.
Jude 1 4 ~
`For certain men have crept in among you unnoticed—ungodly ones who were designated long ago for condemnation. They turn the grace of our God into a license for immorality, and they deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.’
v. 7, 8 ~
`In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same way these dreamers defile their bodies, reject authority, and slander glorious beings.’
v. 12, 13 ~
`These men are hidden reefs in your love feasts, shamelessly feasting with you but shepherding only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.’
v. 16 – 19 ~
`These men are discontented grumblers, following after their own lusts; their mouths spew arrogance; they flatter others for their own advantage. But you, beloved, remember what was foretold by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ when they said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow after their own ungodly desires.” These are the ones who cause divisions, who are worldly and devoid of the Spirit.’
v. 24, 25 ~
`Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you unblemished in His glorious presence, with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord before all time, and now, and for all eternity.
Amen.’
I’ve been reading Dean Peter Catt’s ”progressive Christianity” sermons. Vacuous obscurantist verbiage, IMHO.
I always think a good challenge for people like Rev Catt and his ilk (like Marcus Borg) would be to ask them to produce a simple catechism in question and answer format that 10 – 12 year olds could readily understand, clearly stating his beliefs. I bet Catt couldn’t do it and any religion that is not simple enough for a child to undestand, in its most basic form, isn’t worth wasting breath upon.
I’ve just been reading the sample sermons supplied as evidence to prove peoples’ claims. I am amazed at what they are preaching and how they evidently get away with it. The Jungian spiritualist quotes are the most shocking things I agree but all of the other content is not far behind. By what right do they call themselves Christians? What is their definition of a Christian because they are clearly far from any reasonable person’s estimation of what a Christian should believe as a minimum? I am too distressed to write any more. Thank you for exposing what is going on in the Anglican Church. The quotes from Jude say it all.
Yep, the Anglican Church in Brisbane is pretty dodgy.
I’m flabbergasted. The tevelations got more and more shocking the further I read through this thread. Thanks for linking to the sermons themselves so I could verify for myself what you were saying.
I never thought I’d see Anglicans promoting Jesuits. Here is my contribution to this discussion. It is a good article on the Jesuits and their crimes and dubious morals that manages to avoid the conspiracy theories and more far-fetched claims that plague some websites on the subject.
https://www.libertymagazine.org/article/the-infamous-jesuits
I’ve just wasted a few hours of my life reading all of those sermons you’ve linked. Pathetic. Awful junk theology.
And then there is the ridiculous woke world view they are promoting, full of liberal left, feminist, gay and Aboriginal propaganda. (A lot of the claims from they are making regarding the Aborigines have already been discredited as propaganda anyway.)
Surely no-one takes the rubbish seriously? No wonder Anglican attendance is in free-fall. People know garbage when they smell it.
Here are tge Easter sermons. Gregory Jenks again attacks penal substitutionary atonement, albeit in a footnote this year, in which he is citing a Roman Catholic female theologian with whose views he agrees:
“To put it boldly, God the Creator and Lover of the human race did not need Jesus’ death as an act of atonement but wanted him to flourish in his ministry of the coming reign of God. Human sin thwarted this divine desire yet did not defeat it.”
https://gregoryjenks.com/2021/04/01/the-heart-of-the-good-news/
So there was no divine plan of atonement, according to Jenks. 🙁
Peter Catt is a little bit more subtke than normal but still seeks to undermine the historicity, reliability and authority of Scripture:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OvX_HPpYyTwxQEpt0XSnQVBt0lRwgCg4/view?usp=sharing
I’d like to add a few points on all of this, please.
☆ First of all, thank you all for having the courage to speak out.
☆ Secondly I’ve just been reading this piece by a newspaper columnist:
https://www.jns.org/opinion/meghan-markle-and-the-jewish-question/
She argues that attacks on the Ten Commandments, lile those perpetrated by Anglican Church Southern Queensland, are inherently anti-semitic.
“Years ago, I realized that the onslaught against the Jewish world is deeply intertwined with the onslaught against the West. The key is Jewish values.
Although Christianity embedded those values in Western culture, it is the Mosaic codes themselves that are in the cross-hairs of those who are intent upon destroying justice, truth and sexual continence and unraveling biological identity.”
and
“One of the most fundamental of those biblical values—so egregiously absent from the behavior of the Sussexes—is the concept of moral responsibility.
This is the duty to restrain our own wants and desires in the interests of others. This code of obligation and self-control is vital for a co-operative, generously minded and mutually respectful society. Without it, society fragments instead into hostile groups fighting for power over each other.
That’s precisely what’s happened in the West as the result of decades of assault by cultural revolutionaries.”
and
“The secular world, including many secular Jews, tells itself the opposite. It claims that the West’s most valuable achievements, such as science and the promotion of freedom and equality, come from having dumped the Bible as mere mumbo-jumbo involving punitive codes of behavior that destroy freedom.
On the contrary, these are values and achievements that could not have existed without Judaism and Christianity. And every one of the ideologies which has replaced the Hebrew Bible—ideologies that have helped extinguish freedom and equality and undermined scientific integrity—is anti-Judaism or anti-Israel.
Moral relativism denies the Mosaic moral codes.”
☆ Thirdly this brand new survey indicates young Australians are more inclined to believe in the miraculous.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-04/spiritual-supernatural-realities-australians-weig-in-this-easter/100046122
By rejecting the Resurrection and the Ascension, Anglican Church Southern Queensland’s Progressive Christians are shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to reaching the young. They might not believe in the miraculous and even be embarrassed by it but more and more young people do. They really are just a group whose appeal is limited to old men and women.
☆ Fourthly liberal theology leads to falling membership. I’ve heard this fact reported many times and here is just one of the latest pieces of evidence for it.
https://evangelicalfocus.com/europe/7999/do-not-be-afraid-german-protestant-schools-use-bible-verse-in-prolgbt-campaign
Correlation does not necessarily equal causation but I think we can be fairly safe in the knowledge that in this case it does. I’ve known many young people who have fked the theological liberalism of Anglican Church Southern Queensland for more Biblically-faithful churches. They want something solid to stand for and believe in and young people can often smell the weakness, wishy-washy preaching and twisting of Biblical truths in Queensland Anglicanism a mile off.
☆ Fifthly I watched the 1974 film version of The Hiding Place for the first time just now. What a revelation that was! Corrie ten Boom’s Biblical, Calvinist faith provided her with an answer to the horrors of the concentration camp. Liberal theology, including Progressive Christianity, does not.
After watching the film, I looked at one of Miss ten Boom’s books, Tramp for the Lord. In this text, she explicitly attacks liberal theology for its vacuousness and its undermining of Biblical faith. Miss ten Boom had lived through the worst experiences imaginable at Ravensbruck and emerged with a feeper faith in God than ever and an ability to live out that faith, forgiving a camp guard and helping former Bazis and Dutch collaborators, just as she had risked her life multiple times to save Jews. Her experiences of the workd and depth of faith tells us what works and what dies not and it is Biblical faith that triumphs.
Indeed, as peolle have already noted in this discussion, it was Liberal Christianity that morphed into the pro-Nazi Positive Christianity, as it was easily malleable with its tendency to twist the Bible, twist doctrine and drop or ignore parts of Scripture it did not like, just as Anglican Church Southern Queensland’s Progressive Christians are now doing to fit in with identity politics, liberal leftism and the PC cultyre
Corrie stood firm and she was able to answer the critics by finding God’s love was deeper than the pit of hell that was Ravensbruck. Her theology answers the concentration camps where liberal Christians are swept away or at worst, collude with it. In either case, their modern, made-up religion has no answers for them.
Thank you for making your voices heard. It would be easy to fall into despair at the state of Anglican Church Southern Queensland and our false preachers who play at being priests. Better to hand it all over to God. He knows exactly what is going on and will bring them to account in His own time.
God called my family and I out of Anglican Church Southern Queensland sometime ago. Reading through the links on this thread, I can appreciate how kind and good He was to us to protect us from all of this false teaching and bad ministers. It was terrible before but if anything the church has grown even worse since we left.
Someone once said that Liberal Christians are good at asking questions but terrible at providing answers, and most people go to church to find answers. A firm doctrinal basis is needed and liberals deny them that and instead raise more uncertainty and turmoil in people, often vulnerable people.
I just downloaded this Australian Lutheran Easter Sunday sermon. At the 8 minute mark, they rebuke the Progressive “Christians” for denying the physical resurrection of Christ and provide copious Biblical evidence for why He bodily rose from the dead:
https://bit.ly/2PvlUiC
Thanks Jean. I found a pair of good sermons, too. Note that they are preached by a loud, bombastic American fundamentalist (with a military background no less) so his style will really grate on most typical Australians’ nerves. Please force yourself to push beyond this though and focus on the substance of what he is saying in his warning against Progressive Christianity.
Everything he is talking about can be applied to the Anglican Church Southern Queensland parishes – the pseudo-intellectualism, deconstruction of the Biblical texts, the emphasis on being “welcoming” (to everyone except Biblical Christians), the many paths to God, the driving away of traditional worshippers, the de-emphasising or even outright rejection of doctrine leading to confusion over ortho-praxy, the use of some Gnostic strands like the Gospel of Thomas, the focus on the production of Scriptures by faoth communitiewls whilst rejecting the doctrinal statement that it is Spirit-breathed, the remoulding of the faith – and even God Himself – in their own image, the tolerance of licentious sexual practices, including homosexuality, etc, and the attacks on “narrowminded” Biblical Christians (including his own fundamentalist Baptist group). It is all there and all applicable to Brisbane Anglicans so it is well-worth listening to.
I strongly recommend it to everyone.
Part 1 –
https://mp3.sermonaudio.com/download/22821175102245/22821175102245.mp3
Part 2 –
https://mp3.sermonaudio.com/download/37211716252285/37211716252285.mp3
There is another sermon on the topic of Progressive Christianity here from the same Baptist pastor, giving some more background context.
https://mp3.sermonaudio.com/download/22521201375083/22521201375083.mp3
I tried to read all of those linked Cathedral sermons but I had to stop in the end. On the one hand they were extremely upsetting but on the other I was too numb to even be shocked in the end as the constant stream of provocative and outrageous statements and twisted views of scripture piled up upon each other.
There is nothing resembling mainstream Christianity in what these Anglicans are preaching.
That Lutheran sermon is terrific, Jean! Belief in the [physical] resurrection of Christ is a fundamental plank of the faith. We have 1 Cor 15:16-19, Acts 4:10, Rom 8:11 and Rom 10:9 that all testify to this. They are not talking metaphorically or about Jesus living on in the hearts of the faith community only.
In addition to these verses are numerous prophecies in the Old and Nrw Testaments like Jesus talking about the “temple” of His body being rebuilt in three days, the “sign of Jonah” (being regurgitated from the belly of the great fish), Psalm 16:10 and Hosea 6:2.
The Progressive Christianity priests and theologians risk sending souls to Hell if they are convincing people that Jesus did not rise physically from the dead. See Romans 10:9. Therefore, this is a matter of the utmost importance.
Someone named Helen Patterson gives Rod Bower a well-deserved rebuke on Twitter. For all of their talk about peace, it seems that Ptogressive Christians like Bower aren’t averse to having warmongers among their highly-placed friends in politics:
https://mobile.twitter.com/HelenPa92387331/status/1379117880843792384
Now Rod Bower is retweeting a message claiming the Australian Christian Lobby is a FRW (far right wing) group!
https://mobile.twitter.com/stephaniedowric/status/1379229972057915393
That is fairly offensive to anyone who has been persecuted by the real Far Right, like Nazis and Fascists or the various military dictatorships of the recent past. I suppose when you are as woke as Rod, everyone else looks Far Right. He’s so woke he even finds the term ‘fairer sex’ offensive:
https://mobile.twitter.com/FrBower/status/1376719510208536579
Funny he finds the ACL offensive but he has no probs being friends with a war-monger like the “Butcher of Fallujah”, Jim Nolan.
Jo Inkpin has worked with him in the past, too, which just shows how insular this group of Progressive Chrisyians really is:
https://mobile.twitter.com/FrBower/status/1377067740020629506
There doesn’t seem to be many degrees of separation at all between them all in Australia or between them and their mates at the Westar Institute.
Wants to eliminate prayers from Parliament:
https://mobile.twitter.com/FrBower/status/1373511942896185347
Allegedly caught out as a hypocrite:
https://mobile.twitter.com/FrBower/status/1362684164755968005
After seeing this slur against the ACL, I decided to listen to one of Martyn Iles’ podcasts for the first time. Wonderful stuff! If he is far right, I must be Hitler…
It is sad to see Rod Bower gain so much traction as a pin-up for leftist Christians when he is on the public record saying he doesn’t believe in God:
“When we explore, perhaps, what I mean when I use the word ‘God’ we can come close to a common ground [with atheists] because I’m not talking about some divine being. God is the very act of existing. And so there’s a point of meeting for atheists and people of faith. I don’t really believe in Heaven and Hell at least not in the traditional sense. If there is a Heaven it must be a bit like Mardi Gras.”
Thank you for this discussion. Anglican Church Southern Queensland was in desperate need of robust and constructive criticism. Hopefully they will improve.
I listened to the 3 sermons, Jacob. I think these points in the 3rd one hit the nail on the head.
1) The Progressive Christians are more concerned about how they appear in the eyes of others than they are in the truth
2) They take bits out of stories and decontextualise them. Their reinterpretations make no sense in the wider context of the Bible
3) I also liked the 1st sermon where they talk about how the Progressive Christians say how welcoming they are to all comers but then show no tolerance to traditional Christians. They welcome everyone except for Evangelical Anglicans, Calvinists and Baptists who hold on to mainstream Protestant positions. These are the targets for their bullying and exclusion
Yes, the situation in the Episcopal Church is the same here in Atlanta. I’m sorry we exported this junk to Australia.
Thanks, Jacob. The American preacher’s sermons on progessive christianity are really insightful.
Nothing much has changed in Anglican Church Southern Queensland since my day then.
I don’t understand why priests latch on to these silly, childish fads like Progressive Chrsitianity. It shows they lack maturity and faith.
Very disappoining to see the diocese run off the rails so badly.
The minds and souls of these Anglican priests must be completely warped to spew out this offensive rubbish. The spiritualist sermon was the nadir but they were all awful.
I’s hard to know what to make of this. Why are ministers like Jeremy Greaves, Peter Catt and co. importing this American junk into Australia?
The Westar Institute and Jesus Seminar were created by an atheist, Robert W. Funk, to deliberately undermine Christianity, so why are all of these supposedly- Christian priests affiliated with this organisation?
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/markdroberts/series/unmasking-the-jesus-seminar/
I’d like to quote a bit from this first link (I’m heavily chopping this down so I don’t overquote so please read the whole article.
“Robert W. Funk made his greatest mark on the world, not through his academic efforts, but through his leadership of the Westar Institute, which he founded in 1985. This institute, though seemingly an academic think-tank, was in fact an agenda-driven effort to undermine orthodox Christianity. In saying this, I am not dishonoring the memory of Robert Funk, but in fact preserving his memory… Funk was quite clear about his anti-Christian agenda.”
On the Jesus Seminar:
“Funk’s most successful creation was the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars and others (including film director Paul Verhoeven, who made such religious classics as Basic Instinct and Showgirls) who took it upon themselves to decide what Jesus really said and did… This enterprise, though apparently objective, was in fact a stacked deck from the beginning. After all, Robert Funk himself determined who was in the Seminar and who wasn’t…
It was obvious from the beginning that Funk’s agenda for The Jesus Seminar was not consistent with classical Christianity. He said so himself in the very first meeting of the Seminar:
… What we need is a new fiction that takes as its starting point the central event in the Judeo-Christian drama and reconciles that middle with a new story that reaches beyond old beginnings and endings. In sum, we need a new narrative of Jesus, a new gospel, if you will, that places Jesus differently in the grand scheme, the epic story…
When somebody asks for a new gospel, implying that the classic Christian gospel is insufficient, you know you’ve left orthodoxy far beyond…”
Attacking Jesus’ divinity:
“[Funk said] We should give Jesus a demotion. It is no longer credible to think of Jesus as divine. Jesus’ divinity goes together with the old theistic way of thinking about God…
…the Seminar itself was not a truly academic exercise. It was, in fact, a carefully-contrived effort to erode classic Christian faith. And it was, above all, a brilliant PR scheme…”
From Part 2:
“… Did Funk really want to overthrow Christian orthodoxy? Wasn’t he just a scholar who came up with some ideas about Jesus that are uncomfortable for orthodox Christians like me? Can I defend my claims about Funk’s anti-Christian agenda?
Yes, indeed I can. Easily, in fact, by using Robert Funk’s own words. In 1998 he wrote a short paper entitled “The Coming Radical Reformation.” This paper included 21 theses (without arguments) that encapsulate Funk’s vision for the future of Christianity (or the end of Christianity)…
1. The God of the metaphysical age is dead. There is not a personal god out there external to human beings and the material world…
4. The notion that God interferes with the order of nature from time to time in order to aid or punish is no longer credible, in spite of the fact that most people still believe it. Miracles are an affront to the justice and integrity of God, however understood…
5. Prayer is meaningless when understood as requests addressed to an external God for favor or forgiveness and meaningless if God does not interfere with the laws of nature… Prayer should be understood principally as meditation…
9. The doctrine of the atonement—the claim that God killed his own son in order to satisfy his thirst for satisfaction—is subrational and subethical…
10. The resurrection of Jesus did not involve the resuscitation of a corpse. Jesus did not rise from the dead, except perhaps in some metaphorical sense…
20. The Bible does not contain fixed, objective standards of behavior that should govern human behavior for all time. This includes the ten commandments as well as the admonitions of Jesus…
You can see in Funk’s theses what lies behind the Westar Institute and the mission of the Jesus Seminar… When he was dealing with the secular press, however, Funk did not explain how the Jesus Seminar was part and parcel of his larger theological vision. Rather, the Seminar wore a mask of scholarly objectivity and dispassionate scientific inquiry.”
You can see this us exactly the blueprint Jeremy Greaves, Peter Catt, Gregory Jenks, Kate Ross, Sue Wilton and friends are following, as apparently endorsed by Aspinall. Why are they following an outspoken atheist who made it explicitly clear that he did not believe in God and that his intention was to undermine and destroy classical Christianity?
Here are some more links on Funk and the Jesus Seminar:
https://winteryknight.com/2018/06/28/what-do-skeptical-ancient-historians-think-of-the-earliest-christian-creed-4/
https://biblequery.org/OtherBeliefs/Skeptics/JesusSeminar.htm
https://crossexamined.org/debating-atheists-arrival-jesus-part-55/
https://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-seminar.html
https://www.answers.org/atheism/jesuseminar.html
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2000/robert-funk-and-the-jesus-seminar
I know of instances where certain people have been bullied by the Diocese and have suffered from receiving legal threats. This shows how far removed from Christ-like behaviour they are.
Anglican Church Southern Queensland is Christian in name only these days.