I applied to be the online pastor of i-church.org.
I did not make the "long list" because I would not reject the Scriptures, forsake the distinctives of my faith, divorce my wife and "marry" a homosexual (of either sex), or deny that the Bible instructs us to form physical local communities for mutual encouragement and exhortation.
Preferring invisible, online friends (or congregants) over actual physical interaction is a sign of emotional/psychological/social disturbance. If i-church does not serve to funnel people into healthy relationships with local churches, then it has a long-term negative impact on the universal church by coddling people's insecurities instead of leading them to wholeness and healing in Christ.
The desire to reach marginalized people is good, but like many Anglican efforts, this one is all flash and little substance.
This special by Peter Jennings on ABC last night was about like I expected. (The fact that it was a "special report" by ABC "news" is particularly laughable – or sinister.) I did not see all of it, because I was flipping to the NCAA championship game. But what I saw went something like this…
Take a bunch of popular liberal scholars/writers,
ignore conservative voices,
lump all sects / denominations / traditions of Christianity together,
claim they all have the same views of everything,
deny the possibility that God actually exists and actually did something in the first century A.D.,
call it C.E.,
make some anthropologic observations from a naturalist perspective
and. . .viola!. . . you have yourself a genuine authoritative account of what actually happened.
If you are a Liberal "Christian" who denies the authority of the Bible, the deity of Jesus Christ, and the influence of God in this world, this was the program for you. Hope you didn’t miss it.
We need to distinguish between superficially similar words like assurance, conviction, presumption and bigotry. Conviction is the state of being convinced, and assurance of being sure, by adequate evidence or argument, that something is true. Presumption is a premature assumption of its truth, a confidence resting on inadequate or unexamined premises. Bigotry is both blind and obstinate; the bigot closes his eyes to the data and clings to his opinions regardless. Presumption and bigotry are incompatible with any truth. At least some degree of Christian conviction and assurance, however, is both compatible and reasonable, for it is grounded on good historical evidence or, as the New Testament writers call it, witness. The verbs to know and believe and be persuaded are liberally sprinkled throughout the New Testament. Faith and confidence are regarded as norms of Christian experience, not as exceptions. Indeed, the apostles and evangelists not infrequently tell their readers that the purpose of what they are writing (whether their personal testimony to Jesus or that of other eye-witnesses) is "that you may know" or "that you may believe" (e.g. Luke 1:1-4; John 20:31; 1 John 5:13). I feel the need to make this point because, in the present epoch of doubt, some Christians have a bad conscience about believing! But no, plerophoria, meaning 'full assurance' and even 'certainty', is meant to characterize both our approach to God in prayer and our proclamation of Christ to the world. (Heb. 10:22; 1 Thess. 1:5) A Christian mind asks questions, probes problems, confesses ignorance, feels perplexity, but does these things within the context of a profound and growing confidence of the reality of God and of his Christ. We should not acquiesce in a condition of basic and chronic doubt, as if it were characteristic of Christian normality. It is not. It is rather a symptom of spiritual sickness in our spiritually sick age.Well said.
--John Stott, Between Two Worlds, p.86-87