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• Confirmation 'Down Under'
Confirmation 'Down Under' Well, not quite the ends of the earth, but far south. That is where the Herwels family moved to from Kabega Park a few years ago and now they have sent news of Ashwyn’s confirmation at St Luke’s in Manurewa, Auckland. With him are the vicar, Earle Howe, the Bishop of Auckland, John Patterson, and the curate, Nick Fraser. Picture: To the ends of the earth - Well, not quite the ends of the earth, but far south. That is where the Herwels family moved to from Kabega Park a few years ago and now they have sent news of Ashwyn’s confirmation at St Luke’s in Manurewa, Auckland. With him are the vicar, Earle Howe, the Bishop of Auckland, John Patterson, and the curate, Nick Fraser.
Daphne wrote, “We consist of all sorts of people - single and married, women and men, lay and clergy. We work in our own parishes living our whole life for Christ, witnessing to the Gospel life in our homes and in the jobs God has called us into.” The group fall under the Department of Training for Ministries and under the umbrella of The Centre for Christian Spirituality. If readers are interested in meeting the Port Elizabeth group, please phone Daphne Gulson tssf on 041 360 3152
During June her husband, Barry, was told by his boss that a new fleet
of cars was being purchased. Staff were given the option of buying
their present vehicles. Barry asked the purchase price of his present
little car which he’d been driving for two years, because the
old family car was giving a lot of trouble. However, at R50 000 the
family could not afford to buy it. Cheryl then remembered the teaching on being specific, so she and Barry asked God if He could please supply the money needed. Friday was the deadline and on that day, at about mid-afternoon, Barry received a phone call. The woman’s voice at the other end of the line congratulated him on winning a Nestlé Quality Street competition. The prize? What else but R50 000! Just in time too. Cheryl joyfully said, "This is now my 'Jesus car', as it is God’s provision at His perfect time - praise His wonderful Name." Picture: Removing the signs - Cheryl Nelson and her daughter, Kirsty, work on the "Jesus car".
The Revd Nicky Gumbel, the rector of Holy Trinity Brompton, London, spoke about the book "The Da Vinci Code" written by Dan Brown, and pointed out how far from the truth the book really is. Nicky is well known to all in the diocese who have done the Alpha course. Iindaba has been sent a copy of notes from the talk and is printing a few ‘excerpts’ from it although we have not been able to get a full transcription. About all the hype on the book Nicky says, “The Daily Telegraph has described the book as ‘the biggest-selling adult hard-backed fiction book of all time’. "Millions of copies have been sold in dozens of languages, tens of millions of pounds have been made for the author and currently the book is being made into a film for next year. The New York Times describes it as a ‘riddle-filled, code-breaking, exhilarating, brainy thriller.’ There’s quite a debate about its literary merits. One reviewer described it as ‘a superb thriller’. But others have been less flattering. Another reviewer described it like this: ‘pretentious, posturing, self-serving, arrogant, self-congratulatory, condescending, glib, illogical, superficial and deviant’. But there can be little debate about its impact. I asked a member of the congregation what some of her friends had been saying to her about the book. Here’s a comment from someone not sympathetic to Christianity: ‘It shows that the Bible can’t possibly be accurate and that the text has been changed.’ And here are two from Christian friends of hers. One said, ‘It nearly made me lose my faith’, another said, ‘It made me think I don’t have any real facts to back up my faith.’” Nicky asked how a novel, which is a work of fiction, can have such an impact. He reminded his audience that it is a thriller presented as an historical novel. He said, “It’s fiction yet it seeks to convince its reader that it’s based on fact. It’s ‘preposterous’ as one cardinal put it, but for many it is persuasive. So what is it all about? Well, in many respects the plot is completely irrelevant to the theology which is at the heart of it. There are also many side issues such as knights templar, works of Leonardo da Vinci, attacks on the Catholic Church, the Vatican, apostasy etc. But, at the root of this book is a theology, and in particular a Christology. In other words, a theory about the person of Jesus. Really, the whole edifice is built on this theory. If that theory is wrong, then the whole edifice collapses. “So what is the central premise of the book? It is this: that almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false. The Catholic Church has kept the true facts hidden through force and terror. And here is the real truth: Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene; they had a daughter called Sarah; their descendents became kings of France; Jesus was not the Son of God - He was a mortal prophet, a great and powerful man of staggering influence who inspired millions to a better life; He was a radical feminist; He was a good man who was deified by the pagan emperor, Constantine, in AD 325. Prior to AD 325, prior to the Council of Nicea, no one believed Jesus was divine. At the Council of Nicea Constantine upgraded Him into a deity. He became the Son of God by a narrow vote. This turned Jesus, the mortal prophet into a deity. Constantine’s motive was to give power to the Roman Catholic Church. "How does the author get to this conclusion? Well the argument is that the earliest Christian records don’t in fact, match up to the Bible. Dan Brown states that it was Constantine who collated the Bible that we now have. Constantine rejected and burnt hundreds of other gospels which were then around. He rewrote the ones that we have in our Bibles. However, some managed to survive, in particular, Q, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Documents. What the church has been doing for the last 2000 years has been to cover up the real truth about Jesus. This is the greatest conspiracy of the past 2000 years. Rumours of this conspiracy have been whispered for centuries in countless languages, in art, music, literature and most dramatically, in the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci. The secret remains protected to this day by a clandestine brotherhood of which da Vinci was a member. Christianity as we know it is a gigantic fraud.” Nicky pointed out that most of these theories come from a book written in 1982, called The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. (The writers of this book are now suing the author of The Da Vinci Code.) Nicky then went into what Dan Brown used as his evidence for what he is claiming in the book, and followed this with facts that clearly show that what Dan Brown has written is definitely fiction. "I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage - with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry." 2 Timothy Chapter 4:1 - 5
16 - 18 September, 2005
7 - 9 October, 2005
21—23 October, 2005 Fee for all of the above retreats : R350 Deposit : R175 Quick Links: Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Top | Homepage |
For more information about Iindaba,
contact the editor at iindaba@anglicandiocesepe.org.za
