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The Archbishop of Sydney, who is the President of the Moore Theological College Governing Board, has announced that the principal, Dr John Woodhouse, will retire from the position early next year.

Dr Woodhouse would have reached retirement age at the start of 2014, but has told the Board that after careful deliberation, he believed the time had come for him to plan to step aside from the role.

“It has been nothing but a privilege to serve the College, first as lecturer and for the past ten years as principal” Dr Woodhouse says. “Exciting plans are in train and I am confident there are great days to come. There is nothing dramatic in this decision. It is simply my judgment about what is best for the College at this time.”

“Our staff and faculty are doing a wonderful job, and are more than able to respond to the needs of the years ahead. The body of students that the Lord sends us is, in my opinion, outstanding. I really am excited about the next few years of the College’s life.”

Dr Woodhouse indicated that he has several writing projects to complete, once he finishes his term as principal.

“A commentary on 2 Samuel awaits – and several others in that series. We will also be on the lookout for other ways in which we can serve the Lord in the coming years.” he says.

Archbishop Jensen described Dr Woodhouse as an “outstanding Christian leader and a fine principal of Moore College. He has guided the College through a period of dramatic growth and played an integral role in the fulfillment of our diocesan mission. I am very grateful to God for his personal qualities and godly leadership.”

Archbishop of Sydney Dr Peter Jensen
President, Moore Theological College Governing Board
on behalf of the Governing Board, May 16th, 2012

• See the Sydney Anglican’s story: here
• See the Archbishop’s media release: here

By Con Campbell

Moore College is about to go on mission, in partnership with churches throughout Sydney, northern New South Wales, and Papua New Guinea. Students and faculty are hard at work on their sermons and talks for mission, so I thought I’d repost a series about writing evangelistic talks (lightly revised; original posts are at readbetterpreachbetter.wordpress.com). I’m no expert on the subject, and much of what I’ll say is not original. In fact, lots of it probably comes from John Chapman, who is a national treasure, and was one of my trainers when I was a student minister with Evangelism Ministries. I’ve lost track of which ideas belong to him and which are mine. So with that caveat in place, here’s my (or his?) first thought.

By Greg Anderson

In the Moore College course about Buddhism and Islam one of our topics is folk religion. We include this topic because most Buddhists and Muslims don’t practice their religion according to the textbook accounts, but are strongly influenced by the indigenous spiritual traditions of their areas. There are visits to traditional healers, sacrifices, attempts to ward off evil forces through various kinds of magic, fear of local spirits, attention to omens – all characteristic of folk religion. Folk religion revolves around trying to deal with the unseen spiritual world and spiritual forces in a way that will reduce their harm and harness their power. People in the West tend to discount the existence of spirits and so folk religion appears to them as a host of superstitions. Folk religion is often closely attached to a particular tribe or region, and any one tribe’s sets of practices will differ from others. So folk religion forms part of a group’s identity.

One of the benefits of thinking about how other people act is that this provides us the opportunity of thinking about our own beliefs and actions compared with others. It is easy to point the finger at someone else, but we must acknowledge that we may be doing similar things ourselves (as Paul says in Romans 2). Are there ways that Christians – even ‘Christians like us’ act in ways that are more folk religion than biblical Christianity?

When I was a theological student, our College principal strongly made the point many times that there are no ‘magical’ spiritual techniques that fast-track Christian development. There are many good things that we can do that will help our growth – reading the Bible, praying, meeting with other Christians, living lives of obedience before God, choosing to follow Jesus whether this feels comfortable or uncomfortable. Danger occurs when we start to treat any of these good things as though they are ‘magic’ — what my ‘tribe’ does to guarantee spiritual results. Do we imagine that if we pray longer or with more people that God will be more likely to hear our prayers? Do we imagine that reading the Bible with others will automatically produce Christian maturity? Do we imagine that if we preach a certain way, the church will automatically grow?

When we have successful programs it is easy for us to start thinking that the program is what has achieved results, rather than God in his kindness.

Few of us would accept that we have fallen into that trap. But sometimes our attitudes belie our words, and sometimes our words betray us as thinking ‘magically’. We need to examine our thinking, and check that we are not only entrusting ourselves to our good God and using the helps he has given us without supersition, but also that we are making an explicit mention of these dangers so that others can avoid them.

Greg Anderson is Head of the Missions Department at Moore College.

By George Athas

Did you mean to die like that — was that a mistake?

Or did you know your messy death would be a record breaker?

There are a numbers of ways we could answer the question ‘Why did Jesus die?’ On the historical level, we can say that Jesus was caught between the crunching gears of apocalyptic messianic expectation, Jewish temple politics, and Roman imperial intrigue. On the theological level, there is so much more to say.

On the Sunday before his death, Jesus entered Jerusalem riding a donkey to the frenzied cheers of his followers. It was a provocative messianic stunt, aimed at fulfilling the image of the returning Davidic King in Zechariah 9.9. And his followers were not blind to its significance. Their cry of ‘Hosanna!’ was a slogan meaning ‘To the rescue!’ Here was the Davidic messiah coming to his royal capital to overthrow the current order, free his people, and establish the new Kingdom of God. The following day, in a brash act prefiguring the end of the old order, Jesus marched into the temple complex and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and opened the pens holding sacrificial animals for sale. A small riot seems to have ensued. By doing this symbolic act, Jesus was clearly stating that he believed the temple and the authorities that ran itwere no longer in favour with God. Time was rapidly running out — the time of judgement and the dawn of a new era were now imminent. Jesus was, in other words, playing the part of an apocalyptic prophet.

For the remainder of the week, the temple authorities worked to arrest Jesus. Aftertrying unsuccessfully to discredit him publicly, and fearing the incendiaryriot that a public arrest would probably spark, they managed to arrest him on the sly by bribing Judas Iscariot, a member of Jesus’ inner circle. A summary Jewish trial ensued. In fact, it was probably an illegal trial, since it was held during the midnight hours within the house of the High Priest, Caiaphas. It seems that those present tried to pin the charge of treason on Jesus by implicating him for threats against the temple, the institution that stood at the heart of Jewish identity and piety. This would be akin to charging someone today with a plot to blow up the White House. Given events earlier in the week, one would have thought it would be easy to implicate Jesus. However, the Gospels tell us that the witnesses brought forward could not agree, and therefore Jesus could not definitively be found guilty. However, the High Priest, Caiaphas,used another strategy. He asked Jesus if he was the Son of God. In asking this, Caiaphas was probably not asking Jesus whether he believed he was the second person on the Trinity. Rather, he was asking Jesus whether he believed himself to be the messiah — the son of David who was to sit eternally on the throne of Israel, for the son of David in the Hebrew Bible was also seen as the ‘son of God’ (see 2 Samuel 7.14). Jesus’ response implied that he did believe this. But even more than this, Jesus appealed to the image of the Son of Man in Daniel 7 — an apocalyptic image of God’s chosen one who would bring about the end of the world order and establish God’s eternal kingdom. In the eyes of the authorities, this was an admission of revolutionary intent. Jesus was foundguilty.

Since the Jewish authorities at this time were unable to exact the death penalty (it had been revoked by Rome a few decades earlier), Jesus was hurried off to the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate. Politically, Pilate was fighting battles on two fronts. On the one hand, Pilate was probably a protégé of Aelius Sejanus, who had been running the Roman Empire for a few years while the emperor, Tiberius Caesar, enjoyed a leisurely lifestyle on the Italian isle of Capri. However, in October, AD 31, Sejanus was executed for conspiracy against the emperor. Anyone connected to him was now also under suspicion. Pilate, therefore, would have had to watch his steps very closely to demonstrate unambiguously that he was loyal to Tiberius Caesar. On the other hand, though, Pilate had to maintain face and an air of authority over those he governed. In the years before Sejanus’ ignominious death, Pilate had thrown his weight around in various displays of power. Amongst those he needed to keep in check were the Jewish temple authorities. One of the ways he had managed to do so was to plunder the temple’s treasury for public works, and to keep the High Priest’s ceremonial garments under lock and key in the Antonia Fortress. These measures were belittling to the Jewish temple authorities and told them in no uncertain terms who was boss.

So, on the morning of Friday, April 3^rd, AD 33, the Jewish authorities brought Jesus to Pilate to seek the death penalty for him. Normally, it would appear that the Jewish authorities were in the position of grovelling subordinates, and thus for Pilate to agree to the death penalty would simply be a show of his own authority. However, Pilate also had to contend for his own reputation now that he was in the spotlight after Sejanus’ death. He could not afford to show any weakness before those he governed, and acquiescing to their request could now be interpreted as just such a weakness. And yet, he could not be seen to be letting a potential revolutionary go free either. That would endanger his standing with the emperor. Accordingly, Pilate attempted to hand the decision over to someone else — to Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, who was in Jerusalem at the time. However, the move backfired. Jesus was returned to Pilate, who now had to make a decision. Not wishing to imply that he was vulnerable or susceptible to weakness, Pilate himself questioned Jesus, flogged him in a display of Rome’s discipline, and was then on the verge of releasing him. By thus overriding the request of the Jewish leaders for the death penalty, Pilate was stamping his authority over them. However, Caiaphas and his comrades were not stupid. They now held the trump card. John’s Gospel tells us that the Jewish authorities said to Pilate, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend” (19.12). They were implying that if he were to release Jesus, Pilate would be letting an insurrectionist go free to destabilise one of the imperial provinces that Tiberius governed directly (as opposed to consular provinces, which were governed via the Roman Senate). This would implicate Pilate as a traitor to the emperor. To put it another way, the Jewish authorities were asking Pilate, “Whose skin do you want to save: this nuisance from Nazareth’s, or your own?” Checkmate!

On the surface of things, it seems that Jesus was in the wrong place at the wrong time — a victim of circumstance, crushed by political machinations that were far bigger than he could humanly control. Some have pointed to the apocalyptic outlookthat Jesus had, in wanting to draw the old order to a close and establish a new order, concluding that it was idealistic, unreal, and fraught with danger — that his beliefs and motivations just got him in too deep. Indeed, one can understand why most of his followers abandoned him and became so disillusioned by his death. He was an apparent failure. All the expectation surrounding him had come to nought, and like so many others before him, he fell foul of theauthorities and lost his life because of it.

But history also tells us something else. It tell us that not long after these events, Jesus’ followers reassembled and began boldly proclaiming that on the Sunday after his death Jesus had emerged from his tomb alive again. And despite attempts to silence them by the very same authorities who had Jesus arrested and killed, they continued to proclaim the resurrection of their master. He had not been a failure. He had been a fulfiller. He had indeed brought the old era to an end and inaugurated a new one, but had done so in a way that no one had anticipated: through his death. The Acts of the Apostles tell us that on one occasion, after being reprimanded by the Jewish authorities, Jesus’ followers prayed to God affirming, “In this city, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, conspired against your holy servant,Jesus, whom you anointed, doing what your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4.27–28). This had been no accident of history. In fact, this was what God had been mobilising all of history towards: the death and resurrection of Jesus. It was a moment of supreme fulfilment. This was the central moment of human history that held significance for every man, woman, and child who has ever lived or ever will live. The final bell on the old order, characterised by sin, death, hate, hostility, and human failure, had sounded. The new era offorgiveness, life, love, peace, and reconciliation was now dawning. Jesus had not only met expectations, he far exceeded them.

So why did Jesus die? There are so many things we could say to unpack the significance of Jesus’ death and his resurrection. The Apostle Paul puts it succinctly well, though, in Romans 4.25: “He was handed over for our transgressions, and raised for the sake of our justification.” And our response? Paul again captures it well in Galatians 2.20: “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

George Athas is Director of Postgraduate Studies at Moore College and lectures in Hebrew, Old Testament, and Early Church History.