The following transcript was recently handed to stephenmcalpine.com by an eponymously named source. Stephenmcalpine.com does not vouch for the veracity of the transcript, but was, nevertheless, impressed with the wisdom, insight and sheer daring-do of the eponymously named source. The leaking of this revealing document s comes just one day after this report in The […]
Category: Church
Carl, Ravi and the God of 1Samuel
I read the RZIM public announcement about Ravi Zacharias today, followed by a Vanity Fair expose of the fallout from Carl Lentz at Hillsong New York. Sad and sobering. Sad for those victims of Ravi and for those who were swept up in Carl’s very expensive designer train. Sad too that there is often so […]
Clerical bullying and spiritual abuse: Are they the same thing?
This weekend it is one year exactly since The Christianity Today article was published that brought about the end of the public ministry of Steve Timmis, former CEO of Acts29 and founder of The Crowded House network of churches in the UK. I played no small part in that article’s creation, although Timmis had been […]
The State of Victoria is hunting down the bad guys. Is it coming for you?
If I’d written in my new book Being the Bad Guys that education materials would soon be sent to churches by a government in Australia to tell them how they are permitted to talk about sexuality matters to avoid prosecution, I would have been laughed at. Yet that is what the Victorian Government has just […]
When your Ethos makes you the bad guy
My book is out. I am not. My book Being the Bad Guys was released yesterday, Feb 1st, while ironically everyone in Perth where I live was placed into lockdown due to a huge outbreak of COVID (one person). We have a treadmill so I can still run, but we get an hour outside, so […]
You are right Rev Macrae, bad theology does kill
And now they’re all lining up to hand back their gongs. It’s a veritable gong conga line. And now the church is getting in on the act too. Or at least one part of the church here in Australia. A senior cleric in the Uniting Church has handed back his Order of Australia in protest […]
A conversation with TGC Australia about my book
TGC Australia’s Andrew Moody interviewed me about my forthcoming book “Being the Bad Guys” recently. It all happened before the US shenanigans of last week, but it’s interesting how in our discussion we speak about how the church needs to move forward in these times. If you’re interested in a copy you can go to […]
Hey Franklin, that finger is pointing right back at ya!
A couple of Christmases ago I was accosted at the end of the service by a local pastor whose church was not holding a Christmas service. Not physically accosted, just verbally, so let’s not blow this thing up. But it got a bit too grinchy for my Christmas Day, and I veer towards the grinchy […]
This week we leave Providence Church after ten years ministry
This week – this past Sunday in fact – we left our beloved Providence Church network after a decade of life and ministry in a church setting that morphed from three households and thirty six people, to three churches (one starting in a month) with five congregations and some 500 people. And it’s painful to […]
2020: The Year of Evangelical Exposures
It’s been the year of evangelical exposures. I have grown weary of opening social media or an online journal and reading of yet another trainwreck in “Big Eva”. I finished this year as I began it, as a guest on the podcast of the admirable Julie Roys, a US Christian independent journalist who has been […]