Around Town: Courageous Christianity, CPJ, Anglicans’ 160th, BC’s independents

Michael Brown is the keynote speaker for the Courageous Christianity Conference.

Social conservatives are not getting much of a look-in during this federal election – with Conservative leader Andrew Scheer reasserting his party’s determination not to re-open abortion or gay marriage issues – so I expect the Courageous Christianity Conference to include some lively discussions about what options are available these days.

. . . is the founder and president of FIRE School of Ministry in Concord, North Carolina, director of the Coalition of Conscience, and host of the daily nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Line of Fire, as well as the host of the apologetics TV show, Answering Your Toughest Questions. He became a believer in Jesus in 1971 as a 16 year old, heroin-shooting, LSD-using Jewish rock drummer. Since then, he has preached throughout America and around the world, bringing a message of repentance, revival, reformation and cultural revolution.

He holds a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures from New York University and has served as a visiting or adjunct professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Fuller Theological Seminary, Denver Theological Seminary, the King’s Seminary and Regent University School of Divinity. He has contributed numerous articles to scholarly publications, including the Oxford Dictionary of Jewish Religion and the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament.

A prominent local pro-life leader will also take part:

Stephanie Gray is a seasoned pro-life speaker and author.

Stephanie Gray is a seasoned international speaker who has given over 900 pro-life presentations across the world, spoken at many post-secondary institutions such as Yale University and Berkeley and was a presenter for Talks at Google.

Stephanie has debated abortion advocates such as the medical director for International Planned Parenthood Federation. She is the author of Love Unleashes Life: Abortion & the Art of Communicating Truth.

Other speakers are

• Vancouver business and immigration lawyer Jeffrey Lowe
• controversial Chilliwack school board trustee Barry Neufeld
• actor/producer Jamie Rauch
• missionary turned diaspora / global worker Harold Minor
• business development associate encouraging Christian involvement in civic affairs Marc Vella
• pastor / business leader Tom Chin

Go here for more information about the speakers.

It is worth adding that while the Courageous Christianity Conference does not bill itself as being for social conservatives – and no doubt will welcome all comers – it does fit the profile pretty well. Ray Pennings, co-founder and executive vice president of Cardus, wrote a very useful comment (September 4) on the awkward position of social conservatives in the current cultural moment: Election news has outdated ideas about social conservatives.

Here is a portion:

This year we celebrate the 160th anniversary of that first service with a dinner on Saturday, 7 September 2019, with a silent auction and entertainment. Tickets are $75 with a portion eligible for a tax receipt.

Sunday we will celebrate the eucharist at 8 am using the Book of Common Prayer 1662 to remember our past and a contemporary eucharist at 10 am to celebrate our present and to look forward to our future.

• No parish church has closed in the last five years. We’re stable at 66 parishes.
• The number of parishes with attendance between 50 and 100 has grown (from 29 in 2017 to 32 in 2018) while the number of parishes with over 100 average Sunday attendance has remained the same (10).
• Just over a third of our parishes are very small (under 50 average Sunday attendance).
• Good news: just over half our parishes are stable or growing (55%), which is up from last year (48%). . . .

Added notes state: “Total members of diocese of New Westminster parishes for 2018 was 11,683 [and] average Sunday attendance for 2018 was 4,778. Go here for the full article.

In BC, independent school enrolment has grown every year since 1977, when access to partial government funding for qualifying independent schools began. From 1977/78 to 2018/19, enrolment more than tripled from 23,691 to 85,696.2 Concurrently, the number of BC public school students has remained relatively unchanged across this period, with a decline in the past two decade. As a share of total enrolment, public school enrolment has declined nine percentage points, from 95.7 percent in 1977/78 to 86.7 percent in 2018/19.

Just over half of independent schools and two-thirds of the students in independent schools are religious (primarily Christian, though there are a number of Islamic, Jewish, Sikh and others schools).

Go here for the full report (‘Who Chooses Independent Schools and Why?’), which provides considerable detail on a range of issues.