Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Charles Simpson Writes!! ...

I was absolutely thrilled today to receive a letter from Charles Simpson. I had sent him a bound copy of my transcript; "The Priestly Clothing" in the hope of encouraging him that there are some of us who don't want to let Ern Baxter's message die! I didn't expect to hear from him as he is such a busy man with a worldwide ministry, but he was incredibly gracious enough to write. The thing that excited me the most was that he said in the letter:

"We hope to publish and distribute more of Ern's material. He had a profound influence and continues to".

He went on to say that he will be over at Nettle Hill, Coventry in June to meet with some leaders! How jealous am I ... He also spoke of the Leadership Conference that I spotted where he ministed along with Terry Virgo and Bob Mumford.

How grateful to God I am that there are leaders out there such as Charles Simpson and Terry Virgo who carry the passion and the vision to seize teaching such as Ern's that does the Kingdom of God so much good. Let's keep a close eye on Charles Simpson Minstries - there are some exciting things coming out from among their ranks!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nettle Hill, Coventry is where the head office of Covenant Ministries International is based. Ministries Without Borders is based in Cardiff.

Anonymous said...

Your point being??! ....

Anonymous said...

Excellent, this is such an encouraging post!! I think after reading a lot of your material, I always did wonder what had happened to Charles Simpson and the other brothers. How can five men be together in such depth of relationship and then move on and forget what had happened?!

It's clear that they haven't! And I join you in being so grateful to God for Charles Simpson and the ministry he is running and the influence God is giving him.

I think we ought to apply gentle but persistent pressure to Charles Simpson Ministry to ensure that they do publish Ern Baxter's material quickly!! ;)

Luke Wood said...

Hi Dan, do you know anything about higher criticism?

Dan Bowen said...

Hey Luke,

Well I have heard the term mentioned. My pastor bandied the word around a bit but I wasn't too sure so I consulted some books in my library and here's what I found:

Higher criticism basically attempts to examine and look at the orgin of a text - in our case usually the Bible. It, in particular focuses on the sources of a document and tries to determine the authorship, date, and place of composition of the text.

Higher criticm was particularly used and abused by German Biblical scholars apparently. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834). David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874) and Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–1872). These guys are known as the intellectual descendents of more well known scholars such as Kant.

The problem for us as orthodox Christians is not so much with the questions that they ask of the text - more the answers that they give. They are quite rationalistic and naturalistic - i.e not giving so much credence to supernatural revelation - which is of course an aspect of the Bible, knowing it and comprehending it.

The counter claim from the higher critics is that orthodox evangelics follow their own form of higher criticism - but it is more supernaturalistically based rather than naturalistically.

Liberal Christians on the other hand find no problem in having a faith of sorts along with a higher critical rationale for why they believe what they believe.

There is a journal online that might interest you if you are looking into this that I found:

http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/

Read with caution!

Hope that helps m8y.

D x

Anonymous said...

I would agree with the point made by SJ - I think that these coming months and years are going to be crucial (or could be potentially) in the Kingdom of God. And we look to and need envisioned men such as Terry Virgo, Charles Simpson and such to look forward and be the Watchmen of God.

Where is HE going?!

What is HE doing?!

What plans does He have for us?!

And I would agree that men of God like Ern Baxter are crucial for these times! This is why it is so exciting to know that Charles Simpson has promised material to come out!