hillsongs - the next installment
As the comments in two weeks have gone beyond 500 comments - here is the new thread..
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Recent entries
February 5th, 2007 at 9:08 pm
” emailed CCC a couple of weeks ago..to ask where Phil Pringle got his ‘Doctorate of Biblical Philosophy”
Lets have a good look into that one.
Could you please ask on what topic his doctoral dissertation was on and where we could obtain a copy.
February 5th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Here is a good idea from Saudi Arabia - the religious police.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16978938/?GT1=9033
February 5th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Did I just violate the vilification laws? I’d love to go back to Melbourne, but not as an international fugitive.
February 6th, 2007 at 2:41 am
Hill$ong United Burger Boy.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=DRUk6XIzEtg
February 6th, 2007 at 5:22 am
Re: H$ burger boy.
I had to stop watching after a few moments. Even if I wasn’t a vegetarian, it still would have had me gagging.
February 6th, 2007 at 7:30 am
“Religion today is not transforming people, rather it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society, it is descending to society’s own level, and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smilingly accepting its surrender”. A.W. Tozer.
Jack
February 6th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Hi All,
Just passing and read the discussion about Dr Prinlge. I too tried to find out about this about 6 months ago. Very interesting and complex to find out. I emailed CCC and recieved no reply.
Via Google I did find ouit many different types of “doctorates” depending on what was being officially advertised at conferences etc e.g. PhD, Doctor of Theology, Rev Dr, Doctor of Biblical Philosophy.
According to the CCC Creative Arts advertisement he was:
“Awarded a PhD by New Covenant International University in 1999, achieved by thesis on the Book of Acts, following
a Masters by thesis on Church Growth”
For interest, check out the New Covenant Inertnational University (it’s in Florida). Also try and find a copy of these theses.
Good luck, and I will “pass by” again in the future.
Cheers,
DB
February 6th, 2007 at 9:23 am
It’s all about good leadership skills (everyone knows that) … here’s an aussie export to the UK (serves ‘em right) trying to ‘upskill’ the poms…
http://www.s4leadership.com/feature-articles/video/s4-tv—top-10-leadership-tips.aspx
Hmmm… you’ve gotta wonder?
Jack
February 6th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Can someone with editing skills please splice the YouTube “Hillsong United Burger Boy” featuring Joel Houston lauging himself silly at his mates gluttony with a Hillsong Compassion advertisement featuring starving children in Africa. Then re-post on YouTube.
See how funny everyone thinks it is then.
February 6th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Now you’re thinking Reve. If possible could it finish with a CCC Youth Pastor tying Joel Houston to the back of his car and doing donuts around the car park?
February 6th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Lionfish and dogbreath,
I have just (in my real life librarian mode) sent an email to New Covenant International University asking about access to their theses.
I’ll let you know if I have any luck.
John
February 6th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Lovin’ it, Abby..
Lovin’ it.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Well done ADHD!
I will be most interested with the reply.
From memory, the New Covenant International University website does not have a degree with exactly the heading of “Doctor of Biblical Philosophy”.
Also, it seems that students gain quite substabtial credits from “life experience” towrads their Masters and then also for their Doctorate.
DB
February 6th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Ok.. I’ll splice the video together this week… Can someone do me a favour and post all the links needed right here?
February 6th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Jack
I agree totally with that observation, and in fact I am also coming round to the little leaven thing either you or Acts said. I was there when Hs was climbing over itself to appeal to the world and reflecting all around it in order to grow. Now it is just the same instead of having the imagination and courage to be different, a light in the darkness etc. I think that because the Christians were naive gullible and conservative they thought everything was new and unique, and it probably was in the church world, but not if you compared it to secular things.
Those burger turkeys are just more rock stars chillin’ out after a hot gig, they ear just the same as any young wankers, it’s just that they are mega rich spoilt brats the same as any you see in the world, and this is only what we get to see. I’m ashamed of them, ’specially as I know them. Or shall I say, knew them.
People are turning to sharia law and others because of the worlds apparent lack of morals and guidelines and they peceive a moral fortitude there that they want, they are willing to partake in all that sharia law offers in order to escape the kind of grossness that burger boys display. I know it’s only a burger thing but it represents something that as a Christian is for many repulsive and displaying a lack of self control. Maybe it’s because these guys enjoy a fame based in the perception that they are pure ‘worshippers’ from a church that believes that worship is a lifestyle. What do you think?
February 6th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Spiro you said:
“Jack …I agree totally with that observation, and in fact I am also coming round to the little leaven thing either you or Acts said. I was there when Hs was climbing over itself to appeal to the world and reflecting all around it in order to grow. Now it is just the same instead of having the imagination and courage to be different, a light in the darkness etc.
I think that because the Christians were naive gullible and conservative they thought everything was new and unique, and it probably was in the church world, but not if you compared it to secular things”.
The problem with Hill$ong et al is, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the illusion of power when ALL they have is the form – and POOR form at that!
Constantly seeking ways to ‘lead the pack’ (… without God … He left years ago!) is extremely wearing I would imagine. Sort of the ‘frog in the kettle’ with a twist!
As people become comfortable with the status quo (read sufficiently brain-washed) they then start to tire of the same old routine (i.e. fad). Hence it becomes necessary to ‘shock’ then out of their ‘lethargy’ (brain-dead state) by introducing in some new cutting edge activity (read something - outrageous … irreverent … risqué etc).
(Hydraulic crane … sex is good … fat is NOT … al la Princess Air Head!!)
Like their alter egos in the ‘pop scene’ these Mega Church simpletons simply look for more and more outrageous ways to shock their ‘audience’ (oops congregation). Sort of “naughty … but don’t tell anyone … giggle … hehe … giggle”!
If the ONLY buzz we get out of Church these days is to be shocked by the antics of these fools then we are indeed in a sorry state.
Jack-of-them!
February 6th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
One of the reasons why I posted the Hill$ong burger boys (apart from wanting to find out who was in the video) was to again highlight the worsening ‘jackass’ aspect of ‘contemporary’ church life (resulting in a youth pastor’s death in NZ recently) ..and that burger boy looked to be not that far from choking.
One of the other burger boys had the presence of mind to suggest that he could stop if he wanted…but burger boy seemed intent on pushing it to the limit.
February 7th, 2007 at 12:58 am
I can’t really say now why I want/need this, but I need some suggestions from Signposters.
Just for a moment ..imagine you had control of Brian Houston’s mouth.
What would you want him to say from the stage?
Whether it be to correct a dodgy teaching, or admit some wrongdoing, or acknowledge some heresy and set the record straight….or apologise for something specific….
I’m not talking here about what you’d realistically expect Brian to say…but ..if you could put the words in his mouth…what would you have Brian say publicly?
February 7th, 2007 at 1:02 am
I also remember that one day..somewhere along the line here, I suggested I would produce a written record of the unspoken rules under which churches operate, and how they add to/conflict with the bible.
I now realise that was a silly idea, because the more unwritten rules you uncover, the more there are…..(I think it was the revelation of the hair-straightening fad at CCC that made me realise that such a venture would always be incomplete and inadequate).
February 7th, 2007 at 4:14 am
lance..1699 wow, that’s big ! 1698 As far as Bristlin’ Bob’s mouth goes, ‘Goodbye’ would be good I reckon.
Jack , you are right again, the screwy thing is that when you are in it you honestly believe you are on the ‘cutting edge of what god is doing in our nation’ so anything is acceptable and to be embraced. that is, anything done by the leadership and endorsed by proxy or participation. Thus a great spiritual pride swells and you look around at other churches disparagingly, thinking to yourself, ‘we are so hip, why can’t these other places be like us, we have the best music and everything’.
It makes one hard and all the sweetness goes, and you hurt other people, a sobering thing indeed when you get out of it and run into those same people and have to apologise for being such a prick.
Yes, constantly having to shock and surprise is a hard taskmaster.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:27 am
Post 1688
“It’s all about good leadership skills (everyone knows that) … here’s an aussie export to the UK (serves ‘em right) trying to ‘upskill’ the poms…
http://www.s4leadershi…
Hmmm… you’ve gotta wonder?
Jack ”
The idiot (or should I use Lance’s term “wanker paster”) in this video clip is Dave Gilpin the senior paster (and founder) of Hope City Church, Sheffield here in the UK. He’s not strictly Australian, as he was born in the UK and emigrated to Australia at a young age. Unfortunately for us in the UK he returned to the UK and founded Hope City Church.
Hope City Church is a Hill$ong clone, and has links to PlanetShakers, through their youth leadership course Audacious and S4 Leadership. The Audacious/S4 ‘team’ were at Planetshakers last month in Aus, with Glyn Barrett of Hope City being a speaker there. In return Phil and Chris Pringle are speakers at the Hope City ‘Fabulous’ event later this year in the UK.
Rosy
February 7th, 2007 at 7:45 am
Rosy
Thanks for the background … I suppose I should feel better knowing that Gilpin is a Pom, or that Hou$ton and Pringle are Kiwis, or perhaps a ‘double bunger’ - Phil Baker born in the UK and raised in New Zealand!
But with the likes of the Evans Bros et al I couldn’t get away with it.
Jack
February 7th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Lance, my submission as BH’s “mouth-for-a-day”
Setting the scene: BH has requested all visitors leave the auditorium afer a public service & that members only remain for some announcements.
“Friends, i need to let you know, that uh……inkeeping with this churches commitment to remain contemporary, cutting-edge & responsive to social envoronment in the city we minister, the board, Bobbie & i have decided it is appropriate to have a change of approach in the way we respond to the issue of homosexuality & the treatment of homosexual people.
In particular, we would like to now distance ourselves from the belief that a person cannot be born gay & that it is possible for any gay person to change their orientation. We believe that ex-gay ministries in the past, whilst having the best intentions & working with the understanding of the time, may have caused significant psychological dystress & harm in their efforts to change what we now believe is a God-given orientation. And we know that God dosen’t make mistakes.
We have been unable to ignore the enormous amounts of people that have come forward with stories of depression & suicide as a result of contact with these ministries. For this reason, & i am presiding over this personally, Assemblies Of God Australia is removing its auspices from any such ministry in this country, effective immediately, & we have also set up a hotline with trained counsellors to hear from anyone who believes they have been adversely effected by an ex-gay ministry auspiced by the Assemblies of God in Australia.
We would also like to welcome into God’s House all & any Gay & Lesbian people to worship, train & learn, & bring their experience. We indeed acknowledge that there are many gay & lesbian people whom are already members of our congregation who might have felt socially unsafe to be authentic with themselves here for many years, & for that we apologise.
Any Gay parishioners conduct at Hillsong will be under the same christian code as their heterosexual brothers & sisters in regards chastity until marriage & as soon as the Australian Governement legalises same-sex union, we hope to be the first denomination in Australia to perform these crermonies. We will honour monogamous unions & commitments, insofar as it is respectful of this countries law, both heterosexual & homosexual from today onwards.
If there are any members whom have questions or concerns about this new move, please don’t discuss it publicly outside the church, rather approach your pastor directly & he or she will make time to discuss your concerns in more detail as soon as possible”
February 8th, 2007 at 8:29 am
A timeless reminder of the ‘centrality of the cross’ - from one of last centuries great advocates for Christ. A damining indictment on a Cross-less Christianity today … God help us!
Excerpted from The Cross is a Radical Thing - A. W. Tozer.
‘The cross of Christ is the most revolutionary thing ever to appear among men’.
The cross of the Roman times knew no compromise; it never made concessions. It won all its arguments by killing its opponent and silencing him for good. It spared not Christ, but slew Him the same as the rest. He was alive when they hung Him on that cross and completely dead when they took him down six hours later. That was the cross the first time it appeared in Christian history.
After Christ was risen from the dead the apostles went out to preach His message, and what they preached was the cross. And wherever they went into the wide world they carried the cross, and the same revolutionary power went with them.
The radical message of the cross transformed Saul of Tarsus and changed him from a persecutor of Christians to a tender believer and an apostle of the faith. Its power changed bad men into good ones. It shook off the long bondage of paganism and altered completely the whole moral and mental outlook of the Western world.
All this it did and continued to do as long as it was permitted to remain what it had been originally, a cross. Its power departed when it was changed from a thing of death to a thing of beauty.
When men made of it a symbol, hung it around their necks as an ornament or made its outline before their faces as a magic sign to ward off evil, then it became at best a weak emblem, at worst a positive fetish. As such it is revered today by millions who know absolutely nothing about its power.
The cross effects its ends by destroying one established pattern, the victim’s, and creating another pattern, its own. Thus it always has its way. It wins by defeating its opponent and imposing its will upon him. It always dominates. It never compromises, never dickers nor confers, never surrenders a point for the sake of peace. It cares not for peace; it cares only to end its opposition as fast as possible.
With perfect knowledge of all this Christ said:
Luke 9:23 (NIV) “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
So the cross not only brings Christ’s life to an end, it ends also the first life, the old life, of every one of His true followers. It destroys the old pattern, the Adam pattern, in the believer’s life, and brings it to an end. Then the God who raised Christ from the dead raises the believer and a new life begins.
This, and nothing less, is true Christianity, though we cannot but recognize the sharp divergence of this conception from that held by the rank and file of evangelicals today. But we dare not qualify our position. The cross stands high above the opinions of men and to that cross all opinions must come at last for judgment.
A shallow and worldly leadership would modify the cross to please the entertainment-mad saintlings who will have their fun even within the very sanctuary; but to do so is to court spiritual disaster and risk the anger of the Lamb turned Lion.
We must do something about the cross, and one of two things only we can do–flee it or die upon it. And if we should be so foolhardy as to flee we shall by that act put away the faith of our fathers and make of Christianity something other than it is.
Then we shall have left only the empty language of salvation; the power will depart with our departure from the true cross. If we are wise we will do what Jesus did: endure the cross and despise its shame for the joy that is set before us. To do this is to submit the whole pattern of our lives to be destroyed and built again in the power of an endless life. And we shall find that it is more than poetry, more than sweet hymnody and elevated feeling.
The cross will cut into where it hurts worst, sparing neither us nor our carefully cultivated reputations. It will defeat us and bring our selfish lives to an end. Only then can we rise in fullness of life to establish a pattern of living wholly new and free and full of good works.
The changed attitude toward the cross that we see in modern orthodoxy proves not that God has changed, nor that Christ has eased up on His demand that we carry the cross; it means rather that current Christianity has moved away from the standards of the New Testament.
So far have we moved indeed that it may take nothing short of a new reformation to restore the cross to its right place in the theology and life of the Church”.
Jack
February 8th, 2007 at 9:43 am
For those of you interested in Phil’s PHD,
here is the reply I got from New Covenant International University…
Dear Mr {ADHD LIBRARIAN}
Greetings from NCIU. We are in receipt of your email request to secure
access to our repository of theses and dissertations from previous students.
It is the policy of the university to only make these documents available to
current students with written consent from the owner(the student) , not to
provide access for external inquiries.
NCIU does not take ownership of the written submission, and thus the
intellectual copyright always remains the property of the student. Many
students use their thesis or dissertation as the basis of a subsequent
manuscript to be published. This prohibits NCIU making these documents
available to the general public.
Thank you for your inquiry
With best regards
Dr Kevin Dyson
President/CEO
February 8th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Thanks Jack for your post 1704. A timely reminder about the nature and power of the true cross, not the one “worshipped” and worn around the necks of most “Christians” today.
When confronted with our own crosses and the prospect of having to carry them, I think most of us run. Afterall, what cross is going to be easy to carry and full of wonderful fluffly feelings? O but the joy that awaits those who carry their cross…….
February 8th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Thanks ADHD for your post #1705.
I am not suprised by the repsonse of NCIU. Mind you it is suspicious that they won’t acknowledge the efforts of their own students.
Most universities worldwide insist that post-graduate theses are made accessible to the public. After all that is the point of doing research i.e. to increase our knowledge in different disciplines.
Sometimes public access to a thesis may be delayed for a maximum of a few years, but only in exceptionally sensitive circumstances. Even so this is frowned upon by most universities.
Intellectual property is not an issue around the world because students have full rights to this (or jointly if it is collaborative research) and can take out copyright if necessary. In fact graduates can gain financially from them too if appropriate. So, NCIU seems very secretive about the work that should showcase the academic standards and quality of their graduates.
For interest, Miami University has the following guidlines for their candidates
http://www6.miami.edu/grad/forms/PhD_Guidelines.pdf (note that students are obliged to sign that they will amke their thesis avaliable as a pdf onlione).
Also see http://etd.library.miami.edu/ for examples of theses online.
Maybe, NCIU could email Phil and ask him to give permission to release a copy of both his Masters and Doctoral theses. Somehow, I doubt this would happen.
Thanks again for your efforts.
DB
February 8th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
FYI, CCC is now advertising a Bachelor’s of Theology degree through their School of Creative Arts (SCA) via Southern Cross College http://www.ccc.org.au/sca/default.asp?section=courses&page=scaBachelor
and also http://www.ccc.org.au/sca/default.asp?section=apply&page=scaApplication#bachelor
Cheers,
DB
February 8th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
from my own university we have…
“I understand that in the interests of facilitating scholarship and the exchange of ideas, theses of the University are normally made freely available for consultation in the University Library and may be digitised to provide access to users outside of the University for the purposes of study and research.
I accept that unrestricted theses are available for loan to other libraries for consultation by authorised users in the borrowing library and that photocopies, microfilm or cdrom copies may be supplied to other university libraries. The loan, copying or other reproduction does not affect my rights as author in any way.
I therefore agree to grant access and permit copies of this thesis (including a digital copy) to be made without further specific authorisation.”
Note in particular
“The loan, copying or other reproduction does not affect my rights as author in any way”
which belies NCIU’s claim that because they don’t take ownership it prohibits them making theses available to the public.
February 8th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Hi ADHD,
Yes, I checked out quite a lot of Aussie Uni web sites and they all have pretty much the same approach. The UK does too!
DB