tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-326185342024-03-07T08:53:13.153+00:00Creideamh(pronounced 'kray-jif'), Gaelic for 'Faith'Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.comBlogger256125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-32586995865986678792016-05-03T10:05:00.001+01:002016-05-22T16:44:26.565+01:00Gaelic column June 2016The following is a translation of the Gaelic page in The Record for June 2016<br />
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LET THE WILDERNESS REJOICE<br />
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It was a special blessing recently to hear about the opportunities God’s people have in this generation for sharing the best news on earth.<br />
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A woman was telling us how she works in a foreign land, literally in a desert, with many of the local people unable to read or write. Though things were like this, they had modern technology, and they were making the best use of it.<br />
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It occurred to her that it would be good to give them the Word of God, to use the technology, and although they could not read what was written, they could listen to it; in this way they were hearing the gospel, that was able to take them from darkness to light.<br />
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It was wonderful to see how we can use each opportunity we have to serve the Lord.<br />
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Our generation is much more familiar in their young days than was available a few years ago. They are very comfortable with technology; this has been in their lives at home or in school for as long as they remember. They do not know a world without television or mobile phones, as was the case for many reading this page. Each generation lives in its own age.<br />
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They have many precious opportunities to take the gospel to different parts of the world, and to many that never heard one word of that message.<br />
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We have a Bible we can read with pleasure in two languages, and there are many who can read it in many more.<br />
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It was an encouragement to young Christians to hear about the opportunities in their world to put technology to good use.<br />
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It was clear that the lady who was speaking to us knew the language of the place where she was working; but who knows what work God can do if we are faithful in labouring where he puts s? We must pray for many who are learning foreign languages that they will be able to translate the Bible or even the Gospels to people who do not have the Bible in their own language. This is a remarkable work, and those who are engaged in it need labour and diligence.<br />
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It is a wonderful heritage to leave the Word of God with those who did not have it. The Word will do its own work, because in it there is power.<br />
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So, when we are out working, digging or working in the garden, can’t we remember those who are sowing the seed of the word in foreign lands, as well as in our own; for certainly there will be a harvest, and no one can give growth but God hismelf. That is his Work, and no one on earth can do it but he alone.<br />
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Open our eyes<br />
to new opportunities.<br />
Make us willing<br />
and able in our work.<br />
Do not leave us mourning<br />
as we do at night.<br />
Lift on us your light<br />
to be faithful to you here.<br />
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-33239934808359199412016-04-05T08:35:00.005+01:002016-04-24T09:11:55.149+01:00May 16This is a translation of the Gaelic page which appears in the May edition of The Record, the magazine of the Free Church of Scotland.<br />
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YOU WILL REMEMBER THE WAY…<br />
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These words came back to me strongly when I was listening to Donald John Macaulay speaking about the life of his father, the late Rev Murdo Macaulay, who was minister in Back for many years. A group of us were gathered in the Church Hall in Back in January.<br />
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We learned a little about the revival in Carloway some eighty years ago, and how his father’s mind was lifted away from the things in which he was most involved in his youth - things that were to the benefit of the community. It was a wonderful conversion, but the same diligence followed in his life when he was in the service of the King of kings.<br />
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At that time, people left their way of life entirely when they were converted, and there were several things which were harmless, in my view, forbidden. His father turned his back on sports and music, and he followed with great diligence the one who had taken him from darkness to light.<br />
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His father was a prisoner of war, and he would say that no one treated them harshly when they were imprisoned.<br />
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In prison, he had time for education and learning, especially German and other languages, and it was amazing to hear of the scholars that God had placed in the same place, to teach and help him. He put that time to good use, and it was clear, many years afterwards, that he had a breadth of mind, and had met with many kinds of people in the world.<br />
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These years in prison made him a faithful soldier of an earthly master, and he followed that principle when he was a Christian. The same faithfulness followed his life.<br />
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He was a student in Edinburgh University and the Free Church College i Edinburgh, and I am sure he was very industrious in both places.<br />
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He put German to good use, and took the language as a subject in University. Isn’t the way the Lord leads his people amazing, and we can put every pain, trial and longing to good use with his help.<br />
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Donald John’s mother had many years of restlessness, not knowing if his father was dead or alive. In some ways he was never more alive.<br />
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He went to Govan in Glasgow as a minister, and from there he was called to the Back congregation. He was minister there for many years.<br />
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God added many new converts to the church while he was in Back, and many in the community remember these days yet. He was strong in body and mind; yet surely it was from walking a very painful road that that strength came. Who would have said that it was in a wartime prison that God would prepare his ministers; and it was especially precious that it was his own son who spoke to us that afternoon about the life of his father.<br />
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Donald John had some books with him that day to show how his father made use of every situation; and not only so, but left a great legacy to those who would come after him.<br />
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Who would want to be in prison,<br />
diligently learning there?<br />
But the Most High was guiding the feet of his people<br />
protecting them carefully.<br />
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He kept them safely, protecting them<br />
on a painful earth.<br />
He opened their mind and they were led<br />
to a treasure they had not known.<br />
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He himself wove the pattern<br />
before any of his loved ones were bornn,<br />
Therefore, walking the hard road,<br />
lift your eyes to his hands.<br />
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-36014602275887690422016-02-02T16:03:00.001+00:002016-02-22T09:58:53.725+00:00Mar 16<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">
The following is a translation of the Gaelic material in the March edition of <i>The Record</i>, the monthly magazine of the Free Church of Scotland</div>
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<b>CHATTING TO THE EDITOR ABOUT GAELIC</b></div>
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You have a great interest in Gaelic. Where did this come from? </div>
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Apparently I did not have a word of English before I went to school, though that changed quickly. I was surrounded by Gaelic in my youth and that stayed with me. When I took Gaelic as a school subject, it was not difficult to learn it afresh, although I was never a native Gaelic speaker. I did want to help the church by preaching in Gaelic, and I am glad for the opportunities I have had to do so. </div>
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What Bible books did you begin reading at first? </div>
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I still have a Gaelic and English New Testament which my grandparents gave me on my 8th birthday. I remember my grandmother helping me to read John chapter 3 - the story of Nicodemus. As far as I recall, that’s where I began. </div>
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You heard Gaelic when you were young from your grandfather, who was a minister in Leverburgh. Did you understand then how precious a thing it is to be bilingual? </div>
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Probably not, although it was clear to me even then that there was a depth of spirituality associated with Gaelic. I understood that that generation had something special which was connected to their bilingual heritage. </div>
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What can we do in 2016 to keep Gaelic alive, even knowing that the preaching of the Gospel is the prime task of the Church? And how can we show to a generation in the Highland and Islands that social memory is bound up with language, and that the loss of a language is more than the loss of words? </div>
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That is a big subject. It’s clear that the spreading of the gospel is the primary duty of the church, and at the same time we see that the number of people who attend Gaelic services is shrinking. I believe that there is a connection between this and the lack of reading and of use made of the Gaelic Bible privately in comparison with former days. If we are going to improve matters we need to begin by encouraging people to use the Gaelic Bible. Language is a mark of culture, and there is a spirituality and a theology connected to the language in different ways that we would not want to lose. </div>
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You are keen on Gaelic literature, and especially the poetry of Dr John MacDonald. What gems did you discover here? </div>
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It is a remarkable thing that a previous generation was so keen on hymns and spiritual poetry even although they sang only Psalms in worship. But these hymns were a means of knitting together the fundamental doctrines of Scripture with the deep experiences of the Christian. Dr MacDonald’s hymns are, to me, extremely helpful in tying these things together, especially his ‘Work of the Spirit in God’s people’, and his elegy for his father, ‘The Crhistian on the way to Jordan’. If I can cite one example; the poet says about his father: </div>
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‘He always preferred, as he would say / to be alive in his feelings / but to be alive <i>on </i>his feelings / would be poor feeding. / But whenever faith was actively engaged / the flesh would have difficulties / the feelings would be overflowing / and feasting at the table’. </div>
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I think there is a depth in that kind of poetry that is ahead of today’s English hymns. </div>
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<b><i>Whiter than snow</i></b></div>
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<b>by Christine Stone</b></div>
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I read a novel which I liked recently. It was ‘<i>Whiter than Snow’ </i>by Christine Stone. The book is easy to read and a lot happens in each chapter. </div>
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We meet with one family in particular, who met with many difficulties , more than a century ago. The novel, therefore, is full of vocabulary relating to the lifestyle of people who lived at that time. We come across many words that we do not use in everyday speech since that way of life has disappeared. The book will be of great help to teenagers wanting to improve their language skills. Each chapter stands on its own, and so is also suitable for children who do not read much. The book would be easy for them to take up even for a short while. </div>
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The story moves swiftly, and I think we can find the story of every family in the world in this book, for we meet with death, sadness, trial and blessings. </div>
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The novel is written as a Chrsitian novel, and is a good book for teenagers to read by themselves at home or in a young reading group. I am sure you will enjoy it, and it will repay reading. </div>
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<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-260584252973664372015-12-17T20:43:00.002+00:002015-12-17T20:43:44.979+00:00Christmas radicals<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">There are some words that have recently acquired a sinister overtone. I have noticed, for example, that the word ‘fundamentalist’ is used with a fair measure of vitriol in public discourse, particularly where religion is concerned. Religious fundamentalists, for example, are held to be responsible for terrorist atrocities, with the result that if we are prepared to tolerate religion in this country of free speech and equal opportunities, it is a more liberal version that we want to have.</span></div>
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About a century ago, a twelve-volume publication of articles on theological subjects, appeared in America under the title ‘The Fundamentals’. It was an attempt to guard biblical faith from its liberal reinterpretation; and very quickly mainstream Christianity was divided between ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘modernists’; Christians who wanted to be something quickly distanced themselves from their ‘fundamentalist’ counterparts. There is still a degree of loathing towards ‘fundamentalists’ of the Christian variety.</div>
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The same is true of the word ‘radical’. The concept of ‘radicalisation’ has become a byword for grooming of the worst kind. It stands for the attempt by fringe religious movements to prepare and persuade mainly young adherents of their faith to commit acts of terror in the name of that faith. I notice that it is a favourite word in our Prime Minister’s current repertoire. </div>
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The problem with language, however, is that it is very easy to put good words to bad uses. The word ‘fundamental’ is related to the word ‘foundation’, and means the base from which everything else arises. We all have fundamental principles by which we live our lives; often, though we change our mind on other things, we don’t alter our opinion on these basic beliefs. To be fundamentalist is simply to have laid a foundation. </div>
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The word ‘radical’ is from the Latin word ‘radix’, a root; it refers to the origin from which everything else flowers and grows. We are all in need of being taken back to our roots. We recognise their importance, and we use the metaphor to describe the earliest influences on our lives from which all our experience and our behaviour have subsequently derived. </div>
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However, this column is not a lesson in grammar or the meaning of words; it is intended as an observation that when it comes to the songs we like to sing at Christmas, we are as fundamentalist and radicalised as it is possible to be. </div>
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Our favourite Christmas carols, for example, are, for the most part, sterling examples of radical, fundamental Christian belief. I realise that there is much in the songs that is sentimental (did the little Lord Jesus really not cry?), or without any warrant (were the wise men really three kings from the Orient?), or simply silly (Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la says nothing and does nothing). </div>
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But others came out of the stable (no pun intended) of a firmly evangelical biblical theology. Take, for example, John Wade’s great song ‘O Come all ye faithful’, published in 1841. It contains the most breathtaking affirmation of the Bible’s doctrine on the person of Jesus Christ: ‘God of God, Light of light eternal, lo he abhors not the virgin’s womb; Son of the Father, Begotten, not created, O come let us adore him….’</div>
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To sing these words is to make the fundamental confession that Jesus is exactly who the Bible declares him to be: the pre-existent, supernatural Son of God, who appears in our world through a virginal conception and birth. This is the Christian message at its most radical. </div>
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Or take another favourite: Charles Wesley’s ‘Hark! the Herald Angels Sing’, written in 1739. The poet of Methodism, Charles Wesley was responsible for much of the music of Noncomformity in the eighteenth century. His Methodism grew out of a profound sense that the Church of England had moved too far from its roots, and that the authentic religion of the Bible was no longer being proclaimed. </div>
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And still, in this age of secularism, atheism and anti-radicalism, we sing his words, which remind us that at Bethlehem we ‘hail the incarnate Deity .. Jesus our Immanuel’. We confess, as we sing, that he was ‘born that we no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth’. That is the gospel at its root, as we sing the truth inscripturated in the Gospel narrative: we need to be born again. </div>
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Now, of course, we may pride ourselves, as some branches of Protestantism do, that we are so radical as to not sing hymns; or so fundamentalist that we do not celebrate Christmas. But that is not my point. My point is that as a nation, we still do Christmas; and the efforts to change ‘Merry Christmas’ to ‘Season’s Greetings’, or reinvent the spiritual holiday in some secular form have not prevented us from singing these songs. </div>
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They ring in our ears at school plays, church meetings, watchnight services, and in our national assemblies. Their rhythms, cadences and concepts are familiar to us over a lifetime of use. Liberal Christianity has not given us better songs; secular politics cannot sing about peace on earth while it chooses to bomb other nations. </div>
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But let’s not ignore the facts. The songs that we associate with Christmas represent a reading of the Bible and a Christianity as fundamental and radical as it is possible to get. And I, for one, am in no hurry to become a de-radicalised, non-fundamental Christian. Especially not at Christmas.</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="mailto:iaind@freeuk.com">iaind@freeuk.com</a></span></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-76087320684448737142015-12-17T20:42:00.003+00:002015-12-17T20:42:37.739+00:00Lamp of Hope<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;">
The following is an english translation of ‘Lochran Dochais’, the Gaelic page in the January Record. </div>
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<b>Lamp of Hope</b></div>
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[composition at the top of page: </div>
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Are not my steps hopeful</div>
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and a great gardener protecting me, </div>
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though his blows can be sore and hard</div>
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he will have the remedy for me in his heart. </div>
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He will lift me up in his own time</div>
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and will give me strength and life. </div>
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Is this not the shepherd of my heart, </div>
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who promised to be with me in my doubts? </div>
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My eye will see his glory far off</div>
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and in my mind a people who went with him, </div>
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but until he comes for me,</div>
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I will stand on his promises}. </div>
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At the beginning of another year we need to wait hopefully on what our heavenly Father will do, and to remember that he is the Creator who rules, though he permits many situations and events that we cannot understand and that leave us with confusion and sadness. </div>
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We will hear different news from the nations of the world. There will be violence in places, and news of spiritual prosperity in others. </div>
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The things that may be shaken will be shaken, but the things that cannot be shaken will remain. Is it not a relief and encouragement to trust in a merciful Father, who is generous in his invitations even to those who despise him? He is an answerer of prayer, and when things look dark, he is able to change everything, if that is his will. </div>
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In our own generation, He has set aside many young people as students, who desire to learn more about their Creator and his Word. He has his own reason, which we do not know, for this, and he knowns minutely what is ahead of them, but is it not good that not one thing will come into their providence that he cannot deal with? It would be fitting at the beginning of another year to remember these students, that they will be prepared by him, that they will be able to remember much, and that he himself will enlighten each mind. It is very certain that the Enemy will be after us if we are going to do anything for the Creator, but the Keeper of the vineyard is always remembering his own family. He has them as the apple of his eye. </div>
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His promises are sure. In the Book of Genesis we hear these words spoken to the serpent by God: ‘because you did this, your are cursed more than any animal, and over all the beasts of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat every day of your life. </div>
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We see how minute is everything in the Bible. In the prophecy of Isaiah we read certain promises about peace and prosperity, but at the end of one verse we read ‘but dust is the serpent’s food’. Does that itself not show us that everything he says will happen? As He does not change, neither do his promises. Is it not the truth itself that puts the best light on the truth? It is not then a surprise that we are asked to search the Scriptures. . Unlike any other book this is a living word that comes with power, and when that happens, hearts will be moved, people will be made alive and God’s word will prosper. </div>
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Is it possible that we have become so familiar with the teachings of the Bible that we do not take this in? We see tourists visiting the Highlands and Islands and views move them. They speak about the sea, the moutnains, the hills and the fields, and we have become so familiar with these views that we need an exceptionally good or bad day before we realise what the work of God’s hand can make us stop and praise. </div>
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Many who went before us lived on God’s promises, because when we read the promises we hear in our minds the prayer of people who are now at reast, and we understand where they were feeding. Is that not a blessed memory of people? </div>
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At the beginning of another year in our pilgrimage here, would it not be a strength for us to believe his promises? he says that he will not forget his people though many others would forget them. Is that not a precious promise that tells us that there is a glorious destination awaiting his people? </div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-82956555760548835392015-09-16T08:52:00.003+01:002015-09-16T17:33:35.568+01:00Long to Reign<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
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It is a staggering thought that our gracious queen has now overtaken Queen Victoria as our longest-reigning monarch. In an unbroken line of succession there have been some long incumbents of the kingly office: Victoria’s grandfather had reigned for 59 years and 3 months, she herself for 63 years and 7 months, and now her great-great-grandaughter has outdone that record. <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;"><u></u><u></u></span></div>
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For most of us, Elizabeth II is the only monarch we have known, and, notwithstanding her own wish to have the event unmarked, it is fitting that we paused and reflected on this moment of history. Amid a world of change, rebuilt following the two world wars of last century, the Queen has proved a symbol of constancy and of stability which few other icons of my life span can match. That alone makes the occasion a historic one. <u></u><u></u></div>
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There have always been the detractors of royalty, who have propounded their own version of republicanism, and have questioned the position of a non-elected head of state in a democratic society. I have never been one of these. I am no ardent royalist either, but I recognise that every state requires a head, and I much prefer the quiet dignity of a line of succession to the bombast of an American-style presidential election. I’d rather know that Charles stands to succeed his mother as my king than to contemplate having Donald Trump as my President<u></u><u></u></div>
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But this is not the column of a politician but of a theologian, who happens to believe that the powers that be are ordained of God, and that monarchs and their citizens owe particular responsibilities to each other. <u></u><u></u></div>
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St Paul could not have put it more clearly when he urged us to pray for ‘kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way’. For these privileges in the United Kingdom at this present time, we ought to give thanks. <u></u><u></u></div>
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On the one hand, Paul reminds us that there is a duty on the part of the monarch to lead a nation in ways that will secure peace, quietness and godliness. Of course, the real power of our monarch lies in her government’s law-making process, much of which has not been conducive to godliness but to secularism. Yet the remarkable thing is that our queen has maintained an example of quiet faith and dignity which have pervaded every aspect of her service to the realm. One could wish for some clearer statements of her faith sometimes, reminding us that we stand on a Christian heritage which we ignore at our peril, but we are thankful for what she has said. <u></u><u></u></div>
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Her personal life has not been free from trouble over the threescore years of her reign, but whose is? Office is one thing; personal life is another, and no family is free from trouble and strife. What is remarkable is that people can fulfil the duties of their office even when beset with all manner of personal issues. Our sovereign lady is a remarkable example in that. <u></u><u></u></div>
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On the other hand, we owe Elizabeth our prayers, our respect and our obedience in Christ. We are to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. We are thankful that we do not live under an absolutist monarchy, and that the affairs of state are democratically regulated and controlled. But we dare not take this state of affairs for granted; our sovereign needs our prayers as surely as we need her example and the stability of her own faith. <u></u><u></u></div>
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I have always been struck by a sermon by the Puritan Richard Sibbes on ‘The Spiritual Favourite at the Throne of Grace’. The Puritans had more reason to be interested in monarchy than most of us, and Sibbes, master at Cambridge and preacher in London, was one of the most remarkable preachers of his era. <u></u><u></u></div>
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In his sermon he reflects on Nehemiah, a God-fearing man in the court of the king of Persia, and his prayer for the good of the nation. So Sibbes concludes that ‘there is no good Chisitan but is of excellent service in the state. Though in particular perhaps he hath not policy, and wisdom, and government, yet he hath God’s ear to hear him, and he can pray to God that God would make the king and other subordinate magistrates favourable’. <u></u><u></u></div>
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All of which is a reminder to us now, as then, that one of the best services we can render as faithful citizens of our nation, is to pray for our monarch and our government. God, says Sibbes, ‘hath the heart of kings in his power, and that is the ground of prayer for grace to them’. <u></u><u></u></div>
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We have received much as a nation under the reign of our queen. All political considerations aside, we cannot ignore the blessing that Elizabeth has been to us. We owe her, under God, our deepest respect and fervent prayers. And among these is the prayer that our monarchy will always remain a means of safeguarding Christian freedom and the preaching of the gospel. </div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-36147622499976224322015-09-09T13:24:00.003+01:002015-09-09T13:25:25.322+01:00Life, Death and Dignity<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
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The reason most have opted to do so is that they have been suffering from a terminal illness which has become intolerable or unmanageable. Currently it is illegal in this country to assist someone to take away their own life. But if there is a need for such a service, why insist that people go elsewhere to secure it? Why add to the indignity of a terminal condition with the indignity of having to travel away from one’s home country in order to enjoy the right to take away one’s life? </div>
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Even to write, or read, that last paragraph raises many issues of morality, ethics, theology and law. It is a quagmire of conflicting positions. There are deeply held views on both sides of the debate, but this is not a matter of taking a public vote. Morality does not operate that way, even if we think it does. A particular behaviour may be wrong even if it is legal. Not even MPs have a monopoly on morality. </div>
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Those who advocate for assisted dying have two basic arguments for doing so: an ethical one, and a practical one. The ethics of the argument have to do with our right over our own bodies. Why should the state control what we may or may not do with our own lives? </div>
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The pragmatic argument is more complex. Some argue that all palliative care is assisted dying. People can give advance directives to withhold food or medication or medical intervention in certain cases; there is only a small step between that and assisted suicide. </div>
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On the other hand are those who argue against assisted dying. One ground for doing so is that it is unnecessary, since the advances in medication and care hold out greater promise of end of life care and comfort. </div>
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Another is the argument that we simply cannot foretell the consequences of granting such a right. Who is to say that legalised suicide may not be used as a means for ending the life of the elderly or the disabled? Or that it may be offered as a viable alternative following misdiagnosis? Or that it may discourage important research? </div>
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To be debating the subject at all is a sad indictment on the kind of society that we have become. Issues that were clear-cut before are open now to debate; having sown the wind of human rights we are now reaping the whirlwind of a society were anything is permissible. And we cannot see the illogicality of it; if we are prepared to grant everyone’s personal rights, what do we need laws for? </div>
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Amid the discussing and debating we have marginalised the one perspective that can provide a direction in this debate. For all the attempts to drive religion out of the public sphere and into some private corner of personal space, theology is the only discipline that injects any common sense into the discussion. </div>
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Secularism, by definition, believes that life is a space between two oblivions. There was a moment, it says, when we did not exist, and there shall be a moment when we shall no longer exist. Given that reductionist view of our lives, it matters little what we do in between these pillars of darkness. </div>
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Theology, on the other hand, recognises the dignity of life for what it is. We instinctively know that we are different to every other kind of species: we are not plants, though we are biological beings; we are not animals, though we walk and breathe (and sometimes behave) like them; we are evidently not inanimate, though we have a chemical affinity with the soil. </div>
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What are we then? Simply a collection of randomly arranged cells, destined to be snuffed out of existence like a candle? If that is all we are, our lives have no dignity, and we have no duty of care to anyone. But theology opens a different window, insisting that we are created in the image of God, more divine than earthy, more eternal than time-bound, more soul than body. </div>
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Theology insists that the choices we make matter, and that our lives, from conception to death, are of weight and moment. As such, whatever may be said in the court of public opinion, our lives are afforded a dignity to which no legislation can add, and from which no law can detract. Our duty of care is to human life in all its stages, from the unborn person to the dying patient. </div>
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And by no stretch of logic can theology concede that assisted dying adds to the dignity of the person. It is a risky possibility to allow, for it forgets that we were made for eternity, and that there is a life beyond this one. To legislate for it is to make what is wrong lawful, and what is right criminal. </div>
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I would be the last person to minimise the suffering of those who are driven to consider the possibility of taking their own lives. But I hope I would be at the forefront of arguing that a society which makes doing so legal has already sold its soul. Let’s use our time and resources to develop the care and treatment of patients with terminal conditions, and not take the naive option of assisting anyone to take their own life. </div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-87802412563718038382015-08-24T11:02:00.002+01:002015-08-24T11:02:33.881+01:00Former teachers and homeless Eskimos<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
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In recent times I have been struck at the number of funerals of former teachers which I have attended; to bury those who were most influential in my formative years makes a unique impression. These are the men and women with whom most of our childhood, for better or for worse, was spent. They defined the world and the circles in which we moved. And for the most part, we failed to realise what an impact they were having. </div>
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These and a myriad other thoughts filled my head last week at the funeral of my former classics teacher, Calum Macleod. We knew him affectionately as ‘Cicero’; how would he not be known by the name of one of the most influential Romans of all time? Classics was Calum’s natural element; his grasp of the language, culture and philosophy of the ancient civilisations of Greece and Rome was outstanding. </div>
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Calum steered a handful of us through to Higher Latin. The number studying it, as I recall, dwindled significantly in our progression through school; I am sure that its recent revival in school curricula would have caused him great pleasure. But I also wanted to study Greek, the language of the New Testament; so I had the rare privilege of being in a class of one with him for the last two years of my secondary education. </div>
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That he steered me from knowing no Greek language to gaining my Higher Greek in two years says much more about the teacher than the student. While some teachers have a knack of killing a living subject, Calum had a remarkable gift of making a dead subject live. The ancient cultures which gave rise to such influential movements of history fascinated him, and he had a wonderful ability to communicate their ethos and heart to his students. </div>
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But Calum was not just a towering figure in the educational life of the Nicolson Institute at that time; he was an influential figure in its spiritual life too. I remember one of the greatest services he performed in the Nicolson was to speak to the Scripture Union group after my friend passed away suddenly on fourth year. Torn by teenage emotion, and challenged in young faith, Calum was a father figure for us, quietly reminding us that all things were in the will of God. </div>
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He became a different kind of teacher thereafter. While still retaining interest in my academic studies - not least because they involved the continued study of classical Greek - his greater interest was in the field of theology, over which he strode like a colossus. I regarded him as one of the foremost lay theologians of his day, a fact corroborated by his easy leadership of any gathering, his carefully rehearsed pulpit deliveries, and his outstanding contributions to our Question Meetings. </div>
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Calum had read widely, and many of the quotations I still churn out from the church fathers I first heard from him. His citations of Rabbi Duncan prompted me to read the Colloquiae Peripateticae, the gathered sayings of the eccentric Hebrew Professor of the nineteenth century, himself a master of the theological soundbite. Calum had listened well, and retained much, and we were the beneficiaries of his learning. </div>
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He became an icon in Stornoway Free Church in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the assistant to the Rev Murdo Alex Macleod. It was a remarkable pairing, the complementation of one gifted thinker by another. For much of that time I was absent from my home congregation, appearing periodically to give student supply in the holiday periods, but always with relish. </div>
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It is not always easy to preach in front of one’s teachers or Professors. John Macarthur tells the story of an early preaching experience in which he spotted one of his esteemed teachers in the large audience. He was fixated on the teacher for the duration of his delivery, and the only comment he wanted to hear at the end of the service was that of his mentor. He was not prepared to be told that his sermon had missed the whole point of the passage from which he was preaching!</div>
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To their credit, and that of their patience and forbearance, my former teachers did not reward me in that way. Quite the opposite; to speak with Calum after a service made you realise that, spiritual and theological giant that he was, it was the gospel he enjoyed, relishing in it, notwithstanding the poverty of the preacher. His comments were always apposite. He made you feel that you had the speaking gift of, well, Cicero. </div>
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‘Short and spiritual’ was his motto. He expected sermons and public prayers to be measured in weight, not in length, and he exemplified and embodied the practice beautifully. </div>
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And homeless Eskimos? I cannot resist the reference; I remember being in Calum’s classroom on more than one occasion and hearing him ask someone a question. If we tried to disguise our ignorance with drivel he would see right through it. ‘You’re like a homeless Eskimo,’ he would say. ‘You haven’t igloo.’ More often than not, we didn’t. </div>
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It is difficult to imagine a world and a church in which Calum’s voice is silent. We shall miss the captivating smile and the commanding presence. But as Jonathan Edwards said as he buried his daughter, ‘The bonds with Heaven are deeper now’. </div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-58779888205697327582015-08-17T08:59:00.001+01:002015-08-17T08:59:03.707+01:00Before him with singing<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(35, 35, 35); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; color: #232323; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px;">
On the face of it, singing is a strange thing to do in church. We assemble for worship, to give glory and honour to God; and in doing so we call on the congregation to sing. It happens everywhere, in all churches, all the time. </div>
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It happens in all kinds of contexts. We sing in our ordinary worship services. We sing in our special services of baptism and communion. We sing at weddings and funerals. The latter can be quite challenging, especially when people attend these services who perhaps do not worship regularly or often. But still we sing. </div>
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How, what, how often, and in what manner we sing are questions that give rise to a variety of musical styles in our churches and denominations. On the one had there are the polished performances of high liturgical style; on the other, the simple, unadorned and unaccompanied singing of psalms. </div>
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The variety in between, from praise bands to choirs, has also given rise to the so-called ‘worship wars’ of the last decade. Churches have split more over the musical element of worship than over doctrinal difference. Even within small-church Presbyterianism we cannot escape our worship wars, with some church members refusing to sing versions of the Psalms just because they are new. </div>
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But still we sing. For one thing, the Bible commands it; we are to enter God’s court with singing, and employ psalms of praise in our worship. There is something deeply symbolic about a blend of voices sending a sound of worship heavenward, and filling the air with the corporate praise of the people of God. In one of the most striking images of the Psalter, God says he dwells in the praises of his people. </div>
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No principle of worship, however deeply held or strongly advanced, can guarantee good practice. And there is no reason why, in our singing - even of acapella psalm singing - we should not strive for the best. </div>
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In that connection, I was recently re-visiting John Wesley’s ‘rules for congregational singing’, penned in 1761. They have become something of an icon in evangelical circles, although I wish I had been taught them long before I first discovered them. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mN77PlbQZFY/VdGUJOHD_VI/AAAAAAAAAu0/cMEgdq463Ao/s1600/230px-Jwesleysitting.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mN77PlbQZFY/VdGUJOHD_VI/AAAAAAAAAu0/cMEgdq463Ao/s1600/230px-Jwesleysitting.JPG" /></a>Wesley had his own worship wars to fight, of course; the eighteenth century was one of the flourishing times of British evangelicalism, and a new body of hymns was one of the results. The publication of ‘Select Hymns with Tunes Annext’ was controversial at the time, even though many of the compositions included in it have become very familiar to us. </div>
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Wesley suggested seven ‘rules’ which would help people in their singing. First, they were to ‘learn these tunes before you learn any others; afterwards learn as many as you please’. There is no singing without a tune, and no tune without music. Music does not require musical instruments. But it does require a tune, and worshippers are to learn the tunes. </div>
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Second, Wesley wrote, ‘Sing them exactly as they are printed here, without altering or mending them at all; and if you have learned to sing them otherwise, unlearn it as soon as you can’. We smile when we read this rule; the musical perfectionists in our circles can reel off half a dozen tunes which we persistently sing wrongly. </div>
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Third, he wrote, ‘Sing all’. No-one should remain silent while the congregation is singing. ‘If it is a cross to you,’ he wrote, ‘take it up and you will find a blessing’. Some people can’t sing. Others won’t sing. Only a raging throat or a strange melody will prevent me from joining in the praises of the sanctuary. </div>
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Fourth, ‘Sing lustily, and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half-dead or half-asleep; but lift up your voice with strength’. There is no half-hearted singing in the pub or in the football stadium; why should there be half-hearted singing in church? If our voices are to be employed for singing anywhere, it is in the house of God. </div>
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Fifth, ‘Sing modestly; do not bawl so as to be heard above or distinct from the rest of the congregation that you may not destroy the harmony, but strive to unite your voices together so as to make one melodious sound’. That hardly needs a comment. </div>
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Sixth, ‘Sing in time’. Pace is important; so, says Wesley, ‘attend closely to the leading voices and move therewith as exactly as you can and take care not to sing too slow’. I have heard both organists and precentors mis-judge the pace of the singing. Too slow, and joyous times of worship sound like dirges; too fast, and reflective moments can be spoiled by travelling at the speed of light. An appropriate pace is necessary if we are to sing with the understanding. </div>
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Seventh, ‘Sing spiritually - have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself’. Our church singing is not a performance for our own enjoyment, but a means of grace, which will lift our hearts and minds to God through the depth of the words we employ, and by the leading of the Holy Spirit who gave them. </div>
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I sometimes think we could do with another John Wesley around today. Not least to teach us the importance of singing well in every act of worship. </div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-85321512217241005132015-08-10T12:59:00.000+01:002015-08-10T12:59:01.155+01:00A stranger and you took me in?<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
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I was recently reading a novel based on the experience of emigration. The author makes a fine job of describing the hazards and trials of escaping Edwardian England for the remote and unforgiving prairies of Canada. </div>
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It’a journey which many of our forebears required to make, leaving the remote islands of Scotland and settling in parts of the new world which promised income and opportunity which they were denied at home. They took much of home with them, of course, in their traditions, songs and religion. Even a century later, it is difficult not to be moved by the evocative melodies and words of these songs. Home never looked so attractive as through the eyes of those forced into exile. </div>
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Of course, the allure of emigration was the allure of hope, the promise of a better and brighter future, and the prospect of realising dreams that would otherwise remain unfulfilled. </div>
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It’s one of the Bible’s great themes too; some of the most poignant - even disturbing - passages of Scripture sense the isolation of exile and the call of home. Just read Psalm 137, for example, with the writer articulating the longings of his fellow-exiles as they hang their harps on willow trees in Babylon, the very foliage resonating with the sadness of being far from Jerusalem. </div>
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These thoughts have been running through my head this past week as I’ve watched, from the opposite end of the country, the events in Calais and in Kent. Whoever imagined that our arterial motorways would be gridlocked, with the ensuing traffic chaos in the border counties, because of the determination of thousands of people to immigrate into the United Kingdom? </div>
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And who knew the desperation of their plight, as they stow away amid the cargo of the container lorries, or try to hold onto the undercarriage of these lorries which will take them into the channel tunnel and to a land offering them hope. </div>
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What situation must they be fleeing when they will risk their own lives, and the lives of their children, to make the hazardous journeys across Africa and Europe, challenging every national and international barrier, to reach a place of liberty? And to what idea of hope are they clinging when the risk to life is outweighed by the prospect of a new beginning? </div>
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Sadly, many will look at the images of port fences being dismantled, and miles of lorry drivers being disgruntled, and will conclude that we ought never to have allowed such a stream (I daren’t say ‘swarm’) of immigrants in the first place, if this is where it has all reached. </div>
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But that would be entirely wrong, not to say anti-Christian. We have failed to learn both from our Bibles and our own history if we imagine that there is any virtue in closing our borders. Where is our sense of the brotherhood of man, or the dignity of the individual, or the collective responsibility of nations if we are not prepared to share our territory with strangers? </div>
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Interestingly, the Deuteronomy version of the fourth commandment gives the reason for a weekly day of rest not in the fact that God rested after creation (as in Exodus), but in the fact that the children of Israel had been strangers in the land of Egypt. They were to learn from their experience and to grant rest to those who were strangers among them too. </div>
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So the ethos of the Bible is very much one of welcoming the immigrant, of housing the homeless and feeding the poor. Perhaps the current debate over the need for the House of Lords could be easily resolved by closing the second chamber immediately (would anyone notice?) and channelling the finances required for its maintenance into the creation of housing and jobs for those who are seeking refuge in our country? </div>
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None of which, of course, addresses two fundamental issues: why so many immigrants have to flee their own homelands, and how we establish effective controls so as to curb the number of those who wish to enter illegally. The troubles and riots in Calais and at points of entry into Britain are one thing; addressing the causes of these behaviours is another. </div>
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It is at times like this that I’m glad I’m not a politician. I should not wish to turn anyone away; it would be a betrayal of our own past, both domestic and foreign, to close our doors on the people who need our help the most. How these entry points are protected by law, and how the legal status of the immigrants is to be realised is beyond my capacity to determine. </div>
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All I can do is remind myself of these remarkable Lewismen and women of long ago who left the Highlands with a dream and a promise. In many cases, neither was fulfilled. But we would have had something to say had our forebears not gained access to the places which might have offered them hope. </div>
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And shall we be silent when the plight of so many is pressing at our door? Do we not wish to offer them the same kind of hope, and take in the stranger looking to us for asylum?</div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-29152078626203153432015-02-27T17:53:00.001+00:002015-02-27T17:53:05.296+00:00The appeal of a Bedford prisoner<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
I am currently basing the lectures at my midweek services on <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, a book published first in 1678, and which has never been out of print in the three hundred years since then. I was introduced to it as a child, with a colourful edition adapted for young readers (<i>Little Pilgrim’s Progress</i> I think it was called) and I try to read it at least once a year. </div>
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The book is the best known work of a man who had no formal eduction. He began his working career as a soldier in the Civil War, and his life was remarkably preserved on one occasion when a fellow-soldier took his place and was killed on duty. The spiritual restlessness which Bunyan felt in subsequent years was allayed by the gospel which he heard in a small Baptist church in Bedford, and he soon became a highly sought-after preacher himself. </div>
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But these were the years of political correctness, in which preachers could be jailed for their refusal to conform to the governments requirements for clergy. On two occasions Bunyan spent a considerable amount of time in prison, during which he probably began to write his famous work.</div>
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The full title of the work is <i>The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream</i>. It is a superb piece of allegorising, in which the author shares with us the dream of a pilgrim who lives the life of a Christian on his pilgrimage from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. On his journey he meets with many experiences and various characters, all of which are designed to teach us about the meaning of living life as a Christian. </div>
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Some of the characters represent profound insights into the different reactions there can be to the teaching of the Bible: people like Formalist and Hypocrisy, who take the wrong paths and are lost, people like Watchful, the porter of the Interpreter’s House, who represents the kind of Bible-centred ministry Bunyan found in Bedford; characters like Apollyon, representing the devil, and Talkative, whose entire religion consists in knowing about the Bible but never experiencing its power for himself. </div>
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The geography of the Pilgrim’s Progess is equally fascinating: Bunyan takes us through the Valley of Humiliation, up the Hill Difficulty, into the Palace Beautiful, through Vanity Fair, into Doubting Castle, and through the Land of Beulah. This is more theology than topography; all the places represent various aspects of religious experience. </div>
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<i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i> has been assessed for its merit as seventeenth-century literature, for its place within the context of Puritan theology, and for its simple style, avoiding the many abstractions of works from the Puritan era. John Owen, the theologian par excellence of the Puritan period, said that he would gladly have exchanged all his learning for Bunyan’s power of touching men’s hearts. That is no small admission from the great giant of Puritan theology.</div>
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Bunyan’s book remains an abiding and significant work which continues to educate, inform and encourage Christians. In Highland homes it was a staple ingredient of evangelical piety - witness, for example, the numerous Gaelic editions in which it appeared. But what is its appeal? Why should John Bunyan’s great work be so well known? Many of us would not agree with aspects of Bunyan’s ecclesiology or theology, not least in his interpretation of the law. Yet without hesitation we would recommend his fictionalised allegory as one of the must reads of any well-grounded Christian mind. Why is that? </div>
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First, because it grounds its view of Christian experience on the Bible itself. Was is not C.H. Surgeon’s great aphorism of Bunyan that you could ‘prick him anywhere; his blood is bibline’. In other words, if you were to puncture one of Bunyan’s veins, out would flow the Bible, so much was it part of Bunyan’s constitution. The narrative of his great work may be a fiction, but it is grounded in the truth of the Bible, quotes copiously from it, and serves to illustrate it with many fascinating insights. </div>
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That is always the genius and strength of the Puritan theologies. We may be put off by the prolix style of some of the Puritan authors, and may find ourselves wading slowly through some of their volumes - but we will always be repaid with fresh insights from the Bible, and with high views of the Bible’s themes. </div>
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Second, Bunyan appeals because he guards against thinking that all experience is of equal validity. Pilgrim’s Progress reminds us that there are spurious Christian experiences just as surely as there are genuine ones. He echoes the warnings of the Bible itself that even the devils believe - but they are still devils. </div>
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Genuine faith is not simply a matter of believing facts about God, but about bringing forth fruit. ‘At the harvest,’ Bunyan writes, ‘ it is the fruit that matters’. All else is chaff, and fit for nothing. The one thing that will matter is that our hearts have been so touched by God’s grace and our lives so consecrated to his service that we will show our faith by our works. </div>
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Third, Bunyan reminds us that yesterday’s conquests do not assure us of today’s successes. There is progress in the Christian life - hence the title. We press forward, and we grow in our understanding both of God and of ourselves. But part of that self-awareness is the knowledge that our lives are not one constant, uninterrupted upward line of success. Bunyan’s pilgrim has his share of setbacks, either through his own folly or the wiles of others. </div>
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There is, therefore, a profound encouragement in the Pilgrim’s Progress from which I draw every time I read it. The graph of my experience as a Christian tends to veer in many different directions, but the confidence of my faith is in the promise of God’s covenant and keeping. That key still unlocks doors in Doubting Castle. I learned that a long time ago, and am happy to continue teaching it to a new generation of Christians. </div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-20614041695845132562015-02-22T15:41:00.000+00:002015-02-22T15:41:02.984+00:0050 shades of sermon<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
I have a vivid memory of my granny staying with us in the late 1970s. She had a very simple routine, which invariably included listening to the Gaelic service broadcast on radio on a Sunday afternoon. It was the nearest thing she got to attending church, and she could indulge herself in listening to her favourite Gaelic preachers, and playing the game of ‘name that precentor’. </div>
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I cannot ever remember my granny being disappointed with any of the services. Of course, having been married to a Free Church minister herself, she found it a bit much to listen to a Roman Catholic mass. But the regular, evangelical expositions of the Bible she heard in her native language fed her soul week by week.</div>
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These were the days when few live recordings of church services existed, even if they were permitted. We went from smuggling bulky tape recorders and microphones into church services, to having services recorded onto tape, then onto CD, then digitally uploaded for almost instant replay, and, in some cases, live streamed. The technology has come a long way. </div>
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But, to their everlasting credit, the good folks at the BBC are still broadcasting the afternoon Gaelic service on radio, and even playing services from the archives. I know I’m getting old when some of my own recordings appear more often in the archive replay than in the mid-afternoon broadcast. It remains, however, one of the happy by-products of the whole process that preachers who are now dead (as well as some of us who are still alive) can still speak. </div>
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In addition to these, however, I have begun listening over the past few months to the Radio 4 service which is broadcast on Sunday morning. That is a fascinating snapshot of church life from all over Britain. I’ve spent many interesting Sabbath mornings travelling all over the country, and listening in to a remarkable variety of preachers. </div>
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And increasingly I am fascinated by what passes for a sermon these days. In some cases the sermon is a minor element in the mix that makes up the service; the musical pieces tend to dominate. I observe too that some of the older hymns that are sung at these services contain much more evangelical theology than some of the sermons that are preached in them. </div>
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I have heard some good sermons in my listening. By ‘good’ I don’t simply mean sermons that appeal to myself personally, but sermons which actually take the Bible seriously and make it the basis of what is said and preached. These are the sermons which have the power both to inform my mind and move my heart. Very often it is around the key points of the Christian calendar - Christmas and Easter in particular - that I hear such sermons. Maybe that’s because it is difficult to justify these occasions without interpreting the Gospel narrative literally. </div>
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But, sadly, such sermons are exceptions. I try to distill what I hear; to find honey in the carcass of the lion. Sometimes it is there - just. Often it is not there at all. If I were not committed to a self-authenticating Bible, whose integrity is such that every strand of it has a bearing on its overall message and worldview, I would not know where to start in the construction of a sermon. But not all the preachers of the modern era feel the same. </div>
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Some find the impetus for their sermon in creation. That is a frequent theme; but it is less a meditation on the Bible’s theology of God the Creator than a reflection on the world’s beauty and our need to care for the environment. All of which is true, but does not say very much. </div>
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Others take the problems of the modern world as their starting-point. One of the Christmas sermons, for example, was about poverty and debt, and was full of wise counsel about how to avoid it and how to address it. It’s a huge theme in the Bible, of course, but not so as to give the impression that the Bible’s great interest is the world’s economies, or even our own mismanagement of finances. </div>
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Some preachers are very good at filling their sermons with quotations from writers past and present. I recently heard a preacher give a sermon on ‘Love’, in which more lines were quoted from the Romantic poets than from the Bible itself. The cumulative effect of such is that it displays more of the preacher than of the Christ he is meant to be preaching. </div>
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I doubt that my granny would have enjoyed any of it. She knew what genuine preaching is, and what constitutes a sermon worthy of the name. She appreciated that no two preachers are the same; if preaching is the communication of truth through personality, then some personalities will engage with our own much more meaningfully and powerfully than others. But if the sermon is designed to proclaim the truth, then there were some things one could expect in the engagement. </div>
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She knew that genuine preaching begins with the text of Scripture. There is no access to the truth of God except by the disclosure of the Bible. If a preacher is not committed to the integrity of the biblical text, he has already committed to flawed preaching. Interpreted in its own light, the Bible’s message makes sense. The sermon ought to make our reading of the Bible more meaningful than it was before. </div>
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My granny also knew that genuine preaching is full of Jesus. He handled the Old Testament in his own day as a textbook that spoke about himself; and it is impossible to find a New Testament writer who does not do the same. If a sermon does not paint a word portrait of Jesus, to help us see him better, it is not worthy of the name. </div>
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And she also knew that the best preaching awakens a sense of dependence, of awe, of love, of desire for the God of the Bible. It brings an awareness of our offences against him, and of our need of him. That is the pattern of all biblical preaching. I shall not say that our Gaelic radio broadcasts trump our English ones when it comes to airing good evangelical sermons. But I know which my granny would prefer. </div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-39196392349820368522015-02-13T20:47:00.001+00:002015-02-13T20:47:30.118+00:00The Last Enemy<br />For over quarter of a century I have been helping to arrange, conduct and help at funerals. I have seen sons bury their parents and parents bury their children. I have watched the dissolution of marriages by death, turning wives into widows and husbands into widowers. I have seen the dynamics of grief played out in a succession of family circumstances, no two of which are ever the same. <br /><br />But having recently buried my own father I feel like asking forgiveness from every family with whom I have been involved at times of bereavement and loss: I don’t think I ever fully appreciated the pain of final parting from a close relative until I laid the remains of my father in the ground. <br /><br />I am not going to turn my column into a memorial of my father; he himself would have hated the publicity. He was strong but private, preferring to retreat to the shadows once he had completed his tasks. Many nice things were said about him by those who spoke to me since his death and attended his funeral, all stones which I add to the cairn of his memory every time I remind myself that he is gone. <br /><br />As a Christian I approach death in the context of the Bible’s theology. Consistently the Bible presents death as the great anomaly, the thing that ought not to be. It is an intruder into our Paradise, an interloper in our world. It is an enemy, not a friend. Everything in my father fought against it, even when everything in him was reconciled to its coming. Eventually it came, keeping its appointment, and stealing him away. <br /><br />Like the thief of which Jesus speaks, death comes to destroy. It is an adversary of our dreams and our plans, cutting across all our imagined futures. It is no friend. We are forced to accommodate its presence in our lives, and to adapt to the changes it brings. For a moment it forces us to think that our world has stopped, until we then realise that the world is going on, just that it will never be the same again. And as we are adapting to the change death brings, others are facing the same trauma. <br /><br />And that is surely the rub: death is not simply an enemy to some, but the enemy of all. It is the common denominator, the equalising factor of rich and poor alike. As the saying has it, at the end of the game the king and the pawn go into the same box. Not one of us is exempt from the final meeting with the enemy. <br /><br />Against all of this morbid realism stands the Christian gospel, with its great dynamic of resurrection. I have read and ministered it often as families have gathered for the final farewell to their loved ones. Now that death has intruded so closely, I appreciate the elements of the gospel message as never before. <br /><br />First, I appreciate that the gospel allows me to respond to death. It tells me that I do not need to mourn as those who have no hope, but it does not tell me not to mourn. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus even knowing that he was going to restore Lazarus to his family. He did not despise the grief of the sisters or the tears of the mourners. The Saviour was triumphant, but never triumphalist. He recognised the sadness of the occasion for what it was. <br /><br />How does an evolutionist explain the development of the tear duct, I wonder? God must have known that we would need a physical way to express the sadness of our hearts and the deep pain of sorrow. Is there a more moving line in the Psalter than David’s statement when he was captured by the Philistines: ‘you have put my tears in your bottle, are they not in your book?’. Indeed Jesus pronounces a special blessing on those who mourn: they shall be comforted. But the sadness he acknowledges. <br /><br />Second, I appreciate that the gospel provides an explanation for death. Medical science can provide a physical explanation for dying, but it can never do justice to the whole person. What had lung cancer to do with my father’s personality? It is a reason for his passing, but not an explanation for what death did to him. <br /><br />The gospel reminds me that God created me body and soul, physical and spiritual, a fleshly house of dust inhabited by a God-given soul, the seat of rationality, emotion, memory and God-consciousness. We are not just physical entities, but animated, living beings, our personalities a unique fusion of what is visible and what is invisible. We were created to glorify God with our whole being: to love him with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. <br /><br />Death is the severing of that union. According to the gospel, the meaning of death is separation, not termination. It brings many things to an end, but in its essence it is the dissolution of personality, as ‘the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it’. <br /><br />Third, I appreciate that the gospel offers an answer to death. As a Christian I read the death of my father in the light of the death of my Saviour. That was the confession of the primitive New Testament church: ‘if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so we believe that those who sleep in Jesus God will bring with him’. That hope belongs to those who make the gospel the anchor of their lives. <br /><br />Shortly after the funeral I read these great words from one of my favourite theologians: ‘God will not rest from his redemptive work until he has once and for all presided over the funeral of sin and death’. That is the hope to which I cling: that the last enemy will be destroyed, and life will have the final word. <br /><br />Until then we will continue walking through this vale of tears. With, I hope, a greater measure of Jesus’ sympathy for all who mourn. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-67136335197442923272015-01-16T13:05:00.001+00:002015-01-16T13:06:01.574+00:00Psalms for all seasons<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
As a pastor and preacher, my work is largely dependent on the differing circumstances of people, and sensitive, therefore, to their varying emotions, feelings and needs. Nothing brings that home to me than the events of the festive period. </div>
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Over the course of the holiday I attended carol services and concerts, year end and year beginning services, all of which were happy occasions. I also ended the old year and began the new at funeral services, none of which were happy. The range of emotional highs and lows which families experience at this time of year is remarkable. </div>
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All of which got me thinking afresh about the Psalms. We sing them in various versions and languages, and there is a comfort both in the familiarity of the older diction as well as in the clarity of a newer translation. The mandate to contemporarise them did not run out in 1650, and I am very thankful for the access the Church has given me to the psalms in a modern idiom. </div>
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I am also thankful for the appreciation shown by contemporary Christian artists to the Psalms; more and more are embracing them and using them in their repertoire of songs. There may be a continued debate over whether Scripture warrants us to use more than the songs of the Old Testament in our worship; but there is no doubt as to their appeal in all generations and in all circumstances. </div>
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Martin Luther describes the Psalms as the Bible in miniature; Calvin calls them ‘an anatomy of all the parts of the soul’. The perspectives of both magisterial Reformers are necessary: the Book of Psalms is both a compendium of doctrine and an analysis of Christian emotion, feeling and experience. </div>
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It seems to me that there is a twofold danger which prevents people making full use of the Psalms as devotional tools. One is to neglect them, or at least to neglect a great many of them. Those of us, for example, who have argued for greater Psalmody in church life and worship have been guilty of truncating the Book of Psalms and using only a select portion of the Psalter. If they are of use in worship, are they not all of use? </div>
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The other danger is to argue that they are not about us but about Christ. To be sure, the New Testament teaches that there are things in the Psalms about Christ, but it is the most severely strained exegesis that sees them as a book exclusively dedicated to Christology. They are not just doctrine; they are doctrine in and for human experience. </div>
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It is that latter point which never fails to amaze me. As a leader of Christian worship I struggle to find words that will capture emotion and feeling. Too often I assume that I know what people are feeling; but it is an assumption I am not qualified to make. Feelings go deep; surface emotions may not always be what people are actually feeling. </div>
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Yet the Psalms speak to such a range of human emotions that they are suitable for every circumstance. They express joy and sorrow, doubt and assurance, faith and anxiety, confession and forgiveness. They speak about the dark nights of the soul and the rapturous heights to which faith can bring us. They ask meaningful questions and sometimes question whether there is any meaning. They scream in pain and they sigh in pleasure. </div>
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The Psalms are there to be read; but it is more than a truism that often they read us. Even Jesus found in them an anatomy of his own soul, and, when originality eluded him on the cross, he expressed two of his final words in phrases lifted straight out of the Book of Psalms. The fact that his words were derived does not rob them of their power; the ancient Jewish Psalter was able to articulate his thoughts more adequately than anything else. </div>
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And generations of his followers have discovered the same thing. We are all emotional creatures, made in the image of a God of feeling. All people see - and much of what they judge - is external; but we can never conclude the truth in the light of the appearance. Truth goes deeper than what is visible, and the Psalms take us deep into the heart and into the soul. </div>
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It is difficult to effect a marriage between words and emotions, between doctrine and experience, but the Psalms do exactly that. Arising out of personal experience or prophetic inspiration, they break their immediate boundaries and raise the hearts of their readers above the horizons of time and the confines of experience. They set life in the context of eternity, and bring to light what is real, lasting and timeless. </div>
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If there is anything that reminds us that we are changing creatures in a changing world it is that we stand on the threshold of a new year. We look back, amazed at the events that have shaped us in what has gone past of our lives. We look forward, wondering if the new year will be as bad, or as good, better, or worse than the one that has gone before. And our souls yearn for something solid and dependable. As C.S. Lewis expressed it, ‘if our hearts long for something this world cannot satisfy, we must have been made for another world’. </div>
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So I turn to the Book of Psalms, which reminds me that amid the strength-sapping, emotion-filled, bewildering events that make up my life, some things remain from everlasting to everlasting. If I weep, I am reminded that God bottles my tears. If I rejoice, I am reminded that God is in my joy. And I am always reminded that God is not ashamed of my foolish questions, nor is he afraid of my doubts and fears. </div>
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He promised that day and night and summer and winter would not cease. And in the Psalms he has given me songs to sing, whatever the seasons of my life may be like. </div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-822654785996494562014-01-03T08:53:00.001+00:002014-01-03T08:53:30.169+00:00Prospects and Hopes<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The threshold of the new year is always a time of hope. The passing of the old year and the coming of the new opens up untold possibilities. We cross the line into a new year filled with ideals, resolutions, dreams and plans. Some of these will be realised. Others will be lost before we have got into the habit of writing the date properly. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">‘We are saved by hope’ wrote St Paul, and his argumentation is irrefutable. Paul’s gospel held out to him the possibility of things that could not be seen with the naked eye, but that were his in the promises of God. These were the basis of his salvation, and it came, as he puts it ‘by hope’. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the Christian worldview, hope is not something vague, fanciful or dreamy. Our dreams this year may include personal wishes as diverse as shedding some weight to winning the lottery (some are wanting to lose pounds, others are wanting to gain pounds!). Some may seriously be looking for some improvement in their situation or that of their loved ones. All of us are hoping just to make it through the new year without breakdown, whether it is psychological, emotional, financial or personal. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Some of us will already have made resolutions, and we are hoping for strength and willpower just to stick to them. Others will be hoping for doors to open for them, in terms of education, career and family opportunities. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Coming into the new year is a time of restarting; the slate appears to be clean again, and we can start from scratch, re-building, re-directing or otherwise renewing our lives in more fruitful and more fulfilling directions. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Others are hoping for bigger things. There is, for example, the big Scottish vote later this year; that represents for some the possibility of hopes and dreams long nursed, long cherished and long articulated. The dream of self-rule for Scotland is not a given, however; nationalist aspirations are utterly contingent on the democratic mind of the people. Independence is utterly dependent on this year’s referendum.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The oratory at the funeral of Nelson Mandela in the closing weeks of 2013 was the rhetoric of international hope - building the ideals of reconciliation and peace on the legacy of one of the iconic figures of the modern era. Time will tell whether these hopes and dreams are as vacuous as some of our own personal resolutions. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Our hopes at all these levels are aimed, as Paul puts it, ‘at things not yet seen’. We do not ‘hope’ for what we already have. Hope has a future orientation. It looks at what is past, and wishes either to keep or to change it; it stands in the present and looks into the future. And it nurses the prospect of change. Often it does so very idealistically. And very unrealistically. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But in the Christian worldview, there is nothing unrealistic about hope. It is often coupled in the Bible with trust; when the Bible speaks of hope, it is not nursing a vague prospect that things might turn out differently, but entertaining a sure confidence that things will turn out the way God promises that they shall. For the Bible writers, true hope is hope in the promises of God. It is hope built on truth, not on dreams. It is expressed most clearly in one of the Psalms, which addresses God and says ‘I hope in your word’. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This, I think, is one of the reasons for some of the character studies of the Bible. Take Abraham, for example; promised he would have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky, through whom God’s favour would rest on the world, his initial reaction was to doubt and even laugh. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But when he yielded his consent to God’s faithfulness, and his trust to God’s promise, he had a sure ground for hope. Indeed, as the New Testament so memorably puts it, ‘against hope he believed in hope’. When everything - including his own age and stage of life - seemed to be against him, he believed that God was able to do what he said. He had hope. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And when he was asked to offer his son - the very son upon whom the fulfilling of the promise of God seemed to depend - he did so in the hope that the word of the promise would endure even though his immediate circumstances and trials seemed to belie that very word. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I very much warm to a phrase from one of the minor prophets in which Zechariah is predicting the appearing of Jesus, Zion’s king, ‘humble and riding a donkey’. It was just one of many prophecies which was fufilled in the eventual coming of Jesus into Jerusalem, and one which authenticates the Bible as the Word of God. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the immediate context, the people of God are facing a very uncertain future; some have returned from exile, while others are exposed to hostilities of all kinds around them. But God addresses them with various promises, and describes them as ‘Prisoners of hope’. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That phrase resonates with me. Sometimes we feel that we are imprisoned in circumstances not of our own making (or even of our own making). Year-end realities do not always compare to beginning of year dreams. It is one thing, however, to be a prisoner; it is quite another to be a prisoner of hope. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I could tell you my wishes, aspirations and resolutions for 2014, but I won’t. Instead, I want just to follow the example of St Paul speaking in his own defence before the Roman authorities: ‘I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers’. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That was the beginning and end of Paul’s hopes - promises made by God in ancient times and written in his Word. I know of no better way to face the future. The Psalm has it right: </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">‘Find rest, my soul, in God alone;</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">in him my hope is ever sure.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My safety, fortress, sheltering rock - </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">in him alone I am secure’. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Wishing you a secure and hopeful New Year in 2014. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Published in the Stornoway Gazette 2 Jan 2014</i></span></div>
Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-91261503518484576582013-12-21T11:22:00.002+00:002013-12-21T11:22:32.268+00:00Nettles' Life of Spurgeon<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Tom Nettles LIVING BY REVEALED TRUTH: THE LIFE AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY OF CHARLES HADDON SPURGEON</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Mentor, 2013</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Tom Nettles, Professor of Historical Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky, has spent many hours researching the life and work of C.H. Spurgeon, and this remarkable book is the fruit of these labours. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Living by Revealed Truth</i> is not the first biography of Spurgeon to have been written, but it is remarkable for several reasons. For one thing, it is largely based on documents which up until now have not featured in studies of Spurgeon, such as personal articles which regularly appeared in his magazine ‘The Sword and Trowel’ from 1865 to 1892, as well as Spurgeon’s sermons and letters. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Prof Nettles has used these resources to get into the mind of Spurgeon, to write not just a factual biography of the greatest Baptist preacher of the modern age, but to assess the principles which undergird all his thought, preaching and writing. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">C.H. Spurgeon was born in Essex in 1834, and died in the south of France in 1892. He was converted at the age of 15 in 1850, and grew to become the most fruitful and sought-after preachers of his generation. He became minister of the New Park Street Chapel in London in 1854. Nettles quotes the words of Sheridan Knowles, a recently converted actor, describing Spurgeon’s ministry at New Park Street: ‘Go hear him at once if you want to know how to preach’ (p70). </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The opening chapter introduces Spurgeon’s life and conversion, and shows how his own experience of God’s salvation led Spurgeon to commit to the best kind of learning. The writings of the Puritans were both available and familiar to him from his earliest days, and his study of them became extensive and enthusiastic following his conversion. The result was that ‘he could quote from the Puritans at will’ (p24); and he found in their theology both an explanation for his own conversion and a way to preach the gospel. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Early in his Christian life Spurgeon also committed to believers’ baptism. He never lost his commitment to that form of the sacrament, although he never allowed it to break his fellowship with those from whom he disagreed on the issue. It was, of course, also a point at which he departed from many of those whose theology influenced him the most; Prof Nettles makes the interesting point that Spurgeon ‘gloried in every gift given to the church catholic through all his beloved evangelical heirs of Reformation theology and Puritan devotion, but he could be nothing but a Baptist’ (p51). </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Nettles also identifies several traits which began at Spurgeon’s conversion and which he suggests were prominent throughout his ministry: interpreting all of life in theological terms, the doctrines of grace giving the only security to God’s people, a close study of the nature of preaching, a constant engagement in evangelism, a tendency to sickness and despondency, self-analysis, a commitment to Scripture and a refusal to compromise with modern theology (p51). These themes recur throughout the book.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The growth of Spurgeon’s congregation led to the building of a new place of worship in South London: the Metropolitan Tabernacle, with which his name has become synonymous. Prof Nettles introduces us to the man at the heart of these projects, and the nature of the work to which he believed himself called by God. But more than that, he carefully analyses the elements of human commitment and divine power which intertwined to make Spurgeon’s such an effective ministry. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One of the most challenging and enlightening chapters is on ‘The Challenge of Church Life’ (Chapter 7). Spurgeon was conscious of the huge responsibility he carried as pastor of the new church, and Nettles does a good job of reminding us how Spurgeon was able to fulfil his ministry: he worked closely with fellow office-bearers, carefully regulated church membership, strove after holiness, encouraged the discipline of corporate prayer meetings, and refused to separate worship and evangelism. One of the things that makes Nettles’ book remarkable is how pertinent, relevant and applicable the lessons from Spurgeon’s ministry are. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The book is remarkable, too, because it sets all of Spurgeon’s work and ministry within a principled framework. The author expresses his work as ‘an effort to suggest that Spurgeon, in every aspect of his ministry, was driven by a well-developed, clearly articulated systematic theology and by a commitment to a conversion ministry, both of which were conceived as consistent with revealed truth’ (p12). </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That means that all of Spurgeon’s preaching was driven by a twofold aim: to be faithful to the Bible and to aim at personal conversion and personal experiences of God’s grace. Everything else was subjected to these two considerations. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For that reason, this study of Spurgeon’s life is, as the subtitle suggests, not just a biography, but also a study of pastoral theology. For those of us who have found Spurgeon’s <i>Lectures to my Students</i> - full of wit and wisdom for any preachers of the gospel - as refreshing now as when whey were first delivered, this book distills the essence of Spurgeon’s work in the same way, uncovering its fundamental elements in order to encourage us to follow Spurgeon’s example both in faithfulness to the Bible and in leading God’s people to a deeper experience of his truth and grace. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Nettles gives many examples of this, but we can highlight three. First, in terms of preaching it was always Spurgeon’s aim to ‘fit the arrow to the string’, to preach the gospel in a way that would send the arrow of truth into the hearts of all who heard. That meant preaching Christ from the whole Bible: ‘the cross,’ Spurgeon maintained, ‘is the centre of our system’ (p170). Every doctrine must lead to the cross, and every doctrine must be unfolded in the light of the whole Scripture. Nettles’ discussion on Spurgeon’s method of exposition and preparation is very instructive (157-70), since he preached on isolated texts each Sunday. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Secondly, the practical aspects of Spurgeon’s work - what today would be called ‘mercy ministry’ - cannot be viewed in isolation from the revealed truth of Scripture either. He believed that ‘works of charity must keep pace with the preaching of faith’ (p339). The list of charitable institutions connected with the Metropolitan Tabernacle (pp352-3) is breathtaking, and shows how concerned Spurgeon was to harness the resources of God’s people for the practical as well as the spiritual needs of London. This was charity by revealed truth.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yet Spurgeon was only a man, and his personal weaknesses and idionsyncracies were a factor in his work. Prof Nettles reveals to us a man often under pressure, who recognised his own weaknesses and liabilities. Spurgeon was not a great preacher in spite of these things but because of them. In an interesting twist on the title, Nettles describes Spurgeon as ‘Suffering by Revealed Truth’ (p630). </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It is not surprising that someone responsible for the regular ministry and pastoring of a large church, as well as other institutions, as well as his involvement in the theological controversies of the day, should suffer under the weight of these responsibilities. They took their emotional and mental toll, and he knew his weaknesses. He often went abroad to friendlier climates to recuperate. Interestingly, and importantly, his fellow office-bearers supported him and even encouraged him in this (p610). Prof Nettles has much to tell us in this book not only about how to preach, but how to suffer in Christ’s work too. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One might expect such a long book to lose its appeal after a while; but this study is also remarkable for how readable it is. It is a long and large hardback volume of almost 700 pages, with the print in double columns. Yet it reads with ease and freshness, and is engaging at every point. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It is impossible to do justice to a large book of this nature within the scope of a review article. The book is remarkable, at last, for the wide scope of subjects with which it deals: the nature of the gospel, the nature of the ministry, the method and content of theology, as well as more personal aspects of Spurgeon’s life, such as Spurgeon in controversy and Spurgeon on sickness and death. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It is full of gems; do you know, for example, which of the Psalms Spurgeon called ‘The Calvinists’ Hymn’? Or what he thought of ministers with beards? Or what happened when he went fishing in Scotland? There are few aspects of Spurgeon’s life and ministry overlooked in these pages. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Prof Nettles’ book will be of interest to anyone burdened for a recovery of genuine Calvinistic preaching and piety in our day. To quote Spurgeon himself, ‘We can preach Christ to sinners if we cannot preach sinners to Christ’ (p171). That says it all, and this book is the remarkable story of a remarkable man from whom we can all continue to learn. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span>Published in <i>The Record</i> Jan 2013 </div>
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Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-62372920597559176622013-12-20T19:34:00.002+00:002013-12-20T19:34:20.856+00:00Making Christmas merry<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is a time of year at which we are constantly bombarded with a raft of television adverts reminding us of what we really, really need to buy for the festive season. The rampant materialism of Christmas advertising is light years away from the real meaning of the season, and is one of the most telling indications of where we are as a society.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A culture which needs possessions, or entertainment, or some other form of idolatry in order to give it fulfilment or meaning is a culture that still needs to grow up. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There are other adverts, however, whose impact is even more powerful. Charities use the media well and remind us that as we indulge ourselves and our children, there are others in our communities, and even in our own family circles, whose needs are profound, and for whom this time of year is not one in which to be jolly. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have been reflecting, for example, on the current campaign from the NSPCC, reminding us of the abuses that many children suffer at Christmas time. While most of us plan on how to make this a memorable and magical time for our children, many children will be physically and emotionally abused in their own homes. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It is not an issue that easily goes away, but nor is it one we like to think about too often. The frustrations of impoverished households or of drunken fathers, or the strains of divided homes and families, will make this a difficult time for many youngsters. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And while the world parties to songs old and new, many organisations and charities will continue to feed the hungry, visit the lonely, feed the starving and clothe the naked. Our personal indulgences must not be allowed to eclipse the need of the poor; and nor must we forget the many who will be spending next week bringing much needed cheer to those who have little themselves. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But even among those who have it together on the surface of things there are often serpents in paradise. Take, for example, the whole matter of alcohol consumption. Apparently we consume some 600 million units of alcohol over the festive season, and 14% of us will drink more than we intend to; alcohol is the great party provider. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But it can also be the great party ruiner, and the curse of otherwise healthy and happy homes. A recent television documentary asked where the real alcohol problem is, and argued that it is not on our city streets over a weekend of binge drinking, but in our homes every night of the week as people use alcohol to relax after a long day's work. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As alcohol has become cheaper and more freely available, so the trends of home drinking have changed dramatically over the last few years. It is no longer unusual to have people consume a bottle of wine in an evening; and if two adults in the home are doing so, the bottles empty all the more quickly. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There is no telling the long term damage we are doing to our own health by such trends, but I am quite sure that these changing habits are leading to a growing dependence and a new kind of alcoholism. Addiction, of course, is always what the other person has; and too much is always what the neighbour is consuming. But were we to examine our own habits we might be surprised. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am no killjoy; I want Christmas to be a time for pleasantness, happiness and peace. But I am not unaware of the fact that there will be some for whom the supposed need to drink alcohol to make the season truly festive will actually produce the opposite effect; it will make it memorable for all the wrong reasons. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This all this sounds terribly negative, and some will put that down to me being a Presbyterian minister. But Presbyterianism too can be a very convenient cloak behind which to hide any number of unhealthy habits. And not every Presbyterian home is a happy one. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">All I'm saying is that sometimes the things we think are necessary for a good time are not; and not everyone is having the good time we think they are. So here are my tips for a good Christmas. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">First, remember the poor. (That's in the Bible, by the way). We are remembering the birth of a Saviour who came to us, not in the trappings of luxury, but in the ignominy of poverty. In his birth he was hungry, homeless and naked. The virtues of feeding, sheltering and clothing others, which he commended so much, he needed himself. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Second, it is better to give than to receive. (That's in the Bible too). I dont think our children are ever too young to be taught that to give to others is far more noble a thing than to gain for ourselves. The whole life of the Christ child was one of giving away. We do well to learn, and to teach, that charity is greater than faith. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Third, love never fails. (So's that). It ought to be a time for others, for those who mean the most to us in this world. So put away your mobile phone. Ditch Facebook and Twitter. Play silly games with the children. Give yourself to your significant other. Recapture the best that the season has to offer. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This will be my fiftieth Christmas. I can't guarantee there will be a fifty-first. So I'm not planning on wasting this one just by thinking of myself. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Published in Stornoway Gazette 19 December 2013</i></span></div>
Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-27042900038403172342013-07-18T12:51:00.002+01:002013-07-18T12:51:03.329+01:00Plant a church.....<br />
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In this age of information technology, church websites are a great way of knowing what is happening where. Denominational websites allow people of all churches and none to get news and reports of activities across the church, and allow visitors to locate churches in different places. </div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But there is always a serpent in Paradise, and I have observed that the church is not immune from the curse of headline grabbing, of doing things just to broadcast its own achievements. And I also observe that the internet can be an enormous source of discouragement; small churches labour away faithfully with little to broadcast and little to show for their labours. Who wants to read that nothing extraordinary is happening? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That apart, I have been encouraged by one or two headlines on our denomination’s website recently, in connection with church planting, specifically in Stirling and in Govan. The new work in Stirling is breaking new ground in the twenty-first century, as a small group of believers has started holding fortnightly services in the University town. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The work in Govan is revisiting a historic Free Church centre; the old Govan Free Church provided services for a largely Gaelic-speaking Highland diaspora after the second world war, and was a sizeable congregation back in the day. When I was a student in Glasgow in the early 1980s the congregation was all but gone; at least I can say I worshipped there. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And now one of our ministers and his family has relocated to Govan and is trying to re-establish a congregation in the south side of Glasgow; not this time among an immigrant workforce from the north of Scotland, but among the local population. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Some might question the experiment, given all the current crises within the church, not least in terms of vacancy and in terms of finance. We have, after all, a local Presbytery in the Western Isles, a third of which is without settled ministry, and any number of established congregations which require ministers. Why not settle these first? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And the burden of finance is ongoing; for whatever reason, less money is coming from congregations into central funds, and central activities are being curtailed. Embargoes are placed on new appointments and we are operating with our hands tied behind our backs in many ways. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yet here are two new works that will require prayerful and practical support if they are to succeed. And I hope they will. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If I can look at these ventures in terms of the three cardinal graces, I would have to say that they are, first, a work of <i>faith</i>. It takes faith to move into the secular, politically correct, indifferent landscape of modern Scotland with a message that focusses on the exclusive claims and absolute demands of the carpenter from Nazareth. It would be easier to do nothing, or to shore up existing work and established churches. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yet the mandate of the New Testament remains the commission of the church: ‘go into all the world and make disciples’. That cannot be ignored. The claims of the gospel are paramount, and non-negotiable. There is no place that is off limits to the church, whatever its size or potential. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So it really is a step of faith to move into areas that have little or no solid, Reformed witness, and provide a means for heralding the doctrines of grace. But it is no blind faith - for Christians, it is faith in the one who says ‘I will build my church’, and who gives every encouragement to us to use every means to that end. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Not that I think any less faith is needed to continue working away in areas where the church has existed for years; but to establish an identity and profile in a new area, while remaining loyal to the truth claims of Jesus Christ, is no small challenge, and requires no small faith. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Church planting is also a work of <i>hope</i>. Hope is one of these great New Testament words that fills you with optimism. Things need not continue as they are, it says: things can actually change for the better, and situations can become better. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The reality is that modern Scotland is in need of the gospel. Our generation is ignorant of the Bible and lost without God. We pay lip service to the Christian faith, but we do not know what it is to which we are paying lip service. Christianity is equated with homophobia at worst, pietistic moralism at best. We have demonised Knox and Calvin, and have little awareness of our Christian heritage. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Nor am I sure any more whether political independence will deliver anything beyond secularism to us; the freedoms promised by the architects of our bold new future are freedoms to practice our religion provided we keep it to ourselves. So what happens when we exercise those liberties by not keeping our faith to ourselves? </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Into the political chaos and moral turbulence that is modern Scotland there comes, afresh, the gospel of saving grace. And it is a message of hope. That is why to plant new churches is never a hope-less venture; it is a step of confidence that the gospel will have been heard once again, and can bring the hope of life to our dying and decaying culture. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But supremely, such work is a work of <i>love</i>. It is a work which engages with people for their own sake, because people matter to God. Our great Christian imperative is to love God and our neighbour. Too often we practice the first at the expense of the second. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But when Christians are prepared to move outwith their comfort zones to extend the love of God in Christ to contexts which have not known it, they deserve our prayers and our support. They are the missionaries of today’s culture, and we ought to be their backup. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Nothing I am doing deserves a headline on our church’s website, but the story of church planting does. And it is a work which could just, under the blessing of God, see a church grow from seed to flower. </span></div>
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<i>First published in the Stornoway Gazette</i></div>
Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-24786410653083525252013-07-06T10:20:00.001+01:002013-07-06T10:20:45.187+01:00This one is for Kirsty<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Sometimes I work at my laptop standing up, but not today. Having spent three days cycling from the Butt to Barra there is only so much strain my thighs can take. I’m sitting at my desk, and even the thought of standing up is a challenge. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This year’s Macmillan cycle went very well, with a good mix of professions, ages and abilities involved. The ride is the project of the Western Isles Emergency Services, and these were very well represented. But so too were other professions, as well as husbands and wives of emergency personnel, people who had benefitted from the service of the Macmillan Nurses, and those who just wanted to do their bit. My son and I were among the cyclists, and it was not a race. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The weather was beautiful at the start and at the finish. Not from the start TO the finish, please note; AT the start and the finish. Beautiful sunshine and a gentle tailwind got us from the Butt of Lewis to Laxdale Hall, and from Laxdale to Scaladale in Harris, in record time. It would have been perfect were it not for the fact that we had a couple of casualties along the way, who either managed to get back on their bikes or plan to do so soon. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But the first day’s conditions were not to be repeated. We had a gruelling ride through Harris on the second morning; a full cooked breakfast was served just before we had to tackle the Clisham; and the Northton brae just before Leverburgh was a huge psychological obstacle (at least to a middle-aged minister on a bike). However, hills are made to be conquered - and they were. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But the driving rain in North Uist was demoralising; a south-westerly wind meant that we had to work hard to reach Sgoil Lionacleit that afternoon. Our faithful cooks had their own obstacles to overcome - 60 bodies needed feeding, but the food for that evening was discovered still to be in Stornoway. The kindness of strangers saved the evening, however; and we had the most welcome plate of spaghetti bolognese. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The wind was against us on the final leg through South Uist too, but it’s amazing how knowing it was the final day was a huge morale booster. Some of the keener, sleeker, fitter cyclists made it to Eriskay in a couple of hours, but the rest of us, less sleek, marginally less fit, but just as keen, eventually conquered the Eriskay brae and made it for the Barra ferry in time. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And the sun shone again; we arrived at our final island in glorious weather. Not only that, but we were met by some of the fourth year pupils from Castlebay School who accompanied us round the west side of the island until we reached our destination. The exhilaration of completing the project was in everyone’s face and in the atmosphere at the finish. It was a climactic moment. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But it could not have been achieved without the support of hauliers, mechanics, cooks, luggage carriers and others who made it possible for fifty cyclists to make it through the Western Isles with confidence, with encouragement, and with food and drink, and then to make it home by bus on the last day of the trip. It would be impossible to start naming everyone involved, but a huge thank you to you all. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So why did I do it? The statistics on my little computer (which let me down for about 30 miles of the journey) tell me that my maximum speed was 34 mph, and that I burnt almost 7000 calories. Either of these would have been incentive enough to get on my saddle; exercise and weight control are more crucial at my age than I ever appreciated. But these were not my motives. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The camaraderie in the group was unmissable; it’s amazing how small a world becomes when you are thrown together with a group - some you know, others you get to know, and someone is usually connected in some way with someone else you know. The miles seem shorter in a group, and the group dynamic enables you to make it to the end. But that was not my overarching motive either. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Everyone who cycled did so to encourage one of our island’s most important services. The need to support families who have been affected with cancer seems to be growing each week. The journey of individuals who are diagnosed with cancer, and that of their family and friends, is more gruelling and demanding than any cycle. And, as we experienced in our own family some time ago, support for such times is vital and necessary. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So we did the cycle so that the work of Macmillan nurses and the Macmillan support network can continue, because everyone knew someone who has battled with cancer; and for those who are still engaged in that struggle, as well as for those who are no longer with us, the ride was worth every hard pedal. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And the most touching moment for me was when we were crossing the Sound of Barra, taking up all the seats in the small seating area, and I started chatting with a local couple who were heading home. They told me of their own family struggles with cancer, including their eleven-year old granddaughter, Kirsty, who has to have regular treatment for her own illness. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I don’t know Kirsty, but she’s on my prayer list now, as I’m sure others are praying for her too. I thought of her as my son and I cycled into our finishing post at Castlebay, wondering why such a beautiful world is scarred by such an all-consuming and demanding illness. Some questions I cannot answer; to try to answer them would make people’s situation worse, not better. But, under God, we can all do our bit to help. This column is for you, Kirsty, and in my mind at least, this year’s Butt to Barra cycle now has your name on it too. </span></div>
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(The Butt to Barra cycle took place from 27-30 June 2013. First published in Stornoway Gazette). </div>
Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-41938450325619997742013-07-05T20:06:00.001+01:002013-07-05T20:07:57.811+01:00Another look at a mere Christian<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A recent long haul international flight enabled me to do something I rarely manage to do - to read an entire book from cover to cover in a single sitting. Given that the book was about one of my favourite writers by one of my favourite writers, it has quickly become one of my favourite biographies - Alister McGrath’s new life of C.S. Lewis. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">C.S. Lewis died two months after I was born, which makes this year highly significant for both of us. But the Irishman who became an Oxford don had a huge impact on my life, as on countless other young people, with his Narnia novels, then with his science fiction novels, and finally with his writings on Christian apologetics. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Part of my thrill, indeed, of reading McGrath’s biography is the inclusion of some of Pauline Baynes’ images of the land where it was always winter and never Christmas; they took me back to my first edition copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and became my definitive pictures then of what Narnia looked like. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am grateful to McGrath for his painstaking research; he has taught me things I did not know, like Lewis’s sources for the names Narnia and Aslan. But he also made me close the book at one point and just think (which I consider to be the mark of any great writing), as he discussed the difference between ‘imaginary’ and ‘imaginative’. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">His point is an important one. ‘Narnia,’ he writes, ‘is an imaginative, not an imaginary world’. What is ‘imaginary’ has been imagined falsely, and has no bearing on reality. It is an invention, a delusion. It has no counterpart in our experience of reality, and gives us no ability to see it or to interpret it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What is ‘imaginative’ on the other hand, says McGrath, ‘is something produced by the human mind as it tries to respond to something greater than itself, struggling to find images adequate to the reality’. I have been waiting all my life for that key to explain the impact of Narnia on my thinking as a child: out of Lewis’s fertile imagination came a story which fuelled my own imagination in a way that enabled me to explain my own understanding of God’s world. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Suddenly, somewhere over the Sahara, I realised that the best kind of words are the words that unlock the power of thought and bring us back to what is real and lasting. The biography made me want to go back and read the Narnia books all over again. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">McGrath’s work explores some interesting aspects of Lewis’s relationships with others - with Mrs Moore, the mother of one of his colleagues, whose attachment to Lewis was much more than platonic; with Joy Davidman, whom he married late in life, and with J.R.R. Tolkein. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Given the recent popularity of the Lord of the Rings films, as well as the recent appearance of the Hobbit, this is a fascinating study. Tolkein, like many writers, had his dark and unproductive moments; had it not been for Lewis encouraging his writing and his study, Tolkein’s fertile imagination may never have produced the writings that it did. Yet a growing estrangement developed between the two academics; and Tolkein probably never knew that Lewis nominated him for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1961. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I also paused to reflect on McGrath’s statement early in the biography that ‘Lewis is a failed poet who found greatness in other forms of writing’. The first significant works from his pen were war poems which were of mixed quality and failed to secure him the position of a man of letters to which he aspired. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yet the poet in him evidences itself not least in his imaginative prose, if (as Lewis argued against other poets) the poet ‘is not someone who is to be looked at, but someone who is to be looked through’. That is surely all that Lewis wished: to be a means for the better understanding of the world and man’s place in it. Perhaps failed poets could make the best preachers too. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is not a review, just a response to a great book. McGrath is one of the most articulate and thought-provoking theologians in Britain today, and his biography of C.S. Lewis is a masterpiece. Highly original, eminently readable and most enjoyable, this is an illuminating study of one of the great writers of our past. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And that, perhaps, is the problem with Lewis. As McGrath points out, the Narnia novels need to be read with an understanding of the cultural mores of post-war Britain, and his theological position never did sit easily within British evangelicalism or American fundamentalism. McGrath even highlights the fact that Martyn Lloyd-Jones, in the year of Lewis’s death, pronounced him ‘unsound’ on a number of doctrinal issues. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">C.S. Lewis, like all of us, must answer at a higher court than that of the prophets of British evangelicalism, however; and it is difficult to be sure what his doctrinal position on some matters were. But then again, theology was not his calling: literature was. And when he became a Christian and was, in his own words, ‘surprised by joy’, the most reluctant convert in England dedicated his considerable talents to the rational defence of the faith. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">McGrath may be correct to say that the works of Tolkein have overshadowed those of Lewis, and that the cultural tides which washed him to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s have, half a century later, washed him out to sea again. But there is no doubting his place in the literary landscape of Great Britain; and, for some of us at least, there is no chance that the ranges of Middle-earth could ever eclipse the landmarks of Narnia. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Some aspects of Lewis’ work may be dated, but his life story is as poignant as it is thrilling. Now I just need another long book to get me home. </span></div>
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<br />Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-17785020684916297332013-05-30T18:56:00.002+01:002013-05-30T18:56:51.190+01:00What's in a name?<br />
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There is an amusing story about the late Clement Graham, who was Principal of the Free Church College while I was a student, and was Clerk of the Free Church General Assembly for many years. On one occasion someone wished to present a motion to the Assembly of which Principal Graham did not wholeheartedly approve. </div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Or perhaps it was the manner of its presentation that roused his ire. When he was asked whether the motion was competent, his alleged reply was, ‘There is nothing in Standing Orders to prevent a man making a fool of himself!’. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Well, this year’s General Assembly has come and gone, and I don’t think too many of us who spoke made fools of ourselves. Indeed, given the difficulties and the constraints under which we are currently labouring, I think many of our decisions were sensible and forward thinking, not least in terms of the future of the Free Church College. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Every ministerial member of the Assembly, I think, has come through our College at some level or another. Some of us owe the foundations of all our theological thinking to the training we received there, and our studentship at the College bound us to a heritage of Scottish theological reflection which was - and in my view still is - second to none. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This year we appointed a new Principal in the person of our Stornoway minister, Rev Iver Martin. To appoint a Principal who is still also a minister is not unprecedented in our history, but is certainly a new departure over recent years. Four years ago, as Chair of our College Board, I argued that such an appointment was necessary in order to span a growing gulf between Church and College, and am glad that it has finally happened. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For some, however, the move to re-naming the College to Edinburgh Theological Seminary in principle is the most objectionable departure from our cherished tradition. Personally, I would have preferred to retain the word ‘College’, and voted to do so, but did not prevail. Such are the happenstances of Assembly discussions; at the end of the day we accept the findings and move on. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A generation of us will continue to speak of the ‘College’ through use and wont, and I guess there is no reason why the new name cannot, in official documentation, incorporate the old. But I have better things to worry about than an institution’s change of name. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For one thing, the institution at which we train our ministers and others will continue to build on the Scottish theological tradition it has always represented. The authority of Scripture, the uniqueness of Christ, the covenant theology of our heritage are not secured by a name but by a confessional commitment. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And neither does a new name reflect any embarrassment with the denomination under whose auspices and by whose authority it is run. Quite the opposite: it shows that the Free Church is keen to extend its influence wider than its own constituency. While remaining a Church College, our training school will all the more integrate into a wider evangelical world, and bring into it the very best of our Scottish tradition. The Church still owns the College, both in terms of physical location and in terms of theological ethos, and is well-placed in Scotland’s capital city to raise the profile of theological study and of ministerial training. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ultimately, therefore, the nomenclature says nothing new: the College owned by the Free Church is a Seminary of theology in Edinburgh. Either name would adequately express what the institution is; but there is a deeper issue still: that of pride and how to deal with it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Institutional pride, like any other form of pride, can be a subtly dangerous thing. An inflated view of our own importance can be disguised as an appreciation of our heritage. An uncritical maintenance of our own traditions can be regarded as a healthy maintenance of our principles. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yet tradition and principle are two very different things. The former ought to be the vehicle for the other: our living continuity with the past ought to be the means by which the best principles and ethos of the past can be applied to the present. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But it can turn into something very sinister very quickly - the idea that as long as the tradition is maintained, so too is the principle. The General Assembly last week recognised that principles are to be maintained within traditions which themselves can change, and often must, if the principles are to be applied and taught to a new generation. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I’m getting into that stage of life now where even I talk about the way things used to be. But I don’t want to drift into old age as a cynical critic of every change; I hope God will give me the wisdom to recognise that even if the next generation does not do things the way I used to do them, we are still continuing the foundational principles of scriptural truth and teaching across the generations. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So I have every confidence in the new arrangements for delivering our theological training, and in the new Principal of the Free Church College. I am sure his large congregation in Stornoway will recognise the vital role they are playing in the wider theological and evangelical world as they support him in his new and wider ministry. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So it was, I think, a realistic yet forward-looking Assembly, which spoke of church planting, mission support, ecumenical relations and other issues which must occupy every Church of Christ everywhere. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But for me, the magic moment was when the Lord High Commissioner referred to me by the title reserved for Moderators of the Church of Scotland: the Right Reverend Iain Campbell. I smiled. But of course he should: am I ever the wrong Reverend? Well, sometimes. And sometimes Standing Orders allow me to make a fool of myself too. </span></div>
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Published in Stornoway Gazette 30 May 2013</div>
Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-39105288456851487252013-03-12T17:25:00.001+00:002013-03-12T18:48:59.199+00:00uMfundisiI decided to include a photograph of Alistair at his desk in Dumisani, just to show that he is (literally) entombed by books in his little corner of South Africa. Even the photo does not to justice to the fact that he and his books are vying for space, but, as always, he was happy to oblige. <br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/12/1255.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/12/s_1255.jpg' border='0' width='210' height='281' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />This morning Dumisani hosted a small ministers' fraternal which meets regularly around different churches in the district. I spoke on Preaching through Exodus, and very much enjoyed both the fellowship and the coffee and cake afterwards.<br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/12/1256.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/12/s_1256.jpg' border='0' width='210' height='281' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />After a short break I was on duty for four hours of lectures and preaching, beginning with a College devotional on Luke 24, and then three talks on Preaching Christ from the Old Testament. <br />It was a heavy schedule, but one which I enjoyed being involved in. The level of interest and support from other churches was also very encouraging. <br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/12/1257.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/12/s_1257.jpg' border='0' width='210' height='281' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />uMfundisi is the Xhosa for 'teacher' and is regularly used for a minister - so that was very much my role today. <br />I now look forward to the journey home, and reversing the role, so that I shall speak to others about my time here. <br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/12/1319.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/12/s_1319.jpg' border='0' width='210' height='281' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />Perhaps I shall have time to blog about impressions and conclusions at some other time, but for now I hope these short blogs have given some sense of the wonder of the place that is South Africa, and some idea of the role our church has to play in this part of the world. <br />More than that, I hope it will sharpen out view of mission; for, as the sign on the exit gate of Bethany Emmanuel church says, 'You are now entering the mission field. Are you prepared with the Gospel?' <br />Indeed. May we all be missionaries, wherever we are. <br /><br />Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-15320475215107509262013-03-11T20:31:00.001+00:002013-03-11T20:31:43.734+00:00And other animalsAlistair Wilson kindly drove us to Mpongo Game Reserve today, where we had a good morning scouting for African animals. The zebra were breathtaking, as were the giraffe, rhino and buck deer which we saw roaming freely in their natural environment. <br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/11/1774.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/11/s_1774.jpg' border='0' width='210' height='281' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />The hungry hippo by the coffee shop was ready to entertain us and to appear for a loaf of bread. What some animals will not do for attention! <br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/11/1777.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/11/s_1777.jpg' border='0' width='210' height='281' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />What a wonderful panorama of nature there is all around us here - creation resplendent in its native beauty. And what marvellous lessons it has to teach us. I took a photo of warthogs grazing - moving forward all the time on their knees. Guess that's the way Christians should graze too. <br /><br />But I've also been doing a little reading on the politics of South Africa, and the remarkable and tragic violence of the apartheid regime. Isn't it amazing how, out of all of animate creation, man should have so found a propensity for violence, disorder and social chaos? <br /><br />The move towards democracy has been one of the great social changes in the South Africa of my generation. How we ought to pray that the young people growing up in today's South Africa will be shaped by higher ideals than in the past, and that the churches will serve them well. <br /><br />I look forward to a day of ministry in Dumisani tomorrow. <br />Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-90712200283221387332013-03-10T14:39:00.001+00:002013-03-10T18:33:48.945+00:00With the Mamas on Mothers DayYesterday morning Anne and I attended the graduation and awards ceremony of Dumisani Bible Institute. It was held in Bethany Emmanuel Baptist Church, and started at 10am, except that the congregation kept arriving during the course of the service - standard practice I'm told! By the time we finished the place was quite full! <br />There were thirteen students receiving awards, though not all were able to be present for the ceremony. Many of these had been studying for their degree part-time over several years. Their dedication was admirable, and the ceremony marked a remarkable achievement. <br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/10/815.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/10/s_815.jpg' border='0' width='210' height='281' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />It was an honour to be associated with the Dumisani staff for the occasion, and I spoke from 2 Corinthians 4 on the work of the ministry, and on the three dimensions of the gospel: what God has done for us, what he does in us, and what he does for us. The evening offered a bit of relaxation, which we appreciated as we prepared for the Sunday services. <br />This morning I preached at one of the congregations of the Free Church of Southern Africa, with with our own denomination at home has had a long association. This FCSA is in King William's Town, and is known as Club View. The building is fairly new, and is often used for large convention meetings. <br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/10/816.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/10/s_816.jpg' border='0' width='281' height='210' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />It was a real joy to meet first with the Kirk Session, and then to preach to the congregation. The singing was uplifting, and the warmth of the people was such an encouragement. They had provided snacks for us after the service, as a special treat. It was a real joy to speak to them as they spoke of their affection for some of the missionaries who had served in South Africa. <br />I look forward to preaching this evening in Bethel Emmanuel Baptist Church, where we had the graduation yesterday. <br />In the FCSA congregation the women sit apart from the men, and Anne enjoyed being looked after by the ladies. With it being Mothering Sunday back home, I think she was missing the family a bit; but in God's Providence she was singing Psalm 23 with the Mamas of Club View. How better to spend Mothers' Day than to join with people we had never met, in a place we had never seen, and to sing of a common faith in the goodness and mercy of God that follow all of his people all their days? <br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/10/1596.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/10/s_1596.jpg' border='0' width='210' height='281' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br /><br />Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32618534.post-57355880489629422502013-03-08T12:49:00.001+00:002013-03-08T19:41:12.912+00:00Education, Education, Education<br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/08/475.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/08/s_475.jpg' border='0' width='210' height='281' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />Today began with coffee at Dumisani, where Anne and I had the opportunity to meet the staff at their morning break. The school is closed on a Friday, so it becomes a day for administration and other duties. We saw the new computers for which the WFM have been raising money, and which will be of great benefit for the students. <br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/08/476.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/08/s_476.jpg' border='0' width='210' height='281' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />Most of the morning was then spent at Teleios School, based at Emmanuel Bethany Baptist Church, and of which Jenny Wilson is Principal. What a great privilege it was to get a taste of the great work being done at the school. <br /><br />When we arrived the children were enjoying making use of a cold water slide; I was very tempted to use it myself since the temperature has remained very high. The children enjoyed having their photographs taken as much as using the slide, and it was no problem to get them to pose for their Scottish audience! <br /><br />Of course, taking a teacher to a school is like taking a minister to a theological institute, so Anne enjoyed meeting the staff and pupils, and getting involved in the lessons! <br /><br /><br /><center><a href='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/show_photo.php?p=13/03/08/477.jpg'><img src='http://photo.blogpressapp.com/photos/13/03/08/s_477.jpg' border='0' width='210' height='281' style='margin:5px'></a></center><br /><br />It was also very moving to be asked to speak at the school's end of week Assembly; the children were very enthusiastic singers! It was also very moving to have 'The Lord's my Shepherd (I will trust)' as the closing song; just a week ago Anne finished her week at her school singing the same song, so she found it very emotional to hear it sung now in a South African school!<br /><br />So the morning was about the education of theological students, and the education of children and young people. The rest of the day was about our own continuing education as we toured some of the villages and settlements around KWT and were able to enjoy a meal with the Wilsons in the evening.<br /><br />We are always learning, aren't we? And travel is certainly a unique medium of education. <br /><br />Iain D Campbellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08725652423050438047noreply@blogger.com0