Dr Thomas Guthrie on Wisely Considering the Case of the Poor

William Carey, the great missionary, when leaving for India in 1793 said 'I'll go down into the pit, if you will hold the rope.'   When Dr Thomas Guthrie was called to Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh in 1837 from his country charge of Arbirlot he said something similar when comparing the difference between his two charges; 'I can compare it to nothing else than the change from green fields and woods and the light of nature to venturing into the darkness and blackness of a coal pit.'

Throughout his whole ministry Guthrie took a great interest in the poor of his parish - primarily, although not exclusively, in the overcrowded Cowgate.  Even before arriving in Edinburgh Guthrie believed a minister should live amongst his people; 'Now, I should like a clergyman never to step out of his own door but he steps in amongst his people.  I would have him planted in the very centre of his population' (letter to Mr Dunlop in 1837).  Initially Guthrie lived in Argyll Square and then in Brown Square which would have both been where today's Chamber Street is as can be seen from this old map.  It is hard to imagine the squalor and poverty that Guthrie saw on a daily basis as he visited his parish.  He recounts his early days; 'I can never forget, nothing can efface the impression made on my mind, when I first lifted the veil from the hideous veil of starvation and sin that lay before me. The scenes that I was called on to witness the first three or four days of my parochial visitations almost drove sleep from my pillow.  They haunted me like very sceptres, and, after visiting till my heart was very sick, I have come up from the College Wynd with the idea that I might as well have gone to be a missionary among the Hindoos on the banks of the Ganges.'

Dr Guthrie was no ivory tower minister.  He was the embodiment of salt pressed against the decaying flesh of the world around him.  This came at a heavy price with Guthrie's future health problems.  He became a magnet for his parishioners seeking temporal and spiritual help on a daily basis; 'My door used to be besieged every day by crowds of half-naked creatures, men, women, and children, shivering with cold and hunger; and I visited many a house that winter, where there was a starving mother and starving children, and neither bed, bread nor Bible - till, with climbing stairs my limbs were like to fail, and with spectacles of misery, my heart was like to break.'So how did Guthrie respond to all the challenges around him?

His starting point was that man is made in the image of God.  The half naked child sleeping on the streets of Edinburgh was, to Guthrie, as precious in the sight of God as the Queen on the throne. In his first plea for Ragged Schools in 1847 he compared what some regarded as 'rubbish' as shining jewels; 'Yes it is easy to push aside the poor boy in the street, with a harsh and unfeeling refusal, saying to your neighbour, "These are the pests of the city."  Call them, if you choose, the rubbish of society; only let us say, that there are jewels among that rubbish, which would richly repay the expense of searching.  Bedded in their dark and dismal abodes, precious stones lie there, which only wait to be dug out and polished, to shine, first on earth, and hereafter and forever in a redeemers crown.'  Our response to poverty will depend on our starting point.  If we see people with honour and dignity, made in the image of God, our response will be full of compassion and we will seek to go the extra mile.  If we see people as economic units as George Osborne does, our response will be very different.

Secondly, Guthrie took sin seriously.  He was no socialist.  He knew that little is achieved by the mass and indiscriminate distribution of money or food.  Sinful nature often makes a bad situation worse as Guthrie found on his many pastoral visits.  Poor families with little we're ravaged further my a drunken or profligate parent.  This was the time of the 'dram houses' and 'gin palaces'. Indiscriminate (however well meaning) compassion often compounds problems rather than solving them. If you need any evidence of this just look at Africa and the billions spent my Western aid agencies with little long lasting effect.  For more on this read 'When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor and Yourself' by Corbett and Fikkert.  In believing in original sin as the source of society's problems, Guthrie responded, as we shall see next, in a gospel centred way.

Thirdly, Guthrie believed in the 'almost omnipotent power of Christian kindness'.  Our response to poverty needs to be gospel centred.  Guthrie knew that compassion without the power of the gospel would change little.  Only the grace of God can truly change the human heart.  We get a flavour of Guthrie's view of poverty in his great work 'Seed Time and Harvest of Ragged Schools' (published 1847, 1849 and 1860).  Having outlined the plight of thousands of 'ragged children' on the streets of Edinburgh he famously said 'These Arabs of the city are as wild of those of the desert, and must be broken into three habits, - those of discipline, learning, and industry, not to speak of cleanliness.  To accomplish this, our trust is in the almost omnipotent power of Christian kindness.  Harsh words and harder blows are thrown away here.'  The ragged school model sought to work with families by offering the children a comprehensive system of education, food and industrial training during the day while encouraging the children to return home in the evening.  The aim of the ragged school was to teach young people how to survive and thrive.  Unlike today's welfare state it did not crush people under the weight of a faceless and unresponsive bureaucracy.  Christian compassion needs to be personal, genuine and it needs to go 'above and beyond'.

Fourthly, Guthrie's response went to the root of the problem.  His response to poverty was what might be termed today 'tough love'.  He sought to restore self respect, hard work and sobriety.  While he had all the time in the world for the innocent victims of drunkenness and poverty he was very outspoken against those who perpetuated their poverty through vice.  He had no time for encouraging laziness or indolence through well meaning compassion; 'The money which is lavished on sturdy beggars, on the wasteful slaves of vice, on the reckless and improvident, you have no right to expect repayment of.  These are not the poor.  On the contrary they plunder the poor, and prey on poverty; and hardening men's hearts by their frauds, improvidence, crimes and detected impostures, against the claims of real poverty, they deserve not charity but chastisement.  It is a scandal and a shame that such devouring locusts are permitted to infest our city and swarm in its streets.  These vices of a system which the police stangely tolerate, and our charity unwisely maintains, are visible in the botched and brazened features of those thriving solicitors.  The very breath with which they whine for charity smells of the dram shop.  It poisons and pollutes the air; and those who contribute to foster this profligate system have no claim to the blessing.'  The Victorians often receive a bad press for their view of the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor but how can it be compassion to prop up a man or woman's vice while their children starve?   Welfare must always be a hand up not a hand out.  This is surely the principle of 2 Thess 3 v 10.  If a man is able to work, and work is available, our whole system of welfare should be focussed on helping him work.

Finally, Guthrie wasn't interested in 'harm minimisation' or 'risk management'.  His focus was on transformation. This final quote perhaps best sums up Guthrie's views.  It encourages us to have a 'wise' response to the poor.  

'Blessed is he that wisely doth

The poor man's case consider'

'So run the opening words of the 41st Psalm, in the Scottish Psalter.  Wisely?  He wisely considers the case of the poor who, wherever it is possible, supplies them with work rather than money; who helps them to help themselves, who encourages them to self-exertion, and teaches them self respect; who patronises not indolence but industry, not the intemperate but the sober; who applies his money to relieve the misfortunes that come from the hand of Providence, rather than such as are the divinely ordained and salutary penalties of vice.  And who thus goes to the work of Christian benevolence will meet with many cases to cheer him on, and keep him up to this mark, "Be not weary in well-doing."

This is the challenge for the church today.  As Bryant Myers says in his book Walking with the Poor; 'Poverty is the result of relationships that do not work, that are not just, that are not for life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable.  Poverty is the absence of shalom in all its meanings.'  Poverty is not just about money.  It is about lacking the networks and relationships that can lift us up when we fall.  This is where the church needs to be - to go beyond relief and an emergency response to poverty and walk with the poor in the long and often hard journey of discipleship.  What our broken, fractured communities need more than anything is the bread of life, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christian compassion so often compounds the plight of the poor rather than offering a helping hand to a new and better life.  In the Psalmists (and Guthrie's) words we do not 'wisely' consider the poor. Compassion that compounds and excuses sin is not biblical compassion.  We need to feed the hungry but also present Jesus in all his beauty and majesty.

Guthrie and the Silver Teapot

I spent a very enjoyable hour at the Edinburgh Museum, 142 Canongate last week. After a few months of negotiation I finally managed to get to handle the silver teapot presented to Dr Guthrie and his wife when he retired in 1864 on the grounds of ill health. A Committee was established to ensure that Dr Guthrie was supported in his retirement and that his incredible work was marked appropriately. The committee included the Earls of Dalhousie, Shaftesbury, Carlisle, Kintore and Southesk, the Lord Bishops of London and St David's, the Right Hon W.E. Gladstone as well as clerks and tradesmen. 

 

We learn in Guthrie's Memoirs that he found out about the testimonial prior to the presentation.  In classic Guthrie humility he wrote to Mr J.R. Dymock in Lochlee; "Some may fancy that this may blow me up.  I have no feelings of the kind, not because I am above the ordinary feelings of our nature, or have not a great deal more corruption than I should have; but such a thing sends a man back to think of his own unworthiness before God, and, if at all right-minded, humbles rather than puffs up; leading him, when he looks at himself and the many blessings he enjoys  than others not less unworthy and perhaps more deserving, to say 'What am I?'"  Despite all his achievements, and even at the end of his long and fruitful ministerial career Guthrie could only see himself as an unprofitable servant.  Some of our ministers could learn a few lessons from Dr Guthrie.

 

On February 20th 1865 at the Royal Hotel, Edinburgh the 'Testimonial of Admiration and Esteem' was handed over to Dr Guthrie which consisted of £5000 and a 'silver tea and coffee service'. Guthrie responded; "...I do not despise the money; I never did despise money.  Many a day have I wished I had a great deal more money, for I would have found a great deal more happiness in doing good to others, as it were not needed in any other way;...but, next to the approbation of God, of my blessed Master, and of my own conscience, there is nothing on which I set so high a value as the assurance this testimonial warrants me to entertain, that I have won a place in the hearts of other Christians besides those of my own denomination." 

 

Unbelievably this beautiful piece of history remains in the archives and is not on display. Perhaps with the exception of a mention in the tiny Old Greyfriars Kirk exhibition there is no official museum which tells the incredible story of Guthrie and the way the Lord used him to rescue thousands from a life of poverty and abuse.  Wouldn't it be great to see this story told and to see these amazing pieces of history on display for everyone to see?  Perhaps one day we will see a Guthrie Museum in Edinburgh - wouldn't that be great?

 

Guthrie reminds us of Proverbs 10 v 7 'The memory of the righteous is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot.'  What kind of legacy are we leaving?  If Guthrie was alive today he would invite you to come to the Saviour who he preached and followed.  It is not religion that we all need it is the Lord Jesus Christ.  I'll leave the last word to Dr Guthrie; 'Never mistake the dead robes for the living body of religion. Never forget that "to do justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly before God," is what the Lord requires of thee; that faith without works is dead; that form without spirit is dead; and that, the highest piety being ever associated with the deepest humility, true religion is like the sweetest of all singing-birds, the skylark, which with the lowest nest but highest wing dwells in the ground, and yet soars to the skies' (The Pharisee and Publican, The Parables, 1874).

 

 

Thomas Chalmers and 'A Very Fine Field of Operation'

Having turned the ripe old age of 41 recently I received 'Out of Harness' by Thomas Guthrie.  Published in 1883 (10 years after Guthrie's death) it is a collection of auto-biographical essays.  Of the 20 essays 7 are devoted to his ministry in the Cowgate in Edinburgh and are entitled Sketches of the Cowgate.  Other chapters include The Original Ragged School, New Brighton, A Winter Gale, The Streets of Paris, Sunday in Paris and French Protestantism and several others. 

There are some great quotes in the book particularly about Thomas Chalmers.  Allow me one example; Courted by the great, Chalmers' sympathies lay with the masses. Their oppression roused him like a lion; their neglect stirred his indignation; their sufferings touched his soul with such tender pity that the horrors of the Irish and Highland famines were like to break his heart. He loved mankind. His aspirations were not to drag the upper classes down to the level of the lower, but to improve the economic, educational, moral and religious condition of the lowest stratum of society; and so, as when the base of the pyramid is raised, to raise all the courses of the superstructure up to the royalty - sitting high on the throne (Out of Harness, Dr Thomas Guthrie, p 127).

Dr Thomas Chalmers

One of the main reasons I wanted to get this book was because of the famous conversation between Dr Chalmers and Dr Guthrie in 1837 which is described in the book.  It is often mentioned in Free Church circles and I've always wanted to read it for myself.

 

Thomas Guthrie was called from the sleepy parish of Arbirlot, Angus in 1837 to the bustling city of Edinburgh.  His charge was Old Greyfriars so the Cowgate became his parish.  Guthrie describes his field of service;

The streets were a puddle; the heavy air, loaded with smoke, was thick and murky; right below lay the narrow street of dingy tenements, whose toppling chimneys and patched and battered roofs were apt emblems of the fortunes of most of its tenants.  Of these, some were lying over the sills of windows innocent of glass, or stuffed with old hats and old rags; others, course looking women with squalled children in their arms or at their feet stood in groups at the close-mouths - here with empty laughter chaffing any passing acquaintance - there screaming each other down in a drunken brawl, or standing sullen and silent, with hunger and ill-usage in their saddened looks.  A brewers cart, threatening to crush beneath its ponderous wheels the ragged urchins who had no other playground, rumbled over the causeway - drowning the quavering voice of one whose drooping head and scanty dress were ill in harmony with song, but not drowning the shrill pipe of an Irish girl who thumped the back of an unlucky donkey and cried her herrings at 'three-a-penny' (Out of Harness, Thomas Guthrie, p 126).

 

The narrative continues that as Guthrie stared down on the scene of utter degradation Dr Chalmers came up behind him;

 

Hopeful of success, he surveyed the scene beneath us, and his eye, which often wore a dreamy stare, kindled at the prospect of seeing that wilderness become an Eden, these foul haunts of darkness, drunkenness and disease, changed into "dwellings of the righteous where is heard the voice of melody."  Contemplating the scene for a little in silence, all at once, with his broad Luther-like face glowing with enthusiasm, he waved his arm to exclaim, "A beautiful field, sir; a very fine field of operation" (Out of Harness, Thomas Guthrie, p 130).

 

We may think that these scenes from 170 years ago have little relevance to us today.  But how would we respond to such a scene?  Would we be heartbroken and stirred to action like Chalmers and Guthrie?  Are some of the housing schemes of Scotland any less chaotic and dysfunctional than the 19th century Cowgate? 

 

When Guthrie came to Edinburgh he came to a city gripped with industrial and social upheaval.  Overcrowding, poverty, alcoholism and abuse were rife.  The main reason for ragged schools was because children were being thrown out on the streets by drunken parents to beg and steal.  In his Autobiography he estimates that less than 5 in 150 attended church.  But he didn't despair.  He developed a Biblical vision for his parish and especially for the poor.  He visited systematically, he worked tirelessly, served sacrificially and loved indiscriminately. 

Most importantly Chalmers and Guthrie had a strategy and structure to win a geographical area for Christ.  As Guthrie said of Chalmers and his 'parochial system'; to change the face of a district required, in his opinion, a more extensive and efficient system of cultivation - a school for children; a church with its door open to the poorest of the inhabitants; and a large staff of zealous men and women - each with their own section of families to visit, and all working in harmony, like bees in a hive, under the direction of the minister, their captain, bishop or superintendent (Out of Harness, Thomas Guthrie, p 128).  Surely this is what we need again.  We need a team around our ministers who can reach out to a local area caring for body and soul.  The great issues of our age are family breakdown, debt, isolation, addiction and poverty.  As Guthrie argues time and again, the gospel is the answer but this does not abdicate the church from responding with practical expressions of love in seeking to reach out to the broken and marginalised in our society. 

But what about schools?  The church needs to reassert its influence in education after decades of secular humanism pushing religious instruction to the margins. The Free Church in particular has a proud history of building schools and lifting thousands out of ignorance.  It is interesting to note that the great priority of the Free Church in 1843 was for schools and mission (by 1844-45 £50,000 had been raised for the School Building Fund). It was not until 1845 that the Manse Fund was established and Guthrie took on his role as the 'great beggar man' as he was called by Rev Wallace Duncan of Peebles. 

Guthrie (in many ways prophetically) said in his evidence to the parliamentary committee of 1853 'I do not wish the government to supersede our efforts; what I wish the State to do is, to supplement them' (Memoirs, p 468).  He was, of course, referring to his beloved Ragged Schools, but the point was well made.  The state has long since superseded the efforts of those with a personal or charitable interest in education and the 'one size fits all' state system struggles to respond to the complex (and often tragic) issues facing many children today. Children from poorer backgrounds in particular are suffering in schools where poverty and generational family breakdown are rife. Many churches are providing breakfast clubs where kids often testify that it is their only meal of the day.  The schools do their best but so much more is needed.  Could this be the time for a re-look at Ragged Schools? This Guthrie fan certainly thinks so.  In the meantime we have 'a very fine field of operation' across Scotland.  The challenges are huge but let's recapture the spirit of Chalmers as we seek to tackle them. 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

Loving the City



Thomas Guthrie, the famous Edinburgh minister and philanthropist, preached a series of sermons that were eventually published under the heading of 'The City, its Sins and Sorrows'.  The edition I have was published in 1857 and it says that the discourses were delivered to gather support for a 'Territorial Church in one of the dark and destitute districts of Edinburgh.'   The book is four sermons from Luke 19 v 41 'And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it.' 

Guthrie was not really an expositor but rather a graphic preacher who used great sweeping pictures in his sermons to rail against the evils of poverty, drunkenness and ignorance.  He waged a long campaign for temperance and often spoke of the evils of drink.  In the third sermon he says; "I pray you do not hate the drunkard; he hates himself.  Do not despise him; he cannot sink so low in your opinion as he is sunk in his own.  Your hatred and contempt may rivet, but will never rend his chains.  Lend a kind hand to pluck him from the mire.  With a strong hand shatter the bowl - remove the temptations which, while he hates, he cannot resist.  Hate, abhor, tremble at his sin.  And for pity's sake, for God's sake, for Christ's sake, for humanity's sake, rouse yourselves to the question, What can be done?"  (The City its Sins and Sorrows, Guthrie, 1857, p 74).  

What is so interesting about The City its Sins and Sorrows is to read of Guthrie commending cities and encouraging the Christian Church to engage and embrace in city life rather than shunning it for the country. In the first sermon Guthrie rises to his usual heights of flowery language; "Cities have been as lamps of light along the pathway of humanity and religion. Within them science has given birth to her noblest discoveries. Behind their walls freedom has fought her noblest battles. They have stood on the surface of the earth like great breakwaters, rolling back or turning aside the swelling tide of oppression. Cities, indeed, have been the cradles of human liberty. They have been the radiating, active centres of almost all church and state reformation. Having therefore no sympathy with those who regard our cities as corresponding to the excrescences of a tree or the tumours of disease, and would raze them to the ground, I bless God for cities" (The City its Sins and Sorrows, Guthrie 1857, p 8-9).  Guthrie goes on to talk of the many advantages of cities;

• The highest humanity is developed in cities 
• The highest piety is developed in cities
• The highest happiness of saints is found in city life

This theology needs to be re-emphasised in every age as some Christians again seek to withdraw from our cities to the 'safer' suburbs and rural areas. There are large areas of our cities, particularly some of the more deprived areas that have little or no gospel witness.  James Montgomery Boice puts it much better than I can; "Some Christians are opposed to the city for reasons based on the very points I am making. They regard the city as godless. They think of urban cultures as being mans invention and therefore alien to God, who placed the first man and woman in a garden, not a city. That is true, but it is not the whole story. The city is godless. But the problem with the "godless city" is not the city but the "godless," and people living in the country without Christ are godless too. Again the problem of "civilisation without God" is not civilisation itself but rather its godless characteristics. And so far as the garden goes, while it is true that the Bible begins with a garden, it is also true that it ends with a city, the new Jerusalem. Our task is not to abandon earthly kingdoms but to build God's kingdom in the midst of the godless ones and in so doing look forward and show the way "to the city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Hebrews 11 v 10) (Two Cities, Two Loves, Montgomery Boice, 1996, p 74).

 

Guthrie, was not the first great preacher to write about cities.  Augustine famously wrote The City of God which was probably the most influential book of the Middle Ages.  There are few greater theologians than Augustine and if you want to know more about him RC Sproul's address here is well worth listening to.  Written over 13 years, The City of God was the first serious attempt to write a Christian philosophy of history and to explain the two clashing kingdoms or worldviews that have dominated history. 

Augustine argued that from the first rebellion of the fallen angels against God "two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self".  Augustine represented the church as the City of God and the earthly city as the earthly society being characterised by Babylon and Rome which had fallen to the Visigoth king Aleric 3 years before Augustine had started writing The City of God.  A large part of the book is given over to arguing against the prevailing  view that the barbarians had conquered Rome because the ancient gods had been forsaken for Christianity.  As Montgomery Boice writes Augustine showed  "on the contrary, that the city [Rome] had been punished for its sins.  In its early centuries Rome had been a nation of stoics.  It had strong families and honest governors.  It had almost created civil law and had given order and peace to the world.  But the seeds of decay lay within its debased religions, which encouraged rather restrained the corrupt sexual nature of human beings" (Two Cities, Two Loves, Montgomery Boice, 1996, p 20). 

 

Augustine's City of God and Guthrie's The City, its Sins and Sorrows remind us that we need a theology for our cities. When the Christian church gets this wrong it leads to a lack of engagement with our cities and a flight to the suburbs and country. It also leads to ghetto churches in our cities where we have a 'Highland church' or an 'African church'.  Some of these churches have evolved to make the attenders feel comfortable but often have no serious engagement with the community they have been placed in. 

Men like Tim Keller have pioneered urban church planting in New York with Redeemer Presbyterian and has helpfully written a book called Church Centre on much of what he has learned.  It is great to see some pioneering work going on in some of the neediest areas of Scotland through 20Schemes and Niddrie Community Church.  There are some great organisations that are helping to bring about urban community transformation such as Glasgow City Mission, Bethany Christian Trust and The Trussell Trust.

There are some great examples of engagement with deprived schemes here in Aberdeen such as The Lighthouse Project in Tillydrone and in Seaton with Seaton Community Church.  The work in Seaton is being supported by Bethany Christian Trust and a foodbank will be launched at some point in the future.  Barry Douglas took a step of faith less than a year ago and established a church in an area short on gospel witness.   It is great to see how the work has grown and to see his vision for the marginalised and also to see a growing youth work.  We need more of these pioneers in Scotland today.

The longstanding work of Deeside Christian Fellowship is seeing some real fruit as they continue to work with some of the most marginalised men and women in The Lighthouse Project, Tillydrone.  A number of men from The Lighthouse recently helped to paint the little thrift shop called the First Port of Call which Bethany runs.  It was a complete privilege to work alongside some of these men who had been notorious in their community for all the wrong reasons.  The Outreach Pastor, John Merson, has been a personal inspiration to me as he has quietly worked away with these men over many years.  While many church planters seek the limelight John is a very humble man working away in quietness and humility to build the kingdom. 

 

We, as the church, need to support these pioneers, church planters and organisations working in our inner cities with some of the poorest and most marginalised communities in Scotland.  We need old truths presented with a new and fresh reality.  Guthrie said "I have no hope of accomplishing this object if the churches are to be laced up by their old rules, and people are to leave everything to ministers and missionaries."  We need to end the one man ministries that have been so detrimental particularly in Presbyterian circles.  As Keller says we need to realise that church planting in inner city areas is relational, low key and very long term.  As the church we need to be in this for the long term if we are going to see any long term results. 

Just as Guthrie and Chalmers had a Biblical vision for our cities in the 19th century we need to have a similar vision today.  I'll leave the last (quaint) word to the great man himself; "Let each select their own manageable field of Christian work.  Let us embrace the whole city, and cover its nakedness, although, with different denominations at work, it should be robed, like Joseph, in a coat of many colours.  Let our only rivalry be the holy one of who shall do most and succeed best in converting the wilderness into an Eden, and causing the deserts to blossom as the rose" (The City its Sins and Sorrows, Guthrie, 1857, p 111).  

 

'

 



 



 

Lunch with the Vicar of Baghdad

I met a remarkable man last Saturday - Canon Andrew White who ministers at St George's, Baghdad.  His church is involved in a whole variety of ministries through the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East.  Every week St George's feeds around 500 men and women as part of their Food Relief Programme.  Every month around 2000 people attend their medical clinic which is provided free of charge. 

While we may be on slightly different pages theologically, the 'Vicar of Baghdad' was an absolute inspiration.  His church is a light in the midst of darkness and is bringing reconciliation to a fractured and divided city.  One of the only Christian churches in a violent city, St George's is famous world wide for leading community transformation.  What can we learn from this remarkable ministry in Scotland?



Canon Andrew White and the real Andy Murray

Perhaps one of the greatest tragedies is that so often the church in Scotland is not leading community change.  But that hasn't always been the case.  While Dr Thomas Guthrie (1803-1873) was one of the finest preachers of the Free Church in the 19^th Century, his greatest legacy was surely as a social reformer.  This is summed up on his statue in Edinburgh which declares he was ‘a friend of the poor and the oppressed’. His legacy extends far beyond the church and Guthrie impacted the whole country with his vision for the marginalised.  His legacy epitomises the two great priorities of the church; truth and love. 

When Guthrie was called to Old Greyfriars in 1837 he walked the streets of the Cowgate and the Lawnmarket and was appalled by the 1-2000 'ragged children' he saw all around him on the streets.  He wrote, campaigned, organised, spoke and inspired until these children were fed, loved and educated.  Guthrie didn't stand around wringing his hands, he got involved.  His memoirs contain the following quote which sums up his daily work; ‘…it was not the disease or death – it was the starvation, the drunkenness, the rags, the heartless, hopeless, miserable condition of the people – the debauched and drunken mothers, the sallow, yellow, emaciated children – the wants both temporal and spiritual, which one felt themselves unable to relieve – that sometimes overwhelmed me…’ (Memoirs and Autobiography, p 157).  It is encouraging to hear that even the great Thomas Guthrie got overwhelmed sometimes!



Food Relief Programme in Baghdad

Like Guthrie, we might despair about the needs of our communities today but Christians can (and should) be at the forefront of community change.  We sometimes think that most people went to church in the past but Guthrie talks about his early visitations in Horse Wynd in Edinburgh where less than 5 in 150 people ever went to church.  Guthrie saw some awful sights in his pastoral work.  Amidst the rapid growth and large scale Irish immigration, Edinburgh had developed the most awful social problems.  Many in the church wanted to ignore these problems but Guthrie faced them head on with a coherent Christian vision.

We all need each other and we all need strong cohesive communities.  Our cities prove Guthrie's point that 'the solitude of a crowd is the most painful of all.'  So many people (both in Iraq and Scotland) are living in fractured and broken communities.  To bring about community transformation we all need to get involved, we need to listen to local people and we need to help provide the facilities and resources that can help with community transformation.  As Canon Wright said of his ministry we need to 'love, love and love.'  It is hard to think of a better example of Christian love in action than St George's in Baghdad feeding and healing people.



St George's Baghdad

Most of all we need to be salt and light in a decaying world.  Creating community should be natural territory for Christians.  As Keller says 'God created all things to be in a beautiful, harmonious, interdependent, knitted, webbed relationship to one another.  Just as rightly related physical elements form a cosmos or a tapestry, so rightly related human beings form a community.  This interwovenenss is what the Bible calls shalom, or harmonious peace' (Generous Justice, p 173). 

It must be easy for Canon White to despair.  Guarded by a small army, travelling to church in an armoured convoy, members of his church being killed on a weekly basis would cause most of us to head for the nearest plane home.  But he continues to bring reconciliation to a bitterly divided city and nation.  Canon White is slightly more cheerful than his predecessor who came to Iraq about 2700 years earlier.  Despite Jonah grumbling about the mercy and grace of God, and bitterly complaining about the lack of air conditioning, the gospel impacted Nineveh in a powerful way.  Nearly 3 centuries later the gospel is still impacting lives in Iraq.  God is building his church and the gates of hell shall not prevail.

As Christians we should know what real, harmonious community looks like and feels like.  It is that shalom that Keller mentions - something we want for every community in Scotland (and Iraq).  Not just people reconciled with each other but more importantly with the God who lives in perfect community in the Trinity.  It can only ultimately come through the gospel influencing our nation and transforming individuals and communities.   But it won’t happen until Christians roll up their sleeves and get involved in our broken and fractured society.  If St George's can do this in a war zone, what excuse do we have in Scotland?



Jonah by Michelangelo