Worship: the Heart of Religion - The Priority of the Word

"The first want of our day is a return to the old, simple and sharply-cut doctrines of our fathers" 

JC Ryle

I'm currently re-reading Crown Him Lord of All - Essays on the Life and Witness of the Free Church of Scotland.  It was published in 1993, 150 years after the Free Church Disruption.  I was 21 and in the middle of a university degree in Aberdeen.  I remember my father working on the production of the book as he settled into a new ministry in Edinburgh.  The storm clouds were gathering on what would eventually lead to a split within the Free Church in 2000 but in the early 1990's, the Free Church felt like it knew what it believed.  We didn't have the Healthy Gospel Church matrix but the gospel was preached and the ministers I knew were godly and faithful men.  They were men of conviction.  We may not have had the right DNA or culture, but we gathered at the Glasgow Psalmody Recital every year to sing the songs that Christians had sung without interruption for 2000 years.  

One of the many excellent essays in the book is Worship: the Heart of Religion by Rev Hector Cameron.  Those of us who had the privilege of knowing Rev Cameron remember him with great fondness.  He preached a big God and a beautiful Saviour.  He held his principles gently and was a greatly loved preacher and pastor.  As with so many of his generation, he held his convictions with compassion.  Cameron reminds us in his brilliant chapter that the Westminster Divines believed that no worship is acceptable unless it is prescribed by holy scripture.  As reformed Christians we gently but firmly believe in Biblical principle not pragmatism.  The issue in worship is not what is acceptable but what is Biblical.  

In his essay, Rev Cameron reminds us that the Westminster Divines believed there were 6 parts or divisions belonging to public worship:

• Prayer

• The reading of the Word

• Sound preaching

• Conscionable listening to the Word

• The singing of Psalms

• The administration of the sacraments

Rev Cameron goes on to explain these parts of worship outlining the reformed, and until recently, the Free Church position.  

The Priority of the Word
As reformed Christians, we believe that the word of God should be central to our service of worship.  It is not man that is central in reformed worship but God and his word.  We do not believe in idols, vestments, gimmicks, smoke machines, puppet shows or clowns.  We believe that 'faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.'  The pulpit, not the praise band should be central in reformed churches.  The Bible not the drumkit give our service their power and focus.  That is why we, traditionally, have given such a central place to the public reading of the word of God.    As Cameron says:

'To give the Word such a status has practical implications for the style of religious service to be expected from churches which concur.  Presbyterians tend to be viewed as dour and their services dull.  There may well be Presbyterians who approximate to that description.  Usually, however, the criticism has been prompted by the plainness of the church buildings, the subdued complexion of the services, the strictly basic character of the ritual, the conspicuous lack of activity up the front (apart from the preacher) or the less than picturesque attire of the church officials.'

As Cameron emphasises, reformed worship is simple, spiritual, God centered and Biblically rich.  That is why we sing the Psalms, God's ordained hymn book of praise.  New Testament worship is the worship of the Synagogue not the Temple.  The early church could have easily adopted the Greek culture with its music style but it did not. Our worship is prescribed not by Hillsong and Bethel but by the Holy Spirit in the written word.  

We are living in confusing and bewildering times.  Many who love the Free Church feel lost and grieved at the changes and the innovations.  Let me leave you with Hector Cameron's words:

'The temptation is always there to seek to short-circuit this foundation principle of worship and to seek pragmatic solutions to questions concerning worship which are strictly theological; or to shelter unthinkingly behind the views held about worship (on one side or the other) by some good man of former days.  It is a better option to wrestle with the basic principles involved - every question being brought to the bar of Holy Scripture - and to apply the conclusions faithfully.'

The Silent Dog

'It was to him no confinement to keep to the 'old path', and, so far as he was concerned, he was quite disposed to allow the novelty hunters to walk in their new paths alone.' 

Dr John Kennedy at Rev James Begg's funeral.

When my late father, the Rev John J Murray, published his little booklet 'The Dog that Does not Bark' (republished in its entirety below) in 2017, he did not miss the mark. The booklet is based on the verse from Isaiah 56 v 10 'His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark: sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.' If ever there was a verse that sums up the Scottish church today surely it is this verse. The guard dog of orthodoxy in Scotland is not so much whimpering as on life support.

In ten short pages, my father diagnosed the problem of what happens when pragmatism seeps into the church and he called for a radical return to the truths and principles that had made the church in Scotland great - faithfulness to Scripture and preachers who were on fire for God.  It was a plea for godly leadership, a return to reformation principles and robust confessionalism.  As he analysed so well, the train of modernism has left the station and is gathering pace in the Scottish church.  

Re-reading his booklet 8 years on and looking around at the church in Scotland we can't help feeling that my fathers analysis was prophetic.  The pragmatism and seeker sensitive philosophy that so infected the Church of Scotland has become pervasive and corrosive across so many churches.  The inspiration of scripture is challenged, fundamental doctrines are openly questioned and cleverness has replaced godliness as our greatest asset. Image, tone and 'DNA' have become the guiding principles for change.  Worship has become a pale version of an acoustic Coldplay concert.  Preaching has more in common with a TED talk than a man on fire for God.  The broken spirit and the contrite heart are absent. The themes of sin, hell and judgement are as uncommon as the Scottish Psalter.  

The booklet is reproduced below in the hope that it will stir up a new generation to fight for the faith once delivered to the saints and not to squander the heritage handed down to us by our forefathers. 

Dr John Kennedy of Dingwall.

The Dog That Does Not Bark

Some of the most life-changing events in the history of the church have come about due to a stand being taken by a man at a critical juncture. In this year, 2017, we are commemorating the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on 31st October 1517, an event which lit the fires of the Protestant Reformation. Later the Reformer was summoned to the Diet at Worms where, on 18th April 1521, he declared: ‘My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against my conscience. I cannot do otherwise, here I stand, may God help me. Amen.’ The Edict of Worms, dated 8th May 1521, declared Luther an ‘outlaw’ together with his adherents. That is the kind of difference that one man can make!

Leadership in the Past

There are other examples in history of God using men to break the slumber of the church. We had Athanasius (c296-373) standing against the Arian heresy and almost single-handedly preserving the integrity of the Christian faith. We recall the heroic stand of Jan Hus (1373-1415) fighting against such great odds, and at the base of the fine statue of him in Prague today, we read ‘Great is the truth, and it prevails’. There is John Calvin (1509-1564) contending against the Libertines in Geneva and achieving for the church freedom from the state in ecclesiastical disciplinary matters, ‘the creator of the Protestant Church’ (B B Warfield). William Tyndale (1494-1536) was hounded to his death ‘simply because he wanted to reform the Church, to restore the gospel, and especially to give the people of England the Bible’. John Knox (1514–1572) was raised up to blow His Master’s trumpet and to rid the Church in Scotland of Roman superstition and idolatry.

George Whitefield (1714-1770), ‘the Revived Puritan’, burst in upon a dead church and a decadent London and saved England from a disaster akin to the French Revolution. C H Spurgeon (1834-1892) stood firm against the rising tide of unbelief, in an age of decline, and suffered scorn and ridicule against his person. J Gresham Machen (1881-1937), challenging the growing infidelity of Princeton Seminary and the Presbyterian Church in America, was suspended from the ministry and forbidden to defend himself. Dr D M Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) called the decadent Church of the mid-20th century back to a God-centred outlook. Time would fail us to tell of others. They were men of one mind – seeking to advance the glory of God and to maintain His truth. They dared to stand alone. They nailed their colours to the mast. They were men on fire and so they were instrumental in lighting others. ‘Your zeal hath provoked very many’ (2Cor 9.2).

In Scripture we find similar examples of bold faith. We see Elijah the Tishbite, coming from relative obscurity, heralding the Word of the God, ‘before whom I stand’, to confront Ahab and the nation that was steeped in idolatry. Baal worship must be cast out. The prophet ‘repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken down’, and the fire of the Lord fell that day and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal were killed (I Kings 17-18). Time and again in the history of Israel, God raised up a prophet to arouse the people and call them back to obedience. Even after his people had been chastened by their years of captivity in Babylon and had returned to Jerusalem, God raises up Haggai and Zechariah to call them to ‘Consider your ways’ (Haggai 1.5) and the people ‘obeyed the voice of the Lord their God’.

In the Book of Revelation, chapters 2 and 3, Christ comes, through a revelation to his servant John, to trumpet his displeasure with the evils tolerated in some of the Seven Churches of Asia and to call members of the congregations to repentance.

The Urgent Need Today

It is generally acknowledged that Western civilisation will collapse without a Christian revival. We are in the midst of a rapid spiritual and moral decline. The change that has come about in the last quarter of a century is staggering. We have seen the dismantling of the Judaeo-Christian heritage that underpins our society in Britain and the West. Our liberal elite are ready to give toleration to Muslims, Hindus and other false religions. We have gone beyond mere toleration. Islam is protected against criticism, while Christianity is exposed with impunity to insult and ridicule. The BBC editorial policy bans criticism of the Koran, but not the Bible. We find local authorities removing Christian symbols from buildings or suggesting that schools should not celebrate Christian festivals, lest this give offence to members of other religions. Gideon Bibles have been removed from students’ rooms in Universities, for it is considered wrong to favour one faith above others. Our inherited Christian culture is being pushed to the side-lines. If there is not a change we face a holocaust. What do we do in a post-Christian secularized culture?

There is no doubt that Western civilisation needs to rise up against the forces that oppose it. The question is: Where is the body with the moral fibre to undertake that fight? It should be the role of the Christian church, which is rightly designated as the ‘church militant’. Without the leadership of the church the nation cannot recover from its present descent into cultural degeneration and the neo-paganism that is its inevitable accompaniment. But is the church in the West in any condition to engage in such a warfare? She is in a weakened state. It has been said: ‘The supreme duty of the Church is to see that she offends not her God and her Saviour’. It is obvious that as a church and as a nation we have offended God. He has turned His countenance away from us. What the church needs to recover above everything else is the divine favour.

How did the people of God gain the victory in former times? In Psalm 44 we are reminded that ‘They got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.’ (v3). The Psalmist goes on to describe their present state; ‘But thou hast cast us off and put us to shame; and goest not forth with our armies.’ (v9). In such circumstances as the visitation of chastisements and the hiding of God’s face, the way back must be by humbling ourselves, by confessing our sins and by repentance. The trouble is that we are presently in a kind of deadlock.

It is in this situation that the church desperately needs leadership. It is sadly true that the church, in a state of backsliding and under judgment, is often fast asleep. We need those like the ‘men of Issachar who had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do’ (I Chron 12.32). We need men to stand up and be counted. The church needs to hear the voice of God and be aroused from its present slumber. Who is going to be such a voice to the church?

Fifty Years of Misguided Leadership 1967-2017

As we look back over the last fifty years of evangelicalism in the United Kingdom we are confronted with signs of misguided leadership that has contributed to the situation we are in today. We can look at examples in England and Scotland.

England

The Church of England

In April 1967 the first National Evangelical Anglican Congress met on the campus of Keele University, under the chairmanship of the Rev Dr John Stott. It marked a change in the attitude of evangelicals to the ecumenical movement. There was to be no more confrontation with non-evangelicals. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Michael Ramsey who had said that he expected to meet atheists in heaven, was invited to open the Keele Congress. John Stott hailed the Congress as ‘the coming of age of the current generation of evangelicals’. How mistaken in the light of subsequent developments!

One Anglican writer has said: ‘The Keele Conference turned out to be a two-headed monster. The intention of the founding fathers of Keele – that is, Jim Packer, Alec Motyer and others – was to campaign for the Church of England to return to its evangelical roots. But they handed the baton to younger evangelicals, and their aim was much less ambitious: to make sure that Evangelicalism was an accepted stream within the Church of England. Keele was wonderful: there were 1,000 people there, which in 1967 was a lot… But there were warning signs then that all was not well. There was an element of churcheyness beginning to creep in.’ (Rev Jonathan Fletcher, in an interview with Tim Thornborough, March 2008).

Non-conformist churches

Later that year, however, Dr Lloyd-Jones persuaded the congregation at Westminster Chapel to join the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC), first formed in 1922. Joining the FIEC automatically brought Westminster Chapel into membership of the British Evangelical Council (BEC), formed in 1953. The involvement of the Doctor and the congregation of Westminster Chapel raised the profile of the BEC. In October 1967 its annual conference, which had 40 in attendance in 1966, boasted a congregation of two thousand seven hundred people, with Dr Lloyd-Jones as one of the main speakers. Such an alliance was useful for a time but it was not going to lead to a church, Reformed in doctrine, worship and practice. The BEC certainly lost momentum, with less participation from the Doctor himself. Post 2000 a younger generation sought to bring the BEC ‘into the 21st century’ and re-named it with the title ‘Affinity’.

The Reformed Movement

One of the most encouraging developments in the 1960s was the spiritual hunger for the great Reformed truths that had been covered over for so long by ‘soul-destroying’ liberalism and a defective evangelicalism. At the forefront of satisfying this hunger were the publications of the Banner of Truth Trust. Many ministers were brought to a new understanding of the faith and this had an effect on congregations. In 1962 there was a move to have a conference for these ministers. The venue was the campus of Leicester University in July of that year. Three veterans of the faith who had welcomed and supported the new work of the Banner of Truth Trust, Rev Professor John Murray, Rev Kenneth A MacRae and Rev W J Grier, were the main speakers. All three were of a Reformed and confessional conviction.

Following the memorable 1962 Conference, discussion took place on a way forward for the churches. |To help the discussion on the nature of the church, various volumes were prepared: Historical Theology by William Cunningham, The Church of Christ by James Bannerman, as well as a composite volume, edited by Iain Murray, on The Reformation of the Church. These matters were at the forefront of further conferences held at Leicester in 1964 and 1965. The expectation was that there could be a move towards the goal of the 17th century Puritan ideal which was, as defined by Dr Packer, ‘to serve God in a Reformed church that would be instrumental in reforming the nation’, or , as the wording of the Solemn League and Covenant put it: ‘the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline and government, according to the Word of God and the example of the best Reformed churches.’

As it turned out no agreement could be reached as to the way forward. There were differences as to whether we should go forward on a minimal doctrinal statement or on a full-orbed confession, whether congregations should be independent or joined with others after the presbyterian fashion. Whatever may be said about the involvement of Dr J I Packer in Anglican politics, he had a high view of confessionalism and his parting of the ways with Dr Lloyd-Jones in 1970 meant a loss to England in that respect. The movement that had begun to recover the soteriology of the Reformed Faith was to stop short in the restoration of the ecclesiology. The expectation of having a new Reformed church order was frustrated. After a pause for another year, the Conference was resumed in 1967 with the emphasis on holiness of life and revival. It was a watershed in the Reformed recovery. Thankfully part of that vision was later recovered for England in the formation of the Presbyterian Church in England and Wales.

Scotland

The Church of Scotland

The resurgence of conservative evangelicalism within the Church of Scotland in the 1950s and 1960s led to the formation of the Crieff Fraternal in 1970. The Rev William Still (1911-1997) had exercised an influence on younger men, including the brothers James and George Philip and Eric Alexander. They formed a brotherhood which met three times a year at Crieff (Perthshire) for mutual fellowship and encouragement. It was reckoned that up to a sixth of the ministers in the Church of Scotland were involved in this at one time. The number of evangelical students coming forward to train for the ministry increased considerably, but their training was at the liberal Faculties of Divinity in the universities. However, what happened in the last quarter of the 20th century is one of the saddest episodes in the history of the Church in Scotland. The policy adopted by the evangelicals was similar to what happened in the Church of England. As long as they were allowed to continue working in their own congregations within the denomination they thought they would change things gradually church-wide by quiet infiltration. The whole concept was exposed by Dr Carl Trueman in an article posted on the internet (4/8/2006):

‘Church of Scotland evangelicals standing in the trajectory of Willie Still have done great service in maintaining faithful preaching within the Church, and in the Crieff Conference and the various gathering associated with Rutherford House, they have supervised the development of a great network of individuals and gatherings; but the tactic of going down this conference/congregational/informal connection path while allowing the church courts, committees and administration to be controlled virtually unchallenged, by liberals and neo-orthodox – on the grounds that it was a useful trade-off, if evangelicals could preach the truth unhindered within their own congregations – has proved utterly disastrous as a long-term strategy … The public silence of the older generation at critical moments in presbyteries and ministerial selection committees (there’s many a sad anecdote I could tell there) has proved far more damaging in undermining evangelicalism in the Church of Scotland than wonderful ventures like the Crieff Conference and Rutherford House have proved effective in building it up.

‘How many times, and in how many contexts, I wonder, did many a young minister hear the older generation of evangelicals telling him that “This is not the issue to fight on”, whether it be women’s ordination, doctrinal discipline or on the occasional frying of a young candidate at a presbytery interview on such an issue as opposition to homosexuality? As the ecclesiological and ecclesiastical silence of the older generation of Church of Scotland evangelicals (wonderful men though they were and are) sold the wide ecclesiastical pass with barely a whimper in the 70s and 80s, so I feel for former colleagues and students who now pay the price for the fact that the evangelical revival in the Church of Scotland concentrated on producing only congregational commanders and did not bring forth a single ecclesiastical leader of any stature or authority.’

It would have been good if the older generation of evangelicals in the Church of Scotland had heeded the words of Horatius Bonar in addressing the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in 1883: ‘Fellowship between faith and unbelief must sooner or later, be fatal to the former.’ As sure as Bonar’s words proved true in the last quarter of the 19th century, so they certainly came true in the last forty years in the Church of Scotland. The declension was painful to witness. The nadir for some was the sight of the Rev Dr Angus Morrison, reared in the strictest Presbyterian Church in Scotland, presiding over the General Assembly of 2015 and announcing the result of the vote that sealed the fate of many. The Assembly agreed by 309 votes to 182 to authorize congregations to depart from ‘the church’s historic and current position’ and call a minister in a same sex civil partnership. When Mr Morrison announced the tragic result of the vote he led the Assembly in reciting the Prayer of St Patrick: ‘Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me etc.’

The Free Church of Scotland

The Free Church of Scotland had an indication of troubles ahead by some differences within her ranks in the 1950s. A booklet, The Resurgence of Arminianism, by the Rev Kenneth A MacRae caused a stir and aroused opposition from some of the hierarchy on the Mound. Because the name of Kenneth MacRae was linked with the early Banner movement it seems as if this was one factor in the Reformed recovery not taking on in the Free Church of Scotland, as it did in churches in other parts of the UK. Instead there emerged from the 1960s onwards a type of minister who was more concerned to bring change into the Church than to recover our Reformed confessional heritage. Some gifted young preachers appeared and they were looked upon as the ‘saviours’ of the Free Church. The Church gained quite a reputation at home and abroad. Things appeared to be successful and there was a surge forward in church extension and mission in the 1970s and 1980s. But while Camps and Youth Conferences flourished, there was a departure from catechetical instruction and family religion. Children’s addresses became popular and young ones were withdrawn from the regular worship service for having a Sabbath School. The consequent haemorrhage from among covenant youth was quite significant.

Looking back over the 1970s and 1980s we can detect the presence of a similar element of pride that caused the decline in the 19th century Free Church. We failed to heed warning signs. Perhaps there was too much looking to men. John Livingstone speaking of the failure of the Church in his day said: ‘Our ministers were our glory, and I fear our idol, and the Lord hath stained the pride of our glory.’ The staining of our pride was seen in the 1990s and instead of dealing with the problem in a God-glorifying manner things were left to fester. On the question of leadership it was a matter of amazement to see younger ministers on the floor of the General Assembly, at meetings and in the press attacking more senior men. Those who called for more loyalty to creeds, confessions and ordination vows were even regarded as troublemakers. The then Editor of the Monthly Record spoke of such men in terms of, ‘Cast out the bondwoman and her son,’ (Monthly Record, October 1999, p236). Great rejoicing took place in January 2000 because the Free Church of Scotland had got rid of her ‘troublemakers’. A question now, some 20 years on, is: Who were the real troublers of Israel? (I Kings 18.17).

The Kind of Leadership Required

As the Lord has used the right leadership in the past to bring change in the church, so surely our earnest prayer must be that He will raise up men who will take a stand in the year 2017. How good it would be if such occurred in this year of the Martin Luther commemoration!

1. It must be men who practice what they preach

We have men who are hailed as ‘stars’ and international conference speakers whose own church life has been very mixed and confused. One such admitted recently to a gathering of ministers that he did not have a doctrine of the church. It is one thing to preach and write about what is regarded as scriptural, it is another thing to be putting it into practice. The fact is that truth is not fully believed unless it leads to practice. So much of what is taught and written is within the context of para church organisations and that does not help on the level of recovering a church that will be Reformed, in doctrine, worship and discipline, which is the crying need of the hour. What is the point of all the preaching and lecturing if we are not dealing with the matters that count. In this year of commemoration let us remember what Luther once said: ‘Where the battle rages is where the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.’

2. It must be men who are not in compromising situations

For too long we have been listening to men who purport to be leaders of ‘Reformed thinking’ but who remain in compromising situations. They have chosen convenience over confrontation. The defence of the truth demands confrontation. Too many of the so called leaders of today are influenced in some measure by the spirit of the age. In the published version of his address to the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in 1883, Horatius Bonar adds a note: ‘In what is called “public opinion” or the “spirit of the age” we have the utterance of unrenewed humanity. That utterance is not likely to be on the side of God; for it is written “the whole world lieth in wickedness”. Majorities have not often been trustworthy. The present is man’s day(I Cor 4.3); God’s day is coming; and when it comes it will undo many a human scheme, and disappoint many a fond hope, and reverse many a sanguine idea of modern enlightenment as to the self-regeneration of man and man’s earth,’ (Our Ministry, 1883, p18). If a man is in an alliance with deniers of the truth, what authority can he exercise? To the spiritually discerning he is as one of them. ‘In the day that thou stoodest on the other side … even thou wast as one of them,’ (Obad.v11). To quote Bonar again: ‘Truth is truth and error is error. There the case begins and ends. The blending of light and darkness can at the best only produce twilight, not noon … Truth never demands a vote. It refuses to go to the poll, or to acknowledge majorities,’ (Our Ministry, p97).

3. It must be men who are fully committed to the whole truth

It is the duty of the church and especially of her leaders to bear witness to the whole counsel of God. Many are satisfied to rest in a general evangelical creed for fear of being regarded as extreme. Scripture does not permit us to do that. The true faith is: ‘For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever. Amen,’ (Rom 11.36). The main purpose of creation and redemption is the glory of God. He will not give His glory to another. There is no place for a half-way position. A A Hodge put it clearly when he said: ‘The last issue must be between Atheism in its countless forms and Calvinism. The other systems will be crushed as the half-rotten ice between two great bergs,’ (Princetoniana by C A Salmond, Edinburgh, 1888, p100). A form of political correctness has come into the church. We have heard it said: How dare you criticize a brother knowing that he is one who has been purchased by the blood of Christ? Others have said: ‘This is not a hill to die on,’ or ‘Is it worth dividing over such an issue?’ One declared: ‘I think what you are doing is wrong, but it is not so significant that I think you are not within the same broad tent of Christian belief.’

4. It must be men who are willing to speak out

Carl Trueman asks, ‘What is the dog that doesn’t bark in your church?’ and goes on, ‘I am increasingly convinced that the measure of a theologian, or preacher, or church is to be found not so much in what is said as in what isn’t said,’ (Christianity, Liberalism and the New Evangelicalism, p27). In an article ‘The Importance of Not Being Nice’, Rev Neil Richards declared: ‘A desire to get away from a negative, confrontational image has sometimes led evangelicals to be comprehensive where they should be exclusive; irenic where they should be polemic, and diplomatic where they ought to be bold and unyielding. There are times when for the sake of the gospel and for the cause of truth Christians must be narrow and exclusive; fierce in their resistance to error and altogether earnest contenders for the faith once delivered to the saints,’ (Foundations, Journal of the BEC, 1989, p2).

It is interesting to speculate what the church would be like today if Luther had been prone to compromise. The pressure was heavy on him to tone down his teaching and soften his message. Sometimes division is fitting, even healthy, for the church. It is right for the true people of God to declare themselves. Publications with a cutting edge did much to stir up controversy in the 1950s and 1960s. Compromise is sometimes a worse evil than division. What an encouragement it would be to see men taking a stand. It is not often nowadays a man steps out of line. It was so recently with Rev Gavin Ashenden, a senior clergyman of the Church of England and Chaplain to Her Majesty the Queen who made a public stand against the reading of the Qur’an in St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow on 7th January 2017. He resigned from his duties and left the Church of England. Douglas Murray, author and analyst, wrote on the Gatestone Institute website: ‘Very occasionally – even in contemporary Britain – some good news arrives. No single piece of news has been more invigorating than the discovery that a member of the Church of England has found a vertebra.’

5. It must be men who are on fire

Where is the righteous Christian indignation? Zeal is in truth that grace which God seems to delight to honour. Johannes Oecolampadius (1482-1531), Swiss Reformer, said, ‘How much more would a few good and fervent men effect in the ministry than a multitude of lukewarm ones?’ John Knox rallied the Protestants to battle with a sermon on Psalm 80.4-8 preached at Stirling on 8th November 1559. ‘Under the burning words of the preacher each man became heroic.’ Of a similar sermon Randolph wrote to Cecil, ‘The voice of one man is able in one hour to put more life in us than five hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears.’ As Samuel Chadwick said: ‘Men ablaze are invincible. The stronghold of Satan is proof against everything but fire.’

The Call to Battle

C H Spurgeon declared: ‘We want again Luthers, Calvins, Bunyans, Whitefields, men fit to mark eras, whose names breathe terror in our foeman’s ears. We have dire need of such. When will they come to us? They are the gifts of Jesus Christ to the Church, and will come in due time,’ (The Early Years, 1962, 1,v).

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, courageous leader Basilea Schlink rebuked the silence of Christians after Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass (9 Nov 1938) when the Nazis set the synagogues on fire and vandalized Jewish places of business, also killing and beating some Jewish victims as well. ‘We are personally to blame. We all have to admit that if we, the entire Christian community, had stood up as one man on the streets and voiced our disapproval, rung the church bells, and somewhat boycotted the actions of the SS, the Devil’s vassals would probably not have been at such liberty to pursue their evil schemes. But we lacked that ardour of love,’ (Israel My Chosen People: A German Confession before God and the Jews).

What we are called to do is summed up by Abraham Kuyper: ‘When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith.’ There is so much discouragement in the evangelical church today. Bold leadership can give heart to a discouraged people. It may lead to a time of suffering but a storm is sometimes better than a dead calm. More men discovering a vertebra could be good news indeed in our troubled times.

‘His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark: sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.’ (Isaiah 56.10)

‘See, I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.’ (Jeremiah 1.11)

‘In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.’ (Obadiah 11)

‘For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?’ (I Corinthians 14.8)

‘And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.’ (Revelation 12.11)

Good News for the Poor - an interview with the Banner of Truth

This was an interview I recently gave at the Banner of Truth.  I chat a little about shinty, my background, how I came to Christ, my research and writing on Dr Thomas Guthrie and my work over the last 9 years with Safe Families.  If you want to know more about Safe Families and support the work please click on this Safe Families  

The Expulsive Power of a New Affection - Thomas Chalmers: Disruption Times (3)

This is the third article in a series on Thomas Chalmers.  You can read the first one here and the second one here.  The contents of these blog articles were originally delivered at the 1996 Historical Studies Conference and you can listen to the original address here.

 5. Edinburgh University - 1828-1843

Again, Chalmers was following a Moderate into the chair, and as in St. Andrews, his arrival was greeted with huge excitement.

His Theology

His lectures in theology were philosophic and began with the condition of man in sin, moving to the remedy that God had provided in Christ. The posthumous publication of these lectures in his Institutes of Theology, left some disappointed it must be said. More modern assessment has tended to denigrate Chalmers as a theologian, and even in cases to suggest that the organisation of his lectures in the Institutes.  As Stuart Brown says,

"reveals a mind struggling against doubts about some of the harsher doctrines of scholastic Calvinism and seeking a more personal form of Christianity - while at the same time concerned not to challenge openly the Calvinist orthodoxy of the Westminster Confession which he was bound by his professorial office to uphold. The experience of Erskine of Linlathen and Macleod Campbell had evidently made a profound impact on Chalmers, and his concern for the ecclesiastical organisation and Evangelical mission of the church discouraged him from experimenting in his lectures or in print with new theological ideas."

But there are at least two elements behind Chalmers' theological arrangement that help to explain it and refute the charge that he was a frustrated radical confined in the straitjacket of the church's confessional standards.

Firstly, the fact that his own mind had been drawn to the sovereignty of God long before he had ever come to accept Calvinistic doctrine. That remained strongly with him. And is that not at the root of Calvinism, indeed of Pauline theology, and a central feature of divine revelation itself?

Secondly, it should be remembered that Chalmers could only reach so far in his Moral Philosophy and Natural Theology course. The ethics in such disciplines brought him to the point of man's condition but could throw little light on how man was to be recovered. In his theological lectures Chalmers was anxious to make an immediate connection with where he had left off in his previous course. This was no hesitant Calvinism, nor an incipient Arminianism. It was the work of a thinker in revealed theology rather than a learned theologian like his successor William Cunningham. But it was the work of a man who, in preaching and lecturing, was concerned to set side by side the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. The one was not to be dealt with in any way that impaired the force of the other. His theological teaching sought always to convey the force of each.

Catholic Emancipation

By this time the movement for Catholic emancipation had taken on new momentum, and Chalmers had years earlier made known his support. Now he entered the campaign more fully. He had dealt with the subject at the opening of Edward Irving's new church in London in May 1827, asserting that the Protestant faith should not fear Catholic emancipation. Indeed, Chalmers believed that Protestantism had suffered as a result of excluding Roman Catholics from holding political office.

At a meeting in Edinburgh he gave an impassioned speech supporting emancipation. It was one of the most memorable speeches ever given in the city. In it Chalmers argued that the laws enforcing Protestantism had weakened it, making it to rely upon political support rather than on the truth itself. Moreover, Roman Catholics would be more amenable to the Gospel if emancipation should be established. On this latter point his expectations were groundless as history proves. However, his argument was not founded on that belief, but on the conviction that emancipation was a matter of justice.

Two weeks later, addressing the presbytery of Edinburgh, he again stressed the need for emancipation. He argued that there was no Scriptural reason why the state should not extend constitutional rights to all its citizens irrespective of religious persuasion, providing that did not threaten the state's endowment of the established religion. Chalmers would find that his efforts here would add to the determination of disapproving Dissenters to oppose him in his greater efforts for church extension.

Church Extension and Opposition

His main efforts were again now in fact for church extension. By the Assembly of 1834 the Evangelical Party were in the majority and Chalmers was placed as convener of the Committee on Church Accommodation. A huge effort followed on a national scale - appeals, collections, and the formation of associations. In 1835 he reported that £65,000 had been contributed in the year and 64 new churches were in process of building. Over £200,000 was collected within four years and 200 churches erected.

Chalmers himself was at the head of such singular success. Not only did his organisational skills lead the way but he was able also to fill many of the new pulpits with men who had been his own pupils, and they were men of outstanding qualities in cases like Robert Murray McCheyne, Dundee,

The problem was that of funding these new ministries. Seat rents would have to be kept low enough not to deter the poorest in these parishes, yet that would prove insufficient of itself to keep these ministers. An endowment would be needed, and an approach was made to the government, some of whom had expressed favour with the request. But just then Chalmers was thwarted. Opposition arose from Dissenters who saw in this church extension scheme a move on the part of the Establishment to limit their influence.

Chalmers was surprised and annoyed, but the opposition was stronger than he realised. Hugh Miller, through his editorship of The Witness gave him much support. Like Chalmers he considered the church to be the most important institution in the land, and that the people of Scotland needed to be brought to see what a large interest they had in it.

The Dissenters, or Separatists, had their roots in Scottish secession movements from 1733 onwards. Chalmers and the Evangelicals actually regarded Dissenting congregations as a benefit to the Establishment, but many Dissenters had voiced their opposition to the plans for Catholic emancipation fearing that this was the first step towards the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic church. Some Dissenters made the occasion one for attacking all Establishments thus elevating the Voluntary Principle.

Controversy raged for a whole decade. Chalmers kept a level-headed distance. But he did expound on occasions the policy he passionately believed in. Establishment was defendable, but only as it is an effective instrument of evangelism. The Voluntary Principle (where Church endowment is by voluntary contribution of the people) in his view simply wasn't adequate for the needs of a whole community. Voluntaries planted new churches on the principle of attraction, mainly drawing their own sympathisers. The Established church, when operating in Chalmers' vision of it, demanded provision for all the population. Its duty was to supply a Gospel ministry to everyone.

The Voluntaries, on the other hand, argued that no Established church could be truly "free", being under state authority. Chalmers utterly repudiated this. The church and state had coordinate but independent jurisdictions.

When the appeal was made to parliament for the endowment of the new extension charges the Dissenters responded with a memorial in opposition to it. In it they suggested that the main objective of Chalmers was to annihilate dissent under the guise of a scheme to supply religious education to those lacking it. This was an unworthy charge against him. The parliamentary commission set up to look into the question of endowment reported that both dissenting and established congregations in Glasgow and Edinburgh had spare Accommodation. Chalmers had been effectively blocked.

In the course of the crisis on church extension and its endowment, it became apparent that, in the opinion of the civil courts, the independence of the established church was not what it claimed. The Reform Bill of 1832 was felt by many, including Chalmers, to be against the moral and Christian well-being of the nation. It seemed that the new interest in secular politics was a threat to the establishment of the church, given that a shift in political power had placed influence in the hands not only of Dissenters but also Rationalists with hostility to all religion.

The Patronage Question

While the endowment of church extension was the crucible in which crisis developed, it was the question of patronage that provided the catalyst. To the 1832 General Assembly, of which Chalmers was Moderator, three synods and eight presbyteries presented overtures drawing attention to what they regarded as the evils of patronage. Chalmers believed the church already possessed powers to deal with misuse of patronage. In 1813 he had stated that the church might reject a patron's presentee if they judged him unsuitable. The church courts had the ultimate power to decide whether a presentee was suitable, taking account of all the details of the circumstances. The rights of the patron were not absolute, as indeed the 1712 Act of parliament restoring patronage had recognised, although not stated explicitly. Under Moderatism the call of a congregation had become denuded of its real significance, and the priority for Chalmers was the restoration of its significance and effect.

Chalmers himself preferred not to resort to legislation at first. This was not to be the case, however, and instead it was decided that the church should legislate for a uniformity of practice in congregational settlements.

Chalmers immediately suggested that, in such a case, the church should apply to the government to recognise this step, not because he held any doubts about the church's power to enact such legislation, but rather because he knew that others did, and he thought it better to clear the matter from all doubts and concerns from the outset. In this Chalmers deferred to what he regarded as the better judgement of Lord Moncrieff, although he was to regret afterwards that he had done so.

The legislation finally enacted was what came to be known as the Veto Act, passed by the General Assembly in 1834 under which, "the majority of the male heads of families, resident within the parish, being members of the congregation, and in full communion with the church...ought to be of conclusive effect in setting aside the presentee..."

The Ten Year Conflict

This was the marker for the beginning of the "Ten Years Conflict", which would culminate in the 1843 Disruption. The Veto was challenged almost at once. Proposed settlements in Lethendy and Auchterarder were vetoed only to be referred to the Court of Session who pronounced against the veto. The Lord President stated,

"That our Saviour is the temporal Head of the Kirk of Scotland, in any temporal, or legislative, or judicial sense, is a position that I can dignify by no other name than absurdity. The parliament is the temporal head of the Church, from whose acts, and from whose acts alone, it exists as the national Church, and from which alone it derives all its powers."

A complete impasse between the church and the civil courts was reached in early 1841. Marnoch, in the presbytery of Strathbogie, had seen the intrusion of John Edwards, on the signature of only one parishioner and against 261 signatures on the Veto against him.

The patron introduced another man, favourable to the people, but Edwards had taken matters to the Court of Session, who ordered the Presbytery to take Edwards on trials for ordination.

The Presbytery, with Moderates in the majority agreed, but the Commission of Assembly forbade proceeding. Seven ministers went ahead, to be suspended by the Commission, but they proceeded anyway to what was, as Dr. Hanna describes,

"an ordination unparalleled in the history of the Church, performed by a presbytery of suspended ministers, on the call of a single communicant, against the desire of the patron, in face of the strenuous opposition of a united congregation, in opposition to the express injunction of the Assembly, and at the sole bidding, and under the sole authority, of the Court of Session."

The church sent some of the ablest ministers, Chalmers included, to preach in Strathbogie. Interdicts were served copiously on ministers intending to preach there, only in most cases to be disregarded.

The effect of these manoeuvrings was to bring to the attention of more and more people throughout the country that every vestige of spiritual authority was being stripped from the church. With Chalmers prominent, negotiations were carried out with the government, but he was disliked by the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. His successor, Sir Robert Peel, proved a no more certain source of hope. Lord Aberdeen launched a bitter and unjustified attack on him. The Home Secretary was sure that the situation needed the strong arm of the State, and Lord Hope, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates was chief adviser to the Moderate Party.

Amid such upheaval and pressure, it is enlightening to find evidence of Chalmers' simple, strong and vital faith. He wrote in his Journal, June 21st, 1840,

"Have not yet recovered the shock of Lord Aberdeen's foul attack on me in the House of Lords. May I live henceforth in the perpetual sunshine of God's reconciled countenance. May I experience the sanctifying power of such a habit. Save me, save me, O God, from the untoward imaginations which disquiet and inflame me, warring against my soul, and engrossing my thoughts, to the utter exclusion of the things which make for holiness and peace...Hide me under the covert of thy wings, and let the menaces which overhang the country and the church pass away from them both."

Preparing for Disruption

But by now it was becoming increasingly likely that only a break with the State could preserve the spiritual independence of the church. For church extension endowment Chalmers had knocked at the door of the Whigs and gone from them to the Tories. Both had failed him. But he had experienced the generosity of the people. As the men of parliament failed him again now, Chalmers would need to go to the people again. He had not lost his vision of a church commensurate with the needs of the people, but now it would need to be without the advantages of Establishment. It was in this vein that Chalmers now looked ahead.

The Assembly of 1842 set aside interdicts served against Strathbogie commissioners taking their seats. For the first time in the conflict the Assembly declared, that "patronage is a grievance, has been attended with much injury to the cause of true religion in this Church and Kingdom, is the main cause of the difficulties in which the Church is at present involved and ought to be abolished."

The Assembly also adopted the document which was to become famous as the “Claim, Declaration and Protest anent the Encroachments of the Court of Session.” It was, as expected, dismissed by parliament, an action that provoked Robert Murray McCheyne to say of 7th March 1843 in his usual saintly candour,

"An eventful night this in the British Parliament. Once more King Jesus stands before an earthly tribunal, and they know him not."

At the Convocation of 470 ministers in November 1842 Chalmers played a leading role. He preached a powerful sermon on Psalm 112 verse 4, "Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness." It is worth quoting from it at some length. He said,

"The great lesson of this text is the connection which obtains between integrity of purpose and clearness of discernment, insomuch that a duteous conformity to what is right, is generally followed up by a ready and luminous discernment of what is true. It tells us that if we have but grace to do as we ought, we shall be made to see as we ought; or, in other words, that if right morally, we are in the highway of becoming right intellectually.

The great lesson of our text is, that if we purpose aright we shall be made to see aright, and that the integrity of our will shall be followed up by light in the understanding. God will establish the just. Commit then thy works to the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. It is he who, by the light of his Holy Spirit, makes good the connection between singleness of purpose and wisdom of conduct, and thus I understand the text, that he maketh wise the simple and giveth understanding to the simple."

From his experience of financing church extension, he also put forward a plan for financing a secession should it need to take place, and by this time few doubted that it would. 

The Decisive Moments

In the Assembly of 1843 the Non-Intrusionists were in the minority for the first time in 10 years. The Moderator Dr. Welsh, instead of constituting the Assembly, announced that he and others could not regard it as a free Assembly. He then read a protest setting out the reasons, handed it to the clerk, and then left, followed by Chalmers and over 190 ministers and elders, joined by many more at the Tanfield Hall where the first Assembly of the Church of Scotland Free was constituted. Chalmers was enthusiastically elected Moderator.

It is impossible to conclude that Chalmers himself had been persuaded by anything less than extraordinarily weighty considerations in severing his connection with the State, a connection that he had held to be so indispensable to the good of the church and its mission.

Chalmers and his allies were convinced that not only had the State's interference been an assault upon the prerogatives of Christ's Headship of his church, but also a stranglehold upon the church's enterprise and activity, a fatal blow to its spiritual life and power. Had even a little latitude been left to the church to give effect to the voice of the people, Chalmers would likely have retained the church-state connection. He did not take the strong view that other Disruption men took of the divine right of the question, but the absoluteness of the State's claims left him in no doubt that severance was needed and right in the circumstances.

Nor was it the case that Chalmers, after the Disruption had taken place, could no longer retain and pursue his vision of the church as God's instrument for the good of the nation. He believed that more good could be done by a disendowed church than by an established church controlled by the State. It was still this conviction that spurred him on in the remainder of his life to the building up and strengthening of the Free Church.

6. New College 1843-1847

Chalmers entered on his service in the Free Church's theological institution, known as the "New College", in November 1843, as Principal and Professor of Divinity. A vast amount of work was necessary in raising up the Free Church, in the provision of manses and schools, and in financing its ministers. All this needed to be virtually a replica of the Establishment they had left, relying on the generosity of the people. Chalmers committed himself mainly to his College lectures and to the Sustentation Fund. 

The Sustentation Fund

By the end of the first year the Sustentation Fund efforts had raised £68,700, enough to pay 600 ministers £100 each. But Chalmers was disappointed. For one thing he wanted to pay each minister another third of that figure.

Then, secondly, he knew that many more ministers were required for new congregations.

Thirdly, the Fund was not, as it stood, going to be sufficient to finance major mission enterprises to the spiritually destitute which Chalmers still dearly longed to see. That was his major disappointment with the Fund.

Chalmers tried to alter the "equal dividend" element that ensured each congregation received an equal benefit from the Fund. But some congregations were selfishly withholding funds while drawing their equal dividend. The brotherly spirit had been over calculated. Chalmers failed in his appeal. He remonstrated vehemently, sometimes with more than reasonable force. But it's easy to see why, when he saw that the Fund was not going to be the means of carrying out his urge of regenerating Scotland's spiritual wastelands.

Yet Chalmers was not finished. Perplexed, but not in despair. He had one more project in mind that would again apply his convictions and would show by God's blessing that they were vindicated. This was the West Port project.

The West Port

Building on his experiences in Glasgow, Chalmers chose this area of Edinburgh for his final evangelistic and social venture. An area of 2000 people, the West Port was one of the poorest and most crime-ridden of districts. Chalmers mapped it out into 20 districts, assigning one to a specific worker who was to visit the twenty families or so there every week. 

Chalmers' Journal shows that on this he spent as much energy in prayer as on any other work he had ever engaged in.

"O pour forth the spirit of generosity on my coadjutors and their friends in the work of cultivating the West Port of Edinburgh...reveal to me O God the right tactics, the right way and method of proceeding in the management of the affairs of the West Port. Oh! that I were able to pull down the strongholds of sin and of Satan that are there...Be my help and my adviser, O God, and tell me by thy word and Spirit what I ought to do."

Progress was not at first encouraging. Yet Chalmers encouraged his helpers with advice like the following,

“We are not worthy of having entered on the experiment if not capable of persevering with it under the discouragement it may be of many alternations, and for a time, if God so please to exercise our faith and patience, of reverse."

A missionary minister, William Tasker, was secured for the work and by the end of 1845 a congregation had been formed. The meetings increased and a building for 520 was built in early 1847, the greatest number of the attenders being from the local area. In April that year Chalmers administered the Lord's Supper to the congregation. He confessed to Tasker,

“I have got now the desire of my heart; God has indeed answered my prayer, and I could now lay down my head in peace and die."

It was exactly a month before his death. How it would have filled him with ecstatic joy to see revival spread across the country in 1860-61, in which new charges like the West Port were also embraced. Tasker wrote in 1861,

“At this moment I have nearly 60 candidates for communion, two thirds of whom date their serious impressions within the last three months. At present we have at least 60 persons who hold district prayer meetings in almost every close of the West Port."

The West Port proved to be a blueprint for other congregations to work from, most notably Chalmers' old charge in the Tron, Glasgow. Yet the goal of Chalmers was never fully realised by himself or after him. Population increased in the cities so rapidly that the church's resources failed to keep up with it. In addition, the famines of 1845 and 46 in the Highlands and in Ireland left thousands facing starvation and showed the inadequacies of both Church and State.

Chalmers was aghast at the laissez-faire attitude of the Whig government and the lack of response from private philanthropy, many preferring to conclude that the people in these areas had brought the famine on themselves and it would be better to let nature take its course and eradicate the population than support it artificially. Chalmers appealed to the government, wrote articles and called for reform.

In reality Chalmers was appealing against his own convictions that State handouts, without corresponding efforts of work on the part of the recipients, were not the answer to poverty. But this was a crisis of unusual proportions, and even had it not been, the failure in response to an ideal is not the same as the ideal itself being a failure.

The Final Days

Early in May 1847 Chalmers was in London, appearing before a Committee of the House of Commons, in relation to the complaints by the Free Church against those who had refused it sites for places of worship, including such powerful landowners as the Duke of Sutherland.

On 28th May he arrived back in Edinburgh, weary and needing rest. Friends and family were anxious, but he parried them. On Sunday 30th May he attended church services but was too tired to conduct family worship that evening, promising to do so in the morning. His housekeeper found him next morning in bed, propped up half sitting. He had died very soon after he had left them the previous evening.

His friend and colleague Thomas Guthrie, deeply affected, said,

"Men of his calibre are like mighty forest trees. We do not know their size till they are down."

Conclusion

Chalmers remains one of Scotland's greatest sons. He was the kind of rare individual who gives direction to a nation, and whose interest is not either in people's souls or in their temporal welfare, but in both.

While he influenced many in the middle and upper classes his heart was also set upon the lot of the poor, the uneducated, the ungodly. Church extension and endowment, educational reform, overseas missionary work, opposition to the Erastianism of the Court of Session, leadership of the body that resulted from the Disruption, were alike tasks for which he was eminently gifted.

His life story also gives the lie to the suggestion that it was the turn in theology from the late nineteenth century onwards that gave impetus to concern, denouncement of, and action about, social deprivations. To think of Liberal theology applying itself to the problems of Chalmers' time, with greater success than Chalmers had, is to forget that its near relative, Victorian Moderatism, had no moral energy at all to transform spiritual and physical slum conditions.

Chalmers himself described Moderate preaching as,

"like a winter's day, short, and clear, and cold; the brevity is good, the clarity is better, but the coldness is fatal. Moonlight preaching ripens no harvests."

Chalmers knew from his own experience, and amply demonstrated in his projects, that only the theology in which Christ's sufficiency and man's utter helplessness in the dilemma of sin, in which Holy Spirit regeneration, active faith in Christ, and a living hope are to the fore, can ever deliver the moral force needed to do good to a nation. 

But perhaps his greatest feature was that in the midst of having a horizon so broad as to include philosophy, physical science, social science, political economy, education, and theology, he retained the piety of a simple Christian.

The most suitable epitaph is in his own words,

"I want to grow in the faith in all its simplicity and self-abasement. I want self to be crucified, and the Saviour to be all in all with me...there is a wonderful charm in the righteousness of Christ becoming our by faith; it throws another moral atmosphere over the soul, and renews at the very time that it pacifies. I desire Christ to be all in all to me...O my God may the fear of thee supplant every other fear, and the love of thee subordinate every other love."

Fully Known and Fully Loved

Over the last weekend we have celebrated the Lords Supper.  This is always a special time in the experience of every believer.  We are reminded in a very visual way of Christ's sacrifice on the cross - how His body was broken and His blood shed.  In our own Free Church tradition there is often a reluctance to come forward to the Lord's Table.  While this can lead to some believers never publically professing, it has, certainly in the past, meant that people take this step seriously and conscientiously.  As John Kennedy said of Highland Christianity: 'They were grave not gloomy. They had the light cheerfulness of broken hearts.  They did not, like others take it for granted that they were "the Lord's," they could not, like others speak peace to themselves; but, unlike many others, they were dependent on the Lord for their hope and joy.' 

Kirsteen and I were delighted over the weekend that our oldest son was given the strength to profess Christ publically for the first time.  I have often wondered why James hasn't done this before but we never pushed him and hoped that in time, he would be given the strength.  Parenting is like a long distance endurance race.  Often you feel exhausted and alone.  Often you feel that you are having little impact.  Then occasionally you are reminded that all your prayers, and all the times you had family worship with squirming kids who were long past their bed time, all the late nights holding a little hand through a cot, all the bed time stories all count for something.  Of course we love our children regardless of whether they profess or not, but to see my own son seated at the Lords Table brought a tear to my eye today. The Lord has very graciously allowed James to overlook a very imperfect example from his father and look to the Lord who alone saves.

In his Memoirs Dr Thomas Guthrie talks about one of his parishioners, a weaver named 'James Dundas' who lived on the north-west boundary of the Arbirlot Parish.  Guthrie claims Dundas lived an isolated existence and had no society (beyond his wife) but that of God and nature.  Like others in rural Scotland at that time Dundas was known as a bit of a poet and known for 'lofty thoughts, and a singularly vivid imagination.' 

Guthrie relates a story about Dundas and a loss of assurance on a Communion Sabbath; 'He rose, bowed down by a sense of sin, in great distress of mind; he would go to the church that day, but being a man of a very tender conscience, he hesitated about going to the Lords table; deep was answering to deep at the noise of God's waterspouts, and all God's billows and waves were going over him; he was walking in darkness, and had no light.  In this state he proceeded to put himself in order for church, and while washing his hands, one by one, he heard a voice say, "Cannot I, in my blood, as easily wash your soul, as that water wash your hands?" "Now Minister," he said, in telling me this, "I do not say there was a real voice, yet I heard it very distinctly, word for word, as you now hear me.  I felt a load taken off my mind, and went to the Table and sat under Christ's shadow with great delight" (Memoir and Autobiography, 1896, p 115).   

We were reminded by Chris Davidson this morning from Psalm 139 of a God who relentlessly pursues sinners.  As deep as sin goes, grace goes deeper.  Where sin abounds grace much more abounds.  The Lord's Table reminds us of a God who has not just come to earth to save us, but a God who has gone to the cross.  At the Cross we see a Saviour who loves us more than we can ever imagine.  This morning Chris quoted Tim Keller who said on his book about marriage; 'To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretence, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.'  Surely this is what the Lord's Supper is all about - to be known in all our sin and yet loved by our Saviour is surely the greatest love of all.

 

New Life in Govan

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of speaking at the Pearce Institute in Govan, Glasgow.  Rev Norman Mackay asked me to speak a little on Thomas Guthrie and his pioneering work in the 1840's in Edinburgh.  It was a real privilege to relate some of what Guthrie did and hear about Norman's exciting vision for Govan.  We were speaking to a group who had come over from America and it was great to see their enthusiasm for Thomas Guthrie and his great legacy in Scotland.  Other speakers included Shirley Berry from the Findlay Family Network and Hugh McKenna from Chanan (Glasgow).  Both of these individuals are pioneering work amongst the most broken and vulnerable people in Glasgow.



The Pearce Institute, Govan, Glasgow

Driving around Govan and other inner city areas of Scotland it's hard not to feel sad and overwhelmed at the lack of hope that seems to permeate every aspect of life.  I was reminded of Guthrie when he came to Edinburgh in September 1837.  As Guthrie stood on George IV Bridge and stared down on the Cowgate these were his reflections;

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).

Guthrie talks about Thomas Chalmers coming 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).

Like many Victorian writers Guthrie could be a little 'flowery' in his writing but it is still an incredible story.  Chalmers and Guthrie contended against huge social problems but saw incredible success by the saving power of the gospel.  The same God who transformed Glasgow and Edinburgh in the 1840's can transform Scotland again.

Below is a short article by Norman.  Please pray for him and Alison as they take up this great work.  We need more church planters like Norman if we are to see Scotland won for Christ. 

Living for Eternity

Our family consists of myself (Norman) Alison my wife and two teenage boys Nathan (16) and Peter (14).

 

As a family we are heading up to what is known as the Govan G51 Church Plant. This is the name given to the latest church planting initiative taken by the Free Church of Scotland in response to the spiritual needs of Scotland’s housing estates. 

I was born in Govan and my family roots in Govan go back 3 generations. Two years ago God began to speak to me and gave me a burden to return to my old housing scheme with the gospel and so began the long process of testing this call by taking it through the courts of the Church all the way to the General Assembly of 2013.

As a result of the General Assembly’s embracing of this vision I stepped down from Falkirk Free Church in June 2013 to relocate in the Govan area of Glasgow and commence this new venture. 

When growing up in Govan I had no church connection at all and contributed nothing to the community I was raised in except the corroding influence of anti-social values. 

Returning with the Gospel will hopefully reverse so much of that.

Inspired By the Past

In the light of these plans I am quite thrilled to discover and read Andy’s Blog Ragged Theology for the simple reason I wholeheartedly agree with his passion for inspiring the church in the present by reigniting her awareness of the glories of her past.

The Senate Room located in the Free Church College building in Edinburgh is a fascinating place, because in that room there is a goldmine of information concerning the history and heritage of the Scottish church. 

Two years ago I was sitting in this room reading through old magazines produced during the formative years of the Free Church of Scotland and all the godly founders such as Thomas Chalmers, Thomas Guthrie and Alexander Duff. 

What was astonishing to me was the extent to which reaching out to the world beyond the church was the heartbeat of the church.  During the 1840's, 50's and 60's the Free Church planted thousands of churches around Scotland.  They were also involved in mission work around the globe and the establishment of schools across Scotland.

Indeed as early as 1850 the statement could be made concerning the Free Church of Scotland:

“Our church as a church is carrying out more fully than perhaps any other church on earth, all the schemes which are fitted to promote the edification of the body of Christ and the evangelisation of the world at home and abroad.”

 In his book “The Puritan Hope” Iain Murray writes:

“The next year [1843] came the historic Disruption of the Church of Scotland……451 ministers seceded to form the Free Church of Scotland with Thomas Chalmers as the first Moderator.  For the next few decades there can be little question that this body became the most missionary minded denomination in Britain”.

As I read through the lives and influences of Guthrie and Chalmers there was born within me a passionate desire to see God work in our day as he did during the era of these great men.

Looking to the past but living for the future 

It seems to me that the way forward for the Free Church of Scotland is to rediscover the glories of our past. This is suggested not with a view to living in the past, but rather with a view to emulating such passionate and missional vision in the present.

This should not seem particularly novel or radical, but rather faithful to our godly heritage.  

In the words of Thomas Chalmers:

“Those who love the honour of the Saviour will long that his kingdom will be extended till all the nations of the earth are brought under his one grand and universal monarchy.”

The procedures adopted by the Free Church of Scotland are codified in a document known as “The Blue Book”. Included therein is a list of questions put to ministers at their ordination. Among these is the following:

“Are not zeal for the honour of God, love to Jesus Christ and the desire of saving souls your great motives and chief inducements to enter into the function of the holy ministry?”

 

My prayer is to see many souls won in Govan.

New life in Govan

Our plans are to relocate in or around the Govan area, commence Christianity Explored Courses, utilise the Internet, launch a local mini-tabloid newspaper and engage in other forms of evangelism.

Networking with other groups such as Bethany Christian Trust is also an important part of our thinking.

Do pray that God will bless our endeavours to be part of a renewed witness of the Free Church in the Govan area and that our Lord Jesus will be glorified through all our endeavours as a family.

Each of us has only one life to live and it is often shorter that we imagine it will be. In a day of social climbing, material affluence, comfort zones it is healthy to allow spiritual giants of the past such as Guthrie and Chalmers to challenge the spiritual mediocrity of today.

You can keep up with our developments via the Free Church of Scotland Website where news is regularly posted and updated.

In Christ,


Norman, Alison, Nathan and Peter