Westminster Conference 2014

We had an enjoyable couple of days in Regent Hall, Oxford Street, on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

The theme was 'Authentic Calvinism' and one of the great games at the Westminster Conference is trying to see the link between the talks and the conference title, and indeed why one title is chosen one year rather than another.

Stephen Clark began with a good overview of Whitefield and Howell Harris, asking the question why such godly men seemed to be so unrealistic and out of touch with their humanity when it came to marriage. There is an ancient tradition of suspicion of sex and marriage in the Christian world, but the lack of self-awareness Harris and Whitefield showed and their insensitivity to the womenfolk in their lives spoke more of a super-spirituality in trying to reconcile their preaching ministries with the idea of marriage, than any deep rooted dualism or depreciation of marriage in general.

The discussion raised a number of interesting issues about whether there was a creation/redemption dualism in the 18th century. It certainly seems as if there was. The rationalism of the late 17th and the 18th century led to a reaction by the pietists, and ever since evangelicals have been prone to denigrate the mind, the body and culture in relation to the spirit. But the pendulum can swing in the other direction. We rarely seem to have recovered the harmony that the Reformers and Puritans generally seem to have displayed, better than their successors in the 18th Century.

The subject deserves to be discussed but perhaps a firmer historical or theological basis than the marriages of two unique figures (one of whom at least was probably mentally imbalanced at times) would be needed to ground the discussion.

Adrian Brake gave an excellent presentation on the life and legacy of Thomas Charles of Bala. Geoff Thomas chaired the discussion beautifully, asking a number men to give personal views on how we may in practice combine the life of the mind with a devotional heart. This changed the ethos of the day - we became more serious, and more practical.

Andrew Davies closed the day with a warm-hearted and erudite overview of the international nature of Calvinistic Methodism.

Wednesday began with Canadian Mark Jones speaking on antinomianism. His knowledge of the 17th century debates is vast and he has written a well regarded book on the subject. But his presentation was rather piecemeal and even very intelligent men who spoke to me afterwards had found him hard to follow. It would have been more satisfying to have had a cogent presentation of the subject; as someone said to me, his style would have been great for a seminar, but not the best for a conference like this.

But the discussion was helpful, and we managed to get it onto modern day problems.

Robert Strivens helpfully outlined the life and legacy of Richard Baxter, and we had a lively discussion as to what this legacy was. Robert made the point that his dodgy theology particularly on justification (and one might say the atonement too) did not seem to be very evident in his best known pastoral and evangelistic works -Call to the Unconverted and Saints Everlasting Rest.

Finally Andrew Young gave a good overview of the international ministry of John Knox - matching up with the international nature of Calvinistic Methodism (there, see, I got the connection).

The discussions as always contained many good points and some good questions, but rarely if ever soared to the level of a debate. But it was all heartwarming and edifying, and good to see old friends (and boy, are we all getting old together - not only grey heads, but the same grey heads, come to the Westminster Conference, which is even more worrying).

Thanks to the committee for putting the programme together - an enjoyable two days near lots of good coffee shops.

Seeking the Lord – RRF 2014

Few conferences are as unfashionable as the Reformation and Revival Fellowship, and few are as relevant.

We believe in prayer and preaching, and that is what we get.

The messages at Swanwick in November can be summarised under a few grace-filled imperatives.

Look: Graham Hind, MD of Evangelical Press, led us to Hebrews for the opening sermon, exhorting us warmly to look to Jesus as the full and final revelation of God, our present help and our future hope.

Seek: Kenneth Stewart of Glasgow Reformed Presbyterian Church wonderfully applied the life of Asa focusing on ‘The Lord is with you while you are with him’ (2 Chron 15:2). We were reminded that though he initiates the covenant relationship, God in his dealings with us is responsive – if we seek him he will be found by us but if we forsake him he will forsake us (though not losing our salvation). This is not legalism but the normal covenantal relationship, based on and sustained by grace but calling forth wholehearted seeking.

Pray: the heart of seeking. It is labour; persist in it; wait in it.

Contend: Derek Cleave took us to Jude. We are to contend earnestly, by living the faith as well as watching for error. Most people slide into error not because they intend to, but through laziness and carelessness in handling what they read and hear. Like Asa, Noah, David and Gideon we can be most likely to fall when we are comfortable, perhaps with major battles fought and won behind us.

This was a delightful conference, rich in ministry and fellowship. These are all messages for the church today.

For full addresses or CDs visit www.reformation and revival.org. or contact Jim Lawson 01642 648512.

Next year (16-18 November) the main speakers will be Joel Beeke and Geoff Thomas; please contact George McIntyre for booking: 01564 772966; geomac@talktalk.net .

The Tower of London and the Crown Jewels

On Thursday we went on a family trip to the Tower of London. We saw the poppies of course but we spent most of the day in the Tower itself. The crowds were enormous - it took over an hour in the queue to see the Crown Jewels alone. I slightly surprise myself to say that I thought it was worth it. They were magnificent - and an official description of them is given below as I would probably get it wrong.

The religious connotations are interesting - the three swords of temporal justice, spiritual justice and mercy, for example; the orb representing Christ's rule over the earth; the two sceptres, one with the cross to represent temporal power, the other with the dove to represent equity and mercy; the St Edward's crown used for the coronation, the Imperial State crown used on other occasions, the Cullinan diamonds (the largest in the sceptre, the second in the Imperial state crown), the Koh i Nur in the late Queen Mother's crown. And all the gold plate used for the anointing and the eucharist.

We also went to see the White Tower, and walked around the walls. Then we walked to the Monument and climbed its 311 steps. Then a no. 15 bus up Fleet Street and the Strand and a meal in Northumberland Ave. Then a walk through Leicester Square to the M&M shop, and Piccadilly, and finally a quick photo by Harry Potter's Platform 9 and 3/4 on King's Cross Station.
A good day.


"The Crown Jewels, which are part of the Royal Collection, are displayed to millions of visitors every year, guarded by Yeomen Warders (‘Beefeaters’) in the Tower of London. The Jewel House at the Tower has been used for the secure storage of the precious ceremonial objects, commonly known as the ‘Crown Jewels’, since the early 14th century, when Westminster Abbey (the alternative store) was found to be unsafe. Although attempts have been made to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower, notably by Colonel Blood in 1671, none have succeeded. The present display of the Crown Jewels was opened by Her Majesty The Queen in 1994.

At the heart of the Crown Jewels display are the ceremonial and symbolic objects associated with the coronations of English Kings and Queens. These are usually referred to as the Regalia. They include the crowns of Sovereigns, Consorts and Princes of Wales, both past and present, sceptres, orbs, rings, swords, spurs, bracelets and robes, all of which have a specific part to play in the ritual of the English coronation service. Much of the Regalia is in use to the present day, a feature which distinguishes the English Regalia from most of its European counterparts

The oldest piece of the Regalia is the 12th century gold Anointing Spoon, used to anoint the Sovereign with holy oil. Apart from the three steel coronation swords (the Swords of Temporal Justice, of Spiritual Justice and of Mercy), this is the only piece that survived the destruction of the pre-Civil War Regalia in 1649-50. This destruction was ordered by Oliver Cromwell, following the execution of King Charles I in 1649. The gold objects, including pieces probably dating back to the time of Edward the Confessor in the eleventh century, were sent to the Mint for melting down, and the gemstones were removed from their settings and sold. Cromwell was determined that these potent symbols of royalty and kingship should be completely eradicated.

At the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, King Charles II ordered new Regalia, modelled on the forms of the lost Regalia used by his father. This new set of Regalia was completed for Charles II’s coronation on St George’s Day (23 April 1661) and cost the enormous sum of almost £13,000.

The principal piece of the Regalia is St Edward’s Crown, with which the new Sovereign is actually crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury during the coronation ceremony. This is made of gold and decorated with precious and semi-precious stones, including sapphires, tourmalines, amethysts, topazes and citrines, and weighs a substantial 2.23kg. It was last used to crown Queen Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953.

The most famous of the crowns is the Imperial State Crown. This was re-made for the coronation of The Queen’s father, King George VI, in 1937 and is set with over 3,000 gems. The stones were all transferred from the old Imperial Crown, which had been re-made on a number of occasions since the 17th century, most recently for Queen Victoria in 1838. This crown incorporates many famous gemstones, including the diamond known as the Second Star of Africa (the second largest stone cut from the celebrated Cullinan Diamond), the Black Prince’s Ruby, the Stuart Sapphire, St Edward’s Sapphire and Queen Elizabeth’s Pearls. The Sovereign traditionally wears the Imperial State Crown at the conclusion of the coronation service, when leaving Westminster Abbey. It is also worn for the State Opening of Parliament.

The other principal pieces of the Regalia used during the coronation, all dating from 1661, are the Ampulla, the gold flask in the form of an eagle which contains the holy oil used for the Anointing; the Sovereign’s Orb, representing Christ’s dominion over the world; and the two sceptres, The Sovereign’s Sceptre with cross, now set with the First Star of Africa, representing the monarch’s temporal power under God and the Sceptre with Dove, representing equity and mercy. The Spurs, which are not worn, are there to represent knightly chivalry and the Armills or bracelets, represent sincerity and wisdom. A new pair of gold Armills was presented to The Queen by the Commonwealth for the 1953 coronation.

During the coronation service, following the Anointing, the Sovereign is invested with the Imperial Mantle of cloth-of-gold, woven with the National Emblems, and when invested, places on the altar the elaborately jewelled Sword of Offering. Both of these were made for George IV’s coronation in 1821.

Among the famous gem-stones on display at the Tower is the First Star of Africa, now mounted at the top of the Sovereign’s Sceptre. This is the largest flawless cut diamond in the world and weighs 530 carats. This and the Second Star of Africa of 317 carats (in the Imperial State Crown) were cut from the celebrated Cullinan Diamond, the largest diamond ever found. Weighing over 3,000 carats, the Cullinan was given to King Edward VII by the Government of the Transvaal (South Africa) in 1907.

The legendary Koh-i-Nur (‘Mountain of Light’) diamond, presented to Queen Victoria in 1850, is now set in the platinum crown made for the late Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother for the 1937 coronation. This diamond, which came from the Treasury at Lahore in the Punjab, may have belonged to the early Mughal emperors before passing eventually to Duleep Singh. It was re-cut for Queen Victoria in 1852 and now weighs 106 carats. Traditionally the Koh-i-Nur is only worn by a queen or queen consort: it is said to bring bad luck to any man who wears it.

Among the other notable jewels on display is Queen Victoria’s small diamond crown, made for her in 1870 to wear as a light and comfortable alternative to the much heavier Imperial State Crown. The Imperial Crown of India, set with around 6,000 diamonds and magnificent rubies and emeralds, was made for King George V to wear at the Delhi Coronation Durbar in 1911. It has never been worn since.

In addition to the new Regalia, Charles II acquired a large quantity of new gold altar and banqueting plate, costing a further £18,000. A selection of this plate, including the Maundy Dish, still used by the Sovereign on Maundy Thursday, the St George’s Salts, formerly used at coronation banquets, and the Charles II font formerly used for royal christenings, together with the Lily Font, which is in current use and was made for the baptism of Queen Victoria’s first child, is also on view in the Jewel House".

The New Testament and the People of God

This volume, one of the early ones in Tom Wright's corpus on NT theology, was published in 1992. I have had a copy on my shelf for almost as long. This month I read it (mostly in Nigeria, during free afternoons whilst in Anyigba to teach at the seminary of the Christian Evangelical Fellowship of Nigeria and then preach at their annual Convention).

The book has about 150 pages of prolegomena on literature, theology and history and how they need to be studied to produce NT theology; 140 pages at the end on the church in the first century; and 200 pages or so in the middle on Second Temple Judaism (2TJ).

It is a good read. It helps to see Christianity in the light of the Judaism of the period (allowing for not taking Wright's interpretation of 2TJ uncritically) and this is certainly an area where I have done too little study in the past.

When reading Wright, one would really think that Jews of the era were just potential Christians waiting to hear of Christ, so friendly is his presentation of 2TJ. In reading the NT, one is in a different atmosphere altogether, whether in the letters of Paul or the gospels. But - it is interesting to note that when, in dealing with the areas of continuity between Judaism and Christianity, Wright seems to be drawing much more on the Old Testament - on which I am sure most of us would have little disagreement. 2TJ seems to feature rather less in this section, as if the degree of continuity between it and Christianity is not so marked.

Wright just hints at what will in later volumes become his re-interpretation of Paul and particularly the doctrine of justification.

Two things are particularly irritating about Wright's polemics against traditional evangelicalism: his setting up caricatures of his opponents, 'straw men', particularly that of the evangelical who apparently never does any serious study; and his little jibes here and there about conservative evangelicals who are (for example) 'more familiar with the Pelagian controversy than with 2TJ'. I have rarely met any evangelicals familiar with the Pelagian controversy. But the point Wright is trying to make of course is the hoary one about interpreting Paul through Lutheran or Augustinian lenses.

All I can say is that looking at the NT through Luther's lenses still gives a much truer and more consistent interpretation of the Scriptures than that informed by the Judaism of which Wright seems so enamoured.

What does 'Reformed' mean?

(This article, rather long for a blog, first appeared in slightly varied form in 'Reformation Today' last May, and was the basis of an address (at short notice!) to the Yorkshire Reformed Fraternal in September. I also used it in Argentina in August 2013 and I think it appeared on the Banner of Truth online journal. It may raise my audience to three figures if I put it here too!).



Key words for understanding Reformed Christians are radical and consistent.

1. We are radical because we trace biblical truths to their depths. We are not content with superficial definitions. ‘God’ must be explored for all he is worth. He is not an object of scientific study, but in his Word he has given us so much information about himself that not to analyse it and synthesise it as rigorously as possible would be an affront to his condescension and kindness. In what follows I shall indicate other areas where the Reformed Christian is radical. We want to get to the depths of ourselves; the depths of the way of salvation; the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

In practice, we want to live our faith. Reformed Christians have therefore been at the forefront of battles for liberty of conscience and have not infrequently been a revolutionary force in the church and the world. Any idea of ‘Reformed’ that sees it as a synonym for staid, boring and predictable is a travesty.

2. We are consistent in that we work the truths of Scripture through to their logical conclusions as far as possible. In this sense we are heirs of Calvin who was one of the most penetrating and systematic theologians of all time. We believe the Bible is the revealed Word of God and therefore has an internal consistency which does not have to be forced but is to be discovered. However, if there are two apparently opposing or apparently contradictory truths revealed in Scripture – the most obvious one being the sovereignty of God and the free will and responsibility of man – we leave them to stand together and do not force them into a false harmony. In this we are like Calvin himself who was always insistent on allowing Scripture to have the last word even if he could not make logical sense of it. In this, too, we are unlike some other traditions, such as hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism, which make the mistake of putting logic above Scripture.

Let us now look at some Reformed distinctives. It can be seen that while we share the ‘big issues’ with other evangelicals, our radicalism and consistency contribute to making Reformed Christianity the clearest and strongest formulation of Christianity that the church has yet attained.

1. Scripture.

Conviction of its authority is shared with others but we have a further emphasis on its:

a. necessity. We are in darkness without God’s Word to us. ‘By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God…’(Heb 11:3). Reformed Christians begin with a conviction of human spiritual blindness. This is a consequence of our greater insistence on total depravity.

b. sufficiency. We need nothing other than Scripture. This provides a bastion against the temptation of mixing Scripture with philosophy, Roman Catholic ‘tradition’ or modern claims to ‘prophecy today’.

c. internal consistency. As stated above, Reformed Christians have been foremost in systematising Scripture. We develop doctrines and from them Confessions. The great confessions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are of course Reformed. These provide great strength for Christian living derived from doctrine.

i. Presupposed is the unity of Scripture as God’s Word. ‘Men spoke from God’ (2 Peter 1:21) and acted feely in so doing, but God superintended their thinking and speaking so that what he wanted written they wrote. Can we grasp this ‘dual working’ with our minds? No, but we believe it and it is entirely rational. As a result the Bible is a unity, the work of one Mind.

ii. Presupposed too is the importance of the human mind as a receiver of revelation and the way reason can grasp revelation. God spoke and the universe came into being. He made man and woman in his image to respond to him, to glorify him and to enjoy him forever. Integral to this is the human mind. By it we receive God’s Word, we speak back to him (in prayer) and we speak God’s Word to others.

iii. The importance of the mind in living the Christian life cannot be over-emphasised - truth comes to us through the mind in conversion and as we love and understand the Word of God so we will grow as Christians.

iv. But Calvinists insist that the mind must always be subordinate to the Word and when we cannot understand we must not distort or ignore Scripture to fit our systems.

v. Typical of the Calvinist sense of the unity of Scripture is the development of the theology of covenant as the unifying structure of Scripture, and of God’s self-revelation in the twin doctrines of Law and Gospel. Law and gospel comprise a conversation throughout Scripture between God’s demand and his provision, between his righteousness and his grace.

vi. Covenant, Law and Gospel, as all else in Scripture, are fulfilled and culminate in Christ.

d. dependence for its reception on the witness of the Spirit - who confirms our faith in Scripture as God’s Word.

2. The Supremacy of God in all things.

The Reformed Christian is ‘God entranced’. We see the glory of God as the goal of all of life and eternity and God’s purpose in all his work. It is of immense and ultimate comfort to the believer that God is sovereign in creation and providence (Gen 50:19,20; Isa. 46:9-11) and in salvation (Acts 2:23, 4:28; John 6:37, Jonah 2:9; Eph.1:3-11).

3. The utter dependence of man in all things.

- though not merely passive or inactive. Although we have a deep conviction of man as totally depraved and work this out more consistently than other evangelical traditions, we do not have a low view of man as created. He is glorious, created as the summit of creation and his glory makes his fall only the more tragic and culpable.
In creation, God made us; in Providence, he governs us; in salvation, he saves us, for we are spiritually dead.

A combination of these views of God and man lead to the ‘Five Points’ of Calvinism which is not by any means all there is to Reformed Christianity, but Reformed Christianity is certainly not less: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election. Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance of the Saints.

The same combination of views gives us a profound dependence on the Holy Spirit in living the Christian life. Calvin was called the ‘theologian of the Holy Spirit’.

What is not so commonly understood about Reformed Christians is that they also hold

4. A high view of the church.

It is the body of Christ - Eph. 5:25-27. If we hold Christ as precious, the church must be precious. We are drawn together by Christ. We regard our assembling together, too, as precious.

a. The marks of the church are: preaching (Christ exercising his prophetic office among us); the sacraments (Christ exercising his priestly office) and discipline (Christ the King among us).

b. Our worship is to be governed by God’s word. The ‘regulative’ principle is that only what is prescribed in God’s Word or clearly implied in it, is acceptable in worship services. This liberating principle frees the church from human laws, for example the tyranny of Roman rites, or of human imagination such as in modern man-centred worship, or entertainment style worship.

So Reformed Worship will usually consist of: the Word of God read and preached (1 Tim 4:13; Acts 2:42; 2 Tim 4:2); prayer (1 Tim 2:1; Acts 2:43); praise (Eph 5:19; Col 3:16; Mt. 26:30); the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:23-26).

The regulative principle is biblically based on the necessity of revelation to enable us to approach God and the sufficiency of Scripture for approaching him. In particular we look at the Second Commandment with its emphasis on spiritual worship, and at Leviticus 10:1-3 where Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, were severely punished for offering to God not what had been forbidden but simply what had not been commanded. See also Deut. 4:12-15; 23-24.

c. Worship is also to be rational, simple and Christ centred.

d. The task of the church in relation to the world is to obey the great commission – to go into the world and make disciples of all nations. It is in this way more than any other that we obey the ‘cultural mandate’ of Genesis 1. Historically Reformed Christians have been in the forefront of experiencing and praying for revival as the great means by which God advances his kingdom.

5. The Christian Life.

a. It begins with evangelical experience. The experience of Isaiah (6:1-3) though in itself unique also provides a great model for conversion – conviction of sin, cleansing by the sacrifice of Christ and glad response to his call to serve him.

b. It is lived ‘before God’ - coram Deo - a motto of the Puritans. Reformed Christians will have a grateful and positive attitude to God’s law – seeing it not as an imposition or as something from which the gospel and the Spirit release us, but as the form of life which we are now to live - ‘O how I love your law’ – Ps 119:97. We have been delivered from the bondage of law-breaking to enjoy the freedom of law-keeping. That includes the Fourth Commandment. Kevin DeYoung acknowledges the place of a high view of God's law in Reformed thinking when he says 'I support the third use of the law seeing as how this Calvinist understanding of the law is enshrined in every Reformed confession and catechism.' It is difficult to see how 'New Covenant Theology' can properly be called 'Reformed'.

c. It embraces all of life: home, politics, work, studies, culture, arts, sciences. The ‘cultural mandate’ (Gen 1:27) still applies to man. This means witnessing, in word and life, to Christ’s Lordship over all things. Reformed Christianity engages with all creation.

i. The Renaissance and Reformation of the sixteenth century opened up scientific discovery and Calvinism in particular made the gospel a real force in the world. In For the Glory of God, American historian Rodney Stark argues that though one cannot say that the rise of modern science in the seventeenth century was a particularly Protestant movement, it is indisputable that it emerged in western Europe and nowhere else at that time. It can be persuasively argued that a faith that presented God as rational, responsive, dependable and omnipotent and the universe as his personal creation thus having a rational and stable structure awaiting human comprehension, was the framework that made science possible. See A.N. Whitehead, Science and the modern world (1925). The emphasis is again on reason ‘thinking God’s thoughts after him’. In no way has Christianity been an enemy of science. Calvin wrote, for example, ‘…there is need of art and of more exacting toil in order to investigate the motion of the stars, to determine their assigned stations, to measure their intervals, to note their properties’ (I.5.2) and again ‘If we regard the Spirit of God a the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself nor despise it wherever it appear…’ (II.2.16).
God’s laws undergird everything. They give consistency, order, reliability, predictability. Nietsche gave a back-handed compliment to Christianity when he said ‘I fear we have not yet thrown off belief in God for we still trust grammar’.

ii. The Calvinist principle of ‘vocation’ gives honour to every human enterprise however humble because God called you to it and you do it for his glory. ‘Vocation’ is not a preserve of the clergy.

Christians are being renewed in the image of God and should be foremost in subduing creation to the rule of Christ. We do so as we live obediently to his will in our calling.

iii. The Christian life centres on seeking after God and communion with him, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. John Owen’s Communion with God and The Glory of Christ reflect the dynamic of the spiritual life. Again, we are wholly dependent on the Spirit in this.

iv. There is a proper perspective on life - our ‘short and uncertain pilgrimage’ to the ‘city that has foundations’ yet we are to seek ‘the welfare of the city’ on earth to which God has called us.

v. We are longing for Christ’s return and believe in revival. Whatever our framework for the last things (and Reformed Christians would differ: most would be ‘amillenialist’ or ‘postmillenialist’ and have confidence in the flourishing of the gospel in this age even if we do not all hold the optimistic views of many of the Puritans or Jonathan Edwards) we look to Christ’s return for the ultimate demonstration of his glory, our own glorification with him, and the completion of his work of redemption.

vi. The Reformed Christian is always reforming. ‘Perfecting holiness out of fear of the Lord’; pursuing that ‘holiness without which no-one will see God’ (2 Cor 7:1; Heb. 12:14).

The War that Ended Peace

Margaret MacMillan's prize-winning volume on the causes of the First World War is a must-read for anyone interested in that complex but elusive subject; in modern history generally; and in how wars start - a nervous subject given President Putin's antics in the Ukraine.

Professor Macmillan begins in Louvain, Belgium, and the destruction in the early days of the war of the magnificent library by the advancing Germans. There follows a survey of Europe in 1900 by way of describing the exhibitions of the various countries at the Paris Exposition of that year.

Then begins the history proper as each of the big players is examined in turn from about the mid 19th century - Great Britain and 'splendid isolation'; 'Woe to the country that has a child for a king' (Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II); Dreadnoughts and -the Anglo-German rivalry; the Entente Cordiale (France and Britain); Britain's relationship with Russia and how the Triple Entente was formed to match the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; the creaky empire of the Habsburgs - (Austria-Hunagary); the Balkans including Serbia and Bulgaria - and the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

After that - 'What were they thinking?' What was the mindset of the nations in the early years of the last century? What were the philosophies that motivated people? Social Darwinism gets a few mentions as a powerful influence - struggle is inevitable and the fittest will survive.

Then comes a description of the decade or two leading up to the war - crises in the Balkans and Morocco. War seemed very close more than once, and the climb-downs and compromises left a fragile and volatile legacy, a powder keg that only needed one crisis too many to set it off. Sarajevo and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the spark that ignited that keg.

What were the factors leading to war? Militarism, especially of Germany; imperialism as the Empires tried to protect their interests around the world and in Europe, or in the case of Russia and Germany, felt they needed to catch up with the older Empires; nationalism as subject peoples sought liberty. There was pride and the upholding of honour. There was sheer stupidity, stubbornness and incompetence - Macmillan leavens her history with delightful and often hilarious pen-portraits of many of the key politicians of the time. The crises in the Balkans and Morocco in the decade before 1914 slowly edged the world towards war so that before 1914 many observers were saying that war at some point soon was inevitable.

Macmillan concludes: 'Was Wilhelm II to blame for the Great War? Was Tirpitz (the German naval chief who began the naval race with Britain)? Grey (the English Foreign Secretary who, it may be argued, had he been more decisive and made it clear, earlier, to Germany that Britain would support France wholeheartedly if Germany attacked, may have averted the crisis)? Moltke (the German army chief)? Berchtold (Austria-Hungary's Foreign Minister)? Poincare of France? Or was no-one to blame? Should we look instead at institutions or ideas? General staffs with too much power, absolute governments, Social Darwinism, the cult of the offensive, nationalism? There are so many questions and as many answers again. Perhaps the most we can hope for is to understand as best we can those individuals, who had to make the choices between war and peace, and their strengths and weaknesses, their loves, hatreds and biases….And if we want to point fingers from the 21st Century we can accuse those who took Europe into war of two things. First, a failure of imagination in not seeing how destructive such a conflict would be and second, their lack of courage to stand up to those who said there was no choice left but to go to war. There are always choices'.

And that must be true. Mustn't it?

Abraham at the John Owen Centre

Monday and Tuesday of this week saw about 60 men and one lady meet at Kensit Evangelical Church for the annual John Owen Centre Conference. This was the third in a series on biblical characters - Adam, Noah and now Abraham.

First off was Philip Eveson with a wide-ranging overview of Abraham in Genesis which helpfully set out the ground to be covered.

David Green then focused closely on the theme of 'seeing' in Abraham's story, suggesting that God's self-revelation rather than (or at least prior too) faith was the real theme in Abraham.

James Mulroney gave a rather technical paper on typology (Christological, tropological and homological) drawing on the Isaac narrative in Genesis 22.

Peter Law gave a helpful 'Martyn Lloyd-Jones' lecture in the evening on the 'Three Abrahamic Faiths' but it was rather narrowed down to two as he rather skated, as he admitted, over Judaism. Much of it was a useful summary of Dan Strange's new book on the theology of religions, 'For Their Rock is not as our Rock'.

On Tuesday, David Shaw gave an excellent paper on 'The Justified Abraham', focusing on N.T. Wright's interpretation of Romans 4, and giving us a helpful survey of Wright's current thinking.

Martin Salter for credobaptists and David Gibson for paedobaptists gave their respective takes on how their traditions see Abraham and come to divergent conclusions. This was interesting and well done - it is not an easy thing to debate like this. My conclusion was that though Gibson probably spoke better (and for twice as long as Salter - which says something in itself) a few well chosen questions began to chip away at the credibility of the paedobaptist superstructure.

Finally Robert Strivens mercifully gave us a straightforward biblical exposition of NT texts showing how Paul's missionary vision was informed by the Abrahamic covenant. Good stuff to go home on.

Next year's conference is on 'How pragmatism is ruining the church'(or similar). We return to Big Names with Melchizedek (probably) in 2016.

Three Books about God

Three books about God have found themselves amongst my reading recently.

God is Impassible and Impassioned – Toward a theology of divine emotion – Rob Lister (IVP 2012).

Lister takes us helpfully through the arguments surrounding whether, and if so how, God ‘feels’ and ‘suffers’. His thesis is that God is impassible in the sense that he cannot be manipulated, overwhelmed, or surprised by an emotional interaction that he does not desire or have or allow to happen. This is not at all the same as saying that he is devoid of emotion (how could that be so when we have a God in Scripture who is angry, delights, loves and grieves?) nor is it the equivalent of saying that God is not affected by his creatures. On the contrary, says Lister, God is also impassioned, that is, perfectly vibrant in his affections, and he may be affected by his creatures, but as God, he is so because he wills to be so affected.

Lister outlines the historical context from the patristic authors onwards, looking at contemporary evangelical authors who reject impassibility - often because it is widely thought to be in conflict with God’s love and relationality, two modern pre-occupations - and then moves on to construct a biblical and theological model (summarised above).

Lister develops this a bit more: God’s passion transcends ours both in an ontological sense (who He is) and in an ethical sense (what he promises and does). The former (God’s ‘ontologically transcendent passion’) is what we term impassibility; the latter (God’s ‘ethically transcendent passion’) we may call his impassionedness. Passion now becomes the dominant factor, virtually equivalent to a description of God in emotional terms. Only now, in terms of God’s being, this translates as the quality of not being vulnerable to outside influences, while in terms of God’s actions and promises, it become his burning, vibrant affection.

One cannot help feeling that ‘passible’ in ‘impassible’ and ‘passion’ in ‘impassioned’ are used in different senses – the former from the original meaning of the word in Latin, that is, something that one suffers, while the latter is a strong (in God’s case perfect) affection. So how helpful it is to use it in these two ways, to call God ‘impassible ‘ and ‘impassioned’, or say that God’s ‘ontologically transcendent passion’ is his ‘impassibility’ is questionable. I know what Lister is saying, and his thesis is very helpful, but perhaps the vocabulary is not.

One other unsatisfactory part of the book is that in 284 pages only 20 are given to the incarnation and the atonement in a ‘Concluding Christological Reflection’. God’s revelation in Christ and the cross deserves more attention than this in a book on this subject.

But this is an excellent book, very full of useful discussion and Bible exposition, and is highly recommended for getting to grips with this important and difficult subject.


God’s Greater Glory – The Exalted God of Scripture and the Christian Faith - Bruce Ware (Crossway 2004)

In 'God’s Lesser Glory' Bruce Ware carried out a good demolition job on Open Theism. In this later (but now quite old!) volume he constructs a far better picture of God’s providential care of his creation. He has excellent material on God’s transcendence and immanence, the Creator–creature distinction, divine sovereignty and human freedom, and ‘concurrence’ – what he calls God working through creation.

The weakest part in my view is his section on ‘Calvinist middle knowledge’ which he constructs in an attempt to avoid God being charged with being the author of sin – in other words it is a kind of apologetic. His view of God’s government of good acts is that the government of the human will is direct, for God is the author of good and there is no conflict. But there is a difference in God’s government of evil. If we take the view that we are free when we act according to our strongest inclination, then if God, knowing how an agent will act in given circumstances, so ordains events that an agent will choose to do evil, then we cannot say that evil is done by God or due to the factors in the situation, but by the sinful nature of the agent acting freely.

This does not seem to be very effective apologetically, because is a God who prepares an evil act in all but final execution, any better morally than a God who actually moves the human will up to and including the very act (as Phil 2:12,13 seems to suggest God controls us; as also Genesis 50:20 suggests)? Give a bad man a gun knowing he will kill someone with it, or a naughty child a firework knowing he will put it through someone’s letter box – but then say ‘It wasn’t me guv’. Are you off the hook?

Of course the precise way God governs evil and good are different, but this is surely the place for a robust application of the doctrine of concurrence (which Ware discusses elsewhere), and to say with Calvin in commenting on ‘the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord’ (Prov 21:1) that ‘in general the will not less than external works are [sic] governed by the determination of God’.

So I was not persuaded by Ware’s argument here. But overall it is a very helpful book and I enjoyed it.

Simply God - Recovering the Classical Trinity - Peter Sanlon (IVP 2014).

Peter Sanlon is a rising star in the Reformed Anglican firmament, vicar of St Mark’s, Tunbridge Wells (sorry, Royal Tunbridge Wells), and a fine young theologian.

This book is primarily reminding us of the wonder of God’s ‘simplicity’, which Sanlon calls the basic grammar of language about God, ‘the engine in the car of a healthy theology’. God’s simplicity is the doctrine that he is one, not composed of parts, and that ‘he is what he has’. All God’s attributes are co-extensive with God himself. God does not ‘have’ attributes such as patience, truthfulness, love and knowledge; he is patience, truthfulness, love and knowledge, and all perfectly. God is love, not loving; in love he gives nothing less than himself.

Sanlon works the theme of simplicity through in relation to God’s eternity and omniscience, omnipotence and goodness, immutability and impassibility.

The second part of the book looks at God’s relationality and threeness, but the burden of the book is to remind us of the importance of the oneness and especially the simplicity and unity of God, perhaps redressing a Trinitarian overload in evangelical theology in recent years. The Creator–creature distinction is emphasised, as is the classical ‘perfect being’ theology of Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas and others, and the importance of remembering that language about God is always analogical rather than univocal (i.e. words cannot mean exactly the same thing when used of God as they do when used of us – he is a different order of being – but true communication is possible – hence analogy.)

Sanlon ends with a stimulating chapter applying his thesis to the areas of entertainment, religious freedoms, work and ministry, mission and church.

Every chapter concludes with a meditation and prayer.

This really is a great book.

I have enjoyed reading all these, and benefitted greatly from them. Do not let the fact that I have been critical in parts make you think that these are not good books – the overall quality is high. Ware and Lister are more overtly biblical in their treatment, Sanlon possibly more obviously philosophical and theological, really because of the nature of the subject; his final authority is evidently Scripture and where appropriate he cites it freely.

There is no greater subject for reflection than our great God, and although I did not set out to read these books with any single plan in mind, their different yet complementary theses have refreshed my mind, expanded my knowledge and spurred me to worship. Thank you to the authors!

Os Guinness on 'True Truth'

About 100 people gathered at the Round Church, the home of Christian Heritage in Cambridge on the evening of 15th May for a commemorative meeting 30 years after Francis Schaeffer's death.

Ranald Macaulay and Andrew Fellows began proceedings with fairly brief and light but enjoyable introductions, first to Schaeffer himself (Ranald is one of his sons in law, a former director of L'Abri and founder-director of Christian Heritage) and then to L'Abri(Andrew is director of English L'Abri in Greatham, Hampshire).

After refreshments, the 'main course' was Os Guinness on 'True Truth' - a very Schaefferish phrase. He spoke brilliantly for 45 minutes without a note. He spoke of the two sources of our present crisis of truth - ideas, and also social and cultural influences.

He encouraged us that scepticism is the fruit of the over-reach of rationalism and sceptical periods never last.

He exhorted us as to the importance of this moment for Christians - unless we have a biblical view of truth our faith will be vulnerable to quick dismissal. Truth is ultimately a matter not of philosophy but of theology.

For the west this means that if there is no truth everything is a matter of power games and manipulation. Education becomes just a matter of jumping through hoops to get your qualification. Also, freedom requires truth - not only freedom from, but positively, freedom for - and this is where Christianity comes in. We need to know who we are and what we are living for. The truth will set you free.

To answer the 'heavy sceptic', (following Peter Berger and Schaeffer) we must be able to 'relativise the relativiser' - point out where the relativist is holding on to an absolute somewhere, as he surely will. Positively, point people to signs of transcendence in their own lives - inconsistencies they cannot avoid as they are living in God's world. All of us are 'suppressing the truth' (Rom 1:18-20).

We must be people who shape our desires to the truth, not like Aldous Huxley (see Ends and Means) and others who shaped truth to their desires.

Truth he concluded is ultimately about the Lord - personal.

A full audio recording of this address is available on the Christian Heritage website from next week.

Banner of Truth conference 2014

This is a bit belated - the conference was 22-24 April.

It was good.

Andrew Davies was his usual warm, winsome and edifying self, preaching at the beginning and end of the conference.

Garry Williams was crisp, clear and challenging, on 'Always Reforming' and 'Metaphors for ministers'.

Donald John Maclean stood in at the last minute for Iain Murray and gave us a helpful biography of John Knox.

David Meredith spoke on preaching sin today, and preaching Christ today. My very personal opinion was that he failed to get to grips with the subjects but I know others found him very helpful.

Norman McAuley preached encouragingly on the church from John 17 and Ephesians 1.

Finally O.Palmer Robertson gave two stimulating papers on the Psalms, with a wonderful schematic overview which he strongly hinted may at some time see publication.

Three days instead of four - a bit short, but enjoyable and refreshening.

CDs will be available .

Is Britain a Christian Country?

The debate has been engaging the airwaves,internet and print runs again: is Britain a Christian country, or was it ever? Of course it all depends on what we mean by ‘Christian’. There was never a time when every Briton was a Christian; nor even when the majority of Britons attended church; even in 1851 it has been estimated that in real terms only 25% of the nation went to church, once double counting has been allowed for.

If, however, we mean that the institutions, education, health care, laws and values of the nation have been strongly, even predominantly, influenced by Christianity, then we must say yes, of course Britain is a ‘Christian’ country. Even humanists and secularists will agree with that; what they say though is that Christianity’s time is up; move over – let other ideologies and value systems have their day.

Establishment?

A complicating factor in Britain is the establishment of the Church of England. In a recent radio discussion one defender of the ‘Christian nation’ view was also defending the establishment as if the two ideas were inseparable and a humanist was making mincemeat of him. It is pretty easy, after all, to pick holes in the idea of bishops being in the House of Lords and the monarch being head of the church. Non-conformists and secularists can make common cause on this.
Some would say that it is the establishment that makes Britain a Christian country. I am more inclined to agree with an evangelical Anglican friend who said to me recently that what made Britain Christian was in fact the great revivals and what we needed urgently today was another movement of God’s Spirit. The establishment will accomplish nothing. Surely this is nearer the truth. Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones said many years ago that Wilberforce and Shaftesbury only achieved what they did because they were riding the crest of the eighteenth and nineteenth century revivals.

Monarchs

When a monarch is a Christian and actually has power to do something, then this can be a force for good. But for this we are going back to Alfred the Great (in the ninth century) who laid the legal and institutional basis for Britain to be a ‘Christian’ country. Edward VI would be another, short-lived, example. But this is going back a bit, and Alfred was not ‘head of the church’ and Edward’s influence was hardly due to his official title as 'Defender of the Faith'. As the dissident Puritan Roger Williams (1603-83), pointed out, if you would have an established religion, remember the history of English monarchs: Henry VII found the country Catholic and let it Catholic; Henry VIII found it Catholic and left it half Protestant; Edward left it more fully Protestant; Mary turned it Catholic again; Elizabeth left it Protestant; and whither the Stuarts…?

Roger Williams

Williams was writing in the 1640s. Out of the English Reformation had come the Elizabethan Settlement and there would be a hundred years of tension before Non-conformity experienced the most painful of births in 1662. Williams was a non-conformist by conviction long before this. He went to New England in 1631 and soon found himself in conflict with the Congregationalist establishment. The men he clashed with were men whom he respected and with whom he shared the great points of Reformed theology. But Williams was committed to the separation of church and state in a more thorogoing way than any of the leading Puritans. The state, he argued, is a civil institution and not the defender of or judge of spiritual things; freedom of worship should be allowed to pagan, Jewish, ‘Turkish’ or antichristian consciences and false religion should only be fought with the sword of the Spirit, not the power of the state; uniformity of worship is not to be enforced. Fundamentally he argued that the state of Israel is not a pattern for any civil state today – a claim that hit against the very heart of the New England establishment’s rationale.

Separation of church and state

Was this because Williams was indifferent to religious truth? Not at all. In his seventies he rowed thirty miles to debate with Quakers for three days because he saw their teachings to be wrong; but Quakers were only free to be there (in Rhode Island) because of his equally strong commitment to religious freedom. He argued that a relationship of separation between church and state would in the end benefit both. He loved peace and saw this as the way to peace. He saw that ‘true civility’ (peaceful co-existence in society) and Christianity could both flourish notwithstanding freedom of conscience, and indeed fare better because of it. He had confidence that the gospel was best left to the work of God to establish and prosper. Indeed, he argued convincingly that established religion would in the end harm the gospel and the church; when the care of religion is committed to the state, argued Williams, ‘ by degrees the gardens of the churches of the saints were turned into the wilderness of whole nations…’ The ‘wall of separation’ (a phrase he used long before it was taken up by Thomas Jefferson in 1800) was needed for both church and the state to be truly themselves.

Word and Spirit

Is Britain a Christian country? In a sense, it is irrelevant. We are saddened by the ignorance, immorality and wilfulness of the campaign to dislodge Christian influence from our nation, but our task as Christians is not to build a Christian nation. It is to proclaim and bear witness to the kingdom of God. This does not mean ‘just evangelise’ but it does mean that political influence is not our primary consideration. It also means we rely not on the legal establishment of religion, but on the Spirit of and Word of God.

What is Man?

What is man?

‘It has been said by someone that “the proper study of mankind is man”. I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God…’ said C. H. Spurgeon. I would like to propose that God’s elect might also usefully give a little time to the biblical view of man.
Indeed it could be argued that the most neglected and the most necessary doctrine in the Christian system today is that of man. One hears much of the doctrine of God from contemporary evangelical theologians, and for this one gives thanks, but how often is the creature made in the Triune image given serious theological attention by Christians?
I say theological. There is man-centred worship, preaching and writing, but that is not the same as a theological study of man. Yet we need this to recover our bearings.

Boundaries are blurred if not erased, firstly between man and animal, according to evolution. Man is a lucky animal. Secondly, between man and machines: perhaps we are just the result of our DNA working itself out through various mechanisms. Thirdly, between us and God; he is no longer the Most High God, but a god ‘within’, whose mission in life is to make us happy.
Finally the boundary between male and female is erased. ‘People can feel like girls, they can feel like boys, they can feel like both, and they can even feel like neither’ said an American high school teacher. ‘Gender identity is about what ‘s in here (pointing to his chest) …and up here (pointing to his head) ...’ Gender is what you want it to be. Gone are the days of two genders.
Above all perhaps, it is needed because ‘we cannot have a clear and complete knowledge of God unless it is accompanied by a corresponding knowledge of ourselves’ (Calvin, Institutes, I.xv.1). Lose touch with what we are, and we speed further down the road of losing touch with God.
Let us look briefly at a few things the Bible tells us.

Man is placed in an environment prepared for him
Creation is ready for the appearance of man, indeed created for his sake (Calvin). He enters a world in which he has context. He is unique but not alone. This world will provide for him, but he will have dominion over it – to work it and care for it. He must extend the rule of God over the whole earth through ‘multiplying’ and having dominion. This was Adam’s ‘great commission’.

Man is unique
God consults with himself (Gen 1:26) before creating man. Three times the Hebrew word bara is used in Genesis 1:27 indicating that here is something special. Man alone is explicitly created male and female. Man alone has a soul inbreathed by a special act of God (Gen 2:7). He alone is given dominion over the earth, and has a helpmeet specially created for him. The punishment for his life being taken is death (Gen 9:6). Above all only he is called into a covenantal relationship with God (Gen 2:16,17). These and other things point to his uniqueness.

Man is created in God’s image
The most important aspect of man’s uniqueness is that he is created in the image of God. He resembles God, reflects God and is to represent God in creation. The image of God is something he is, not something he ‘has’. The whole of man is the image of the whole God. Even the body is included but we cannot speculate as to how.
The image is generally regarded as having two aspects – original holiness, which was entirely lost at the Fall, and a broader image, consisting of all those things in which we are different from or vastly superior to the animals - capacity for worship and a ‘sense of God’, reason, language, conscience, choice, creativity, personality, love, ability to rule the earth etc. This aspect of the image was not entirely lost (Gen. 5:1-3, 9:6, James 3:9) but is horribly distorted – totally depraved, we say.
When you become a Christian, you are renewed in the image of God through Christ – renewed in righteousness, knowledge and holiness in the image of your Creator (Eph 4:23,24; Col 3:10).

Man is male and female
This is painfully present to our minds today. We do not need to be reminded of the tragedy of this being deliberately rejected. There are sad personal cases that remind us that, physically and psychologically, we live in a fallen world, but they do not give us the right to reconstruct reality. The vast majority of ‘gender-bending’ is a philosophical issue, seeking to justify rebellion against God in the profound area of human identity.
And as we lose touch with what we are, we lose touch with the God in whose image we are made.

Man is made for God
Nothing is more important in the Genesis account than the covenant God entered into with Adam. Adam was to obey God, and the clear implication is that if he did his perfection would be rewarded with a sonship he could never lose; if he disobeyed he would die – in several ways. The whole of human history hinges on this arrangement – and is restored in the even greater event of the obedience of Christ (Romans 5:12-21).

Man is a creature under law
In the state of perfection this was not a burden. But once we lose the sense that we are creatures under law, we lose ourselves. ‘I’m sorry about yesterday – I feel bad inside’ wrote a little boy in our local school after a spell of bad behaviour. It was better than nothing –but how sadly adult– no sense of right and wrong – just how he felt. Our problems are not moral but psychological, so we think, and God, if he exists, is a therapist. We are, however, moral beings as God is a moral God. Conscience is a friend. Only this framework can prepare for conviction of sin, repentance and salvation.

The First World War

'However the war began - by German design, by the negligence of statesmen, by the purblindness of generals- there was nothing inevitable about its course'. So says Allan Mallinson, in 1914 - Fight the Good Fight - Britain, the Army and the Coming of the First World War.

German military ambition; unprepared and complacent politicians; inadequate, not to say incompetent generals: the tangled threefold cord that led eventually to war.

It is interesting what one can learn from books about WW1; for example, Germans were called Huns because of a speech of the Kaiser in 1900 when he boasted that China during the Boxer rebellion should be made to fear the Germans in the way Europe had once feared Attila the Hun; artesian wells are named after the region of Artois; 'tanks' are so called because when first transported during the First World War, in communications between England and France they were referred to as 'water tanks' to fool the Germans who might have intercepted any messages.

The fascinating issue however is: what caused the war? The three part BBC series '37 Days' did a good job of dramatising the historical events of the summer of 1914, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Hapsburg throne, in Sarajevo on 28th June to the declaration by England of war on Germany on 4th August.

What is amazing with the wisdom of hindsight is the feeling that war could have been avoided. Why should a spot of bother in the Balkans really lead to war between the super-powers of Europe and beyond? That seems to have been the outlook of at least the British leaders. There was complacency and naivety, a kind of living in the halcyon days of Edwardian summers, not really believing anyone could actually want war in the Europe of the early 20th century.

But they reckoned without the martial mindset of Prussian dominated Germany - the one factor that did make war inevitable. To go to war to honour a commitment to Belgium and an understanding with France was after all not dishonourable or unreasonable. It was not an unnecessary war for Britain to fight. Just a tragic one ever to have been started.

Having said that, of all wars this is the most difficult for which to pin down a merely human reason, or chain of causation. An age had to come to an end, a new one begin, and it would take two wars, not one, to exhaust the world.

The result was a change of eras. It was a war taking place during an age of transition; weapons of destruction outstripped means of defence and strategies to counter them. A war of cavalry charges and gas masks, poison gas and zeppelins, tanks, aeroplanes and footslogging.

Above all, one sees men, often good men, in political leadership at the mercy of events. One cannot study the causes of this war in particular without being aware of events being carried by their own momentum. There was a sense of inevitability even while one wonders why it could not have been avoided.

Which brings one to the idea of God. Ultimately the First World War happened because he willed it, though no evil is in him. There was a divine purpose in it all, though one does not presume to know what it was other than that in the end he will be glorified. An expression of the judgement of God, certainly, an outworking of the curse, a tragic testimony to human sinfulness. Every consideration of this and other wars should profoundly humble us.

12 Years a Slave

Based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black American who was kidnapped in New York in 1841 and spent 12 years in slavery, this is a hard film to watch. It has been much publicised and is hotly tipped for Baftas and Oscars.

Director Steve McQueen (I can never see that name without thinking of a motorbike leaping over barbed wire fences in 1940s Germany) pulls no punches in portraying the brutality of slavery, and it is not for the squeamish. One man next to me kept covering his eyes; a woman next to my wife squeaked and gasped from time to time.

The peculiar thing is, it leaves one very little to talk about. It raises no new moral issues, just emphasises how bad a bad institution really was; it does not add anything to 'Uncle Tom's Cabin', and is actually less subtle and nuanced than that peerless book.

It is however a good and powerful film, and the acting is of high quality. One is faced with the conundrum of human wickedness, in people who should have known so much better. But when human beings are regarded as possessions, almost anything is possible.

I think Hilary and I have had our ration of films for the year!

The Butler

Forrest Whitaker plays Cecil Gaines (real name apparently Eugene Allen)a black American who came from the cotton fields of the deep south to serve as butler to seven American Presidents from 1957 to the 1980s (Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan). His father was brutally shot by a cotton farmer (not true, apparently, of the real Eugene Allen). The issues of racial injustice, integration and the civil rights movement provide the real plot-line of the film, the biopic of Gaines being not much more than the vehicle to examine how America struggled with these issues over the eighty or so years covered by the film, from his father's death in 1926 to his presentation to President Obama in 2009.

The closing credits begin with a dedication to those who died in the cause of civil rights in America.

The irony of this of course, as the film emphasises, is that Gaines was an anti-hero from this perspective - a man who lived up to white stereotypes of the 'house-nigger', wearing two faces, the compliant servant in his white masters' presence, a real man when he went back home.

Home however is not always a happy place - his wife Gloria, disillusioned by Gaines' absorption with his job and what went on at the White House which he could not share with her, it is implied has an affair or at least gets close to it; more central to the plot, there is a painful split with his son who joined the Black Panthers and despised his father's lifestyle.

In the end all are reconciled but Gloria dies just too soon to see Obama elected.

So one gets the impression that this is a bit of a propaganda effort by the civil rights lobby, Hollywood congratulating itself and its version of America on getting from racial stereotypes in the 1950s to a black President in 2008. Critics have panned much of its historical accuracy, including a portrayal of Ronald Reagan (brilliantly acted by the wonderful Alan Rickman) as being anti-civil rights. I also found it a little difficult to take entirely seriously a film with Oprah Winfrey in a lead role (Gloria). It is ponderous in parts and predictable in its message, and the video montage of Great Moments in American History from 1960 - 1990 (Kennedy, Vietnam, Luther King, Nixon etc.) is a bit like Forrest Gump without the laughs.

Nonetheless - it is an enjoyable film, the glimpses into White House life evocative of an American 'Downton Abbey'. I am glad to have seen it.

Westminster Fellowship encouragement

From 1942 the regular home of the Westminster Fellowship of ministers was at Westminster Chapel. Until last Monday that is. We have moved to Westminster Baptist Church in Horseferry Road, for economic reasons.

We were given a very warm welcome and about 40 men turned up - about twice as many as usual - to hear Garry Williams, director of the John Owen Centre. His subject was 'Contemporary Roman Catholicism'. His thesis was, simply, that Roman Catholicism has changed in the last fifty years, but not for the better. What one has now is both an insistence on the traditional (and in the same crucial areas false) doctrines, and a reaching out to embrace not only the separated brethren and 'anonymous Christians' of other Christian denominations and other religions, but of no religion at all. Nature has been 'graced' and Rome is the proper goal of all grace on earth, so Rome will draw in all recipients of grace. Her tentacles have never been so extended nor so strong; we are but iron filings irresistibly drawn towards the voracious magnet that is Rome. The beast looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon...

That this is a postmodern mix of contradictions does not of course worry Rome as in the end (the eschatological end, the synthesis of all things), everything will be hers. All roads, as never before, lead to Rome, even if they seem at present to be leading in totally opposite directions.

The source Garry relies on is Leonardo di Chirico and it is a lucid, compelling and good summary of the present post Vatican II scene. I could not help but see the same framework in embryo in lectures given in the 1960s by Francis Schaeffer after he visited, as an observer, some sessions of the Vatican II council.

We had useful discussion and questions afterwards.

It seemed a bit of a rebirth for the Fellowship, in terms of a new venue and numbers present. May it long continue.

Our next meeting is a 'fellowship' meeting with no speaker but discussion on subjects raised by the members, on 3rd March.

The Railway Man

This is one of those films whose content could never be guessed from the title.

Eric Lomax was a railway enthusiast. He was also a solder at the fall of Singapore during the Second World War, and suffered terribly at the hands of the Japanese as a POW. In particular he suffered at the hands of one officer who was responsible for torturing him.

Later in life, perhaps 20 or so years [actually over 50 years later and in very different circumstances from those portrayed in the film - I have now read the book!], he is given the opportunity to meet this man again, having been urged by a fellow ex-POW to kill the man. He discovers him acting as a tour guide around the former POW camp.

The film follows how not revenge but forgiveness takes place.

It is a powerful film, aided by a strong performance by Colin Firth as Lomax (who died in 2012, his Japanese former enemy, but by then close friend, in 2011). Nicole Kidman plays his patient and loving wife.

It makes one think - 'how could one ever forgive someone who did that...?' No Christian motives are expressed in the film. I have not read the book and have no idea what religious beliefs Lomax had if any. The healing power of forgiveness however is movingly portrayed.

A film worth seeing.

Justice or the p.c. lynch mob?

There has been a perplexing and depressing trend in public life in recent years.

It became prominent when the government was getting all uppity about big corporations not paying their taxes. Not that the corporations were doing anything illegal of course. They had simply been doing what corporations and businessmen, and plenty of ordinary folk, have been doing from time immemorial - simply not paying more tax than the law said they had to pay. Clever lawyers and accountants helped them to avoid tax, but nothing illegal was being done.

So what do the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister do? They winge. They complain. They take the moral high ground, and start saying how utterly unfair it is that these companies should not play the game and pay taxes.

Now it used to be a plank of civil liberties that the government had no right to take money off a citizen without legislation agreed by those citizens' representatives, authorising that acquisition. Theft is theft whoever does it. How glad we have been to live in a country that respects the rights of the individual in this way. What the government of today resorts to however is not exactly theft, but moral blackmail, executive pressure, relying on the weight of public opinion supporting it. Which mostly, as people do not have much sympathy for multinationals, it does.

So Starbucks for example dutifully coughs up as if the State were a charity to which we should voluntarily give funds when it rattles the can under our nose.

I am no great supporter of Starbucks (awful coffee) but I would defend their right to the last not to pay tax if there is a way out of it.

The onus in these matters is on the government to get its legislation right, not to rely on public hand-ringing and moral pressure. Law and the justice system, not public opinion, should determine rights and duties in these matters.

Other examples of the same tendency come to mind. Recently Lord Rennard has been hounded by his party, the once (going back decades) marginally noble but now sickeningly politically correct Lib-Dems, not because he was found guilty of anything that the party's complaints system could prove to be an offence, but because he had done some things which apparently merited an apology. It was strange for a Q.C in a report to suggest that. But he was a Lib Dem Q.C.

I am not defending Lord Rennard in any way, but who is the judge in his case? The pressure of opinion and Nick Clegg's desire to do what he thought his party should be seen to be doing.

Not a very good example but it rings some of the same bells: Nicholas Anelka seems to be a rather immature individual, and his 'quennelle' gesture could well have been racist, but it might just have been anti-establishment, as he claims. It was certainly silly. Yet many were all for his being sacked by his club before his case had even been heard.

Whatever happened to innocent till proven guilty? Death by public opinion again. Public opinion has always been a hair's breadth from the lynch-mob, but now the commitment to justice seems to be weaker, the readiness of institutions and authorities to capitulate seems to be greater.

So it is not surprising that, on the other side, when a judicial decision by a jury is arrived at, the family of Mark Duggan complain bitterly and at least some want to overturn that decision. But if justice is not upheld by those in authority, we can hardly expect those of us lower down the social pile to respect its institutions.

Most worrying of all for the majority of us, the government is proposing to outlaw behaviour that is deemed to be a nuisance or annoying. Who is going to judge that? Another plank in the rule of law has been that a citizen should be able to know in advance when he may be committing a crime. How can anyone know if what he may do in a public place will be adjudged to be anything so vague as annoying?

The decision is again in the hands of one form or another of the executive.

Which is not far removed from public opinion, or political correctness. And that is not in principle any different from the lynch mob - only the level of violence differs. But in a society that seems to be slipping from the rule of law and the adjudication of wrongs by due judicial process, who knows how long that difference will be sustained?

Augustine at the John Owen Reading Group

Well, not in person, but we enjoyed a lively and informative discussion at our Reading Group, led by Jeremy Walker, who had evidently actually read the book, which is not always the case with every leader. Most of us used the translation by Garry Wills (Penguin Classics, 2008) though I also had the older Oxford common-room style Penguin edition (1961) by R.S. Pine-Coffin (yes really) which I had read a few years ago.

Wills is a refreshing read once you get over his strange choice of words - umbrageous, foisoned, fractuosity, punks; his Augustine is a rumbustious fellow, who would never been at home at Oxbridge.

We wondered if Wills' choice of translating Augustine's most famous phrase 'you made us for yourself...' as 'we are unstable until you have stabilized us' adds anything to it, and indeed whether it detracts altogether from the link with the very last chapter of the book which is 'Sabbath Rest'. Could there not be an intended connection between the first paragraph and the last chapter which is lost by changing 'restless' to 'unstable'?

Again, does Wills' choice of phrase in the same sentence describing us as having been made 'tilted' towards God reflect a Roman Catholic view of the creation of man, with inherent instability (that concept again)? Wills we discovered was Jesuit trained and is a Roman Catholic at least by sympathy. But there I go - trying to claim Augustine as a proto-Protestant.

The book can be described as an 'act of therapy' and 'a masterpiece of strictly intellectual autobiography', 'quite succinctly the story of Augustine's heart, or of his feelings' and 'a manifesto of the inner world' (all Peter Brown), a spiritual autobiography, an apologia pro vita sua. One author says its theme is that 'human life is the product of free decisions guided by God's grace to its proper conclusion'. 'Confession' meant for Augustine 'accusation of oneself and praise of God'.

It is a wonderful work, no doubt over-hyped by some but it is difficult to deny the breathtaking brilliance of the mind from which it came, the depth of self-knowledge, the delight in God, the penetration of analysis and the painful (as we would understand it and as the Puritans would understand that word too) examination of his heart in response to temptation. God is always there for Augustine. The whole work is of course addressed to God. Life becomes prayer. Reality is sacramental, 'charged with the grandeur of God', and Christ is his beloved only Mediator.

We concluded that this man took sin with utmost seriousness, and understood grace with lavish abandon. We could do worse than follow him at least in these.

Carey Conference 2014

There was as usual a variety of subjects addressed at this year's Carey Conference (7-9 January).

Dr Robert Oliver introduced us to a 'Baptist' regicide, Edmund Ludlow, and raised interesting questions about motivations for opposing the king - we could have done with more time to open this up.

Lewis Allen gave a heart-warming paper on the Sabbath, tracing a Puritan and Reformed theology of the Lord's Day in a most refreshing way. Questions were asked and the subject dominated the Q&A session on the following afternoon. Three things suggest themselves to me:

1. We do not value the joy of delighting in the Law of the Lord as we should. True spirituality is not so much doing what we want, even from a Spirit-stimulated mind, but obeying God from a desire to do so and out of love for God. Those who reckon the Sabbath is something that is convenient for us but not mandatory deprive themselves of the best motive for observing it, of the best opportunity for pleasing God, and for glorifying God.

2. Do those who argue against the Sabbath see that they are depriving themselves and the church of something that in the Old Testament is unequivocally looked on as a blessing? Why should we lose what is a blessing under the Old Covenant?

3. Are not those who hold the 'new covenant' (i.e. antinomian) position, being complacent and even audacious in overturning centuries of Christian, Protestant, Reformed and Baptist history? Our main speaker Gregg Allison of Southern Baptist seminary, said from the platform during the Q&A that he believes there are now only nine commandments. How many churches will one see with nine commandments on their ancient walls? Do we not pause and wonder that we are so willing to overthrow our heritage in this way? Now of course the Bible is our final authority, not tradition (though I firmly believe the Bible teaches the continuity of the Ten Commandments); but at least the weight of Christian history should give people pause for thought.

Elsewhere in the conference, Gregg Allison spoke helpfully on the church, but his addresses, I felt, were more noteworthy for the discussions they engendered than for the content.

John Benton gave an excellent address based on 2 Tim 3 on 'How well do pastors know God?', giving us challenge and encouragement from Scripture, helping us while not laying a guilt trip on us. His main thrust was that it is through obedience that as Christians we grow in knowledge of Christ and that he (with the Father) reveals himself to us - John 14:21-23. He was not suggesting that this is the whole of it, and of course he spoke of prayer, but it was a change from the urging to hours of prayer one rather expects in this kind of address.

Mez McConnell gave us middle class 'dudes' the lowdown on ministry in Edinburgh housing estates ('schemes') and challenged us all to cross cultural ministry and planting churches in the poorest areas. He wore a woolly hat all the way through, which seemed, I thought, like me wearing my Welwyn Sunday suit to lead a service in Niddrie. But it was great to hear of his work among people most of us would never meet let alone get close to. One of his main points was that 'mercy ministries' (and he was rather scathing about the influence of Tim Keller and 'Generous Justice' in this area) are only ultimately compounding the problem - they keep people where they are while giving us rich folks the feeling we are doing something for Jesus. Beware malevolent generosity/crippling paternalism/disabling help.

The conference was brought to an uplifting end by a stirring sermon on Revelation 21 from Luke Jenner, reminding us that we need a clear vision of what the church will be to help us serve in the present. It was a fine sermon, well exegeted, constructed and illustrated and applied helpfully and powerfully.

Overall a good conference.

A Glimpse into North Korea

North Korea is not a country I know much about, nor, I suppose, did I have much interest in it, until a friend at church lent us a book she had read. It is Nothing to Envy, by Barbara Demick, an American journalist, published in 2010. It is a fascinating and terrifying insight into this most secretive and oppressed of countries and, being very well written, is a rattling good read of the 'can't put down' variety.

'Nothing to Envy' is one of the slogans of the opinion formers of the Democratic Republic of North Korea, a chant the people are to repeat as part of their indoctrination. A good ideal in itself, one a Christian could identify with, in the mouths of North Koreans it is bitterly ironic.

Demick was a journalist in Seoul and tells her story through the lives of six defectors from the North in the nineties and noughties: a woman doctor, a young tearaway, a young woman and her student boyfriend, a housewife and a rebellious daughter. Their lives and their families' are brought to life, the author having checked and confirmed her facts as far as possible to ensure authenticity. The result is a harrowing account of struggle and then starvation and then widespread death during the famine years of the last two decades, as the crazy communist delusions of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il (and now Kim Jong-Un) ground the people into the dust.

What strikes one most is how so many remained loyal to the regime, even when things were evidently falling apart. But then most knew nothing else, they believed the propaganda about the evil world of capitalism around them (and 'against' them), and even if they wanted to do something they could not. Only fairly late in the book are we introduced to the idea of defection into China and then to South Korea. One of the strengths of the book is that it does not pretend that once in the south, all was well. These defectors often struggled to adjust, and struggled with the guilt of having left family and loved ones behind.

Here is a country where people hardly know how to use a phone, and communication even within the country let alone with the outside world is not encouraged by the tyrants who rule them. Fiction could not be stranger - it is 1984 and Animal Farm brought to life.

From a Christian perspective (and of course it is a crime punishable by death to own a Bible in North Korea), it is intriguing to see how religious motifs are prominent in the ideology of the regime - devotion amounting to worship of the 'Father' (Kim Il Sung) and a chanting of propaganda in the way we might learn Scripture verses - though hopefully not as mindlessly.

'...having exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man...' (Rom 1:23).

And how cruel these other gods are...

Moreover, how Revelation 13 and the two beasts come to life when you see a religiously totalitarian country like North Korea in operation.

Separation of Church and State

The above title is not only a major theme of political theology, but the title of a book published in 2002 by Philip Hamburger, a Law Professor in Chicago.

Hamburger analyses the history of the doctrine in America from the seventeenth century and Roger Williams, through the Jefferson years and the nineteenth century, to the mid twentieth century and the Supreme Court decision, Everson v Ewing Board of Education, in 1947, which first ruled that this principle was a constitutional principle, contained in the First Amendment.

Hamburger's starting point is that there is a difference between separation of church and state, and constitutional freedom from a religious establishment, which is what the First Amendment explicitly protects. He demonstrates that the dissenters who were against establishments were not demanding separation of church and state in anything like the modern form. They recognised that there was a necessary and valuable connection between religion and government and few were agitating for separation of church and state until the mid nineteenth century. Thomas Jefferson certainly spoke of a 'wall of separation' in a letter to Baptists in Connecticut in 1802 but even the Baptists did not take him up on this.

The real agitation for separation of church and state was a reaction against Roman Catholicism in the mid 19th century, when an alliance of Protestants and liberal thinkers began to speak of it as a necessary principle, the motive force being a fear of the political ambitions of Roman Catholics and the nature of their Church. Even then there were big differences between what Christians and secular forces wanted to make of this 'separation'. There were attempts to get an amendment to establish it in the Bill of Rights, which indicates that it was by no means assumed that it was already contained within the First Amendment. When this failed, it was then argued that the principle of separation was included already in that Amendment. But it was not till 1947 that it was so ruled by the Supreme Court.

Hamburger illustrates how Jefferson was really a 'passing figure' in this debate, more important for what much later generations made of his words than for any impact they had at the time, and much less important than the social and ideological changes in America through the 19th C. The separation of church and state was a principle that suited Protestants (of all stripes, as well as Ku Klux Klansmen and other groups) afraid of Catholicism, and Liberals who did not want the influence of religion in politics.

Prominent among the influences at play was the growth of the three trends of individualism, the ideal of personal liberty, and 'specialisation' in society, particularly the compartmentalisation of religion from other aspects of life. Throughout the debates run the opposing arguments of those who believed religion to be essential to public life and those who feared the institutional power of any church.

Hamburger concludes by pointing out that separation of church and state and union of church and state are opposite poles of a long continuum, 'over-generalisations between which there lies very much middle ground'. The metaphor of a 'wall of separation' in Jefferson's letter, (earlier used though in a different sense by Williams) now etches the idea on generation after generation of Americans without the reality being analysed. It can be a nose of wax, moulded to suit the passing philosophies of an age. It is the way in which America has come to understand its religious liberty, having forgotten that originally it was understood in terms of anti-establishment.

This is not a theological book and does not examine the arguments from a biblical perspective, but is a fascinating and largely compelling account of how the debate moved from the late 18th C to the present day, when the principle of separation is used to crush any expression of Christian faith in the public square. Any principle, even if it is a biblical one in essence, is always going to be victim to exploitation by the society in which it operates.

Two Books on Preaching

Joel Beeke's How to Evaluate Sermons packs a lot into a small space (48 small pages including notes).

Taking 1 Corinthians 3:5-8 as his text, Beeke gives the preacher five tests to evaluate his own preaching:

- Did I preach as God's servant?

- Did I preach to build God's church?

- Did I preach Christ as the only foundation?

- Did I build my sermons with the precious materials of Reformed experiential preaching?

- Did I preach for the Master's reward?

Each short chapter has a number of sub-questions for the preacher to ask himself, preferably on his knees, and with a view to doing better next time. A far better way to judge the true value of your sermon, says Beeke, than going by what people did or did not say, how they looked while you were preaching or how you felt afterwards.

This is recommended for careful meditation by preachers.

Rather longer (though still only 154 pages) is David Murray's How Sermons Work. This is one of the best 'how to' books on preaching I have had the privilege of reading. It would be ideal for a preachers' class. Murray, Professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, writes for preachers, especially those with less experience, but also for non-preachers, so that Christians will understand better how sermons are produced.

His first chapter speaks of the preacher's relationship to his God, his Bible and his people. Chapter 2 is devoted to selecting a text. Chapter 3 is perhaps the meatiest, as it deals with exegesis and here Murray is particularly helpful as he drives home the importance of exegesis but also gives simple practical tips on how to go about it. He is neither simplistic nor does he blind with science.

A chapter on 'Variation' reminds us of the need to ask what kind of sermons we are preaching and whether we are giving the people a good, balanced diet. The next chapter deals with the 'Introduction' to a sermon, and there follow two excellent chapters on 'organization' of the sermon, its structure and 'points'. The second of these chapters is almost entirely made of up of examples.

Similarly there are two chapters on 'application', the first giving the theory and motivation, the second practical.

Finally there is a chapter on 'presentation', including a challenging though brief section on the importance of prayer.


Murray's last section is devoted to the importance of 'presence' - not the preacher's, but the presence of God. All preaching must be done as in the presence of God - we are not there to exalt ourselves or to entertain, but we are ambassadors for Almighty God and without his presence there will be no spiritual communication.

Highly recommended for all preachers, especially those starting out, but no preacher (or, as Murray reminds us, no Christian) will fail to be helped by this comprehensive, clear, spiritually-minded and practical guide to the mystery of preaching.

A Spiritual Check-up

A SPIRITUAL CHECK-UP FROM 1 THESSALONIANS

1 Thessalonians is good for this purpose as it is a positive letter. Paul had received a good report from Timothy (3:6) and although there were issues to address, Paul is able to record the good that he knew about and exhort them to even better things.

1. Are you persevering? 1:3.

2. Are you showing the fruit of the gospel in your life? 1:4,5.

3. Are you imitators of the apostles and of Christ? 1:6.

4. Despite afflictions, have you received the Word with the joy of the Holy Spirit? 1:6.

5. Are you an example to others? 1:7.

6. Do others speak highly of your faith? 1:8.

7. Is your conversion definite? 1:9,10.

8. Do you long for Christ’s return? 1:10.

9. Do you receive God’s Word as his Word? 2:13.

10. Have you patiently endured suffering? 2:14; 3:3,4.

11. Could a good report be given of your faith and steadfastness? 3:6-8.

12. Are you aware of what is lacking in your faith? 3:10.

13. Are you living to please God? 4:1.

14. Are you striving for sanctification, especially sexual purity? 4:3-7.

15. Are you growing in the practice of brotherly love? 4:9,10.

16. Are you aspiring to live a quiet life? 4:11,12.

17. With what confidence do you face death? 4:13-17.

18. Are you encouraging others? 4:18; 5:11.

19. Are you spiritually awake? 5:5,6.

20. What is your attitude to your spiritual leaders, especially those who preach the Word to you? 5:12,13.

21. Are you helping others to be faithful disciples? 5:14.

22. Are you always seeking the good of others, rejoicing in God and seeking his mind and will? 5:15-22.

23. Do you share God’s purpose for your life and rejoice that it will be accomplished? 5:23,24.

Christmas at Welwyn

It has been an unusual Christmas for us as a family. Personally it is the first Christmas since I was 3 that I have not been to Wales, at least for some of the time. That has been restful in the sense that we have had more time at home, but I have missed the time to 'get away' from it all which, even for a few days, is relaxing.

Meanwhile at Welwyn we had a good carol evening on Wednesday 18th, about 80 people, with about a quarter of those being guests. James Cater from Carey Baptist, Reading, gave an excellent, clear and engaging evangelistic address, and we are prayerful that the seed sown will bear fruit.

On the Sunday morning before Christmas we had our Carol Service, with the children's choir taking part. I preached, a 20 minute evangelistic message in which I borrowed Mark Dever's story of the 'The Christmas Thingummabob' (attributed!). We had only very few visitors, which is usually the way on a Sunday before Christmas, but I hope the message will be useful for those who heard.

In the evening I preached on Christ as the light, based on John 1:1-5.

On Christmas morning we had about 60 people, and I preached on the meeting between Mary and Elizabeth.

Last Sunday I did a very conventional thing in preaching on Simeon and Anna in the morning, and on the boy Jesus in the temple in the evening, both under the text 'The Lord whom you seek will come to his temple...' (Mal 3:1).


On New Year's Day we had a Bible study and prayer meeting and I prepared a 'spiritual check-up' from 1 Thessalonians. I have never done quite this kind of thing before, but occasionally it is helpful to take stock.

We begin a Christianity Explored series on Monday 13th January and are hopeful for a few people to come to that.

And for the hardy of spirit who are really interested here is the text of the Christmas letter Hilary and I sent out with a lot of our cards.


2013 WITH THE ROBERTS FAMILY

Today (Saturday November 30th) was a day of fairs. The morning saw us at our church's Book Fair, not too well attended, but there is always something attractive about tables of good books and a cup of coffee. In the afternoon we whizzed around St Mary’s School Fair, well attended as usual but we spent less money and time there than ever. Via St Albans (don’t ask why) we then went to Whitwell to Emily’s Tea Shop and a craft fair with Chestnuts Roasting on An Open Fire, mulled wine, lots of Christmas goodies and a choir singing ‘White Christmas’. How do we fill our time when there is no Christmas around the corner?

Technology has played its stressful but undeniably useful part in our year. In March I (Mostyn) bought an iPad, mainly for travelling (so grateful for Skype when I have been abroad) but it has other uses, like TV catch-up and a number of fun Apps. In late August my old Dell finally died and I opted for a Mac. We then traded in our old mobiles for smartphones. It all made September the most technologically fraught month on record. It was a bit like having little children again. But we are through it now. We have just got used to higher levels of stress. I enjoy playing chess on my phone. The boys spend more time on the iPad than I do. Friends who (probably justifiably) thought I lived in the 17th Century are now swapping texts with me.

Travel has played more part in our life in 2013 than it usually does. In May I went to Sri Lanka again, this time to preach, to teach at the Baldaeus seminary in Trincomalee, and speak at a pastors’ conference. A great time, with receptive audiences and warm fellowship.

In August I went to Argentina to speak to a number of groups and churches, of differing size and maturity, who are discovering the riches of the doctrines of grace. It was a delightful and encouraging time, and thoroughly enjoyable in the company of Trevor and Lucy Routley and Lucy’s brother Daniel who translated for me.

Hilary packs a huge amount into life. She looks after us boys, helps out at St Mary’s school two afternoons a week, helps to run Parent & Toddlers and do numerous other things at church and works one day a week at LTS.

Nathaniel, (usually) quiet, thoughtful and enjoying piano and recorder lessons, is in Yr 5, and we have begun looking around at possible secondary schools for him in autumn 2015. Thomas, in Yr 3, continues to live 110% for the moment, which is demanding for him and for everyone around him. He is also learning the recorder. Both boys took part in a reading competition at school recently and made it through to the finals. The highlight of their week is the Boys’ Club run by the church on Thursday evenings. One highlight of their year was their first flight in a plane, piloted by their cousin Tim. They are a huge joy.

The big sadness of the year was the death of my mother in August. She had been failing over the year, but had a comfortable last three months in a lovely nursing home in mid Wales. I was able to take the funeral service in Newtown, and we were thankful for this opportunity. Mum was a quiet, wise, loving and strong presence and we enjoyed our visits home. Christmas will be rather different this year.

Ever heard of Selsey? I hadn’t till we were looking around for a holiday, knowing that because of my Argentina trip our time would be limited. Well, it’s south of Chichester and we did not know West Sussex very well so decided to spend nine days there in a homely bungalow. Glorious weather, seaside walks, crabbing, West Wittering beach and quaint towns, as well as edifying ministry on Sundays from John Saunders at Providence Chapel, Chichester, made it a great holiday. So good in fact that we immediately booked for half term in October.

Oh yes – we also enjoyed a week in Brixham in April. The boys love it there.

At church we have been encouraged to see some new people joining the congregation and I have recently been running a class called ‘Bible Overview’, to give them a better idea of the Bible’s big picture.

An opportunity has opened up at the local QVM hospital – I am now ‘Volunteer Minister’ and wear a real NHS security badge!

People are working hard at church and, I think, praying more. We look forward to seeing the Lord’s blessing over Christmas and in 2014.

Any writing projects have had to take a back seat but at least I can take solace in being able to encourage (sometimes discourage!) other authors, as in September I was appointed chairman of Evangelical Press. Life will not be boring as long as I hold that position. In other capacities I enjoy chairing a local fraternal and being secretary of the Westminster Fellowship. Reformation Today magazine may take a little more time soon – sadly Erroll Hulse’s stroke means more work will have to pass to others. I am doing less lecturing at LTS but now do some at the European Missionary Fellowship School.

2014 may be quieter – no overseas trips planned.
May the Lord bless your Christmas time and 2014.