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MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND DECEMBER 2018 • £2.00
Twas the night before Christmas... and the Free Church preacher was in his usual place of a Saturday night, preparing for the services the following day. As usual he was fearful and anticipatory. There was the normal sense of anticipation — after all, gathering to worship the living God is a wonderful thing — who knows what He may do on any Lord’s Day. But the fear was a little more than usual. The following day was Sunday the 25th of December. Given that it is the only ‘Christian’ festival which still resonates in the British public conscience, the preacher should have expected a bumper congregation and a sense of celebration and rejoicing at the birth of Jesus Christ. Yet he feared that this would be his lowest congregation of the year. There were good reasons for that — many people in his congregation had gone away for the holidays. Some returned to the land/area of their birth to be with family and friends; others had joined the 10% of Scotland’s population who streamed through the airports to head for sunnier climes. He knew that there were adherents who would be reluctant to come out on Christmas Day. And he knew that there were those who would struggle with the whole idea of the Free Church celebrating Christmas at all. As the preacher sat in his study, looking at the Word, thinking of the coming Lord’s Day, he also felt a sense of thankfulness. What a wonderful message! What a wonderful Lord! The Son of God becoming human. Is there any concept more wonderful than the Incarnation? He remembered the time when he would have been able to pray about the Incarnation and preach about the Incarnation, and yet not sing about the Incarnation. Thankfully those days were gone, and now they could sing the rich theology of many of the great incarnational carols. To think that for the only time in the year the Gospel was being sung on television, on the radio, in schools and in the streets! And sung with such wonderful theology: Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ, the everlasting Lord, Late in time behold Him come, Offspring of a virgin’s womb! Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity Pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel. ‘Who is He in yonder stall? At whose feet the Shepherds fall, Tis the Lord! O wondrous story, Tis the Lord, the King of Glory.
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It struck him as somewhat ironic that, not for the first time, the secular humanists and those of his brothers who considered themselves ‘traditional Calvinists’ would agree in seeking to take the Christ out of Christmas. The secularists would argue that Christmas should be a secular/pagan festival; the traditionalists would argue that it already was. Both would agree that it should not be seriously celebrated. Perhaps, the >>
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A Christmas Tale REFLECTIONS ON CHRISTMAS PAST BY THE EDITOR
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IS ANY RELIGION TRUE?
Part of a lecture given by CLIVE EVERY-CLAYTON on 16th October 2018 under the title: ‘Is Christianity the only truth about God? What about other religions’ contrary views?’
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reflection fits in with the biblical teaching of Romans 1:18-25. Man discerns from contemplating nature and the universe that there must be a God behind it all. The apostle teaches that there is a general revelation of God given in his creation, which provides glimpses of truth that man can reflect upon. Though this is not a saving revelation, it does furnish elements allowing thinkers to know that God exists, and from there to imagine what God might be like and what he must demand. This is the way that all the religions of the world have come into being, with the sole exception of the Judeo-Christian revelation. Behind every religion is some prophet proposing a concept of God, and because they start out from God’s general revelation in nature, such invented religions may include some valid insights.
t is a controversial statement these days to affirm that there is such a thing as truth in religion.
We live in an age of ‘post-truth’ where people’s ideas about existential issues are fashioned more by feeling than by facts. We also hear a lot about ‘fake news’. Isn’t there also ‘fake religious news’? Some people believe that all religious ‘truth’ is fake. Can we ever find truth about religion and about God at all? How can false and erroneous ideas be exposed if truth cannot be found? There are essentially two approaches that can be followed in an effort to find truth in matters of religion: the first, which this article will deal with, is human reflection; the second is divine revelation. Many people these days think Christians are arrogant and intolerant to hold that Christianity is the only truth about God. The underlying reason for their criticism is that they see religious ‘truth’ as merely man’s ideas, the fruit of human reflection. If religion is merely the fruit of man’s supposed bright thinking, how can he claim absolute truth for his personal views?
Two words that link in with this approach are pluralism and relativism. PLURALISM The fact of immigration of peoples of different religions into our country has alerted us to the existence of a number of faiths that were previously known only at a distance. This cultural plurality has encouraged philosophical pluralism – the idea that all religions are somehow valid, each seemingly as good as the next. Popular pluralism says that all religions are the same. Christianity stood out in the pluralism of the Roman Empire, where, according to Edward Gibbon, ‘The various modes of worship… were all considered by the people to be equally true, by the philosophers to be equally false and by the magistrates to be equally useful.’ In the context of pluralism, no one religion could seriously claim to be the only true one.
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Truth by its very nature is intolerant of that which is false. A striking example of religion originating from human reflection is the experience of Buddha. Seeing the suffering of mankind, he spent years wandering around and wondering about what might be the cause and the answer to such a problem. Then one day his philosophic answer dawned on him. The religion that came out of that insight was essentially the result of human reflection. Many other religious gurus have invented their religion by a similar process, some more sophisticated than others. This phenomenon of religion arising from human
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RELATIVISM When people say to us ‘Your religion is good for you,’ implying it is not good or true for them, they are being relativists. They think that there is no absolute truth in religion, because we are all limited to our human ideas – and everyone’s ideas are relative to their own upbringing or preferences. Since no one has the absolute truth about God, everyone’s ideas should be tolerated –except the claim to possess absolute truth! The key issue is this: pluralism and relativism arise within the framework of understanding religious truth as coming only from human reflection. Indeed, if ideas about God are merely that – human concepts invented by religious thinkers – then there is no absolute truth in religion. Everything is simply human speculation and there can be no guarantee that there is a god who corresponds to one’s projected ideas. The logical conclusion of this is SCEPTICISM: no truth can ever be found about God and religion at all. Just as human reason has been unable to discover an absolutely true philosophic system, so neither has human reflection been able to invent an absolutely true religion. This is the climate that characterises our postmodern culture today. In this agnostic and hopeless context, our Christian claim to bring the truth of God comes across as bizarre to our contemporaries. Why? Because our message is perceived as only our human view (whereas we know it is truth given by divine revelation). So our ‘opinion’ is condemned as intolerant and arrogant.
We should gently explain to the relativist that his own position is untenable: when he affirms, ‘All truth about religion is relative,’ he is actually claiming to give absolute truth about religious truth. His statement contradicts itself. It also betrays an intolerant attitude. ARROGANT? It is indeed arrogant if we insist that our human ideas about God are the only right ones. But that is not what Christians actually say. We don’t claim that our ideas are right: we have been convinced that God’s revelation speaks true truth about God, and having trusted in Christ, we have experienced the truth of his promises. So we feel free to share what we have discovered. We are not putting forward the ideas that come from our brilliant human reflection; we are simply transmitting what God the Lord has spoken through his prophets and through the sending of his Son into the world. We seek to do this with humility, recognising that our grasp of this revealed truth is not perfect – our knowledge is not absolute. But the source of our religion, God’s inspired revelation, is absolutely true; it has persuaded us of its real truth, and we desire humbly to share that with our contemporaries. We want to proclaim Gospel truth and urge others, with respect, to believe it as the truth of God. We dare to call on people to repent of their false ideas and to trust in the Son of God, with that spiritual authority that comes from our own submission to the God of truth. • Clive Every-Clayton is Emeritus lecturer in apologetics at BBI and CUPEI, Brussels and a member of Badenoch Free Church, Kingussie
How do we respond to this? INTOLERANT? First, we need to be clear that all religions are intolerant: Ravi Zacharias, specialist in the field, insists: ‘All religions do not say that all religions are the same. At the heart of every religion is an uncompromising commitment to a particular way of defining who God is or is not…. Every religion at its core is exclusive.’1Jews and Christians disagree about whether Jesus was the Messiah; Christians and Muslims disagree about whether Jesus died and rose from the dead. Hindus believe in 300,000,000 gods, while Muslims believe in only one. The fact is that truth by its very nature is intolerant of that which is false. In game quizzes on TV, if the contestant gives a wrong answer, he doesn’t get the prize money. Christians are convinced that God has revealed truth about himself through Jesus, who calls himself ‘a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God’ (John 8:40). ‘The Father who has sent me has given me a commandment—about what to say and what to speak,’ he asserts. ‘What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me’ (John 12:49-50). He tells us that God, his Father, is ‘the only true God’ whose ‘word is truth’ (John 17:3, 17). Having believed that, we have a criterion by which to tell which religious ideas are false. ‘God alone, ultimately, can speak correctly about God’, as Blaise Pascal said2. People’s human ideas must be corrected by the truth that God himself has spoken in his revealed word.
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Ravi Zacharias, Jesus among other Gods, Thomas Nelson, 2000, p7. In his Pensées §303/799.
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The marriage bond with Rachel was broken when Norman passed away in the Western Isles Hospital in the early hours of Sunday, 15 July, at age 86. We now extend condolences and offer our prayerful support to Rachel, and to Norman’s brothers, Donald Finlay and Donald John, and sisters, Dolag, Flora and Nora. We remember too Rachel’s sister, Cathie, at Park Cottage, and all the extended family. We as a Kirk Session, along with
many others, lament Norman’s passing. We have all lost a true friend who was blessed with abundant spiritual gifts and graces. God has now taken home a good and faithful servant who will be fondly remembered in this parish and in many Christian fellowships. • ‘Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty...’ Isaiah 33:17
THE LATE ALEC MACKINNON (1936-2018) BY REV. CALUM IAIN MACLEOD
A
lec george mackinnon was born
in
glasgow
on
25th
october 1936 and passed to
his eternal rest on 20th february 2018.
He was the second son of Donald and Mary Anne Mackinnon, who, after moving back to Lewis, lived for some time in Mary Anne’s home village of Caversta in South Lochs. Alec George started his education in the local school at Kershader but soon afterwards the family moved to 20 Crossbost. He continued his primary education in Fidigarry School, Ranish, and afterwards attended the Nicolson Institute and Balmacara Agricultural School for his secondary education. On leaving school he embarked on a career pathway taken by many of his contemporaries at that time as, after completing a five-year apprenticeship with Kilpatrick’s, well known electrical contractors in Paisley, he became an officer in the Merchant Navy. The next ten years saw him sailing to many parts of the world, especially the then-prominent trading routes to Australia, New Zealand and South America, as an electrician with the famous Blue Star Line. This was a career with which he fully intended to continue, but providential circumstances, in the course of a period of home leave in 1968, appear to have compelled him to change direction. During this time at home his mother died very suddenly and the family croft passed to Alec George,
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a responsibility he took up with immediate effect. Ever resourceful, he combined crofting activities with work as a self-employed electrical contractor until, some years later, he joined the local authority as a maintenance electrician, where he remained until retirement. An even bigger change of direction, however, was imminent as it was around this time that he became a highly committed Christian, ultimately making public profession of his faith in September 1969. In August 1968 Alec George and Rhoda Macleod of 44 Crossbost were married and set up home at No 20. This was a union which was to last for close on fifty years, and was blessed with a family of three – Mairi Anne, Rhona and Donnie. Moreover, it established a prominent Christian base which was much visited during the many Communion seasons which followed. Alec George was by nature an engaging and lively personality who set about every task, whether secular or spiritual, with consummate enthusiasm. This trait characterised his Christian walk, which he embraced with unbridled passion. He loved to debate healthy theological concepts and lost no opportunity to do so. His commitment to the Christian cause was further manifested through his valuable service as an office-bearer. He was ordained as a deacon in 1976 and as an elder
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in 1985. His diligence in those offices was immense and he also gave valuable service outwith the congregation as a the member of the Western Isles Presbytery, not only on behalf of the Lochs congregation but for several years as Assessor Elder for Leverburgh. His latter years were not easy as bouts of ill health prevailed on numerous occasions. In each instance, however, his natural enthusiasm tended to result in a ‘business as usual’ approach immediately following his discharge from hospital. That approach prevailed until his very last confinement, when it became clear to him that would be no way back. His faith never waned, however, and this continued to be clear to the very end. The ongoing sympathy of the congregation, and the community, is extended to Rhoda, Mary Anne, Rhona and Donnie as well as to Alec George’s beloved grandchildren. •
DECEMBER
DEUS VULT, MEDICE CURA A Christian medical approach to transgender ideology and patients. An ANONYMOUS contribution PART 1
‘“ L
et us create man in our own image”
— male and female he created them.’ An oft-quoted portion of Genesis, a simple truism accepted without question by generations untold until now. Something has happened in modern western society; a tipping point has been reached where our deepest perceptions of what it means to be human are challenged by new, ‘progressive’ ideology. What are we as Bible-believing Christians and medical professionals to make of this, especially when those most influenced by trans ideology seem to be our young, vulnerable brothers, sisters and patients? As with all things in medicine, first we must return to first principles. The vast majority of human beings are born with 46 chromosomes, two of which are the sex chromosomes — X and Y. Women have XX, men XY. The genes contained within these complex constructs control how we grow and develop in the womb. Most human beings develop along tightly defined, sex-specific pathways. Men have testes, women have ovaries. This statement of biological fact should not be contentious, yet somehow in modern society
chromosome. All embryos begin as phenotypically female; only with the presence of certain specialised hormones at developmentally critical periods does sex organ differentiation occur. Recent evidence suggests that other external factors such as maternal hormones affect brain and body development. The expression of genes can be turned on or off (epigenetics) by external factors, and this may cause parts of the body to fail to ‘match up’, for example with the development of brain structure later in gestation, long after physical sex has been determined. Due to our fallen world, if something can go wrong with any aspect of human development, then it is certain that in some people, it will. This includes early sexual development. Scientific studies are contradictory about the physical differences between male and female brains. Some suggest minimal structural and functional difference between brains of both sexes, while other postmortem studies suggest that ‘trans’ brains appear more in line with their chosen gender rather than that ‘assigned at birth’. Scientific clarity is reduced further by the mangling
it has become so. A prominent billboard was recently removed because it contained the worlds ‘woman = adult human female’. Scientifically, that is a correct statement, yet for some people it may cause offence. The very reason it causes offence is complex and has much to do with the fluidity of language, culture and individuals’ selfidentification (or not) with stereotypical norms. The presence of ‘intersex’ conditions do cause blurred lines in regards to biological sex. Some children are born with ambiguous genitalia, and there is a rare condition where apparently female children develop into males in adolescence. Rare conditions such as Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome and Swyers Sydrome affect biological XY males in such a profound way that they may be born with entirely female genitalia and sometimes even sex organs. Numerous cases of childbirth using IVF have been recorded in these genetically male yet phenotypically female individuals. Of course they are unable to reproduce naturally. Intersex people are often conflated with transgender or non-binary, but the distinction here is important — these are identifiable genetic disorders with a physical cause, as opposed to those associated with feelings and self-identification. Masculinisation or feminisation of the foetus in the womb is not as simple as the presence or otherwise of a Y
of language, such as in the above ‘assigned gender’ rather than ‘biological sex’. Such semantic opacity seems designed to intentionally muddle discussion. The outspoken trans lobby demand that all must use their ‘correct’ terminology — ‘trans’, ‘cis’, etc — as when one controls language, one controls the thoughts of others. Even more concerning is the attempt to silence all scientific research that threatens them. The news reports stories of retracted papers, de-funded research and thinly veiled threats towards academics who dare to research the underlying causes of transgenderism or the possibly negative outcomes of transitioned patients. This sets a dangerous precedent – we need research to understand the human mind and body, for how else do we correct medical mistakes? How else do we learn from error? Fundamentalist ideology, which always believes itself to be right, must not control knowledge and scientific progress. That instead is the purpose of ethics. Christian doctors have the responsibility to care for their patients — trans patients included — using the most up-to-date, relevant and wide-ranging knowledge at their disposal. •
The outspoken trans lobby demand that all must use their ‘correct’ terminology — ‘trans’, ‘cis’, etc — as when one controls language, one controls the thoughts of others.
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In the next article I will discuss more about the link between mind, body and gender self-identification.
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FROM CHRIS TO FUTURE G D
ecember 386. john , a popular priest in antioch
that he urged his listeners to take the five days before Christmas off from work in order to spend the entire time examining their consciences, forgiving their debtors, and repaying anything stolen. And all this wasn’t because he believed some kind of extra condemnation was due to those who took Communion unworthily at Christmas, but so that people would come with a worthy gift to lay before Christ, as the Magi did: ‘They brought gold; you must bring temperance and virtue. They brought incense; you must bring pure prayers, which are spiritual incense. They brought myrrh; you must bring humility and a humble heart and love.’
(he had not yet been appointed Archbishop of Constantinople or accorded the nickname Chrysostom, Golden Tongue), has written a treatise explaining why Christ’s birth should be celebrated on 25 December. Antioch is the first city to formally celebrate Christmas. Here’s an excerpt from John’s pre-Christmas sermon, delivered on 20 December: Isn’t it absurd to take so much care over bodily concerns, so that many days before the feast approaches you get your best clothes out of your chests and get them ready, and you buy shoes, and enjoy a more lavish table, and over and above that you take thought for many provisions from all quarters, and in every respect you clean yourself up and make yourself look good? On the other hand, you take no account of your soul, which is neglected, dirty, squalid, wasted from hunger and still unclean.
The babe in the manger is the Lamb once slain; the angels who appeared to the shepherds are those who keep silence in heaven during the final judgement.
I love this. The very first Christmas celebration, and what a picture! The Christians of Antioch are clearly excited to finally have religious warrant to go out and party like the pagans. No doubt they copied many of the preparations their neighbours were making for the feast of Saturnalia. The first Christmas, overtaken by consumerism. The most fashionable shoes! Makeovers, pampering sessions, new hairstyles! Tables groaning with pastries, lobsters, wine, Baileys! Okay, maybe not Baileys, but you get the idea. Plus ça change…
There are two ways in which I’ve felt trapped by Christmas in recent years. One is, of course, by the consumerism. The social necessity of gift-buying for everyone from family members to friends’ kids, dressing up, special baking, visiting the Christmas market, buying the Christmas crackers, prosecco and Quality Street. Consumerism and social obligation raise up the spectre of Christmas Present. The other entrapment, equally painful in another way, is nostalgia. I say nostalgia and not tradition because there’s a sadness inherent in the former. Tradition exists to bring comfort; nostalgia destroys it. Tradition is toasting the Queen after dinner. Nostalgia is buying yourself the same sweeties your parents used to put in your stocking because you can’t bear not to see them on Christmas morning. It’s a celebration of what is past, what is lost. For some of us it will be missing our own childhood, for others missing our children when they were young. Missing a spouse, a lifestyle, a home. Christmas music, whether
Tradition exists to bring comfort; nostalgia destroys it. The sermon is familiar too, a variation of don’t get carried away with the festivities, remember the reason for the season. Surely that’s one most of us preach to ourselves every year! Except that Chrysostom goes further than that. To him, Christmas isn’t just a time of worship and adoration, it’s a time of repentance. In his age, feast days were a special season of Communion. So seriously did John take repentance
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STMAS PAST GLORY DAYSPRING MACLEOD brings us up to date from the fourth century to eternity future!
by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Cliff Richard, or Michael Bublé, exists largely to capitalise on these feelings. We feed on sentiment in December. We punish ourselves with it, haunted by the Ghost of Christmas Past. The memory of that perfect gift we got as a child renders every following Christmas morning anticlimactic. The absence of family and friends fills us with poignancy and regret. Don’t get me wrong, remembering should be a part of this season, especially as we near the end of the year. But so often it can become a wallowing, a concrete loneliness. For many, ‘it’s the most wonderful time of the year’ sounds like a farce, because it can be the saddest. So, past and present each have their pitfalls at this festive season. What do Christians have to do with the Ghost of Christmas Future? In fact, I think where we are going wrong may be spending far too little time considering this element. We tend to think of Christmas as a time we celebrate a past event. Chrysostom knew that our meditation of Christ’s birth, leading us as it does to think on his life, death and resurrection, look toward the future. As he puts it toward the end of his sermon: ‘And just as here on earth you will welcome God with great honour, so too will he receive you in heaven with great glory, as he pays you back ten-thousandfold for your obedience.’ At Christmas we should not just look back at our own lives, or at the familiar story of shepherds and wise men, but forward into eternity. The babe in the manger is the Lamb once slain; the angels who appeared to the shepherds are those who keep silence in heaven during the final judgement; and we who look fondly on the picture of the Bethlehem stable are those who will one day bow the knee before the King of heaven and earth. •
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