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MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND JUNE 2018 • £1.50
DOES SCOTL ANOTHER BIL BY THE EDITOR
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1) WHY WAS THERE NOT A LONGER LASTING IMPACT OF THE GRAHAM CRUSADES ON SCOTLAND? My view is that they were not radical enough. Too many people saw them as opportunities to recruit people for the church, and not for Christ. Or perhaps it would be better to say that the church was not radical enough. I don’t think the problem was primarily with the crusades — but rather with the churches that many people were then fed into. The church in Scotland has declined because in many areas we have turned away from the word of God. Some have retreated into an unbiblical legalism, but it appears as though the vast majority have gone the opposite direction, into a liberalism that takes away from the word of God. When the storm winds of the 1960’s swept into society (sexual permissiveness, anti-authority attitudes and materialism), the church, weakened from within, was not able to stand. Today if you want to see where we are just consider the following couple of headlines from the Church of Scotland Assembly. “Church of Scotland moves closer to Same Sex Marriage” and “Church of Scotland could be close to extinction by 2030”. The problem is the church, not the society.
weeks to save the world ’ about billy
graham was utterly fascinating . The 1950s was a different era and a very different Scotland. The majority of people were associated with the church, and holding a six week massive evangelistic campaign in the Kelvin hall made a great deal of sense. It would be impossible to do that nowadays. I was intrigued by the people I actually knew in the documentary — even though I was not even a gleam in my father’s eye at that time! What also struck me was the level of cynicism from the Rev. Johnston Mackay who himself has done a great deal of harm to the cause of the Gospel, in his stewardship as BBC Scotland’s religious affairs producer. I am not primarily concerned in this editorial with the impact of the Graham crusades, which whilst not as effective and long lasting in their impact as his 1959 Australian crusade, nonetheless were not as ineffective as the programme claimed. Many people were converted and that did have a lasting impact on Scotland — even if it were not as much as we would like. My own father was greatly affected by one of the relay meetings. I recall a Free Church lady who told me that she went to meet Billy Graham off the train because she knew ‘he was the man that was going to convert me’. She attended every single meeting for the six weeks before she went forward at the last meeting. I also recall a ministers' conference where a number of men were being highly critical of Billy Graham and his methods. Free Church minister David Paterson was not impressed by this and in his own inimitable way stood up and said “brothers, how many of you were converted through Billy Graham’s ministry?” Apparently it was about half of them! I am also reminded of DL Moody’s famous retort to someone who was complaining about his methods. “I prefer the way I do evangelism, to the way you don’t!” We need to consider carefully how we communicate the gospel in today’s Scotland.
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2) DO WE NEED ANOTHER BILLY GRAHAM IN SCOTLAND TODAY? No. It’s a different era and something other than crusade evangelism is needed. Crusade evangelism was relevant in an era when vast numbers of people were pre-disposed to go to church. That is no longer the case. It is doubtful whether 5% of the Scottish population regularly attends church. When Franklin Graham came to Perth we struggled to even half fill the 10,000 seater Perth stadium. The money would be better spent in other ways. We don’t need one Billy Graham, or a Ravi Zacharias. We need 10,000. 3) HOW DO WE BRING THE GOOD NEWS TO SCOTLAND TODAY? This is the £64,000 question. The main difficulty is that much of our evangelism is based on outdated models that are more appropriate to another age. Let
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me explain it in this way. Let's imagine that there is an evangelism scale of one to ten where at level ten people know the Scriptures from back to front, study Calvin’s Institutes and regularly conduct bible studies in Greek and Hebrew. At level one are those who, when you ask them to turn to page one of the Bible, ask ‘ What’s a bible?” The trouble is that much of our evangelism is aimed at around level 4 and 5. We both assume too much and expect too little.
it was a great Gospel sermon which should be warmly welcomed. I was personally dismayed to see how many Free Church people fell for that. Bishop Curry does not believe the Bible, does not accept the Jesus of the Bible and his version of the love of Christ on the cross was that it was exemplary, not an atonement. He persecutes those in his own denomination who hold to a biblical position on marriage and yet so many of us welcomed what he had to say. My fear is that we are so desperate that we are willing to accept heresy as long as it seems to offer an opportunity to speak about Christ. Such an approach is fundamentally flawed. CHURCH — We tend to think of evangelism as an individual pursuit. It is not. Just as it takes a whole church to raise a child, so it takes a whole church to proclaim the Gospel. Our churches need to make evangelism as a core part of our DNA. CONTEMPORARY — We don’t live in the 1st, 16th or 20th centuries. We live in the 21st century with all its opportunities and problems. We need to study our culture. We need to understand how people think. We need to grasp the wider picture of what is going on. We need to listen to our local communities. And then we need to make sure we are speaking to the people who are there, not the ones we imagine. CHRIST CENTERED — This is the key. We do not proclaim ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord. Of course we all agree with that in theory, but is it our practice? We are not about proclaiming the Free Church, or ourselves, or building up our Church. We want people to see the beauty and glory of Christ — and we want him to be glorified through the building up of his church. When that is our desire we will fervently pray, bear witness and work with all his energy to bring his good news to all the people of Scotland and beyond. •
Can I suggest that evangelism in 21st century Scotland needs to follow the seven C’s? CREATIVITY — We need to be much more imaginative in how we communicate the Gospel. Creativity is in the nature of our Creator and he has made us in his image. There is a danger in being programmatic. There are no programmes that, useful as they are, will be the key for evangelizing Scotland. We need to set our people free to be creative as they seek to bring the Good News to the people of Scotland COURAGE — This is not going to be easy. There is hostility to the Gospel in much of contemporary culture — and even within the Church. The temptation is to keep our heads down and claim that we are quietly working away. But there comes a time to speak up and speak out. With great boldness the apostles testified to the saving grace of Jesus. Where is our boldness? COMPASSION — Harshness and evangelism should be strangers to one another. But sadly fear, sin and frustration can cause us to react with hardness and hostility to those we are seeking to evangelise. That must never happen. Our hearts should break for those who are dead in sins and trespasses and who are on their way to a lost eternity. The Gospel is not ‘you are saved’ — it is 'you can be saved if you come to know Christ'. CONFESSIONAL — There is a view that theology and evangelism don’t mix. In the hysteria surrounding the sermon of Bishop Michael Curry at the Royal wedding in May, there were those who suggested that just because his sermon mentioned Jesus, the Bible and the Cross,
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“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)
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Photo courtesy of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
AND NEED LLY GRAHAM?
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hose of us who are older will often remark how quickly the years have gone by. Those of us who
are getting older (100% — even for those who think they can stay forever young) should recognise that every day/month/year that goes by has gone, and we won’t get them back. Despite HG Wells and Hollywood, there is no time machine which will enable us to get back the years. Time is precious — an unswappable commodity. I was recently in a discussion with someone who worked out that he was paid £250 per day for the work he does, and he was concerned about how he spent his time, because it is valued and valuable. Last month we saw that there is a time for everything. This month’s passage (Ecclesiastes 3:11) is a beautiful reflection on the burden of time. If the notion of time is difficult enough to understand and hurts my head even thinking about it, the idea of eternity, to which the Preacher now turns, blows my mind. Time is one thing. Timelessness is quite another. I remember, as a child, trying to imagine not existing. It was impossible. Impossible because God has set eternity in our hearts. To me this is the greatest apologetic for God — the sense of beauty and the sense of eternity in the human heart. There is something inside us that gives us that awareness of eternity. We have a capacity for eternal things; we are concerned about the future; we want to understand from the beginning to the end; and we have a sense of wonder, of beauty, that transcends our immediate situation. This leads us to a Godconsciousness that is part of our nature. Paul tells us that we are naturally theists because ‘since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse’ (see Romans 1:18-21). This is interesting because, whereas most contemporary atheists think it is an obvious point that humans are born atheistic and have to be ‘indoctrinated’ to believe in God, there are those who agree with Richard Dawkins and the psychologist Dorothy Kelman that we are instinctively born with an awareness of a Creator. They regard this as an evolutionary throwback that people need to be ‘educated’ out of. The Bible’s perspective is that we have this inbuilt awareness of God because He is. We are made in his image and we have this sense of eternity and beauty within us. There is a negative side to this. It is a burden. We have this sense of eternity and this sense of beauty. But we cannot fathom what God has done from the beginning to the end. Walter Kaiser speaks of this as being ‘a deep-seated desire, a compulsive drive. To know the character, composition and meaning of the world…and to discern its purpose and destiny.’ There is nothing under the sun that can ultimately satisfy this sense of the eternal — there is always a striving after beauty, a striving after the One. We have a desire to progress — we long for beauty. We long to improve and to make things better.
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GOSPEL FOR TODAY’S SOCIETY: ECCLESIASTES 3:9-11 THE RECORD
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We boast about being ‘progressive’ in terms of values, but the only real progress we have made is technological. However, the progress that has brought us the internet and penicillin has also brought us nuclear weapons and global warming. In many ways, with labour-saving devices and the increase in leisure and pleasure time, we should be freer to enjoy life — but we are frustrated and disappointed that freedom and comfort have not brought meaning and peace to our lives. Take for example, the internet. It is a brilliant invention that brings many wonderful things and possibilities — you may be reading this because of it! But as with all human inventions, there is a downside. This week a former Facebook vice-president, Chamath Palihapitiya, gave a widely reported talk at Stanford Graduate School of Business, in which he lamented his role in creating Facebook: ‘The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth.’ There are so many wonderful things about modern life, but it is a fact that the most technologically advanced countries are also marked by family breakdown, drug addiction, abortion, violent crime, homelessness and suicide. As Malcolm Muggeridge observed, ‘The result is almost invariably the exact opposite of what’s intended. Thus expanding public education has served to increase illiteracy; half a century of pacifist agitation has resulted in the two most ferocious and destructive wars in history; political egalitarianism has made for a heightened class-consciousness…and sexual freedom has led to erotomania on a scale hitherto undreamed of.’ What is the solution to this burden? We need to bring God into the equation. Not human religion. Not manmade gods. But God. The word for beauty in v.11 (Yapeh) is very close to Yahweh — the name for God. The sense of beauty within us is what CS Lewis called ‘drippings of grace’, which point us to Christ. These are moments of transcendence. Personally, for me this means Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, sitting in Glen Doll in the Scottish Highlands, holding a newborn baby in my arms. All of us experience moments like these. It’s what we do with them that counts. Without God we forget and misuse them. God gives us the capacity for pleasure — taste buds, sexual drive and the ability to appreciate beauty – but without him that will lead to overindulgence and destruction. We turn nudity into pornography, wine into alcoholism, food into gluttony, and human diversity into racism and prejudice. Instead of being good gifts they become destructive to us. Our life becomes a waste — either frittered away or burnt out in overactivity. God has given us this burden of eternity and the desire for beauty. He has also given us the source of that beauty — the fountain of light, life and love — Christ. This summer, in the midst of all our fragility, stress, sin and ugliness, may the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. •
BURDEN AND THE BEAUTY 2018
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ETS CENTRE FOR MISSION BY REV. THOMAS DAVIS
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ne of the main projects currently happening at ets is the development of the new centre for mission. This
is a very exciting development and one that we hope will provide a wide range of training opportunities for the mission of the church, both in Scotland and overseas. The Centre for Mission is based on the top floor of the ETS building, where there are several newly refurbished rooms and study areas. It will also have access to the larger lecture rooms in ETS for workshops and conferences. The Centre for Mission already has a well-resourced library, which is growing bigger all the time. As well as new purchases, the library has recently benefitted from some excellent material donated by experienced missionaries and scholars of mission. There are also facilities for online study and distance learning. But what exactly is going to happen at ETS Centre for Mission? Who can study there? And what can you learn? Well, here is a brief outline of the plan. The courses at the Centre for Mission are going to be structured across four different levels. LEVEL 1. SERVING TOGETHER: GIFTS FOR LOCAL MISSION These are courses designed to equip local congregations to reach out to the communities around them. This is a foundational part of the Centre for Mission because, ever since the New Testament, the local church has been the primary means through which the good news of Jesus Christ has spread. These courses aim to help God’s people develop their gifts, serve in their congregation and reach out to the local community. Examples of the type of course that will be offered are training for deacons, elders, treasurers, Sunday School teachers, youth workers, and for husbands, wives and families. LEVEL 2. SETTING OUT: MENTORED FOR MISSION These courses aim to provide focused training for men and women hoping to enter into particular mission work, either here in Scotland or overseas. Some areas of mission require specialist knowledge and skills, so the aim of these courses is to give opportunities for those who are setting out on mission to learn from those who already have experience in the particular mission field to which God is calling them. This of course follows the pattern set in the New Testament; when the young Timothy was preparing to carry the responsibility of bringing the gospel to the next generation, he was given a wealth of advice from Paul, who was near the end of his ministry and ready to share what he had learned. It is precisely this kind of model the ETS Centre for Mission will follow – learning from those who have served before. Under this umbrella, we hope to offer those who are ‘setting out’ Short Mission Courses and specific one-to-one Mentoring for Mission. Examples of the areas that will be covered are: • Bible and mission • Mission in the modern world – historicalsketches • Motivating mission • Spiritual conflict • Engaging with religions • Current issues in mission • Creative access mission • Cross-cultural mission • Urban and rural church planting • Urban and rural church revitalisation
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LEVEL 3. TIME OUT: REFRESHMENT IN MISSION These are refresher courses – sabbaticals – for those who need some ‘time out’ in order to be strengthened to go back into mission and ministry. That might be missionaries overseas, people involved in outreach activity in Scotland, or those who are in pastoral ministry. Courses can be chosen on an individual basis, so are therefore tailored to suit specific needs. It is hoped that this can be an enormous help to missionaries who are already on the field and need refreshment, encouragement, or perhaps the theological training they were not able to get before they began to serve. Refresher courses can be short research periods extending from a week to three months or more, with or without supervision. Such sabbaticals will be of real help for pastors or others who are thinking through ethical, biblical, theological, historical, ecclesiastical or missiological issues which will impact their congregational life and mission. LEVEL 4. DIGGING DEEP: RESEARCH FOR MISSION This level will provide postgraduate missiological programmes. At the heart of these courses lies the conviction that mission is not something that should be viewed simply as a practical, hands-on activity. Mission should also be the subject of the highest level of academic research and study. Such research will enable students to think through particular missiological issues and to understand the new challenges to mission that arise in an ever-changing world. Such research is very valuable in order to deliver training and education in theology and mission. Initially, students will be able to choose between two postgraduate programmes. They can study for the Master of Theology, which is a research-based degree involving either one year of full-time (on-campus) study or two years of part-time (off-campus) study. Alternatively, they can choose the Master of Theology in Missiology. This is a programme delivered by means of prescribed courses involving either one year of full-time study or two years of part-time study. This will enable students to focus in on several areas that suit their interests, such as the Bible, Theology and Mission, History and Mission, Current Issues in Mission, and Mission into the 21st Century. The Centre for Mission is being co-ordinated by Prof John Angus MacLeod and Dr Alistair Wilson. Prof John Angus commented, ‘Our aim in the ETS Centre for Mission is to serve God’s servants and prepare God’s people for God’s mission. That’s a huge, but honourable, task, and it really is great that the Free Church of Scotland is so keen to support this vision.’ Dr Wilson added, ‘Mission is a task of such great importance that it deserves the whole-hearted investment of our best human, intellectual, and financial resources. It is a great privilege to serve the church through the ETS Centre for Mission as we seek to enthuse, inform, and equip God’s people for participation in God’s mission.’ Please continue to pray for the ongoing development for the Centre for Mission. Our great hope is that it will help many, many people to go out and share the gospel. So we look forward to welcoming you as Centre for Mission students! •
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Christian Doctors in the Eye of the Storm CMF Head of Communications, JOHN MARTIN, reports on its 2018 National Conference
‘H
ow should we respond when we are critiqued,
It has launched a network of doctors working with refugees and asylum seekers. Many of them come to the UK with medical issues not often seen here. Some have suffered torture. As one speaker told the conference, to work with them a Christian doctor needs, like the Apostle Paul, to be ‘very culturally competent – he knew how to align.’ He said people in Europe continue to mistreat the alien, a problem that was rife as long ago as the time of the prophet Ezekiel. CMF seeks to be a fellowship, facing outwards to ethical issues and social justice, inwards in mutual support. One CMF veteran member attending the conference told me she joined CMF in 1957. ‘In those days junior doctors were moved about all the time. I owe so much to older CMF members who kept in touch with me and mentored me, both in my career in paediatric medicine and my faith.’ CMF conferences are family friendly. In addition to the 400 adults attending, there were 80 children with their own programme provided by a team from Youth With a Mission. I met three generations of one family: grandparents now beyond retirement age, parents and four children. ‘In the early days when our children were young,’ the grandfather recalled, ‘work as a GP was very demanding. But our kids so looked forward to the CMF conferences, so they pushed us into coming.’ There are about 600 CMF members in Scotland, and the Fellowship operates in regions roughly akin to those of the three Scottish National Health Service regions. During the last twelve months CMF has begun to devolve more of its work onto local teams, with one pilot region in Scotland. Leading the work is Dr Audrey Chalmers, who combines CMF with two days a week as an emergency doctor in the northeast of Glasgow. ‘My hope is to release local Christian doctors to serve Christ in the workplace. I want to see Christian doctors better supported, better equipped to serve Christ in the NHS.’ There has been a spurt of growth, particularly in the Inverness area. A new medical school due to open shortly in Inverness will provide new opportunities for student evangelism and for graduate doctors to offer hospitality and support to students. ‘I get enormous satisfaction from seeing younger doctors mature in their faith and develop a heart for mission,’ Audrey says. •
or even worse, deliberately slandered?’
Michael Ramsden, from the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, posed this question to 400 Christian doctors, medical students and nurses. They had assembled for the 2018 national conference of the Christian Medical Fellowship, in Stone, Staffordshire (28-29 April). He said Christians today find themselves ‘in an increasingly angry and slanderous world where people seem willing to make up just about anything about anybody to achieve their ends.’ CMF chose the conference theme ‘Dare to Stand’, reflecting how Christian doctors need to be counter-cultural, ready and equipped to oppose the prevailing tide. Michael Ramsden drew from the example of the Apostle Paul and the Corinthians for clues on how to meet the demands a hostile culture places on us, noting that his response to slander and attack was not self-righteous pity, which is so much the tenor of our times. ‘When we are selfrighteously angry we get into trouble so quickly.’
CMF, with a membership of 4,000 doctors and 1,000 medical students, increasingly finds itself in the eye of the storm. CMF CEO Dr Peter Saunders reflects that Christian doctors face extraordinary pressures. ‘Not only do we often feel asked to do the impossible with inadequate resources, but our own sense of duty can drive us to take on responsibilities that surpass our ability to cope.’ As well as supporting its members, the Fellowship is active in public policy issues. There have been more than ten failed attempts in recent years to legislate for assisted suicide in the various UK parliaments. Now those campaigning for it have shifted focus to fighting through the courts. Guernsey and the Isle of Man likewise are assisted suicide battlegrounds and CMF is resourcing locals in opposition. The conference seminar programme included sharing experiences of sensitive issues for Christian doctors like dealing with abortion requests and transgender patients. While serving in the National Health Service is demanding, the vision of CMF extends beyond the British Isles. Over 200 members work internationally. Whereas once most of these were in missionary service, a CMF member working outside the UK today may be a trainer, researcher, engaged in public health or a whole variety of government and NGO posts. A further challenge for CMF members is migrant health.
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CAN A MINNOW CRITIQUE A WHALE? BY SIMON MANCHESTER Dear friends, I’ve never been to it, but I’m conscious that in my very secular city we have a famous gathering called ‘Hillsong’ which must surely say to our city that the church is not old and dead. Not only is the original Hillsong here, but there are Hillsong plants in many cities in the world, and their music is known and sung widely. (I remember meeting a lifesaver in Hawaii and all he knew about Australia was Hillsong!) The pastor Brian Houston is my age and we’ve never met, but I’m conscious that he is a remarkable leader and someone, unlike so many of us, who encourages and rejoices in positive ways about life and ministry! And now I’ve read his new book, There is More: When the World Says You Can’t, God Says You Can. There is much in the book that is valuable. I loved his quote from Corrie ten Boom that ‘when a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away your ticket and jump, you sit still and trust the driver’. But having been reading the Bible for forty-eight years, I find something is centrally different about his approach and mine. And since his approach has affected more people than mine ever will, I find myself cautious about commenting, yet concerned as well. It’s a strange thing to take the Joseph example and talk about the need to dream dreams. The Bible is descriptive about God’s work in and through Joseph but not prescriptive that I should be a dreamer. The New Testament has nothing to say — that I can think of — on the profit of dreaming. It’s also a strange thing to take the incident where Jesus tells the disciples to put out into the deep to catch fish — and then use the illustration to urge us to take risks, etc. The actual effect of the incident in Luke 5 is to make Peter conscious of sin and Jesus’ holiness, not to be adventurous. What I think I’m reading in the book is a great emphasis on me and what God might do for and through me — rather than a great emphasis on him and what he is at work to do for his own glory as he uses us to that end. I’m giving you my hunch. One example of this is the power of the word. Brian Houston says that our words hold creative power. ‘They can breathe life into dead situations, create hope where there was none. You can speak life into your marriage, your spouse, your families. You can speak destiny and purpose into your children’s little bodies…into your wellbeing and your finances’ (page 71). What the Bible says is that God speaks powerfully, but it sounds in the book as if God’s creative word becomes mine. Another example is where he quotes from 1 Corinthians 15:45-47 on the ‘natural, then the spiritual body’. The apostle is explaining what God will do in changing our earthly body one day into a resurrection body. But Brian Houston gives the work to me to pursue my natural obligations with a view to producing my spiritual progress. The task has moved from God to me. One of the very honest parts of the book is the emphasis on troubles and trials in the Christian life. He does not present some victorious and triumphant Christianity, but is honest and realistic (though I’m not sure what it means that Jesus ‘died to bring heaven to earth’ on page 94). What I am saying in all this, as I read this book and reflect on an amazing work that has reached tens of thousands who gather in Hillsong churches around the world, is who is at the centre of the message? Because it’s a very different thing to be told that he (the Lord) has great power and might — and to be told that I might have it as well. If I take what only he can do and make it something that I can do (or he will help me do), then even my praise will shift from ‘you are worthy’ to ‘you are helpful’. Pray for us all to be truly Christ-centred. • Yours, Simon Manchester
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