Personal reflections on church life as seen from the organ loft, the preacher’s study and the committee room.
Your editor’s heritage includes John Wesley’s Oxford, the Prims’ birthplace on Mow Cop, and the Methodist Missionary Society’s hospital in Nigeria. He has also been the Treasurer of an Anglican Cathedral in Malawi and a regular communicant at a Catholic Franciscan Friary in Pakistan.
- ... that house cannot stand February 20, 2012
Mark 3:25
The demolishers arrived on our church premises today: the first signs of work to prepare the way for the tram.
They cut down a tree (to stop birds nesting) and fenced off the site of the house and garden abutting our drive, once known as Wesley Avenue.
There are minor parking restrictions in the drive, but eventually the small additional public car park here should encourage the Sunday congregation!
It will be business as usual in church, of course. We are NOT due for demolition!
- To me, being a Christian means … February 14, 2012
A major Ipsos Mori survey of what Christians believe is published today by the Richard Dawkins Foundation. Adults identifying themselves as Christian in last year’s census (54% of the population, down from 72% in 2001) were asked about their attitudes to religion and government, as well as about practical aspects of religion like church attendance, bible reading, prayer and beliefs.Those of us who are preachers and organizers of church services and fellowship groups need to realise that only half of “Christians” had actually attended services and only 40% had opened their bibles in a year. Three-quarters did not believe completely in the power of prayer, and only 32% believed that Jesus was physically resurrected.
In the realm of public policy, 74% agree that religion should not have any special influence, and almost as many (69%) say that Christianity had little or no influence in their own choice of marriage partner.
Asked to select which one statement best describes what being a Christian means to them personally, 40% chose ‘I try to be a good person’ and around a quarter (26%) chose ‘It’s how I was brought up’. Around one in six (16%) selected the statement ‘I have accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour’ and less than one in ten (7%) chose ‘I believe in the teachings of Jesus’.
Would Chilwell Road members see themselves reflected in these descriptions of Christians? If not, is it because Methodists are out of line with the majority of self-identifying Christians, or simply further along the path of discipleship?
What we can’t do is to limit the use of the label “Christian” to people with particular beliefs or practices. I wonder if we could also say the same about “Methodists”?
- Church members featured on Radio Nottingham February 14, 2012
Chilwell Road was featured on Radio Nottingham last Sunday morning when members of the congregation were featured in a recorded piece about the effect of the tram on the church.Later in the same programme, one of the group is interviewed about what it meant to have to move house because her home is to be demolished to make way for the tram, and another phoned in with her views (as a local councillor) on the issue of public prayers at Council meetings.
- Let us pray ... for Town Councils February 10, 2012
Methodists may well be surprised by today’s High Court ruling that the inclusion of prayers on the agenda of Town Council Meetings is unlawful “because there was no statutory power permitting the practice to continue”. These devotions are a long British tradition deriving from the established status of the church. The USA, on the other hand, explicitly separates church and state.So if Eric Pickles does not succeed in his hasty promise to change the “banning” law, what will local councils miss? First will be the “inspiration from the almighty” channelled by the local chaplain at the start of each meeting of full council. Second will be the reminder that while an errant council may escape both an unwelcome appearance in Private Eye’s Rotten Boroughs column and the electors’ booting out them out at the next election, a higher authority with an even longer term viewpoint is keeping his/her eye on proceedings.
I note that our local Borough Council in Broxtowe does indeed start its meetings with prayers. However, both the agenda and the minutes clearly demonstrate that the prayers are a mere preliminary to the main itemised business and therefore exempt from the strictures of the current law nor open for discussion in Matters Arising next time!
- Nottingham couple win £45m lottery jackpot February 10, 2012
Methodists in the Nottingham and Derby District will have mixed reactions to the headline news that within the last fortnight, two young local couples have each won enormous sums exceeding £40 million on the lottery.Some will rejoice with them over their new-found fortune, especially as the winners might have been described as the deserving poor (and not bankers, professional footballers or ex-convicts). This week’s winner, Matthew Topham, has family connections with Chilwell Road and recently helped decorate our premises. Some will applaud the winners’ generous determination to gift some of the proceeds to family and friends. Some may express perhaps just a small hint of envy, wishing they had shared the same blessing from heaven.
But others will regret the glorification of a system that spreads wealth so unfairly in rewarding gamblers rather than wealth-generators or service-providers. They will be uneasy at the prominence given to the disproportionate rewards offered by an industry that exploits the gullible and encourages addictive behaviour.
It is true that our Methodist Church has softened its traditional abhorrence of gambling in all its forms and now not only permits raffles in our church halls but also encourages church council to apply for grants for community development projects to the Lottery Board. It’s general approach to the National Lottery, as with other forms of gambling, is “to press for safeguards to protect people from harm as a result of gambling. Some gambling activities are particularly harmful, and certain groups of people are particularly vulnerable to this harm”.
I am sure we would welcome any opportunity to offer a free home to the local Gamblers Anonymous meeting! Or should we send a begging letter to Matthew?
- Just the ticket February 6, 2012
What is the purpose of our annual ticket of membership? Can you use it to get free entry to Wesley’s Chapel in London when other cathedrals charge tourists to see their splendid buildings? Do you have to show it before being admitted to a quarterly Communion Service as happens in some Calvinistic churches? Would it indicate that you would want a Methodist minister called in an emergency?The answer: none of the above. Rather, its main purpose is to remind us of the specific Methodist “callings” that have brought us membership within the church, the body of Christ. The Catholic Church in England and Wales is now following suit, printing their similar callings on similar credit-card-sized tickets. One duty in particular caught my eye: Catholics are “to use their intellectual, emotional and spiritual gifts wisely”.
We Methodists don’t check up on each other’s performance, but at the end of the day ….
- "Old wine in an even older bottle" February 2, 2012
I was amused to read in today’s press the reaction of Pakistan’s Foreign Minister [incidentally their first woman politician to visit Afghanistan] to the NATO report about the alleged support of the Afghani Taleban by Pakistan secret services and armed forces.Not that the report was untrue, nor that it had been leaked. No, it was described dismissively (in the slightly garbled words of the King James Version) as “old wine in an even older bottle”.
The only Christmas book gift that I have had time to open has been David Crystal’s “Begat”. He has explored the use and misuse of aphorisms derived from the particular phraseology of the KJV (and Tyndale before that): “new wine into old bottles” comes, of course, directly from Matthew 9:17. Crystal points out that the meaning of that phrase is both better appreciated when “wineskin” is substituted for “bottle” and also indifferent to the order of the words “new” and “old”.
Only Christian fundamentalists would disagree with such laxity of interpretation. It is curious that Muslim fundamentalists make use of exactly the same trick.
But what am I doing, writing about wine and bottles after my previous post?
- Measure for measure February 2, 2012
The Methodist Church has always maintained a strong witness against alcohol abuse and was a leader in the temperance movement including the “Band of Hope” in previous centuries. My own family suffered terrible damage from the behaviour of my alcoholic grandfather. Many Methodists today are tee-total and no alcohol is allowed on Methodist premises.Today, a coalition of national Churches and charities has written to the Prime Minister asking him to introduce a minimum unit price on all alcohol sold in Britain when the Government’s alcohol strategy is announced later this month. David Cameron has indicated that he may be willing to introduce a minimum price of 40 – 50 pence per unit on alcohol, but the group is worried that these plans may be dropped under pressure from the drinks industry.
The group is also encouraging individuals to write to their MPs, highlighting the problems caused by cheap alcohol in their local area and asking them to support per unit minimum pricing. A range of resources for the ‘Measure for Measure’ campaign are available online here.
A YouGov survey conducted in December last year revealed that 61% of UK adults believe that excessive drinking is a problem (from minor to major) in their neighbourhood. The survey commissioned by the Methodist Church, United Reformed Church and Baptist Union of Great Britain asked people to judge the effects of alcohol on the area within walking distance from their home, or where they use local facilities.
We already have Street Angels on the streets of Beeston. ”Measure for measure” is a wider political campaign aimed at the prevention of alcohol abuse, and deserves the support of churches like ours.
- We will all be changed January 22, 2012
Today is one of the few Special Sundays in our church calendar when a particular concern takes precedence over the common lectionary in determining the theme of our main worship service. This is the Sunday that falls within the octave of Prayer for Christian Unity, traditionally observed in mid-January between the Feasts of the Confession of St Peter and the Conversion of St Paul. So we have a visiting preacher from one of the local Anglican churches and our own minister is reciprocating elsewhere.The particular flavour of the international celebration this year is the hope of transforming unity. “Change is at the heart of the ecumenical movement. When we pray for the unity of the church we are praying that the churches that we know and which are so familiar to us will change as they conform more closely to Christ. This is an exciting vision, but also a challenging one. Furthermore, when we pray for this transforming unity we are also praying for change in the world.”
You can read a summary of our Ecumenical activities here, but I don’t believe that we can take particular pride in our efforts in this sphere. We are struggling rather to put flesh on last year’s Church Council resolution to work towards closer ties with neighbouring Methodist churches. How much harder will it be to work effectively with clergy and congregations of other denominations, especially when there appears to be little more enthusiasm there than we ourselves show?
One ray of hope is the grass-roots level work with the Hope Café in Beeston, a joint enterprise between the churches, which is providing care for homeless and hungry people in the town. Another example of actions speaking louder than words?
- We three kings of orient are... January 10, 2012
I was somewhat surprised to receive, on January 6, a “gift from the Three Kings.” In our household we normally mark the twelfth day of Christmas only by packing away the decorations and sweeping up the needles from the drooping tree. No reading of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”, no touring Sternsinger or other mumming and wassailing.Methodists should not, however, neglect the insights written into Matthew’s nativity narrative [ch. 2] of the visit of the magi to the infant Christ in Bethlehem. Making a long journey from the east following some celestial sign, they brought treasured gifts and offered homage fit for a king. These eastern Gentiles, like Luke’s Jewish shepherds, had somehow divined the special character of Jesus. Christ’s incarnation was not just for the Jews, but for the world: for us all.
In continental Europe, January 6 is celebrated nationally and even politically. After David Cameron’s recent defence of Britain as a Christian country, we might hear even more about Epiphany in future years. The card manufacturers might catch on to it too!
- Hark, hark what news the angels bring December 22, 2011
The one perk you get from being the Church web-editor is that the Carol Choir (who have been singing round the streets of Beeston each Christmas since before the telephone was invented) come to perform under my lamp-post in my street.So I took them out some figgy-pudding, so to speak, and off they went, but not before singing one of their classic numbers.
[Apologies for the poor picture quality: the photo-reporters have all gone off for Christmas.]
- Methodist President's Christmas message December 22, 2011
Rev Leo Osborne, President of Conference, writes this about the Christmas Card sent from Methodist Church House with a painting by Chinese artist He Qi.When I looked at it, at first I could only see two wise men. “Where’s the third?” I immediately thought and then not long afterwards thought again, “But why should there be three anyway?” Yet we all bring our pre-suppositions to the Christmas story, don’t we, perhaps expecting to find not only three wise men but kings and innkeepers not to mention donkeys, holly, ivy and snow! But you’ll be hard pushed to discover any of them in the Gospel narratives – not even in the Authorised version! Even the wise men themselves of course had pre-conceptions that a king would be born in Jerusalem, not Bethlehem. But when I glanced for a second and third time and in a different light I could eventually see where the third Wise Man was – and although it doesn’t add anything to the Gospel story it made me feel sentimentally better!
“Well perhaps this Christmas each of us needs to come again to this oh so familiar story, asking that God would take away the pre-supposition that we’ve seen it all or know it all and help us to reflect on things in a new light. Or perhaps to have light shed on something long since known but forgotten or ignored. For, if we look carefully, this simple story may have important things to say to us about many of the personal, social, religious and international issues facing us and our world today, and God’s part in them all.
“And challenging our pre-suppositions and opening our eyes is surely what God is always about, as I have discovered during my first six months as President, when, although some situations and people have been as I’d imagined, many haven’t and I’ve had to learn to look at things in a different light. And for the coming year you may already have imagined – or planned out – how life or faith or church is going to be. Well prepare to be surprised like Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and wise men were long ago! But remember too that the one who came and comes is named Emmanuel – God with us – so whatever may be different from what you imagine and however things may seem as a result, God remains the same – dwelling alongside you in grace, truth and love.
“May that same God bless you this Christmas and beyond!”
- However you dress it up, Christmas starts with Christ December 19, 2011
As part of our church’s outreach program, we have sponsored the placing of this advert on a hoarding near us. The aim is to keep Christmas focussed on Christ by retelling the story in a way which engages creatively and positively with people’s interests.The national campaign organisers explained that they wanted to show the meeting of Christianity and consumerism, with Christ in the middle.
The Damien Hirst skull, the Fabergé egg and the Swarovski crystal perfume bottle are modern treasures that contrast shockingly with the poverty of our everyday culture, just as the traditional Wise Men’s gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh were treasures that must have surprised the holy family gathered in the Bethlehem stable.
The President of Conference has issued this Christmas message, bringing a new take to the Christmas story.
- Fair comment, evangelism or gloating? December 17, 2011
When the journalist and polemicist Christopher Hitchens died last week after a prolonged, painful and public illness, many good things were said about him by friends and antagonists alike. He was by all accounts a brilliant writer and communicator, a passionate advocate of unpopular causes, but also an outspoken critic of institutional religion. He had, for example, made excoriating comments about the missionary work of Mother Teresa, and (with Richard Dawkins) successfully debated religious issues in public with the great and the good, including Tony Blair. His most popular book was “God is not Great“, published in 2007.So no friend of the church, except insofar he may have forced us to hone our debating skills to take the Christian apologetic argument to the masses.
Conventionally, funeral eulogies avoid controversy and skip over awkward issues, while obituarists are allowed to make more balanced judgements. Where does a newspaper cartoonist fit into this spectrum of taboos? This one, again from my daily paper today, seems to have overstepped the mark. While awarding Hitchens a unbegrudged halo, it denigrates his beliefs in as crude and unsympathetic a manner as would the hell-fire preacher of old. Let us not complain when the Atheist Review gives as good as it gets when it’s our turn to queue at the pearly gates.
- Unto us a child is born December 16, 2011
Christmas presents should be lovely surprises, richly valued and given with love and generosity. Here is one from last year that is worth recycling and enjoying again.
- Bramcote Parish Church launches new website December 16, 2011
Congratulations to Bramcote Parish Church who have launched their new website this month. They are using the same template as we do [WordPress Twenty-ten theme] so we might share ideas about presentation.Not that they copied from us of course, anymore than we copied from the Bramcote Today community website! The template we really thought of using was this one from St Mary’s and St Peter’s Churches in Nottingham but it would have been too complicated.
- Living in peace with one another December 13, 2011
We are having a spot of bother at our church and an emergency church council has been called to sort it out. I’m involved, so I’ll try not to take sides here: it’s important that everyone gets a proper chance to have their say.The immediate problem concerns mission among the poor; it relates to building community in the church; and it touches on good governance. These worthy objectives sometimes conflict, and achieving long-term aims may deflect us from doing what is best for now.
This week’s lectionary epistle [1 Thessalonians, probably the earliest of all NT writings] seems to provide a useful guide to our Christian conduct in Beeston today. Paul was writing to a congregation that was devoted to its faith while living in a church community. He values “prophetic utterances” but enjoins us to “examine everything carefully” and “appreciate those who diligently labour among us, and have charge over you in the Lord and give you instruction.” In the end he urges, “help the weak, but be patient with everyone”.
- Come, and let us cast lots December 8, 2011
“Lessons in gambling urged for all children in schools” was the provocative headline in my paper recently. Gamcare, a think-tank funded by the gaming industry was giving evidence to a government review of Personal, Social, Health and Economics [PSHE] Education. They argued that “there is an urgent need to raise awareness amongst young people about the risks of problem gambling, and to educate those who might choose to gamble in adulthood to do so responsibly.”Gamcare recognised the high prevalence of gambling in our society, but their approach was neither to ban it (even among children of whom 2% are already problem gamblers), nor reduce the everyday opportunities for gambling (by giving local authorities powers to refuse planning permission for betting shops), nor impose a compulsory levy on the gambling industry. Rather, they want gambling to be taught explicitly in schools!
Methodists have a long and honourable record of witness against gambling, as well as the drinking of alcohol. Half a dozen Standing Orders prohibit both on our premises, though in recent years some softer forms of gambling like raffles and amusements with small prizes have reluctantly been permitted. So what would our church have advised the Department of Education?
“The government must take action on child gambling and the clustering of betting shops, and fund independent research, education and treatment.” That was the concluding summary of similar evidence given by Methodists and others to another government inquiry into gambling last month. Note the phrase “education”. Let’s both educate the addicts, and teach the hazards of gambling before it gets a hold. Maybe the policies of the Methodist Church and Gamcare are not so far apart!
- They shook off the dust of their feet in protest December 4, 2011
Protests involving direct action are in the news again. UK public sector workers including teachers and hospital staff were out on strike last Wednesday, and anti-capitalist Occupy London protesters are still camped out in front of St Paul’s Cathedral. Tempers are raised on both sides; peace and harmony are disrupted. The disturbance caused both to the targets of the protest and to bystanders is equivalently matched by the sacrifice made and inconvenience incurred by the protesters themselves. We can legitimately ask: what is gained? To answer that question, we need to be clear what the protest’s primary objectives are. In particular, are they pleas or threats?Is protest a form of witness, what we might call the prophetic voice, like Jesus over-turning the traders’ tables in the Temple in Jerusalem? Jesus was not seeking to bring about a final solution to commercialization of temple sacrifice arrangements when he lashed out in that passionate outburst. But he achieved what he set out to do: label such practices as wrong. Taking advantage of the equivalent of a modern-day photo-opportunity, Jesus ensured that his violent though brief token action was reported, discussed and interpreted for all time and throughout the world. Paul made a similar though lower-key protest in Corinth when the locals abused him after a particularly radical sermon in the synagogue. He shook out his clothes in protest and walked out: I’m off to preach to the Gentiles, he said.
Is protest rather a form of coercion, like Moses bringing plagues of frogs, gnats and flies (and worse) to Pharaoh’s court? Last week an Indian snake-charmer, made redundant in Uttar Pradesh, released poisonous snakes at Land Officers’ feet in protest against bureaucracy and the new health-and-safety regulations. The snakes were recaptured but he escaped, his protest (unlike Moses’) unsuccessful.
Is protest an easy way to avoid hard discussion and negotiation in smoked-filled rooms? Have all avenues been explored, all stones turned? Moses gave Pharaoh plenty of opportunity to meet him halfway, and only sent in the plagues as a last resort.
If we in the church are on the receiving end of a protest movement, we need to be sure we have listened to the protesters and given them every opportunity to make their point. They may even have right on their side, but so, of course, may we. That’s quite another matter.
- The heart of the matter: reforming the NHS November 26, 2011
The underlying tension between theory and practice, between head and heart, was dramatically brought home to Chilwell Road last Thursday evening.A team from the local NHS had booked a hall at church for a well-attended public meeting. The GP who chaired it had shouldered the burden of responsibility for managing the commissioning of specialist services for patients in our town. He outlined the proposed reforms and answered tough questions about cost efficiencies, privatization, and accountability. Patient care got barely a mention.
In another room in church the Ladies’ Circle was meeting. Originally the Wives’ Group, they had adapted to the passing decades with a change of name and gentler topics for discussion. That night they were reminiscing on postal services down the years and showed memorabilia of pillar boxes and postmen’s gear – until a long-standing and faithful member collapsed suddenly in their very midst.
Quick as a flash, our GP was summoned and his audience were left to continue their discussion without him, barely distracted by the comings and goings through the coffee bar nearby; blue lights flashing, paramedics arriving with stretchers and, finally, ladies slowly departing for home. After a few minutes he returned to the hall and quietly concluded his conciliatory and explanatory task.
Unbeknown to the meeting, the GP’s prompt ministrations had been to no avail and our good friend had died. While they had been focussing on the future care of hypothetical individuals grouped by social class and postcode, he had been engaging face-to-face with an actual patient in the ultimate struggle for survival.
I saw there two aspects of the church’s ministry of healing which belong together: both are necessary and both are important. As Christian citizens we engage in both, offering personal care as well as sharing in the responsibility for organising care for the community as a whole. Neither form of care guarantees success in every case: but we do need to put effort into doing our best in both.
For me, the symbolic link between preventive and curative, social and personal was the stethoscope I noticed sticking out of the GP’s pocket at the start of our meeting. The clinician is the crucial link between the patient and the provision of medical care. With practitioners in the centre of the decision-making processes in the NHS, there is surely a good chance that we are all better served as patients.
- Mission in Britain inspired by St Martin of Tours November 20, 2011
The church honoured Martin of Tours on his Saint’s Day last week. This 4th century Roman soldier cut his cloak in half for a destitute beggar he met on the streets of Amiens. That cloak [capella, Lat.] became the symbol for almsgiving and, curiously, gave rise to the label ‘chaplain’ and even to the name of the place where they worked – chapels.Methodists continue his tradition in several ways. Our communities meet in chapels, up and down the country. Even the Primitive Methodists of the 19th century, expelled from mainstream Methodism for preaching in the open air, built hundreds of chapels in their early years.
Contemporary Methodism uses chaplaincy as a model (among others) for its Mission in Britain. Rev Robert Jones, Chaplaincies Coordinator at Church House, inspired us today with his vision of outreach into our multi-faith society. The church equips and funds chaplains to work in schools, hospitals, prisons, workplaces and even casinos! Lay and ordained, they listen to and care for people, and transform communities. They work for people; they work for us; and they work for God.
- Beware Jerusalem November 17, 2011
Organists sometimes complain about the music chosen for funerals. Mostly it’s a question of suitability: too frivolous, too loud, too corny etc; not in keeping with the solemnity and seriousness of the occasion. But I was faced with a somewhat different problem today as “duty organist”. It wasn’t so much the playing of “popular” music on CD for the processions in and out. It was the choice of hymns, or at least one of them. It was Jerusalem: William Blake’s poem set to a magnificent tune by Hubert Parry. What’s wrong with that? I hear you asking: it’s played at the Last Night of the Proms. What is wrong with it is that it’s quite difficult to play, even on a grand, century-old 3-manual instrument like ours!When amateurs like me volunteer to play in public (and a church funeral is indeed public; there must have been three hundred mourners in the pews today), there is an unwritten understanding with the minister or church management or the funeral director about what is playable and what is not. If I were drawing up a job description for a new duty organist, it would include ‘playing any hymn in our Methodist hymnbook competently and at a decent tempo given a few days notice in which to practice’, perhaps equivalent to a merit at Grade 7 or distinction at Grade 6.
I reckon that Jerusalem is more difficult than that. I once attempted it at a church more than a thousand miles from here and made a mess of it. I resolved then never to play it again so I didn’t even have a copy when the order of service arrived, days after I’d agreed to play. I could have asked to be excused duty. I could have asked the minister to get the family to choose something else. I could have got a CD for the congregation to sing to, karaoke-style. What I couldn’t have done was play it on the piano: that’s even more difficult! But I could learn it, and that’s what I did, having borrowed a copy from a senior organist colleague.
It took hours of practice; it almost took blood, sweat and tears. And I had to leave undone those other things that I ought to have done. Sometimes in this situation you play quietly so that no-one notices the mistakes. You can’t do that with Jerusalem with its prominent introduction, interlude and postlude: it has to be played with all the stops out: fortissimo albeit molto lento. So that’s what I did, and verily the church workers in the office beneath shook with the sound thereof.
I expect I’ll be accused of exaggerating the difficulty, but on my performance today I think I might just have scraped a pass at Organ Grade 8. I do hope the family and the congregation were content. I will do some more practice on it, but don’t let that encourage anyone to choose Jerusalem for their funeral, please.
- Poppies white and red November 10, 2011
The annual Remembrance service is always uncomfortable for pacifists in particular and non-conformists in general. Methodists don’t have an “official” liturgy for the occasion beyond a special collect, but we normally observe the national two minutes’ silence and may alter the order of service and even the start time to allow this to happen at 11 o’clock precisely. We sometimes invite uniformed organisations to parade with their flags, and organists will have brushed up Elgar’s Nimrod and Walford Davies’ Solemn Melody. Dress code: red poppies.The wearing of red poppies is clearly costume de rigueur on BBC television, and many Methodists in our pews will expect people to wear them in church this Sunday, especially preachers, choristers and others in visible leadership positions. They will probably associate poppies with the (supposed) Christian virtues of patriotism, respect for authority, and support for military force as a legitimate means of defence for Western nations. And they may associate the non-wearing of red poppies as unpatriotic, disrespectful, and ungrateful for our Armed Forces – as if the freedom fought for by the fallen soldiers does not include the freedom not to wear red poppies.
But poppies are primarily for remembrance: remembering the sacrifices of soldiers (not just those fighting for “our” side), remembering the tragedy and waste of warfare, and perhaps remembering that the inexorable outcome of the recruitment, training, deployment of young men and (now) women in the military is the killing of other young men and (now) women. British Legion’s red poppies have, however, acquired a veneer of nationalism and militarism that can easily overshadow a proper focus on the personal sacrifice of individual soldiers.
Poppies don’t feature in the King James Bible, but “Thou shalt not kill” does. I will be playing Nimrod on Sunday morning, but I shall be wearing a white poppy, promoted by the Peace Pledge Union.
- Seven billion souls, and counting November 4, 2011
I am not sure that I’m glad to discover that I’m the 74,770,968,343rd person to have lived since history began. This precise calculation (or should it be estimate or guess?) was performed using a formula from the UN Population Fund, the organisation which last weekend was publicising the birth of the 7 billionth person to be alive today.I understand that the rate of growth of the world’s population is a matter for concern. And I understand that marketing gurus like to personalise abstract issues in order to draw people’s attention to them. Well-meaning charities like “Adopt-a-child” do the same thing.
But there are dangers in this approach. By focusing on one child, we tend to lose sight of all the others. And by producing a count apparently accurate to one in 74 billion, a rather false impression is given about the precision of the analytical tools available.
And gullible Christians may be misled into counting backwards to number 1 and then being disappointed or even enraged to discover that the very first person is not merely shrouded in the Old Testament adham [=humankind] myth, but both biologically and philosophically impossible to envisage.
- Lord, lettest thou thy servants (or these protesters) depart in peace October 27, 2011
The authorities at St Paul’s Cathedral are caught between a rock and a hard place. One (Rev Dr Giles Fraser who is a good friend of our old chaplain John Cooke) has resigned tonight, and another has been rushed to hospital. When they close the cathedral because of supposed health and safety reasons, are they serving God or mammon? As they prepare to sue the protesters for trespass, are they pleasing God or pleasing themselves? Are they giving appropriate priority to the poor? Are they protecting their staff and regular worshippers rather than the interests of the protesters?A Times correspondent wrote ironically today: “We understand the mixed feelings of church people, caught between their scribes and Pharisees and the man who kicked over the money-lenders’ tables.” A rather different lesson can be learned from the lectionary Gospel reading last Sunday: we are to “love our neighbours as we love ourselves”. That is, the way we love ourselves (and our church building and our church community) is the benchmark for our love of others. Self-sacrifice is not the only model for behaviour.
We can all ask ourselves, What would we do if our church grounds were occupied by people with little or no respect for our interests, whatever their own agenda and needs?
- How are the mighty fallen! October 21, 2011
So Colonel Gaddafi is gone. Few will mourn his death, least of all in Libya, his desert homeland.I have visited Tripoli many times and have several friends there, and I’m the co-author of a scientific paper in the Libyan Medical Journal. I was impressed by the development of that country in those early years when I was helping to train their present generation of doctors. Gaddafi himself once slipped into the back of the Medical School lecture-hall to check up on the performance of an expat lecturer. Those were the good days.
But I also knew Flora Swire, that promising young Nottingham physiologist who died on PamAm 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988. Jim Swire, her GP father, took up the cause of the British victims and says today that he wished Gaddafi could have been arraigned before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The next (and last) time I visited Libya I had to go by cattle-boat from Malta because of the UN sanctions preventing flights in and out of Tripoli. I went to see the Tripoli cathedral that had been turned into a mosque.
Our Christian concept of justice encompasses law rather than vengeance, mercy rather than punishment: we have moved on from David and Goliath. But of the several Moslem tyrants recently overthrown by local and international action, only two have faced a court of law. Now Muammar Gaddafi joins Osama bin Laden in suffering summary execution.
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Correction: A letter from Prince Charles to Col Gaddafi, published this week, suggests that the Maidan al Jazair Square mosque had recently been reconverted back to a church.
- Blessed be the time that apple taken was ... October 19, 2011
Friday October 21 is Apple Day in England. Common Ground, the organisation that initiated the event in 1990, describe the day as a way of celebrating and demonstrating that both variety and richness matter to a locality. There 600 varieties of English apples.Christians can join in and even adapt Apple Day for our own purposes. After all, we attached our Christmas festival to an existing pagan mid-winter celebration. The bible is replete with apple references, and it is the origin of the phrase “the apple of your eye” [Deut 32:10]. The Song of Solomon uses apples as erotic symbols, and in the prophecy of Joel the withering of the apple-tree is a symbol for the most profound loss.
And where does the phrase “Adam’s apple” come from? Genesis 2-3 recounts the myth of a forbidden fruit, given by Eve to Adam at the instigation of the serpent. Through a mis-translation from the Vulgate, the word “fruit” became the word “apple” and man has choked on one ever since. However, by the 15th century the long-term value of that apple had been recognized in the “upward fall” theory of human redemption:
Ne had the apple taken been,
The apple taken been,
Ne had never our ladie,
A‘been heav’ne queen.Blessed be the time
That apple taken was,
Therefore we moun singen.
Deo gracias!But this October we have a new reason to celebrate the Apple™ as we mourn the death of Steve Jobs in Silicon Valley, California. His genius in the design and marketing of everyday devices like the iPad and the iPhone brought enormous benefit for everyman. Deo gracias indeed!
- Video from Methodist Church scoops first prize in media awards October 15, 2011
This Methodist-inspired viral video has scooped first prize in this year’s Christian New Media Awards. Tell.Show.Be is a short film with a simple message about the heart of evangelism: “Tell somebody; show somebody; be somebody.”
The Revd Joanne Cox, Evangelism in Contemporary Culture Officer, who accepted the award on the Church’s behalf, said: “The whole project was conceived as a means of enabling people to talk about evangelism in their own languages. We are delighted that the whole concept has been recognised by Christians within the social media world, as well as encouraged by Christians around the world. Other entries in the category were of an extremely high standard. We are excited by the quantity and quality of exceptional work in the area of evangelism using social media.”
Church websites like ours provide an opportunity for engaging with social media in promoting our message and advancing our work.
- Except a grain fall into the sand and die ... October 10, 2011
We went to morning service with the United Methodists near Berkeley, California yesterday. The congregation of thirty were holding their penultimate service in a church that had started 105 years ago but was now no longer sustainable. The building was to be sold to a Chinese Christian church and they were moving out, for the time being at least, to the parsonage!Despite inevitable sadness, they were not despondent. They shared memories of the good times and continued to plan for the future. They prayed for the sick and needy near and far, and told of joys as well as sorrows. They sang from the United Methodist Hymnal accompanied by a decent grand piano, and there was a vocal duet, some gentle drums and a quiet guitar. One woman knitted her way through the sermon.
Most remarkable was their bright young woman pastor. She had been stationed there less than three months ago, and would be leading them through their wilderness years into an unknown future. In her message, she started from Steve Jobs’ much-mourned death in nearby Cupertino during the week, and asked what aspect of the church’s business model he would have faulted had he been reviewing their imminent demise. Of one thing she was certain: whatever the packaging, whatever the marketing, the church still had a product that people wanted: the love of God was there for all.It was good to be sharing with them this weekend: a Methodist home-from-home. We may be able to learn lessons from them about our own buildings.
- "Jesus justice", US-style October 5, 2011
Over in the US for a family gathering, I’ve come across some unfamiliar “fresh expressions of church”.The authorities in the small town of Bay Minette in Alabama (in the ‘Bible Belt’) now offer an alternative punishment for minor non-violent crimes: attend church every week for a year! The local pastor says “Show me somebody who falls in love with Jesus, and show show you a person who won’t be a problem to society, but who will be an influence and a help to those around him.”
The general reaction has not been so positive, however. Not that church attendance would be seen as as a ‘cruel and unnatural punishment’; nor that it would be ineffective; but that it would be discriminatory. Atheists would have to be provided with a comparable scheme.
The American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] claim that the proposal would coerce people into Christian worship, and that it entangles government with religion – a separation strongly maintained in the US.
But that wouldn’t be the case in the UK, so is this idea something that our Forward Group at Chilwell Road could consider? If private companies can run prisons in the UK, couldn’t the church make its contribution too?
- 'Singing the faith': our new hymnbook is published September 24, 2011
Singing the Faith, the new hymnbook for the Methodist connexion, is published this week after years in the planning and preparation. With 840 hymns, songs, psalms and liturgical settings, including a host of new words and tunes, it replaces Hymns & Psalms as the definitive source of worship material for the new generation of Methodists.The preface stakes a claim to “echo the distinctive voice of Methodist worship today, in all its diversity, [as we are called] to renewal of prayer, praise and the offering of our lives in joyful response to God’s all-embracing love”.
John Wesley said of his first hymnbook, “this is a little body of experimental and practical divinity”, and that aim is echoed by the new editors: “the hymns and songs have been chosen not just as instruments of worship but for the teaching they contain. Their theology has been meticulously scrutinised by the Faith & Order Committee and Network on behalf of the Methodist Conference. Consequently, Singing the Faith carries the doctrinal standards, emphases, tradition, values and ethos of the Methodist Church.”
We will be using Singing the Faith at Chilwell Road. Three large packages containing the first set of books arrived in the office yesterday and an electronic version for use with our data-projector is on order. The Singers will be practising the new tunes, and many of us will obtain a copy for personal use.
My father’s local preaching ministry was contemporary with the life-span of The Methodist Hymnbook launched in 1932. My own leading of services has largely used Hymns & Psalms which appeared in 1983. Now we have a new hymnbook for a new generation of Methodists. We look forward to the launch during the autumn and anticipate singing our faith with renewed enthusiasm.
- Methodist church choir practices banned by Government …... in Fiji September 18, 2011
The Fijian government has banned all Methodist Church meetings except for Sunday worship. This includes house groups, women’s prayer fellowships, choir practices, mid-week communion services and youth fellowships, as well as the Church’s governance meetings. Having withdrawn the permit for the Church’s annual Conference the evening before the event was due to start, the interim government has now notified the Church in a letter from the Fiji Military Council that all other meetings of the Methodist Church are forbidden. All Methodist ministers are also forbidden from leaving the country for any meeting.These are the latest moves in a long-running feud between the government and the Methodist Church. The government was installed after a military coup d’état in 2006, and the Methodists are the largest Christian denomination in Fiji; indeed, the largest faith group there.
The Methodist Church has long formed a key part of Fiji’s social power structure and I have a personal memory of their influence on society there. While crossing the Pacific from Panama to Sydney in December 1969 our ship called at the capital Suva on a Sunday. We found that strict Sabbath observance there meant that all the shops were closed, preventing us from stocking up on family items for our travels to New Guinea.
“We are gravely concerned about how this situation is developing,” said Michael King, World Church Relationships team leader for the Methodist Church in Britain. “Our brothers and sisters in Fiji are asking us to keep them in our prayers and to tell the world their story. We are worried for Fiji. We are not only worried about religious freedom, but also about what the loss of other freedoms might mean for all Fijians in this traditionally democratic island nation.”
- “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” [Romans 12:21] September 10, 2011
Ten years ago on September 11 the US and the western world suffered an attack by Islamist terrorists which had profound consequences for all of us. We all remember where we were when we first heard the news or watched TV in horror as events unfolded in New York and Washington.I was preparing to preach at the Anglican Cathedral in Blantyre, Malawi, the following Sunday, September 16 2001. I abandoned the lectionary theme and took my text from Romans 12, proclaiming a gospel of conciliation and forgiveness. “If your enemies hunger, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink”. Paul was echoing Jesus’ teaching: “Do not resist an evil-doer. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, turn the other also. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
I believe that had that Christian message prevailed, rather than an Old Testament policy of “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burn for burn, wound for wound”, the world would be more like the Kingdom today.
Read the Methodist statement about this anniversary here.
- Fresh expressions: nothing new in our approach to worship September 5, 2011
This poster from a 19th century Staffordshire chapel reminded me that the church has always been trying out new methods of worship. Our current “fresh expressions” will soon appear just as dated! - Churches across the connexion welcome unlikely new ministers September 3, 2011
Across the connexion, churches last month were saying farewell to old friends as their much-loved ministers moved on to pastures new under our system of itinerant ministry. And now in this Methodist New Year they gather to welcome their replacements and renew the church’s mission to local communities with a new presbyter in post.Congregations generally know little about the person who appears in their pulpit on the first Sunday in September. The churches at Old Roan, Longmoor Lane and Fazakerley in the Liverpool North Circuit will have a big surprise. Their new minister, Rev Kim Goh from Singapore, is a former Triad gangster who spent four years in prison for violence and extortion.
His story is a powerful illustration of the Christian themes of justice, repentance, and forgiveness. Who says the church is dull?
- Happy new Methodist Year! August 30, 2011
For Methodists, the New Year starts not on January 1 or April 6 or even on Advent Sunday, but on September 1. That is the date when new ministers and church treasurers take up their appointments and when the regular cycle of committee meetings at church, circuit and district level begins again, culminating in the Connexional Conference next July.Chilwell Road Methodist Church will mark its New Year this week by welcoming a new minister, Rev Colin Barrett, who has returned from an appointment as mission partner in Brand Erbisdorf in Germany near Dresden on the border with the Czech Republic. He will bring new insights and perspectives as he leads the church through a period in which a major emphasis will be working more closely together with the four other Methodist churches in the area.
We celebrate the occasion on the very first Sunday with our annual Covenant Service in which the Methodist society at Chilwell Road renews its covenant with God. We convey the essence of this commitment using John Wesley’s profound words: Put me to doing, put me to suffering; Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you. Let me be full, let me be empty; Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
So it’s not necessarily going to be a “happy” new year for all of us. But we will be strengthened and renewed in our Christian pilgrimage through life as we sing this hymn of Charles Wesley: Come let us anew, our journey pursue. Roll round with the year, and never stand still till the Master appear.
- Methodist Peace Prize awarded to missionary in Nigeria August 26, 2011
Several members of our church have served with the Methodist Missionary Society in Nigeria, and so we are particularly pleased to note the award of this year’s Methodist Peace Prize to Ros Colwill.Ros serves as a mission partner on assignment with the Methodist Church in Nigeria. Colwill, a trained social worker, initially worked with leprosy sufferers in Nigeria. She encountered many leprosy victims with mental health problems and became increasingly aware of the number of impoverished people with mental illnesses and learning disabilities where she worked. She gathered support locally and internationally and developed a pioneer project in a small village in the South East of Nigeria, Itumbauzo, called “Amaudo” (Village) which began in 1990.
Previous holders of the prize awarded by the World Methodist Conference are former South African President Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. It is even more inspiring to acknowledge Ros as this year’s recipient as she has partial disability following a stroke.
- “I see violence and strife in the city” [Psalm 55] August 10, 2011
We are fortunate that Beeston was not caught up in the wave of rioting, arson and looting that has swept through London and other cities (including Nottingham) in the last few days. We must not, however, be indifferent or even complacent: we are an integral part of a wider interdependent community and not immune ourselves.Many Methodists living and working close to these horrific events have expressed their shock at what they have witnessed and are standing alongside those who are counting the cost of the destruction on our streets. Their response is first one of prayer, and Methodists have been called to pray at 8 am and 8 pm daily for all who are caught up in and affected by what is happening. Second, the church will continue to work with ecumenical partners and community groups to respond in a positive way, for example by helping with clean-up operations.
The church which is at the heart of all the affected communities will also play its part, in partnership with others, in bringing healing and peace to the areas affected, and demonstrating that our cities are places of peaceful, diverse and vibrant communities.
Soon, if not this week, we need to face up to why this has happened. What is so contagious about violence that it spreads so rapidly? We see this in every war, every fight and every riot. In the absence of effective law enforcement or a social contract are people simply regressing to their natural state? Right from the beginning, as the Genesis myths affirm, “the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence”. Today our prayer may that of the psalmist: “Bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure – you, the righteous God who probes minds and hearts”, but tomorrow our thoughtful analysis will need to go further than law enforcement and initiate a radical re-think of how we organise society.
- Mark Wakelin designated as next President of Conference July 6, 2011
The Revd Dr Mark Wakelin has today been elected president designate of the Methodist Conference for 2012-2013. Dr Wakelin is described by his nominators as “an inspirational and energetic speaker who speaks directly to people in ways which they can apply to their own lives and the Church.” He brings to the role of President a wide experience of circuit ministry, chaplaincy, youth work and strategic leadership.He was formerly the national secretary of the Methodist Association of Youth Clubs and is currently Connexional Secretary for Internal Relationships for the Methodist Church in Britain.
In May, Mark was the visiting preacher at our Church Anniversary service. In the 1970s he was a local preacher on note in this circuit under my supervision: something must have rubbed off!
- Too many church buildings, but which should go? July 4, 2011
At the Methodist Conference in Southport today, the General Secretary’s report included this paragraph.“We unquestionably have too many church buildings: too many in the wrong places, too many unfit to sustain our life as a discipleship movement shaped for mission today. We too readily associate the sustaining of the life of our chapels with the work of God’s kingdom – these often overlap but they’re not the same thing. A more sacrificial, strategic approach is needed. Our churches must not exist simply to perpetuate the status quo, but to provide a place where people can come to faith and be nurtured in their journey with Christ.”
We have begun to address this issue in Beeston (and Chilwell) but not all of us agree that our own church should be the one to go!
- The Great "He" Bible June 22, 2011
To set eyes on a Bible actually published in 1611 is a rare treat. Seeing two of them side by side at an exhibition and lecture in Southwell Minster last weekend was joy indeed. Leather bound, richly illuminated and beautifully printed, these two treasures were laid open for inspection behind security glass in display cases in the minster transept.One royal octavo double spread showed on the left-hand page the final chapter of the prophecy of Malachi including the phrase “The sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings”. And on the right-hand page was the intricate, delicate, yet glorious frontispiece to the New Testament which would reveal the good news of Jesus “preaching the gospel and healing everywhere”.
The other copy of the King James Bible was opened in order to display a reminder that all scripture, like other literature, needs to be read with a critical mind. It showed the third chapter of the book of Ruth in which verses 15 and 16 were rendered “Also he [Boaz] said, Bring the veil that thou hast upon thee, and hold it. And when she [Ruth] held it, he measured six measures of barley, and laid it on her: and he went into the city. And when she came to her mother in law, she said, Who art thou, my daughter? And she told her all that the man had done to her.”
This second edition was one of many printed with the typographical error “he” for “she” in verse 15, and it is known, therefore, as the Great He Bible. It was of course Ruth and not Boaz who went into the city: “she” rather than “he”. An interesting example, perhaps, of “history” taking preference over “herstory”, as Sally was remining us last Sunday.
I shall be preaching soon on the topic “The Bible: how is it true?”, and we shall be exploring the idea of infallibility in the Holy Scripture. This is just one example where the written text is not to be taken as literally true.
- The parts of Libya about Cyrene June 12, 2011
Cyrene in Libya is in the news again today. A great spirit has descended upon them: the spirit of freedom from oppression, freedom of speech, freedom from fear. Cyrene lies east of Benghazi, well away from Colonel Gaddafi, and close to Tobruk, the scene of an Allied triumph over Rommel’s forces in 1941.Cyrene was the home of the Simon who was compelled to carry Jesus’ cross on the way to Golgotha, and there are several other Cyrenians mentioned in the book of Acts.
Just as those Jewish pilgrims from Cyrene two thousand years ago heard the good news of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem, so today a measure of spiritual freedom has come to this eastern province of Libya, a country I have come to know and appreciate from academic visits to Tripoli and tours of Leptis Magna.
Let us remember the people of Libya in the parts of about Cyrene on this Pentecost Day as the Arab Spring brings them a new spirit.
- Birthday Honours boy: David Stewart DL June 11, 2011
Many members of our congregation have maintained their link with Beeston since they were students in Meth Soc at Nottingham University (which used to meet at Chilwell Road).One student from the seventies is honoured today by his appointment as Deputy Lieutenant for the county. David Stewart OBE DLitt is head teacher at Oak Field School & Sports College in Bilborough (previously Shepherd School), and distinguished for his work in special education. Several Chilwell Road members are connected with Oak Field School as teachers and friends, and there are still a few who were David’s student contemporaries.
Many congratulations from us all!
- This great thing in the heavens June 9, 2011
Exeter cathedral, with its vaulted ceiling and an astronomical clock dating from 1484, is two hundred and twenty miles south-west from here. Travel the same short distance vertically upwards and you’ll see another magnificent man-made object, completed recently after 13 years’ painstaking construction: the International Space Station.Fifteenth century seekers after truth pointed their inquiring spires towards the heavens. Twenty-first century seekers cast their net wider and higher, but with the same determination to understand the wonders of God’s creation.
Enjoy this first and final NASA photograph of the ISS with the earth below and a space-shuttle docked in its parking bay, taken from a passing Soyuz spacecraft.
- Waiting for Zoggo June 7, 2011
Last Sunday, a dozen brave kids from the Senior Department of our Junior Church played a central role in the morning service. Brave because they read, sang and performed in public as few will have done before. And brave because their theme touched on topics that rarely get an airing in church.Orthodoxy doesn’t normally countenance doubt; doctrines don’t usally get voted upon; and when did you last hear questions like “Do gay people go to Perpetual Paradise?” in church?
Our young teenagers didn’t intend to shock, but they risked not being invited back. They showed that they recognized God as unseeable mystery [Exodus 33: 20]; they saw themselves as being on an exploratory journey of faith, prepared to question and doubt the received wisdom, and not afraid to use contemporary non-Christian references.
Some of us older ones may think we could teach them a thing or two from our vantage point along that road of faith: others will realise that these kids could indeed do the same for us.
- What was Noah’s wife's name? June 3, 2011
It’s surprising what details people remember from their Sunday-school days about Old Testament stories. I was preaching (twice) last Sunday, and the lectionary had pointed me to Noah who appears in Genesis but is also commented on by the writer to the Hebrews, the apostle Peter, and by Jesus himself. Naturally, my sermon talked of judgment, myth, apocalypse, temperance, Noah in the New Testament, and the righteous remnant.
But in conversation afterwards, members of both congregations remarked not on the theological significance of the story but on modern versions of the ark: the supposed finding (again) of the wreck on Mount Ararat, the precise dimensions of the ark (300 x 50 x 30 cubits) being reproduced in the building of the Jardine Mill in Draycott (left, 5 miles west of here), and the plan to bring a replica ark to London docks for the Olympics next year (below).
It’s all too easy to latch on to apparently precise data like names, measurements and dates, dramatic stories, and miraculous outcomes in Old Testament tales. It’s not so easy to see stories like these not as history but as ancient myths providing rather more important understandings about God and man, judgment and deliverance, faith and hope. - "God is gone up with a triumphant sound" June 2, 2011
Dr Rowan Williams
In his Ascension Day sermon at St Martin-in-the-Fields broadcast by the BBC this evening, the Archbishop of Canterbury urged Christians not be distressed by the disappearance of the ascended Jesus from the earth or dismayed by feelings of loneliness or emptiness after the previous excitement of Easter. We shouldn’t need to cling to the security and safety of the familiar presence of the earthly Jesus: he is now all-pervasive, on a higher plane both within and beyond all things.
Rather we rejoice in the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit. We resolve, so empowered, to be new human beings bringing the difference that love makes in the world. We can offer ourselves again as signs of God’s work in the world, through our compassion and service.
- Not ready yet for retirement to a Methodist home, surely? May 27, 2011
Today, in the Langar Hall country hotel not far from here, Labour leader Ed Miliband has married his long-term partner Justine Thornton in a private ceremony.Instead of buying presents, they suggested guests give donations to children’s charity Barnardo’s and to Methodist Homes for the Aged. [BBC News report]
Is there something we don’t know about Ed Miliband? Is he a closet Methodist? Queenswood Methodist Home is round the corner from here.
- Rite of passage May 27, 2011
Our church is frequently used for funerals and services of thanksgiving. Many who attend have not been in church since their own wedding or even perhaps since their own baptism, so the experience provides a great opportunity for reconnection and a rekindling of spiritual longings. The sacred surroundings, the solemn words, and the uplifting music are reminders of all that is natural and heart-felt about our regular worship and praise.Last Wednesday saw a thanksgiving service for a distinguished man, and a huge crowd of the great and good flocked to the church. The address, given by a surviving colleague, reminded the congregation of the deceased’s abiding attraction for beautiful landscape, which had led him to write these words:
“Thou canst not see her valleys green,
The star-aspiring hills between,
Thou canst not with these wonders seen,
Declare there is no God.”Here he seems to have been echoing the words of Elizabeth Fry who “looked through nature up to nature’s God” implying a proof of God’s existence in the wonders of nature, the so-called “argument from design” or the “teleological argument” for God.
However, the eulogy also contained these words: “His early experiences at [school], at [college] and in the Army shaped his life and contributed to his success, but I am convinced that a fundamental contribution was also made by his biblical faith and his family life.” So the bible had been another inspiration for Lord Bingham of Cornhill, KG PC QC FBA who had been Master of the Rolls, Lord Chief Justice and a senior law lord.
The eulogy concluded with this statement: “It is entirely fitting that we should be gathered to give thanks for his life in this ancient house of God that has occupied such a central role in our nation’s history, a history of which he was such a devoted student.” The service was in Westminster Abbey.
Will I have words such as these said at my funeral at Chilwell Road?
[information from The Times] - My heart strangely warmed May 24, 2011
From the Journal of John Wesley, May 24 1738.“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading the preface to Luther’s Epistle to the Romans. At about a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ. Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine.”
A collect for Aldersgate Sunday
God of immeasurable grace
Your Spirit has from age to age,
confirmed your work of salvation in the hearts of those who love you.
Grant to your people a true spirit of worship,
That renewed in their calling
They might achieve the vision you have given to them.
May we become your people,
United and equipped to proclaim the god news of
Salvation for all,
By faith in our Lord Jesus Christ,
Who reigns with you, and the Holy Spirit
One God, now and for everAmen.
