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The Long Island: A Moral Power Station?

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This weekend, I have a guest blogger – Richard Lucas of the Scottish Family Party. Inspired by his recent visits to Lewis, and the ongoing attempts to secure an interconnector, he offers an intriguing vision of these islands as suppliers, not of electricity, but of social morality to the nation.

Over to Richard . . .

The Western Isles are not short of wind.  

In the 21st Century, wind means energy.  It’s a natural resource that can be harnessed to generate electrical power – much more than is needed locally.  

So, what’s to be done?  Leave much of the resource untapped, or make the most of it by exporting energy to the rest of Scotland?  When faced with the challenges of exporting electricity, it might be tempting to just keep the energy business local.  How can energy to passed to the main land?  Trucks with giant batteries on the back carried by the ferry?

Thankfully, there is a way of transmitting electricity across stretches of sea and that’s via an undersea cable – an interconnector.  Discussions and negotiations are ongoing on installing such an interconnector between Lewis and the mainland.  The opportunities are being explored.  Time will tell whether this comes to fruition and succeeds.

The Western Isles are not just rich in this natural resource, though.  They are rich in wisdom.  It’s no secret that the prevalent strong moral values are rooted in Christianity, but a degree of isolation hasalso insulated from the worst excesses of recent cultural shifts, and it’s not just Christians who appreciate the wisdom of the ages.  

There are people all over Scotland who understand that the social institution of marriage is a vital foundation for stable family life, for example, but they are not concentrated in they way they are here.  Equally, there are Outer Hebrideans who have been swept along by the “progressive” tide.  But not as many as elsewhere.

The wind blows in Edinburgh, but not as much.  Solid moral values are found throughout Scotland, but not as much.  The Western Isles represent a unique reservoir of traditional morality within Scotland.  There are many who see this as backwardness or worse – a bondage from which the poor benighted folk must be liberated.  But there are also those who would love to be able to bottle the culture and values embodied here and import it into their own communities.

So, should this resource just benefit the WesternIsles, or be shared more widely?  Can it even be exported?  There are articulate expositors and expositions of these positive values already, but they are largely marginalised or ignored.  Their influence is minimal.  Is there a way that this abundance can benefit the whole nation?

Is there such a thing as a values interconnector?  An undersea moral transmission cable?  A wisdom pipe line?

There is.  It’s the democratic system and it’s already in place waiting to be used.  The strong values that the Scottish nation is in such desperate need of can be injected into the heart of political debate, directly into the debating chamber of the Scottish Parliament.  

Sending a representative to the Scottish Parliament willing and able to argue boldly for a better vision for Scottish society would be nothing less than revolutionary.  The main parties would learn that they can’t contradict the core beliefs of substantial sections of the population with impunity.  The novelty and freshness of common sense would be attractive, drawing more people towards more conservative views on moral issues.  The histrionics of other MSPs as they fall over themselves to condemn the eminently reasonable and charitable newcomer would only draw attention to the truth.  Media debate would shift in Scotland.  Issues that barely break the surface now would become the talking points of the nation.

At future elections, those who’ve appreciated the radical new voice in Scottish politics would vote for a candidate of the same party in their constituency or region.  A new force would emerge onto the stage ofScottish politics. That’s the vision of the Scottish Family Party.

There are always important local issues to be addressed and interests to be defended, and any MSP must represent his or her constituency in all matters.  But the people of the Western Isles can also lift their eyes to a higher vision, a vision of steering the whole nation away from the rocks and onwards to flourish and prosper.  It’s hard to imagine a more inspiring and exiting project that can be advanced by casting votes at elections!

There would be hundreds of thousands of people across Scotland thanking the Western Isles for delivering one MSP who articulates their deepest convictions.  There could be tens of thousands appreciating the wisdom of traditional values for the first time.  There could be thousands emboldened to speak out themselves when the trail has been blazed.  Hundreds could be saved from persecution at work: it’s hard to fire someone for saying what an MSP has just said in parliament!   Dozens could be inspired to follow in their footsteps into politics.  

Western Islanders find themselves in a unique position, with a unique opportunity. What is the future to be?  Electing someone to represent the values of the Scottish Parliament in the localcommunity, or electing someone to represent the values of the local community in the Parliament and the nation?

Truth is power.  Let’s deliver it to where it’s so desperately needed, by putting a prophet into parliament.

Votes for women – as long as they’re ‘progressive’.

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Our local council is all man . . . and not necessarily in the swoon-inducing, gosh, have you been working out way a girl might wish. Of the thirty-one elected members, a nice, round number (zero) are women.

This week, some of the more hysterical sections of our community – and well beyond it – have been getting all bent out of shape about the Stornoway Trust, co-opting three men to replace . . . erm, three men. I am having to get used to being referred to as, variously, ‘only one female’ or ‘the token woman’.

Gee, thanks, none taken – are any of you still wondering why women don’t stand for election here?

I recently invited a friendly local councillor in to the college where I work, to talk to my (mostly female) Democracy students about why local government needs the likes of them. It does. 

The last time I wrote about the council election results, I was fairly sanguine, feeling that men of sense ought to be able to represent women perfectly competently. And so they ought. However, I am no longer sure that the question is actually one of representation.

In fact, I’m a raging complementarian and simply believe that we reflect God best when men and women work together. The point of women on the Comhairle, or anywhere else, is the same as the point of men – to be themselves, and bring their own unique skills to bear on the situation. 

Speaking to my class, though, the golfing (but not on Sundays) councillor put his finger on one aspect of the problem, when he mentioned the ‘p’ word, and women’s lack thereof.

He was referring, of

course, to profile. But absence of profile is only half the issue. There are plenty women currently serving their communities in all kinds of ways, who would not require Saatchi or even his partner, Saatchi, to boost their well-kentness to election standard. I went from being a shy, retiring unknown to being electable enough for the Free Church to collude with me. In my weaker moments, I fool myself that it was my skills and character that stood me in good stead, but ‘everyone knows’ it was really the suidheachan mòr that swung it for me.

See, ‘profile’ can be a burden. That’s the other, thornier half of the problem. It is also the uglier part.

If the baying mob doesn’t like your profile, they will try to dismantle it as best they can.

For me, the onslaught began as soon as I put my hat in the electoral ring. ‘Does she have a chance?’ the small-minded secularists sneered. Then, when they began to fear what they are pleased to call ‘the tyranny of the majority’ (that’s ‘First Past the Post’ to the rest of us), the nay-saying became more vicious and predicated upon hatred of Christianity. It took them places that still make me shudder on their behalf. 

But it has not gone away. The same names pop up repeatedly on social media, desperately clinging to the handle, ‘progressive’. That is, to their way of thinking, everything that is unbiblical, and against what the majority supports. If you were to ask them to define what ‘progressive’ means to them, I feel their truthful answer would be ‘anything but this’.

Now, I don’t care that much what some stranger thinks of me, when that assessment is based on a caricature of my faith and nothing more. I do, however, despise the negativity, spite, and downright lies which some are prepared to tell. And I am angry that this negative, bitter faction is polluting the atmosphere for others.

My own feeling is that, if we are truly serious about overhauling democracy in the Western Isles, we have to remove the toxicity. What example do we set our young people when we behave like the closing chapters of ‘Lord of the Flies’? Is it not rank hypocrisy to talk about eradicating bullying in our schools, while gleefully embracing it everywhere else? You can talk about progress, you can set up feminist networks, you can even pretend that, because you’ve worn a rainbow badge, you’re all about the tolerance.

But if you are complicit in the defamation of innocent people because you disagree with their way of doing things . . . well, then, you are a bully, my friend. Verbal abuse and unfounded accusations of criminality should have no part in public life. If you’ve never met me and yet you hate me, ask yourself why that is.

And then, ask yourself why more women and younger people are reluctant to stand for election. 

I have lost count of the number of capable women who have said they couldn’t handle the hatred that comes my way. No, I’m not surprised – and I couldn’t handle it either, ironically, were it not for the very faith which attracts it like a magnet. But is that really a proud boast for us as a community? We’ve lowered the tone of public debate so far that good people are afraid for their reputations.

Shame on us if we let it continue.

One man and his God

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Whereas other cultures used to put children up chimneys, the norm for people of my age and background was to be put to work part-time as sheepdogs, in the absence of a suitably qualified collie. My father was hopeless at training his animals, and so he had four children instead who, if not as intelligent as collies, were certainly more responsive to his shouted commands.

As if this degradation was not enough, we would find ourselves subjected to ‘One Man and His Dog’ on television of an evening. I suspect my father hoped that we might pick up a few pointers if we watched enough episodes. He would comment on the shepherds’ control of their dogs, and of the responsiveness and obedience of said dogs. I, however, was always more interested in watching the sheep.

They are not the smartest of creatures, and they have a flair for the unpredictable. Nonetheless, I like their placid faces, and still maintain that the ear of a sheep is the cutest ear of any mammal you are likely to meet. And, having worked with so many of them, so to speak, I had gained an insight into some of their ways.

The outrun and the shedding was all good entertainment, but the moment I found most anxiety-inducing was the penning. Holding the gate open with his left hand, the shepherd would try corralling the flock in, often waving a crook with his right. You would almost be on the point of breathing a sigh of relief when – disaster – one woolly maverick would make a bid for freedom. Sometimes, this would be the end of someone’s dream. Frankly, if your only dream was to win ‘One Man and His Dog’, you probably deserved a reality check, but each to his own.

We too, like sheep, have gone astray. The Lord views us as his flock and it is the work of his church to help bring them safely into the fold. It is towards this end that the work of evangelism and outreach tends – get them on the outrun, win them for the cause. But I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that our eye should be on the ones we are just about to usher into the pen. There is a real flight risk there, and we all know why.

Satan is an awful lot more interested in people who are responding to the Lord than he is to the ones who are lukewarm, or even cold. They are nowhere near God’s pen; they are fully exposed to the ravening wolf, and easily picked off to be devoured.

Surely, then, a master strategist like the devil is going to turn his attention more fully on the ones who are almost – but not quite – safe. They are teetering on the brink of salvation, but the gate to the sheep-fold is not yet safely closed behind them. Something might yet catch them, out the corner of their eye, and they could easily turn and rush towards it.

I have been that sheep, so I know it’s true. It is while you are a churchgoer, a Bible reader, an utterer of prayer . . . but not yet safe in his grasp, that you are most vulnerable to the wiles of Satan. He will tempt you with the world in all its tinsel show; and he will contrast this with the dull rigidity of a life lived for God. Adept as he is at warping truth, he will remind you of all the things you want to do, all the things you have a right to do – and he will tell you that God can wait.

And I know others, now, who are in that position. The pen is open before them, they are almost within the circle of that gate . . . but Satan is up to his tricks again. He shows them the world, yes, but he does something else even more insidious. Coming right up to them, he whispers into their ears: ‘Look. Look at the ones who are already in. Apart from the fact that they are trapped, and can’t go anywhere, how different are they to you?’

He tells those who come to church, who hear the Word, and who are beginning to love the Lord, that they can have all of that – but why hang around with a people who are no better than those who live in the world? How are you, he asks them, meant to have fellowship with ‘these people’; and he lists them. I know he speaks to adherents, and I know he plays on the fact that they have seen bad behaviour from Christians. The church has in it liars, the self-righteous, the unjust, the vain . . . people, in fact, in all their brokenness.

Satan says to them, ‘why should you sit down in fellowship with these hypocrites?’ And they look again at the person in the pew next to them, and they realise that he is right. That upstanding Christian is a fibber. Or self-righteous, or egotistical.

Jesus, on the other hand, says to them, ‘take your place among these people – they are just like you; and yet I have claimed them all as my own’. He loved us while we were still defiled by original sin

We need to be mindful of his portion, to have care of one another. That includes especially those on the brink of life. Satan is watching them, hovering like a bird of prey over defenceless lambs. I have to examine my own life, therefore, and guard against being the stumbling-block that excuses them from coming in.

It gives an added impetus to our witness when we consider that those looking most closely at our example are nearer than we think. They are not necessarily the unbelievers on the outrun, but the almost-theres within the shelter of his gate.

Turning Over the Tables

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I was told on Sunday – by a member of my own church – that ‘Christians shouldn’t strike – not for more money anyway. And certainly not on your salary’. Leaving aside the etiquette of commenting on anyone else’s financial situation at all, let alone in front of others, I found this remark pretty dispiriting. It belongs, I feel, in that all too prevalent school of thought which exists both in and outside the church, and which says that Christians should just be nice, bland, inoffensive people who turn the other cheek and take whatever blows the world feels like doling out.

That philosophy, which adheres to ‘it’s nice to be nice’, is what is going to march us blindfold off a cliff if we don’t wake up to the danger.

When Christ turned over the tables of the money lenders, and ejected them from the temple, he wasn’t concerning himself with being nice. In fact, whenever I hear the phrase, ‘righteous indignation’, it is this scenario that plays in my imagination. I would think it was the straw that broke the camel’s back; he had watched them sin against his Father in so many ways, but this defilement of the temple must have been just too much to take.

We all have our limits. For the past few weeks, I have been involved in a whole variety of situations and conversations which cause me to fear for this generation in which we live. I have been speaking to politicians about the role of Christians in public life, and I have been thinking about the way that we ‘do church’ in Lewis. There is a disconnection between us and the harsh reality of a world that embraces as progressive just about everything that opposes God’s will for us as a people.

Christians should be the most political people of all. We should be joining political parties, lobbying, writing letters, attending meetings, starting petitions, and, yes, joining trade unions. As a member of EIS FELA, what sort of Christian would I be if I told my colleagues that I could not strike for more pay because it breached my principles? What sort of Christian would let them lose several days pay in order to obtain justice for themselves – and me? If, as believing people, we place ourselves apart from society, from our communities and our colleagues, we are most assuredly not following the example that Jesus, friend of sinners, set for us.

This is radicalism. It means going back to the roots, and the Free Church was certainly born out of a concern for moral and social justice. Why? Because it was born out of a passion to see the headship of Christ recognised, and the centrality of the Bible restored to public worship. But that doesn’t just mean having a nice, tall pulpit with a big book open from which the minister preaches every Sunday – although that is certainly an important element – it means carrying that book and its message around in our hearts every day of the week.

I was lectured yesterday, too, about the privilege of Christians, and that we should not abuse it by preaching intolerance against people whose lifestyles we question. The point that everyone seems to be missing when they say such things is this: I would not preach disapproval at those of the LGBT+ persuasion because, although I know their lifestyle is at odds with God’s teaching, so has my own been: many times. Their sin might be different to mine, but it is no worse.

Besides, as I have said before, I see no merit in talking to sinners about sin. They are like the dead people in ‘Sixth Sense’ – they don’t know they’re sinners. I can hardly stand over them and tell them that they’re sinners, because I’m one as well. It takes Christ to show them what they are lacking. Only in the light of his truth will they see what is awry, and what must be put right. All I can do is point to him, and try in my own imperfect way to witness to his perfection.

You can’t witness from a church pew, however. Take it from me, there’s a big clue in the fact that our most vocal unbelievers approve of us being Christians in private. Worshipping in church or at home, you’re bothering no one.

What the world wants is to push Christians back to the margins. While we were sleeping, they turned mainstream, Bible-based morality into bigotry. We live in a country that so misunderstands the tenets of the faith upon which it is founded that it has recreated them as hate speech.

I could sit with fellow church members and debate the finer points of trade unionism, or purity of worship, or the myriad other things we do that equate to fiddling while Rome burns. But I happen to think that we have bigger problems than that. In fact, I think that, instead of firing shots across one another’s bows, we ought to be a little more willing to go out into the real fray.

There is a reason why the Bible uses so much military metaphor. We are a people, a unit; not a rag-tag band of mavericks. The voice of one crying in the wilderness was all very well for John the Baptist – but this current desert requires teamwork. Pulling each other up, circling one another’s efforts with prayer, and presenting a united front: that’s where our energy needs to go now.

From there, we have to spread out and ensure Christ’s influence is every place we are able to go. And, because he goes before us, there are no limits except in our own small minds.

 

 

Tolerance Goes Over the Rainbow Bridge

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‘That modern deamhais has killed the art of conversation’, one of my gentleman friends at the Trust remarked last week. ‘That’s a bit rude’, I thought, ‘does he not know I can hear every word he’s saying?’

Turns out he wasn’t talking about me, but the actual electric shears used on sheep these days. Not as easy to talk over as the old metallic clippers, with their distinctive sound. The new ones are probably more efficient, but they lack the evocative charm of their manual predecessors.

We are less free to speak in other ways as well, it would seem. This very week, in a shameful display of bullying, the local chapter of Pride attempted to no-platform a politician for his religious beliefs.

Yes, those same champions of ‘love and tolerance’ who demanded the right to march in Stornoway last summer, tried to shut down several public meetings. The reason? They didn’t agree with the views of the speaker. And what are those abhorrent views? Who does this man’s thinking align with – Hitler? Stalin? Genghis Khan?

God. He’s a Christian. Therefore, to try denying him a voice because you disagree with his views is no more and no less than to indulge in religious hatred. That is what it is. Dress it up any way you like, Hebridean Pride should hang its head in shame for displaying the very thing it claims to despise: bigotry. 

It’s part of a wider trend in our society, though, to silence what offends you. Silence it by belittling, silence it by demonising, silence it through mockery: but at all costs, do not permit its voice to be heard. 

We have seen attempts to take the Bible out of school, to stop the utterance of public prayers in classrooms and assemblies. And there has been heavy criticism of church representation on education committees. Christianity, we are repeatedly told, is a private indulgence, and must be kept out of education, out of politics, out of the public sphere altogether.

Christians have consistently argued back that it shouldn’t be banished from politics or education, that the influence of the Bible is necessary and positive. 

But, more than that, I would argue that Christianity CANNOT be kept out of those places. It is an impossibility to filter out Christian influence from public life unless you are prepared to actually debar believers themselves from those spheres also.

If you are a follower of Christ, then, where you go, he goes also. A Christian cannot temporarily suspend his beliefs in order to vote, or teach a class. I love the Lord all the time, and his influence shapes how and what I think. So, if I am asked to vote on euthanasia, on abortion, on Sunday working, on stem-cell research, I will take my direction from him. And if I am asked to teach a child that he can choose his own gender, or that two men can marry, or that this complex world just happened out of nothing . . . well, I can’t do it.

So, that takes us to a place surely no right-thinking, tolerant, loving human being can condone: Christians must not be teachers, or politicians, or policy-makers. That, though, is what we are being told, in essence.

Not long after I joined the Stornoway Trust, some people tried to make a case against us regarding our abuse of ‘religious privilege’. They took the OSCR guidelines on acting in your own interest and made a crude attempt at reinterpreting those. The charities regulator is very clearly talking about people who abuse their position for personal financial gain; not religious gain, whatever that may be.

What they were suggesting was impossible – that we should separate our Christian principles from our actions. So, where does that leave us?

Are we saying that people like me cannot be councillors, or primary school teachers, or MPs because we subscribe to the Bible? I cannot influence policy, or young minds because I hold to the view that marriage is between a man and a woman, that there are only two genders, that no one has the right to kill another person at any stage of life? Because I will not join the populist throng that says ‘anything goes’, I am to be silenced?

If that is, in fact, what we are saying, we have taken a very dark turn. While our society talks about love, it practices hatred. Where tolerance is writ large on rainbow coloured banners, persecution is just around the corner.

Its names are legion: humanism, secularism, pride, tolerance, diversity . . . but its aim is clear, and it should concern every one of us who truly values freedom. Any ideology or philosophy that thrives on the silence of dissenting voices is a sinister one.

Jesus met his enemies gently, with questions that challenged their misplaced certainties. Could it be that this is what those who march for tolerance while silencing debate truly fear?

Life Should Mean Life

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My employers, in their wisdom, decided that I should learn the dark art of genealogy, believing that it would augment the other subjects I teach. They would not listen as I protested, tears streaming down my cheeks, and they turned aside from my plaintive cries of, ‘my grandfather was a Hearach, I don’t need to know any more’. Nothing else would do but that I should be forced to gaze upon the full horror of my own private gene pool, without so much as benefit of clergy.

The clergy, as it turns out, would be no good anyway. I confided in the minister on Sunday that I had been wading in the murkiness of my ancestry. He told me that he had discover a forebear of his own was someone fairly horrifying. My best guess was Genghis Khan, but he shook his head solemnly, ‘worse, even, than that’.

And so, if the person I might otherwise have turned to for counselling is, himself, traumatised by the past, what am I to do? I am left to confront the worst that Miavaig, Achmore and (whisper it) Ranish, have to offer.

To be honest, I had approached this research with some trepidation and not because of my mother’s bizarre network of Deasaich and Lochies. Sometimes you just have to accept that you’re descended from werewolves and move on.

It was my father’s side that was causing the real concern. He was the product of my granny’s liaison with a man she met while working at the herring fisheries in Fraserburgh. All my life, he had been a taboo, an unmentioned and unmentionable shadow; he was a gap in the family tree and likely to remain so.

Still, I had a few clues. Armed with those, I went looking in earnest last week, and found more than I ever expected. He married six months before my father was born – another lady who was also expecting his child. Tracing back from there, I discovered that his own mother had a child to another man before finally marrying my great-grandfather.

So much personal and social turmoil in one line – and so many repetitions of that hateful word: illegitimate.

I realise that it was a legal term, but it carried so much weight of disapproval in society that the child could be forgiven for thinking that he or she was indeed ‘not lawful’. But, then, that all depends on whose law we are following.

When I try to imagine how hard it must have been for my granny to tell her parents of her condition, in Doune in 1927, my heart goes out to her. She had to face their disapproval and disappointment, while also facing up to her own fear, and the heartbreak of finding out that the man she had hoped to marry was married to someone else.

And I wonder, if it was now, whether she would just quietly book herself into a clinic, and end the life she was carrying. Would she be crushed by her mother’s anger, devastated at being made unwelcome in the family home? Or, would the thought of gossip in the small village where everybody knew each other drive her to blot out the mistake as quickly and as cleanly as she could?

See, there are many who would say that, had that option been open to her, it would have been my grandmother’s right to take it. Her body, her choice.

But, she did not have the option, and so she had to suffer all those things I mentioned. It could not have made for an easy life, but neither did it kill her. It’s said that, when she bravely went to seek baptism for her baby boy, the minister was kind. The fact that I even know that speaks volumes. There would have been precious little kindness, little softness in how she was met, as someone who had so spectacularly breached the rules of society.

She weathered the storm. My father not only survived his upbringing, but grew into a man that any mother could be proud of. He was a good father to his sons and his daughters, a good husband to his wife, and a very kind human being. It was not unusual for people to turn up at our house, just to thank my father for how he had dealt with their loved ones when they had been in his care.

He was actually, for me, the epitome of human dignity. Not just because of his own character, but because of how it was formed. Unplanned, illegitimate, inconvenient – but a life, with all the potential that holds. My granny could probably only see the heartbreak of her own dashed hopes, her ruined reputation, and the expense of another mouth to feed. Who knows what all that pressure might have led her to do, had she been due in 2018, instead of 1928.

Nobody knows what the child in the womb might become.

John the Baptist recognised his Saviour, and leapt for joy, though they were both as yet unborn. Life is precious from the moment it is conceived, and its destiny belongs only in the hands of its Creator. It may be inconvenient, it may be frightening, it may be painful, it may be difficult.

But, then, that’s the point of this wonderful life – in God’s hands, it may be anything.

 

 

 

Downcast, but not Outcast

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Usually I look at the mirror only out the corner of my eye. I figure that’s the kind of glance most others will give me throughout the course of the day and anything that doesn’t scream at me out of the reflection – giant spot, cow’s lick etc – is unlikely to be noticed by a passing stranger either.

Sometimes, though, I’m brought up short. Lately, the circles under my eyes are darkening, and bags are starting to form. Altogether, I look uncannily like my Carloway granny. This will mean nothing to most of you, but suffice it to say that my late husband, when he wished to pay me a compliment, would remark on how lucky I was to have taken after the other side of the family. Let me tell you, things are bad when you’re hankering after the days people thought you might be from Achmore.

Eye bags and blemishes notwithstanding, this is still not the most disturbing reflection I have encountered this week. I have to confess to something of a struggle; one of those challenges to my faith that cannot simply be brushed aside. It is something I have heard often from others, and always tried to talk them out of – but lately I find myself tested by the same question: what are we supposed to do when the church behaves worse than the world?

There is no sense in pretending that this is not sometimes so. The Bible provides us with plenty examples of it – righteous men, like Jacob, for example, using deceit to achieve their own ends.

So, if it’s there in God’s word that a cheat can still enter the kingdom, who are we to doubt it?

This week, I have been disappointed by the behaviour of some fellow Christians. It is not something that needs to be discussed here, but it has caused me much reflection. And, as always, God provides direction. I shared a favourite Bible verse on Facebook – Peter’s exhortation that we should always be ready to give a defence of the reason for the hope that is in us – and I expressed sadness that no one ever asks for a reason; they merely mock my faith.

Might that not, however, someone pointed out, be my own fault? I should clarify, he wasn’t being unkind, and he didn’t single me out – he actually said ‘the fault of believers’. However, I am singling myself out, because he was absolutely right. If I don’t show forth the hope that is in me, who is going to ask about it? The very same day, in the course of searching for something else, I discovered an old tweet in which I was described as representing Christians the same way that Richard Dawkins represented atheists.

Suddenly, all the pieces fell into place. Unbelievers have consistently described me as ‘bitter’ and ‘hate-filled’ – because that is how I come across to them. I have failed to go where they are, to get alongside them, and to represent Jesus as what He is to me, and what He could be to them. Hung up on protecting our Christian heritage, I have somehow managed not to show love, but judgement.

This was never my intention. It just shows you, though, there’s a wide gulf between the person we see in the mirror and the face we present to the world.

We have to be careful of that. I am not suggesting that we compromise on the message, but that we have to be careful of its presentation. Of course, I know that a certain amount of whatever we might say will always be met with derision, regardless. At the weekend, I inadvertently offended a whole lot of the Twitterati by sharing the petition to retain prayers in parliament. It was deemed arrogant, and I genuinely don’t think that it was anything I wrote which gave this impression – simply the fact that some are determined to despise public expressions of faith.

I am downcast, but I have been downcast before. Failure in the Christian life is actually an opportunity to relearn that we are not to do this on our own strength, or in our own wisdom. Ironically, that’s exactly why I think all public bodies should preface their daily business with prayer.

We have, as Christians, to be doubly careful because, as the quote goes, the world may not read the Bible, but it will certainly read us – our lives, our conduct, our motivation, the way that we treat others. Instead of me being disillusioned by what I perceive as unChristian behaviour in others, I need to work a lot harder on the page I am presenting to the world myself.

Am I displaying Christ, and the unparalleled hope, the joyous freedom I enjoy in Him? Yes, I write about it, and I talk about it too – but am I living it? Do those currently outside Him look at me, and at my life, and see nothing there to recommend this path? Am I actually hiding the marvellous light from them, instead of testifying to it in a life filled with joy?

I am reminded of an old lady who was asked if she ever doubted her salvation. She replied that she would often pray to God that if He had not already begun a good work in her, please would He start now. It’s never too late to begin.

God doesn’t speak in order to dishearten us, but so that we might rebuild the wall where it may have tumbled down. He has given me my answer – never mind the speck in their eyes, but worry about the beam in your own. All the while I’ve been getting bent out of shape over the behaviour of others, I have been drifting away from where I ought to be. That is not God’s plan, but the enemy’s.

Courage, Dear Hearts – God is Not Silent

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‘Aslan is on the move’. This is surely the simplest and yet, most memorable line from CS Lewis’ Christian allegory, ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’. A Narnia suspended in perpetual winter by an evil ruler who has no rightful authority, thrills at the mere mention of Aslan’s name. Even though they do not yet see him, they know he is at work.

I know God is at work. We worry that He has forgotten us; we worry that He has grown cold towards our disobedient, sinful world. But eachtime that fear seizes our hearts, we ought to engage in a single act so important to the Christian, yet so frequently overlooked: rememberance.

The nameless thrill felt by the Narnians is based upon a memory –of who Aslan is and what he has done in the past. In the moments that they dwell their hearts upon him, all fear of the witch melts like snow in spring.

Of course, we know that God is sovereign and can accomplish anything. But it isn’t actually His power that comforts – it’s His goodness. The two are, of course, like all divine attributes, related to one another. However, it is the knowledge that His strength will be exercised for, and not against us that inspires Christian confidence. When you regard Him from within the security of the resurrection, you experience the perfect love which casts out all earthly fear. His hand will not be lifted against those who love Him.

So yes, I do believe that God is on the move. He is always active, of course. Just like Aslan in the story, we should know that He does not cease simply because we cannot always discern His work.

The lion’s great return was preceded by rumoured sightings and deeds here and there. It is exactly this way with God: just when we may be despairing of ever hearing His voice in the land, He makes himself known in power.

Since beginning this blog, many people have written to me of their hopes, but more often their fears regarding the Kingdom. The cause of Christ is so under attack in this world that it’s hard for those who have been on the journey for a long time to remain encouraged. Sometimes I felt that people looked to me simply because I was younger in the faith, and still flushed with that first love and the enthusiasm that goes with it.

It is almost three years since I formalized the contract with Christ, and I can tell you that I am more filled with hope now than I was then – not less. Of course I have wavered and faltered, and failed Him many times. I am far too slow to forgive, quick to judge, and reluctant to give of myself. Far too many days have ended with me confronted by a sense of having let Christ down when I should have been a witness to Him.

But – mercifully – my hope has got nothing to do with my conduct, any more than my salvation does. My increased optimism comes from knowing Him better, and from seeing how He exercises me in all those sins. Every day of life, I have fresh proof of my own weakness. Couched in Christ, however, that is actually a greater reason for hopefulness – that He will deal with my sin, and conform me a little more to His own likeness all the time.

Not only do I know Him to be personally active in my own experience, but I have a strong sense of His activity beyond that as well. It may seem a little perverse tosay this but, in some ways, I think the so-called ‘secular’ movement in Scotland has been of benefit to the faith. Encroaching danger has been the means of rousing our slumbering watchmen to action. Here in Lewis alone, people have been forced to pick a side more than once – with good results for the cause of Christ in our midst.

On Friday, my inbox filled up with repeated requests to sign the petition for retaining daily prayer at Westminster. There is a network of believers, seized with fear that God is being removed from public life – and prepared to do all they can to restore His place. I hear from the lips of believers often, ‘God’s cause is under attack’.

Remember, though, God’s cause has been there many times. The Bible is full of nations turning away from Him utterly. Great swathes of the Old Testament would have you despairing. Yet, that doleful history is shot through with prophecy; with the promise of a coming Messiah. This narrative unfolds over many centuries: hope recedes into despair, only to re-emerge with yet another prophet, reminding that redemption was indeed at hand.

It came in the glorious blaze of light we find in the Gospel, in the person of Jesus Christ. His perfect love for us drove out the darkness.

He was on the move then, and though He is seated in heaven, Jesus Christ is still active upon the earth. Of course He is – His people, His prized possession are here, bought with His own blood. Where your treasure is, there your heart will also be. What a heart we have, then, inclined towards us in all we do. Is it likely that He could ever forget?

No. He IS coming back for us; and meantime, He is active in us, and on our behalf. What can the world do to the Man who defeated death?

Spiritual Journey to a Destination Unknown

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In a couple of weeks, I plan to visit Ness, to speak to the ladies of the WFM there. Believe it or not, I rarely address any group without having put some thought into what I will be saying. I have a technique which works reasonably well for me in this respect and I started to put it into practice this week, while driving my car.

Actually, a lot of my spiritual journey centres on the car and it was only while sitting in it, thinking about Ness, that I realised just how long this has been true for me.

Life became frantically busy last year, and each day I spend at least 50 minutes just driving to and from work. On the mornings when I am pushed for time, I wait until I am underway before speaking to God as I drive. At first, I felt guilty about doing this, as though I was being disrespectful. But then it dawned on me that I had always spoken to Him on car journeys . . . just that I was now doing it out loud, and calling it ‘prayer’.

And, this year, I have taken things a step further. I am following a plan which allows me to listen to the Bible being read over the course of a year. As soon as I start the engine each morning, therefore, David Suchet’s calm voice reads to me a portion from the New Testament, followed by a reading from the Old.

When I worked in Ness, I drove back and forth across the moor every day. I was single and living with my parents, and enjoying life. There was nothing to trouble my mind. To while away the miles, I began to listen to recordings of sermons our own minister had preached. This being well before the digital revolution, I was limited to the cassettes that were available to me and so I listened to some of these sermons repeatedly, and two in particular.

One spoke of God as a refiner of silver, retrieving the object from the fire only when it was finished, and the Maker could see in it His own image. The other favourite was on Paul’s famous utterance about God’s strength being made perfect in weakness. I loved these – yet if anyone had asked me, I wouldn’t have been able to tell why.

But I know now. Reflecting on it as I prayed over what to say to the ladies of Ness, I realised that all those years ago, God was preparing me. I was not in the midst of troubled waters yet, but I stored up the precious truths in my heart against a time when I would be. This was not because of my far-sightedness, but because of His.

When the man I had not yet met was taken from me, I would fall back on these precious words and the reassurance that they convey: God is not punishing you; He is drawing you closer to Himself.

That our eternal God plays the long game should not surprise us, but it should certainly give us comfort. We often speak about the difficult providences which we encounter, and the fact that we often cannot comprehend their meaning. I think it’s important to remember something else, though: God equips us for the journey He has set before us; not the one we think lies ahead.

I didn’t know why I was listening to those sermons repeatedly back then, but God was working in me the faith that would hold me to Himself when that was all I had.

It was sitting in my office in Ness that I enrolled on the very first Free Church Saturday course in theology. This was an uncharacteristically bold move on my part, because I was terrified that I would be the only non-Christian (I was) and possibly the only non-elder (I wasn’t) in the class.

By the time the Ness chapter of my life had closed, I found myself no closer to being a Christian. Although I had found happiness with my husband, and a new job, everything else seemed to have been a waste of time. The theology books I had bought sat in the bookcase, mocking me – reminding me of that other sermon message which replayed in my memory: do not begin building the tower, unless you are sure you have the tools to finish the job.

But that was just spiritual myopia, and a failure of faith on my part. I didn’t start the job – God did, and when He begins a good work in us, He will see it through.

Perhaps you are reading this, feeling discouraged, thinking you are no nearer to Him than you were many years ago. It’s just possible you feel that way because you don’t see what He sees: this is a journey, and He knows what you will need along the way. God is making sure that you are trained and equipped as you need to be for all that providence has in store.

It was because of this period in my life that I knew there was Someone there to catch me when I fell. There is no wasted time with God: He knows the plans He has for us, and every breath we take builds towards the moment when He calls us by name.

 

 

Tolerance is Not an Option

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The Scottish Government is considering a change to hate crime legislation in this country. That they are consulting extensively on it up and down this land – even in extremist Stornoway – is surely an encouraging sign. I wasn’t able to attend the consultation, being one of those subjugated Wee free women, but I have every faith that the Men in Black would have filed into the town hall, banged the table, shouted ‘Kenneth Street says “no”!’ a good few times, and generally held up the stereotype to which our national (and sometimes local) media so loves resorting.

Knowing my place (the kitchen) does not, however, prevent me from having concerns about the proposed overhaul of laws relating to – in particular – hate speech. While I wholeheartedly agree that such behaviour has no place in a civilised society, I worry that lowering the threshold on what constitutes, for example, hostile language, will criminalise people who are actually motivated by love.

Not two weeks ago, I saw someone, commenting on a Facebook thread, in which she was outraged at a minister saying that we are all sinners. She denied her own claim to that title, saying that she had never done anything wrong in her life. A remarkable paragon, indeed, but a sadly mistaken one.

Being a sinner is not like being an organ donor, or a contributor to your employer’s pension scheme: there is no opt-out. Read Genesis 3 – it’s all in there. Nor is it anything to do with whether you remember your mother’s birthday and hold the door open for old ladies. I have never murdered anyone, nor stolen from them, nor plotted the overthrow of a legitimate authority (unless you count the Kirk Session); but I am a sinner.

It’s important that this exercise fully takes on board the fears that Christians have, because we already know where the wilful misunderstanding and hostility of other people can lead. Before any individual, or government makes the grand claim that they are tolerant of Christianity, I think they should be aware of the challenges with which it will present them.

‘Tolerance’, originates from the Latin ‘to bear’ or ‘to endure’. However, it has become a word much associated with our liberal, anything goes society. People ‘tolerate’ what they cannot approve. You can say with impunity that there is no God, that those who believe in Him are fools (or bigots); and you can rewrite His rules – so what if He created them male and female, there is no gender. In fact, so what if He said ‘you must not kill’; we have the means to terminate life in the womb and if that life is going to inconvenience someone by seeing the light of day . . . well, it’s intolerant of anyone to try saving it.

You see, I don’t think that you can ‘tolerate’ the Christian faith. It is founded upon a Man who is a polarising force – you are with Him, or against Him; you are lost, or you accept salvation; you belong with the sheep or the goats; you are bundled as chaff and burned, or taken safely into His storehouse as wheat.

Christ will not allow us to tolerate Him. And when I say ‘Him’, I mean that to include His Church. Those of us who love Him and follow Him, and have founded all our hopes upon Him . . . we are members of His body. Strike at us, and it is actually His wounds which bleed.

If you change the law of this land so that a minister preaching the Gospel faithfully can be accused of using hate speech simply because you don’t being called a sinner, you are placing many souls in jeopardy. He is a Christian, called by God to spread the saving truth, because faith comes by hearing. Stop his mouth and you are building a dam against rivers of living water. It is not the preacher of the Gospel you offend, but Christ, who IS the Gospel. You are keeping the lifeboat at bay for yourself, certainly, but you are preventing others from climbing on board as well.

On a personal level, I fear what this kind of legislation might mean for my blog. In the past, writing on attempts to change the Lewis Sunday, I was accused of stirring up hatred, bitterness, and even racism. I examined my own heart, and I scoured what was written, but nowhere could I find what offended the unbelievers.

What offends them, of course, is love. The preachers of tolerance claim to embrace all kinds of love. But they do not actually see the only love worth having when it is held out to them. Believe me, I understand: there was a time when I couldn’t see it either.

And this is where the whole edifice stands or falls. Christ is calling to every one of us to either take His side . . . or move aside.

A ‘tolerant’ society does not understand that the Gospel was made to be offensive. It does what our government, our society and – increasingly – even our churches – will not do: it calls us out on our bad conduct. But we live in a world where words like ‘good’ or ‘bad’ have virtually been excised from public discourse. We are wise in our own sight, and we have turned away from God.

Regardless of what laws a godless country might pass, followers of Christ know what they must do. I don’t want to be tolerated; I want to be heard when I say to people dead in sin as I once was:

‘Come, see a man who told me all I ever did. Can this be the Christ?’

He requires of you an answer. As CS Lewis said, ‘Love Him or hate him, Jesus forces that choice upon you’.

Tolerance is not an option.