Idle thoughts

I notice that the Nimrod aircraft is being scrapped but there is no indication about what will replace it. Perhaps they will have to go back to the old Shackleton – there is still one flying in South Africa.

Lonely penguins

And while we are on items in the news I see that it has been decided that, after all, penguins are not ‘homosexual’. Apparently it is just that when there are no females around males can get lonely and hitch up for a while with each other, but this all changes when females appear on the scene. I feel tempted to apply this to male-only boarding schools, and perhaps, having spent 3 years at a boys’ prep school followed by 5 years at a mixed sex boarding house attached to a co-educational grammar school I am in a position to say something. I was not very reflective during those years but I know I felt the latter was more normal and conducive to living in a world of male and female. To shut up young men during puberty in an all-male environment, especially with dormitory accommodation, does not seem to me to be at all a wise or healthy idea.

Praying for the church of Jesus Christ

Here is my latest quotation from John Howe: 'If our hearts are grieved to hear of the sufferings of the Church of God in the world, but not of their sins; if we more sensibly regret at any time the persecutions and oppressions they undergo, than their spiritual distempers, their earthliness, pride, cold love to God, fervent animosities towards each other; it speaks an uninstructed, carnal mind. We take no right measure of the interests of religion or the Church's welfare, and do most probably mistake ourselves as much in our judging of our own; and measure theirs by our own mistaken model.' This seems to me to hit an important nail on the head. We rightly pray for persecuted Christians worldwide, but we seldom hear fervent prayers for the cleansing of the churches from carnality and error. Of course there is a danger here of considering the sins and weaknesses of other Christians and churches and overlooking our own, or even of praying with a sense of pride and superiority. But with true humility, aware of failings at home, we can, and surely should, be praying for the greater purity and holiness of the worldwide Church of God.

Science and the humanities

I was intrigued to come across these sentences in Don Carson’s latest book, The God who is There (sounds familiar doesn’t it!). ‘I have spoken at many universities, and one of the interesting things I discover is that if I attend nearby local churches and meet some of the faculty in the universities who belong to these local churches and who are committed believers, their numbers tend to be made up of more science and math professors and the like than arts, psychology, and English literature professors. It is simply not the case that anyone who is a scientist cannot be a Christian.’ I am sure that this is true. In my own experience there have been a few PhD’s in the churches I have pastored and, unless my memory is seriously wrong, they all had science degrees. My own brother was an English literature professor and though, on returning to the Christian faith after years as an agnostic, he stopped short of becoming an evangelical, I know that he found considerable opposition amongst many of his peers. But though Carson’s comment sounds optimistic, it actually reveals that studying arts, psychology and English literature presents more challenges for believers than most of us realise. I am not sure that many pastors are able to help and advise students in these subjects like this.

God's methods

IIt is a while since I included a quotation from the Puritan John Howe. Here he is exploring different aspects of knowing God:

To know his methods, and the course of his dispensations towards the world, his Church, and especially our own spirits: This is a great knowledge of God, to have the skill to trace his footsteps and observe, by comparing times with times, that such a course he more usually holds; and accordingly, with great probability, collect from what we have seen and observed, what we may expect; what order and succession there is of storms of wrath to clouds of sin; and again of peaceful lucid intervals, when such storms have inferred penitential tears; in what exigencies, and distresses, humble mourners may expect God’s visits and consolations; and from such experiences still to argue ourselves into fresh reviving hopes, when the state of things, whether public or private, outward or spiritual, seems forlorn.