PREPOSITIONAL PREACHING

Here is an adapted extract from John Kennedy’s The Days of The Fathers in Ross-shire, posing a challenge to preacher and hearer alike.

1. There are some who preach BEFORE their people, like actors on the stage,  to display themselves and to please their audience.

2. There are others who preach OVER their people. Studying
for the highest, instead of doing so for the lowest, in intelligence, they elaborate learned treatises, which float like mist, when delivered over the heads of their hearers.

3. There are some who preach PAST their people. Directing their praise or their censure to intangible abstractions, they never take aim at the views and the conduct of the individuals before them. They step carefully aside, lest their hearers should be struck by their shafts, and aim them at phantoms beyond them.

4. There are others who preach AT their people, serving out in a sermon the gossip of the week, and seemingly possessed with the idea, that the transgressor can be scolded out of the ways of iniquity.

5. There are some who preach TOWARDS their people. They aim well, but they are weak. Their eye is along the arrow towards the hearts of their hearers, but their arm is too feeble for sending it on to the mark. Superficial in their experience and in their knowledge, they reach not the cases of God s people by their doctrine, and they strike with no vigour at the consciences of the ungodly.

6. There are others still, who preach ALONG their congregation. Instead of standing with their bow in front of the rank, these archers take it in line, and reducing their mark to an individual, never change the direction of their aim.

7. But there are a few who preach TO the people directly and seasonably the mind of God in His word, with authority, unction, wisdom, fervour, and love. 

The best Tories are dead now!

It's an open secret that I am STILL a big Maggie fan, which will, of course, infuriate my socialist friends. So for good measure here are some quotes from Sir Keith Joseph (19.10.1974), a conviction politician, the likes of which are no longer on the scene. His complete speech is worth a read. 

Here is a list of quotations: 

1. "We are opposed to using children as guinea pigs or spare parts for social engineers to experiment with" 

2. "...the family and to civilised values. They are the foundation on which the nation is built; they are being undermined. If we cannot restore them to health, our nation can be utterly ruined - whatever economic policies we might try to follow"

3. "We do not follow that interpretation of Rousseau’s concept of the noble savage that teaches that man, left to himself, is innocent and pure. We take the more traditional and still widely held view that men and women are born with a capacity for good and evil, to make the best use of their talents or to waste them; and that upon our early upbringing - the standards and the self-discipline to which we are brought up first at home and then at school - much of our whole future depends " 

4."Such words as good and evil, such stress on self-discipline and on standards have been out of favour since the war with the new establishment. They have preferred the permissive society, and, at the same time, the collectivised society" 

5. "The Socialist method would take away from the family and its members the responsibilities which give it cohesion. Parents are being divested of their duty to provide for their family economically, of their responsibility for education, health, upbringing, morality, advice and guidance, of saving for old age, for housing. When you take responsibility away from people you make them irresponsible. Hand in hand with this you break down traditional morals, the framework of behaviour, concepts of right and wrong; it is easier to subvert the social framework and replace it by their new monolithic edifice."

6. "Real incomes per head have risen beyond what anyone dreamed of a generation back; so have education budgets and welfare budgets, so also have delinquency, truancy, vandalism, hooliganism, illiteracy, decline in educational standards. Some secondary schools in our cities are dominated by gangs operating extortion rackets against small children. Teenage pregnancies are rising; so are drunkenness, sexual offences, and crimes of sadism. For the first time in a century and a half, since the great Tory reformer Robert Peel set up the metropolitan police, areas of our cities are becoming unsafe for peaceful citizens by night, and even some by day."

7. "We see how the demand for absolute equality turns into the new inequality"

8. "In the universities, which should be sanctuaries for the pursuit of truth, the bully-boys of the left have been giving us a foretaste of what leftwing dictatorship would endeavour to achieve, actively cheered on by the casuistry of some members of the university staffs, cuckoos in our democratic nest, and by the pusillanimity of others, by the apathy of many and, I must add, by moral cowardice in public life."

9. "If equality in education is sought at the expense of quality, how can the poisons created help but filter down?"

10. "If equality in education is sought at the expense of quality, how can the poisons created help but filter down?"

11."Some abuse their power and authority to urge or condone antisocial behaviour either on political grounds - against an ‘unjust society’, against ‘authority’ or as ‘liberation from the trammels of the outmoded family’... None of these phenomena is at all modern, or liberated; they are the very opposite of freedom which begins with self-discipline" 

12. "The facile rhetoric of absolute liberty has become a cover for irresponsibility; instant social protest an excuse for antisocial behaviour"

13. "The worship of instinct, of spontaneity, the rejection of self-discipline, is not progress - it is degeneration. It was Freud who argued that repression of instincts is the price we pay for civilisation. He considered the price well-paid"

West is no longer best; we have reached a new low, where Anythingism is the creed of the day. 

Some Ecclesiastical Nonsense!

 

When NOT to be silent!

The Free Church ain't what it used to be. Matters have surely come to a sorry pass judging by a recent advert. My criticism is not directed at the person in the pew, who has little say over church affairs (though money still talks, I see), which perhaps is just as well. Needless to say, diplomacy is not something I can brag about, but I am pleased that my concern has been listened to by the secular Press, both locally and nationally. I do not expect much to come from it, mind you! Who cares about Christian influence in high places? Will one obtain it by paying 30 pieces of silver? 

I am, of course, only speaking on my own behalf, and as the Free Church is now an increasingly broad church, she will be robust enough to handle a restrained outburst from one of its less distinguished members. 

I am grateful that the press (local and national) have published my comments (see below). 

Black and white or colour-blind?

Must we be tolerant towards the intolerant?

A non-Christian gay friend of mine has asked me to sign a petition to ban F Graham from speaking in the UK, because of the latter's supposed hatred of LGBTQ folks. Needless to say, I declined because I do seek to live by the golden rule (Matthew 7:12)! By that kind of egological thinking (if thinking is the right word), one would have to ban, or, re-write the Bible (I’ll leave that to the spineless archbishop of Canterbury), or burn the Qur’an. Neither seems right to me, and, I trust, so say all of us!

Perhaps someone could prosecute ‘Eminem’, or help him develop a better grasp of the English language, as long as it is not from Shakespeare, with my apologies to Alastair Stewart, of course! Eminem’s lyrics ARE offensive, but I can choose not to listen to him! The same applies to so many other things in life, including people like Greta or Donald or Jeremy, not to mention my own name! 

Some people must surely be tired of hearing so much about history (why not herstory?); and ladybirds, what’s that all about?! MPs giving maiden speeches, how offensive is that?! Manchester! Who ever invented that name?! Tremendous trifles to be fought over! What could matter more? Where is my Newspeak dictionary?

I profoundly disagree with many friends, and often with myself, but that does not mean I hate others or myself! I certainly disagree with much that Franklin Graham stands for, but reading 'The cancellation of Franklin Graham’s tour events is a seminal moment for the UK' has sent shivers down my spine. The author has a point, and we all need to be alert and should not be afraid to stand up against bullies, ecclesiastical ones included! 

I have to remind myself again and again that it is indeed 2020 and not 1984! But by the sound of it, it looks more like January 1933, and we all know what happened to the voice of dissent!