I note, with unfeigned interest, of course, that the Free Church of Scotland has drawn attention to this (or
herself?), 'National Leaders Urge the Nation to Pray'. The
nation that is, and not the Church!
Judging by the impressive list we, well, anyone, I would imagine, can join
in together and hopefully feel all right, by repeating a simple mantra in parrot-fashion, and presumably God will then hear us somehow and be appeased.
That seems to be the general idea if I have understood this correctly.
I was never consulted, of course,
which is just as well, since bland diplomacy is not a talent that I have been
blessed with in great measures, though I am restraining myself even now! The humanists will be trembling in their foxholes,
God’s arm will be twisted, and once COVID-19 is gone it will the Church back to her non-praying default position, off her knees and back onto her feet!
Unlike my Roman Catholic friends, I
do not call on Mary or departed saints, let alone angels, even though I could easily
pray in tongues, being a multi-linguist (okay, I
am showing off!), and one day, perhaps even in Gaelic, the language of heaven,
I am told! The day is drawing closer, for sure! I hope that tongue-speakers
will appreciate my remarks!
I do, of course, apologise to all
who choose to be offended, especially any befuddled ecumeniacs, who have so nicely dreamt
it all up in the first place! Those filled with grace and humility will leave
me alone, I am sure, and I count it as a great blessing to have such friends
who will just forgive me! And
if not, I dare say, that God has beaten them already to it, anyway, without their prayers that I do not need. One must not be too unkind, and occasionally it is necessary to cultivate the art of cowering or flattering to please our cold-hearted and hot-headed ecclesiasts! One of these days I will be needing their services, a grave undertaking it
will prove to be! Then everyone one will hear that I have been good after all!
The call to national ‘prayer’ is
not without precedent, for sure, but very un-Knoxish in some respects! Just imagine that
greatest of all Scotsmen praying with a priestess, or alongside a papist, or some ‘Schwaermer’!
You never know how Knox’s God may have responded, or John Knox himself, for
that matter!
Well, this is the 21st
century, and Calvinism has been driven out of Scotland, and one sees very
little of it in the national Kirk, or in the Free Church. Anything will do now,
and there is no longer any need to stand on Gospel ground! Pelagius will do, indeed, will have to be invoked, as we are now dealing with a shrinking God who is being edged out of His own Church, though He may choose to stay on for a little longer!
So then, does the Free Church believe that there is sanity, strength, or safety in all this? Presumably so! Dietrich Bonhoeffer once famously asked, ‘Are we still of any use?’ At the moment it does not seem like it, except for hatches, matches and dispatches!
Under the current circumstances I have greater faith in the medical experts than in the pagan pragmatism of the spiritual oversight of the wider church who will sacrifice the truth on the altar of expediency. Indeed, I have no faith in prayer at all, let alone in the wider Church. I have come off age, to quote Bonhoeffer again! My faith, of course, is in God who answers prayer!
I will finish with Daniel's prayer: 'O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee.' (Daniel 9:8). May it "unconfuse" our leaders! May God forgive all those who do not know what they are doing!
