One hundred and fifty years (and counting)

Just as we have done for the last few years at this point in the summer, we decamped to Keswick in the English Lake District. It’s a shortish hop for us (about two and a half hours north up the M6 – when open). There are lots of reasons to come to Keswick, most famously the majestic surrounding hills, the beautiful lake, the ice cream. But as readers of this blog will know (and apparently there are a few of you), these are but chocolate sprinkles on a very chocolaty chocolate cake. The real reason we’re here is the Keswick Convention which this year is 150 years old. I’ve written about the Convention before (in 2018, 2019 – the others are easy enough to find). Clearly, to last 150 years, it must be getting something right. But I wonder what it is?

Longevity is, of course, no necessary indication of value. Where human institutions are concerned, more than a few have lasted a long time. Those that do tend to be the ones that continue to meet some basic need or perform some useful function. But they do this by doing two apparently contradictory things successfully. First of all they remain the same to the degree that continuity through time can be observed, remaining identifiably a single institution rather than a succession of different ones. Yet life is change, so they must also change, grow or evolve as needs (either perceived or real) change. If there’s no change, then fossilisation and irrelevance develop. Too much change, and it begins to look like the particular institution in question doesn’t really qualify as such or that it has neither firm foundation or core of any value. It strikes me that Keswick has negotiated this conundrum rather well. The world (in both sacred and secular aspects) has changed over the the last 150 years. And so has the Keswick Convention. Yet it has a distinguishable DNA that has been constant.

The original aim of the Keswick Convention (which began with a tent for 1000 in Thomas Dundas Hartford-Battersby’s vicarage garden) was essentially to get serious about living out the Christian life. At the centre of it was Bible teaching. It’s worthwhile reflecting in what today is considered a “secular” culture, that the notion of taking the text of Scripture as being both authoritative and transforming seemed as odd to many in the final part of the nineteenth century as it does today. Although 19^th century Britain was well-churched, belief was beginning to become as shallow as it was broad. David Bebbington identifies the early 1870’s with the beginning of the ebb of evangelicalism on this side of the Atlantic. In the established Church of England there were many who rather looked down on taking Scripture and its call to transformed living too seriously. According to the historian Mark Noll there was a growth in “Broad Church opinion and the progress of High Church practices”. Classic evangelical views (i.e. historical, biblically orthodox belief) were increasing seen as out-of-date and in need of radical revision, and there were those in professional theology (who prepared the men who would fill the pulpits) who were only too eager to carry the revision out. The Robertson Smith case and Charles Briggs paper defending “Critical theories” (both in 1881) were harbingers of what was to come. Outside the Church of England, the theological drift that would soon engage Spurgeon in the “Downgrade” was well and truly underway among “independents”.

In contrast the post-enlightenment “inevitable progress” narrative (which could point to real advances in science, technology and medicine) gathered steam. And it was portrayed as the antithesis of classic, orthodox Christian belief; a competing, more successful and more “adult” narrative. Christianity (and Christian theology) was merely one superstition among many which was on the cusp of being banished for good. Human reason and its products were all that were needed. Long before the bloody 20^th century put paid to the myth of inevitable progress (although the odd still-twitching digit is occasionally  encountered today) Hartford-Battersby discovered for himself that true transformation occurred from the inside out, effected by the Word of God, through the Spirit of God. This is what he wanted to share with others. And so the Keswick Convention was born.

Of course, he and his friends had rediscovered something that had always been true. But truth has a way of sinking out of sight (or being obscured) before reappearing again (as it must). There is always a need for transforming truth. To use some jargon, the transformation that occurs when someone comes to faith in Christ (i.e. is converted, saved, becomes a Christian), while fundamental is not final in the sense that no further change is necessary or possible. There is a need to hear that we all begin in desperate need of rescuing (the kind of language used by Paul at the beginning of Galatians). Having been rescued, utterly and completely, in way that can only be accomplished by God Himself, a new life of gratitude begins. Our position is secure in Christ; our thinking and behaviour now have to change to be in conformity with this new position. And this needs to be shaped and directed. The motivation may be gratitude marked by changed appetites and attitudes, but it’s tempting to feel that it’s all then “over to us” to work out how we navigate our new way in a world and culture that now seems (and is) threatening and hostile. Fortunately, the needed help is on hand.

God’s great plan for His people does not end with their rescue any more than it begins with it. Thereafter he provides the resources required to lead the new life that has been inaugurated. And He is not somehow removed from this part of the struggle but is right in the thick of it. Hence the idea, taught by Jesus, and amplified by Paul, that He not only rescues us, but then resides in us, to provide the heft to swim against the tide. He resides in us to help us avail ourselves of His presence mediated by His Word (and vice versa). The much maligned Bible, the most heavily criticised and attacked of books, continues to be a means of not merely way-finding but of continued transformation as it is read, explained, heard and responded too. This continuing need was always at the heart of Keswick.

It remains so. In placing Scripture at the heart of what goes on for three weeks at the Convention each summer, it continues to meet what turns out to be the deepest of human needs. In presenting the Gospel, the good news of God’s rescue plan (that dead, cold, stony hearts can be made alive again) is presented to a culture which needs to know that such transformation (literally from death to life) is still possible. But for those that are newly alive, direction and instruction in the new life that follows is also made available. This explains the longevity of the convention. Real needs being met. Needs that are as old as fallen humanity and that will persist until God calls time on the world as it is. But many things about the Convention have observably changed. It has gone from one week to three, and from a tent for 1000 to one that holds nearer 3000. The location of the tent has moved around too. The number and style of talks has altered. Victorians were made of much sterner stuff compared to 21^st century Christians; substantial back to back sermons of some length were not unusual. Now there’s a single morning “Bible reading” and an evening “Celebration” (with added additional seminars and other types of session). The style and content of worship (though not its object) have changed. What were once innovations, like the separate youth programme, have continued to evolve. Inclusiveness and accessibility for those with disabilities or particular additional needs is receiving the attention it deserves. But important as all of this is, it is peripheral (though not trivial). At the centre is something as simple as it is profound. God is a speaking God. He speaks though His word and in His speaking accomplishes the impossible transformations that are our basic need.

Here’s to the next 150 years.

In need of better songs….

We all sing. In terms of musicality some of us sing well, some not so well. But much more important than the tunefulness of the melody is the meaning of what we sing. Admittedly this is apparently contradicted by the lyrics of many of the most popular songs. I am often bemused by the words folk are happy to belt out at the top of their voices, even on those occasions when I actually understand the words that are being used. The aim of song writers often seems to be to provide a diverting overall sound rather than any sense or message. There will be the odd half phrase perhaps hinting at what a song is “about”. On that basis one might be able to classify it as happy or sad, or whether it’s about life or love or loss. But meaning and message are often lost among slush and filler. And some songs seem to be “about” nothing. There are interesting exceptions.

In this city (Liverpool) there is a particular song sung as an anthem that has taken on a particular significance. Collectively we (if I might number myself among the Scousers) have become known for it. “You’ll never walk alone” is a show tune from Rogers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel”. The actual words are, largely, nonsense. If taken as advice on what to do in a given set of circumstances (“When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high”), they would lead to disaster or at the very least stinging eyes and a severe headache from flying debris. And some of them are flat wrong and not true to life (“At the end of the storm, There’s a golden sky, And the sweet silver song of a lark”). At the end of some of life’s storms it often seems that there’s more storm. And usually the larks have more sense than to hang about; rather than singing sweetly they swiftly relocate to sing elsewhere. But we all innately understand metaphor, and where a lyric chimes with our hopes we suspend our disbelief. When sung by thousands of Scousers at Anfield, in the context of remembered disasters like Hillsborough, with their attendant multiple injustices, the song takes wing and does seem to make sense after all. Then the sound of singing fades, and we’re left with what? Well, not a lot. Perhaps a warm fuzzy feeling. But this too doesn’t last. How we need better songs.

Last week, Week 3 of the Keswick Convention, in the morning Bible readings Vaughan Roberts was considering just such songs. They are the collection of 150 songs nestling in the middle of the Old Testament, the Psalms. But no random collection this. Like every other book making up the Bible, these particular songs were not just thrown together. Although they were accumulated over a long period of time, the book of Psalms has a structure and trajectory;  as VR put it “momentum builds up”. So, day by day we traced the pattern that leads from the sweeping introduction of Psalms 1 and 2, through the succeeding books, from struggle and lament, via hope to the praise due to the God of covenant promises, whose individual, global and cosmic purposes will not be thwarted. Here are the better songs we need. Songs worth singing. And VR drew our attention to the effect of singing these songs.

The analogy he used to illustrate his point was the scene in "Casablanca" when Victor (the hero unless you’re a big Bogart fan), outraged by a bunch of Nazi officers singing their Nazi songs, tells the band to strike up the Marseillaise. Up to that point the non-Nazi denizens at Rick’s had looked weak and befuddled, compared to the apparent strength and confidence of their new overlords. But led by Victor the crowd picks up the words of the song of their homeland. Lungs fill, backs straighten and soon tears flow with hope of better days to come.  That is the effect of such songs (partly captured by “You’ll never walk alone” too). But there were no guarantees that this hope would not be crushed.

Not so those songs in the Psalms, even when sung by exiles. For the whole of creation has a goal set for it and Heaven’s King will one day be vindicated. Those who take refuge in Him will be saved and safe. This state of affairs has never appeared believable to fallen humanity, so taken with themselves and singing competing songs. The hope in Psalms appeared even less believable when the long-promised King was executed on a Roman cross. And of course if that was the end of the story, then these songs too would simply be about pious but ultimately frustrated hope, with no real purchase on reality. But it was this King who could not be held by death, and who was raised to demonstrate the inexorable progress of His Kingdom. Even so, at the time it didn’t look much like progress. The ancient world was not impressed. After all, how can a crucified God be any kind of God at all? And yet the Psalm of the sufferer (Ps 22) becomes the Psalm of the Sovereign (Ps 24). And although what is ancient is past (obviously), the good news of Jesus the still-coming king, continues to spread. His songs continue to be sung.

To be reminded of better songs at Keswick was valuable and refreshing (and the singing was good too). The need for others to learn these better songs has been amply demonstrated by the riots that broke out in the UK a week ago and appear to be continuing. The rioters have their songs of course, songs of hostility and hatred. These, it turns out, are also old songs. But they have never achieved anything except to provide an accompaniment to destruction and heartache.

I know which songs I’d rather sing.

Keswick from the inside…

For the last few summers we’ve headed to Keswick in the English lakes for our summer holiday, to of all things, a Christian convention (I’ve written previously about the apparent strangeness of this). The Keswick convention now extends through three weeks of the English summer, and provides Bible teaching, seminars and other things to about 3000-5000 people per week. It is not small, and it is not new; next year will mark its 150^th anniversary. But in previous years we have been here as punters (or customers as someone suggested I should call participants). We have turned up to morning Bible readings (that is just a meeting at the centre of which is effectively a sermon) and evening celebrations (just a meeting with a slightly shorter sermon), and in between we’ve walked and read, eaten ice cream, snoozed, met up with friends and so on. Just a happy and relaxed way to spend a week of summer. But this year is different.

Keswick runs on volunteers as well as being supported by the voluntary giving of those who attend (and probably others). This year I think the estimate was about 700 volunteers over the three weeks. We had obviously heard the of the need for volunteers when we attended in previous years. But this year we took the plunge. So, months ago we filled in the requisite forms and named the appropriate referees. There are various teams that make up the volunteer body (tech team, welcome team, catering etc). Having followed a process of elimination (i.e. what would I not enjoy?) I applied for the BaseCamp team. I should explain that BaseCamp is what the Convention calls an area that houses the café, bookshop and various exhibitors from Christian organisations. It also provides an overflow for the main tent where meetings take place, providing live streaming of the as well as a slightly less formal vibe. I had a rough idea of what BaseCamp was like having frequented it in the past. But I didn’t really have much idea of what volunteering to serve in it for a week would be like.

This is not to say I was unprepared. Before pitching up in Keswick there was training to do. This was delivered online in the form of videos which covered everything from standards and ethos to safeguarding, as well as more technical stuff like risk awareness training and “radio protocols” (over!). There was a team meeting on zoom before the Convention and a run of emails. So I certainly felt like I was preparing. All of this was completed on the first day we turned up (last Saturday) when we had a briefing in our base for the week, met the team, had a specific security briefing (a sign of the times) and a walk round the venue. I was genuinely impressed at the effort to prepare and support us, an effort that I’m assuming is made with the other teams. Some members of the team were old hands, and some of us newbies, but from the start we were all possessed of a good spirit of getting stuck in. And just as well. Because having had a couple of hours of briefings, followed by a couple of hours of finding our accommodation (which the Convention provides for volunteers) the first evening was upon us and the site was opened to its Week 2 denizens.

And so here we are now in the middle of the week. My feet and back are bit sore it is true; the hours have been quite long, and a good part if it is spent standing up. But my enthusiasm is undimmed. Our role has been slightly odd in that while we are certainly interested in the Conventioneers we also have a bunch of exhibitors to engage with. We have a basic responsibility for everyone’s safety and security (which today meant getting security to remove an unattended bag), and a sort of pastoral interest in all those who come through our doors. This is particularly the case for those who might be here on their own and appreciate a chat. But there are also  questions to be answered and directions to be given. Keswick attracts wide spectrum of ages and theological outlooks if obviously  concentrated on that part of the spectrum that might still be labelled evangelical. Some come as part of a group, others knowing that they’ll be meeting old friends. Some come alone but know they’ll be welcomed and supported. Some are perhaps lonely. But in Basecamp there’s been time and space for some of our team to sit and chat at our tables with care and sensitivity. Hopefully all those who arrive alone don’t feel alone for too long.

But we also have about 30 exhibitors to look after. Because this was Week 2, their stands were already set up, even if there was a change in personnel. We had the happy task of talking to them and making sure they had what they needed. But this was no chore. They are a very interesting bunch of people, with a passion for the tasks that their organisations undertake. So talking to them isn’t a problem. And many of them have really interesting back stories and experiences as individuals that make for interesting listening. There’s also a real variety of organisations represented, from straightforward missions (if there is ever such a thing) to specific areas and groups, via support agencies of various kinds to theological educators and trainers.

So this has turned out to be a very people focused week. Many interactions may be trivial, but many are not. And there is the possibility that some will be truly significant. Maybe we will facilitate the call of someone to the mission field. That’s not just about classic missionary service overseas (still vital) but also about opportunities on our doorstep. Maybe we will have the privilege of providing encouragement to someone who turned up feeling downtrodden and depressed. Maybe helped by a conversation in BaseCamp, they’ll be enabled to return home with renewed vigour. I was impressed with the level of preparation and it’s been a real pleasure serving alongside my teammates. Seeing things from the inside, and doing things on the inside, has been a great experience.

Might even do it again…..  

Keswick 2023.2 That Monday morning feeling……

Monday dawned and the rain (largely) stayed away. At least for long enough for me to walk down through Keswick Main St, past the end of Stanger St (where a bunch of us stayed in the early 80’s), past the Crosthwaite Parish Room (where 10ofThose have their second-hand book sale) and round the corner, on to the not-quite-so-new Convention site. I was heading to the “Pencil Factory”, the permanent bit of the site, for Matthew Mason's (see his details on London Seminary's staff list) seminar series: “On Being Creatures”. I confess I have given (as well as attended) Monday morning seminars, and not always with unalloyed joy. But this I was looking forward to. There’s always that anticipation at the beginning of any big convention or series. This morning what was being anticipated turned out not to be a disappointment.

If you wanted to label the subject matter, and wanted to be pretentious about it, you’d call it metaphysical and theological anthropology. Matthew left off the anthropology and started with a significantly better (and for our purposes more useful) theological topic. He started with God. As he fairly pointed out, if we get God wrong, then not much of anything useful will follow. And of course this meant he started where Scripture starts, with God, in the beginning. Although, as he also pointed out, there is more than a hint of what came before the beginning – ie God Himself, who has no beginning. And from the outset it is therefore clear (both in Scripture and in this seminar series) that with God we are not just talking about a bigger, stronger, longer-lived, cleverer version of ourselves. This is what all of our “gods-in-our-own” image (idols) inevitably are, that is why they are so seductively comforting rather than challenging. But this is to get things exactly back to front, and another reason why to understand ourselves, we need to start with God as He is. He is a completely different order of being, and if we get this wrong there’s little chance we’ll get back on track.

In His being He is immeasurably different to us, and the same is true of His doing. And a dramatic demonstration of this is what He did when He created. Human beings are of course a creative bunch. We can create pictures, sculpture, recipes, poetry, words (frebunctiousness – has that ever been written before?) and of course chaos. But all of this creative activity shares the same property. There was stuff before the human creative step to which, when we’re being really creative, we add something genuinely new. But we don’t (and indeed can’t) create something out of nothing. And yet, that is exactly what God has done. And here there is a dramatic difference between God and the idols that we occasionally allow to usurp His rightful position. Not only can they not create from nothing, they themselves are never created from nothing; they are always created (by us) out of pre-existing stuff (wood, stone, heavenly objects, football teams, Tik-Tok performers). As Matthew hinted, Christians may disagree about how God created, but not that He created from nothing everything that there is.

And in one of his most telling comments, he also reminded us all that this means God is central to everything and its continued existence. Indeed we probably don’t think about God as sustainer enough. Wherever you happen to be right now, right there and then God is acting to sustain you and all that you can see. But what happens if we attempt to leave God out of the account? Practically, humanity has been doing this since shortly after then events recorded in Genesis 3. Intellectually (at least in our corner of the universe) there’s been a determined effort to claim that we can leave God out of the account, and then do actually attempt to do it, since the “enlightenment”. Matthew quoted Kant on human autonomy. Kant made autonomy part of the foundation for human dignity. Well it turns out that leaving God out of the equation is tantamount to trying to undo what He has done, to 'decreate'  humanity and everything else. Things just don’t work without Him. In part this is what we see around us in the culture. Without God as foundation and centre, things are inevitably confused. It has taken a while, but it is perhaps in our day that is becoming drastically clear. We live in a culture that has difficulty deciding when (and which) human life should be defended and even defining what a woman is. There’s no evidence that the culture will be able to think its way to a better place while it continues to sideline the One who made everything and continues to sustain it in the teeth of denials of His existence. And as we are seeing, this is not mere abstract, angels on the head of a pin stuff. Very quickly this issue of God’s centrality and His importance for human dignity begins to impact on vital, practical, issues like the beginnings and endings of life and much else in between.

Not bad for a kick-off, with parts II to IV to come. Hopefully Tuesday morning’s feeling will be just as good as Monday’s turned out to be.

Keswick 2023.1 I’m probably beginning to repeat myself

This definitely isn’t the first time I’ve commented on the Keswick Convention (last year's posts begin here), and it probably won’t be the last. This is where we’ve spent a week each July for the last few years. Our motivations for coming here are multiple rather than single, and mixed rather than single minded. It is generally accepted that Keswick is pleasant and nestles in a spectacular setting (the English Lake District). It is only just “up the road” from where we live, so we don’t have to navigate the horrors of a summer airport or spend more than a couple of hours in a car. Even if there wasn’t a convention Keswick  would still be a popular spot (as it is for the forty-nine weeks of the year that the Convention isn’t on). There’s plenty of pleasant walks, water sports, tours (on and off of the water), interesting eateries and coffee shops, local(ish) literary history (i.e. William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter) and much more besides. Nice place for a break. But we can enjoy all this and there’s the Convention too! Since 1875 it has managed to attract Christians from a range of backgrounds to spend time thinking about stuff that the culture in general long ago turned its back on. So it is an odd thing to sit in a big tent (physically as well as metaphorically) and engage in Christian worship and teaching on Saturday night and the following week.

Of course, while it should not be so, Christians are as fractious as is the rest of humanity. So there is quite a lot of contemporary angst around about the label “evangelical”, whether it performs any useful function and if so what that function is. Personally, if properly defined, I think it does continue to be useful because it is sadly necessary to qualify “Christian” which is used in many senses today well removed from what the word actually means (for which see Acts 11:26). Mind you “properly defining” evangelicals has always been a bit of a problem, or at least has been a problem since “evangelical” became a mainstream sort of a word in the 18^th century. In the 19^th century both Spurgeon and Ryle were involved in the definitional battle. More recently historians like David Bebbington have given it a good go (see his influential “Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s”) as well as those of a more theological stripe (a good recent example is Michael Reeves in “Gospel People”). The debate can become quite spicy, even when conducted by those broadly within the fold comment about the fold, and this brings me back to Keswick.

The Convention has been seen as being fairly influential at least on the British evangelical scene (parking for a moment the question of whether there is such a thing). So I was interested to come across a paper written by J.I. Packer entitled “Keswick and the Reformed Doctrine of Sanctification” published in 1955 (the full reference is at the end of this post). Packer, an Anglican, was prominent from the 1950’s right up to his death in 2020; along with Martin Lloyd Jones he did much to establish evangelicalism as theologically and intellectually respectable. He, along with Lloyd Jones and others like John Stott, completely transformed the context for those who came after. My generation, with an evangelical subculture already created, resources and popular-level (but challenging) books like Packer’s “Knowing God”, had it much easier than those who went before. But Keswick, or at least the theology Packer saw flowing from it, was problematic. The Convention’s speakers (or at least some of them) and its publications (or at least some of them) were related to a stream of thought in evangelicalism known by various names like “higher life”, “perfectionism” or the “holiness movement” (there are many others). If this sounds a big vague, then that is charge Packer himself makes in his paper, pointing out that until someone put down on paper exactly what “Keswick teaching” was, it had been difficult to pin down. This changed (at least in Packer's mind) in 1952 when Steven Barabas published “So Great Salvation: The History and Message of the Keswick Convention”.

With a forensic precision Packer sought to show how Keswick teaching differed from reformed orthodoxy. Reading his paper just under seventy years later, a number of things struck me. First, it is a bit of an unfair fight. I’m not sure that Barabas was claiming to do more than describe the Convention and some of those associated with it and explain, at a largely popular level, what had been taught there over the years. It seems to be more about the phenomenology than the theology (although there is a bit of that). Packer critiques the theology (to the extent it can be drawn from Barabas’ book) with a professional acuteness that it may not have been capable of bearing. What he often ends up criticizing is what he takes to be logical theological implications of what is written, rather than what Barabas actually wrote. Secondly, “Keswick theology” probably doesn’t name a precise entity (we’re back to labels and their meaning) even when some (like Packer in his paper) want it to. I’m assuming that Barabas must have been doing some distilling and summarizing of teaching that had not been static over the period from 1875 (and has continued to change). We (or rather Packer) end up operating on the assumption that this distillation produces a reliable product. Maybe it did (I confess I haven’t read the book yet), but the distillation was probably more to the level of a rough hooch rather than a fine malt. Perhaps there was a certain lack of precision that Packer filled in. It's a matter of historical judgement how sticky his charges were. Thirdly, one shouldn’t assume that Packer’s view was typical of even the reformed “end” of evangelicalism. At one point he tells us he finds it “surprising that a Reformed reviewer should find in this book ‘no basic discrepancy between the Reformed and evangelical doctrine and the message of Keswick’". In contrast Packer is clear there are several glaring discrepancies. These he attributes to an insufficient attention to theology.

All of this is history of course, and is no less interesting for that. Packer’s analysis is acute and well worth reading and reflecting on. His real target is a creeping Pelagianism that always worth guarding against. But I think that there is probably also a bit of straw-mannery going on too. Acute theology and heart-warming Bible teaching are not antithetical. Indeed you probably can’t have the one without the other, even if the Bible teaching wears the theology lightly. Popularity isn't everything, but it probably is significant that all these years later, here we all are (several thousand of us) in Keswick for the Convention again. I probably won’t agree with everything I hear, and yet it will warm the cockles of the heart. So, at the risk of repeating myself, I say: "bring it on"!       

Packer, J. I. (1955). “Keswick”, and the Reformed Doctrine of Sanctification, Evangelical Quarterly: An International Review of Bible and Theology, 27(3), 153-167.

Keswick 22.3: Beyond the big tent…..

The Keswick Convention for us is over, and we have moved on. Indeed, we have moved north on our summer road trip. We spent a good part of today wandering around Edinburgh, our former home. When we first married, we settled here. In driving in to the city we made a short detour to drive past our first flat. Two of our children were born in Edinburgh (one studied here and hasn’t yet left). Even when stuffed with summer tourists it is a beautiful place. And, as we are obviously north of the (currently fictional) border, it was the Scottish edition of the Times that we bought today. Scotland these days is said by some to be a fairly Godless place. The national church, as opposed to the Church, is in rapid, if not yet quite terminal decline. Government here, particularly its Green Party element, is relentlessly secular. And yet today I found two church stories in the Scottish edition of the Times (unfortunately behind a paywall, otherwise I’d provide links to the stories). For different reasons, neither of them is particularly encouraging, at least when taken at face value.

On page 5 is a story about Destiny Church, described as “an American evangelical church”. Destiny Church and Ministries was founded in Glasgow around 1990. Its belief statement on its website certainly declares that it teaches everything you would expect in an evangelical church, with a few additions. It falls into the charismatic camp, with the expected prominence given to teaching about the Holy Spirit, and an attachment to claimed miracles such as healings. In the past it has had associations with “prosperity gospel” teachers such as the appropriately named Creflo Dollar. It has now suffered some splits and defections, with complaints about financial irregularities and exploitation of members being made to the charity authorities in Scotland. Hence the story in today’s paper. I have no notion whether there is any truth in these accusations, and I have no particular criticism to make here of Destiny. I happily confess I know little of them. However, even taking a sceptical view of some of their own claims, they provide evidence that parts of the Church are apparently far from in decline. Exactly how authentic the churches in Destiny’s network are, time (and for that matter eternity) will tell.

Then a little further on (page 23) I encountered the headline “Secular Scotland feels little need for God, warns Kirk moderator”. This is a story about the Church of Scotland’s continuing decline and indeed its own narrative of that decline. It has recognized this formally in as much as it is in the process of rationalizing (i.e. reducing) its number of parishes and posts. The incoming moderator, writing for next months “Church and Life”, is to claim “Christendom has gone” and that Scots live in a culture “that feels little need for God”. The quotations are those that the Times’ journalist has seen fit to include in the story of course. Presumably the Times has seen a copy of the Church and Life article, rather than itself claiming any prophetic insight.

I suppose that the Moderator might claim he has been misquoted. We’ll see. But it is true that there is an ongoing debate within the C of S about its decline and what it is to do. A blog post which is also quoted in the article, authored by one of the Church’s academics, gives a flavour of aspects of the ongoing discussion. The blog post focusses on how the human institution that is the C of S should organize to survive. But nowhere does it engage with the C of S’s central problem. It ceased believe and preach what was supposed to be, and historically was, at its core – the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To conclude that the C of S’s decline means that there is no appetite for the Gospel it has refused to preach is bizarre. Destiny’s story, at least in part, provides evidence to that end.

It was not really the detail of either story that caught my interest. It was that firstly both appeared at all. Again, this rather counts against the idea that there is no interest in such things here in Scotland. I assume that the newspapers, here as elsewhere, only devote column inches to what they think their readers, or at least reasonable proportion of their readers, will find interesting. The Times apparently thinks that news about Christian churches falls into that category. Admittedly you could see both as fairly depressing, and a sign of a secular media taking the opportunity to paint Christians in a poor light. But secondly, beyond the immediate contrast between the two stories themselves there are a number of other contrast that should be pointed up. And this is where Keswick is relevant.

All last week we had the confident presentation of a Gospel and its impacts based on the authoritative Word of God. The confidence was not based in the talents of speakers like Alistair Begg (a Scot as it happens) or the other main speakers, one of whom, David Gibson, is based in a growing church in Aberdeen which, while presbyterian, is not part of the Church of Scotland. These men, and others, were both confident and competent. Not in their own talents, but in the Word that they preached. Now of course the audience they were preaching to was self-selected (although in Week 1 it has a distinctly Scottish feel). Many of us were there precisely because we shared the basic presuppositions of those who were speaking. No surprises there. But we have all now dispersed, some us to that part of the UK which it is claimed “feels little need for God”. As for ourselves, we’re only visiting. But many others love and live here in Scotland. And they are no doubt back with a spring in their step, and I hope a renewed ambition to share the Gospel that the Church of Scotland is so singularly refusing to share.

In the big tent as Keswick, over three summer weeks, there will be full hearts and occasionally damp cheeks. It will be warm in more ways than one. It’s an atmosphere where it’s easy to be a Christian and committed to the Gospel. It may be harder beyond the tent, but this is where the Gospel is in desperately short supply, and therefore where it’s desperately needed.

Keswick 22.2: Picture language

Cooler on Wednesday in the big Keswick Convention tent. So cool, that Alistair Begg had donned his jacket and tie once again for the morning Bible Reading. Tuesday and Wednesday we looked at the pictures that Paul painted for Timothy that he might understand who and what he should be. Not painting by numbers, but painting with words. Two millennia later, the same pictures remain helpful. That’s because as Paul wielded the brush (or rather the pen), he was doing so as one entirely shaped and sustained by the eternal artist (author). We had three pictures on Tuesday, and three on Wednesday. Anyone interested in the details can get access to the talks via the Keswick Ministries website. But here are some highlights from the first set of three.

On Tuesday we thought about the devotion of the soldier, the discipline of the athlete and the determination of the farmer. These pictures still work because we’ve all been reminded recently about aspects of all three, and how much they all matter. There is, after all, a war raging on this continent which is global in its impact. On one side of the conflict there are lots of resources in terms of men and material. And yet, because of the quality of the soldiers opposing all of that force, and because of their bravery and discipline, there has been success in slowing the advance of the enemy. Such qualities may yet turn the invaders back. A conflict, the outcome of which seemed inevitable when it started, could now tip either way. But the point is that discipline is vital for victory. The picture holds true, and lessons can be drawn.

Just yesterday, a UK athlete, Jake Wightman, won a gold medal at the World Athletics Championship. To do so, he had to compete within the rules. Some have won, but have been stripped of their prize because they broke the rules. Some even don’t get to compete because they break the rules. In fact rules are absolutely necessary if there’s to be a meaningful competition in which people are able to express themselves freely. It seems a contradiction, but rules are actually liberating. Such expression takes devotion, discipline and serious application. Wightman himself said after his run “I have given up so much to get to this point, such a lot of things sacrificed….”. But, it was all worthwhile (although his was a reward  that will soon fade.  

And then there’s the farmer. As food prices soar, both in the UK and internationally, we’re all coming to appreciate more the importance of farmers. Not for them the glory of the smart uniform or athletics vest, not for them the parade or the packed stadium shouting their name. Just a boiler suit, and dirty finger nails, and hard graft. There’s a glamour about the soldier and the athlete that’s absent from the farmer’s experience. Maybe that’s the point of the picture. There might be a harvest to enjoy, but there might not be; farming is a risky business. But the farmer will work on regardless. Determined. Persevering. Sometimes life has a plodding quality. Maybe for most of us, that’s what it’s like most of the time. Fine.

As a friend of mine used to say - don’t be afraid to plod.

Keswick 22.1: Baton passing for beginners……..

It’s July, it’s hot (record-breaking hot), and it’s time for the Keswick Convention once again. Today (Monday) was the first day of this year’s Week 1 “Bible Readings”. The theme of the week is “Grateful” and this week’s messages will be from 2 Timothy, delivered by Alistair Begg. And I’ve already been amply reminded of lots of reasons to be grateful.

Some of these are to do with my own past. In listening to the Begster (as a friend of mine called him recently - I would never be that cheeky), I was reminded of seed-sowing, mind-shaping experiences of student days in the Christian Union in the University of Glasgow. In fact I last heard Alistair Begg in the Queen Margaret Union common room (actually just a big beer-stained party space) in the early 1980’s. The older I get the more I appreciate those far off days when with a group of like-minded and like-aged individuals started to grow up – a process that continues. Home and family provided a good foundation, but it had to be built upon. A whole range of speakers at CU “teaching meetings” and a network of Christian friendships provided both means and materials. That is now 40 years in the past. I have no doubt that there are those who do not look back so fondly. For me it may only have been a stage but it was no passing phase. It was critical.

This morning, Alistair Begg mentioned in passing his friend Eric Alexander. The Rev Alexander, who retired from ministry in the Church of Scotland some years ago, in my day was something of a hero to many of us. A faithful and gifted preacher of the Word of God, and a man of faultless courtesy, he and his congregation in St Georges Tron in the centre of Glasgow provided a spiritual home to many of my contemporaries. He also figured in an early Keswick I attended, again in the ‘80s. There have been so many of these figures. I attended a memorial service for Peter Maiden yesterday in the Keswick tent. I suppose those whose formative days are today will have their own heroes, models and influences. But today the subject of baton passing was definitely front and centre.

This is one of the big themes of 2 Timothy, a parting letter from Paul to his young (or at least younger) associate Timothy. There is truth, ‘sound words’ to be guarded. Believing this truth, teaching it, obeying it, living it, would be costly. It would entail suffering because to live in this way would inevitably evoke opposition, and that opposition would bring pressure. To resist that pressure would involve cost and suffering. Paul endured suffering, and invited Timothy to share in it. This all sounds a bit grim. And it would be if we were talking about suffering for a philosophy or creed. But the Gospel is much more than that. Much more than a set of human propositions. It is both a person to whom we are drawn and united, and the truth that reveals that person. Paul calls it the “testimony about our Lord”. It was transformative in Paul’s life, and in Timothy’s. But would it, could it, survive the passing into history of the likes of Paul and the other Apostles?

This was Paul’s concern. He would tell Timothy (I’m assuming we’ll come to this later in the week) to pass it on to faithful men and women. Others who, having been called and transformed, would themselves pass it on, unaltered and untainted (otherwise it would not be the Gospel). Paul need not have worried, indeed he probably didn’t. He had both conviction and confidence. Not in himself, and not even in Timothy. He reminds Timothy (I’m fairly sure this was ground they covered many times) that the resources available to accomplish this task were primarily not human but divine. The same God who authored the Gospel (Paul calls it the “Gospel of God” in Romans), provided the resources for its preservation; the “spirit of love, power and self-control”, the Holy Spirit who through His indwelling would empower Timothy to guard the good deposit. This is hardly surprising given that the Gospel is God’s rescue plan for sinful, fallen creatures, initiated in eternity past, with an objective in eternity future. Its execution is not likely to want for resources.

But Paul’s letter to Timothy was written a long time ago and long way away. How is it all going? Well, Timothy found those trustworthy men and women, and then they, in their turn, found others, and so on down the years. All the way along there were probably those who fretted that things were so bad that the whole thing was running into the sand. But eventually the very same Gospel was entrusted to the likes of Alexander and Begg, who have spent their lives doing exactly as Paul instructed Timothy. It happened again, today, in a big tent in Keswick. I owe a great debt to the likes of them, and many others. In a sense that same message has been entrusted to me.

Many thanks. Now to pass it on.