Blog on the Learig

  1 August 2024 The judge didn’t beat about the bush when he exposed the preacher to the forensic scrutiny of the law and declared, ‘I am sure that you will continue to preach your message of hate and division when or if you are given the opportunity to do so in the future.’ I hasten to say that the culprit was not a minister within the Church of Scotland. He was a preacher just like kirk ministers but the content of his gospel was not love but hate. And so the Muslim preacher, Anjem Choudary, was sentenced to a minimum of 28 years in prison. He will not be released before his 85 th birthday! He was found guilty of directing al-Muhajiroun, a banned terrorist organisation. As well as denying the Holocaust and making jokes about the 9/11 terror attacks, Choudary ‘ran the risk of causing or contributing to the deaths of very many people’. He contradicts the character of a Christian minister as detailed by Titus. ‘He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered …. he must be hospitable,

  31 July 2024 We have had quite a feast of sport this summer with Euros Football, Wimbledon and now the Paris Olympics with its spectacular opening ceremony on the river Seine. For me, it was the Eiffel Tower which created the greatest buzz with its magical mathematical lighting show and the recovering Celine Dion topping it all. She showed great perseverance following a debilitating illness. It took courage to return to the stage – and what a first night! She didn’t let her fans down and neither did Tom Pidcock, the English mountain biker, who took an amazing gold on the Cross Country Olympic Course at Elancourt Hill. There were thirty six cyclists in the race from twenty-seven nations, The Frenchman, Victor Koretzky, was the firm favourite and was cheered enthusiastically by the crowd. There were eight laps altogether. Each one was 4.4km. By the third lap, Pidcock was in the lead. On the fourth lap, tragedy struck. He got a puncture and had to come off his bike whilst his mechanic c

  30 July 2024 In a recent issue of the Church Times, it was reported that the number of ordinands in the Church of England had plummeted. This autumn, 370 ordinands were expected to begin their training. In 2020, the total stood at 591. This was the highest number since 2013. This was the fruit of an initiative within the Church of England to encourage more vocations. This initiative had set a target of increasing vocations from 500 every year to 750! Their ambition was to secure what they called ‘a stable pool of 7,600 full-time clergy’.   In a more recent initiative to explore why vocations to the ministry had plummeted, a hundred attendees at a series of conversations listed no less than sixty factors which may have contributed to ‘the current, complex vocational picture across the Church’. No less than 71 people had identified ‘local clergy well-being’ as the most significant factor. Further down the list but by no means insignificant was ‘the clergy stipend/package’. This

  29 July 2024 Yesterday, I was preaching at Balmerino in North Fife   at 9-30am and Crail in the East Neuk at 11-30am. There was a forty minute journey between the two.   I had to pass through St. Andrews on the morning of the Highland Games. There were no undue delays. It made me more understanding of our Highland colleagues. During the services, which were both the same, we sang John Bell’s hymn, ‘Inspired by love and anger’, set to the beautiful tune for   ‘Down by the Salley Gardens’.   The words   of   the song were written by Yeats and set to an old Irish folk song. Bell’s words sit very pleasantly with the Irish music. In the fourth verse, we stumble upon these lines, ‘And who, when few will listen,/ will prophesy and preach?’ Who indeed? The number of ministers in training has fallen dramatically since I was accepted as a candidate in 1976. And since then, there has been an increased risk of stress related illness amongst the ministry. Gone are the days when I preached

  28 July 2024 Our sun porch was built in 2016. For the past eight years, it has led us out of the house and into the back garden. In winter, we do not need to suffer the    icy,   cold chill and in the summer we may enfold ourselves in all that the garden offers us without leaving the comfort of our chair! From where I sit, I can see the orange, yellow and lilac pansies which don’t seem to know when to stop blooming. Teasing Georgia looks down from the boundary fence dressed in a cream silk with a sweet perfume.   Totally tangerine, purple lily, karma bon bini and my favourite dahlia of all, red silence, challenge all human beauty. The miniature apple with ripening red fruit, the oxeye daisies, the lilac cosmos, the knapweed with goldfinches swinging on their stems, the tall, blue   cornflower clinging to the cherry tree and the sunflowers reaching the top of the fence with their bright, open, yellow faces and spirals of bountiful seeds compete for my attention. Skipping over

  27 July 2024 Maurice Sendak wrote and illustrated a controversial book for children in 1963 entitled, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. Some parents objected to it because his illustrations of the monsters were considered grotesque. Max is mischievous . His mum called him a ‘Wild Thing’. And Max said, ‘I’ll eat you up!’ So she sent him to bed without his supper. That’s where the adventure begins. Max sails off to the land of the Wild Things. They roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws until Max said, ‘Be still!’ And he tamed them by staring into their yellow eyes without blinking. They called him the most wild thing of all and they made him king of the wild things. ‘And now,’ cried Max, ‘Let he wild rumpus start!’ And it went on and on until Max said, ‘Now stop!’ and sent the wild things to bed without supper. Countless children wrote to Sendak and he always made reply.   To Jim, he sent a card

  26 July 2024 Sometimes the wisdom of other religious leaders is to be recommended. It gives us a fresh perspective. It challenges the limitations of our religious world. It enables us to grow in our appreciation of other religions. It makes us ask questions of ourselves and our world. It may even make us smile. Here’s   some Zen wisdom. It comes from a well-known Zen monk Gasan who was instructing his students one day: ‘Those who speak against killing and who desire to spare the lives of all conscious beings are right. It is good to protect even animals and insects. But what about those who kill time? What about those who are destroying wealth? We should not overlook them. Furthermore, what of the one who preaches without enlightenment? He is killing Buddhism.’

  25 July 2024 I can see how truly rural charges are reluctant to unite with bigger town charges. People fear three things.   Firstly, their Kirk Session will be swamped by the elders in the larger charge. Secondly, the life   of the newly united charge will be centred on   the town church which has ‘so much going on’ as they say. Thirdly, the ministry will spend a larger proportion of their time in the town. More people, of course, greater organisational life. In this, there will not be a recognition that ministry in a rural charge is quite different from ministry in a town charge. There are similar tasks – the conduct of worship, the ordinances of religion, pastoral visiting. But there are several qualitative things which make it different.   In a rural charge, the kirk and the community are inevitably closer and there is an expectation that the minister will be seen and known across the community. This happens because in smaller communities there is more time to attend non-c

  24 July 2024 When I was a student, I read all the books written by the Orthodox priest, Anthony Bloom. One of the things I liked about his writing was his desire to get back to first principles. I noticed he liked to drill down into the basic meaning of certain words. In one of his books, he talked about humus and its relationship with humility. In order to be effective ministers and priests, we have to be like the humus which offers fertile soil for growth. The route to this provision is through the humility of Christ, trampled down like soil and open to all the elements, sun, wind and rain! The other day, I was reading his TS Eliot lectures on ‘Beauty and Meaning’. At one point he was talking about God not bringing order out of chaos but bringing the cosmos out of chaos. At this point, he drilled down into the basic meaning of cosmos. He connected it to the word ‘cosmetic’. Apparently, they are both from the same root. Bloom says it means ‘creating beauty’.   This is a love

  23 July 2024 Because the Reformers scrapped the feast days associated with the saints, the King took his court away from Scotland to London and the Kirk Session associated community celebrations with licentious behaviour, Scotland lost many opportunities to play. Fortunately, some have been   recovered. In parishes where I preach, we have had the Kirking of the Sea Queen at Cellardyke, the Crail Festival is being celebrated at this very moment   and the Lammas Fair will be evident   in St. Andrews next month when it takes over Market Street. It’s   one of the last vestiges of medieval life! These communal events offer as many opportunities for the Kirk   as imagination, energy and faith allow. For they are celebrations of our community of which the kirk is as vital a part as the King riding down the Mall with a crown upon his head pointing to something much bigger than Parliament itself. In the village of Forth, the Miners’ Gala attracted thousands and many families who   had

  22 July 2024 When I was studying First Year mathematics at St. Andrews, we were given ten lectures on computing. In those days the computers filled the room. Programmes had to be written out in a computer language like Fortran. They were punched out onto cards. If you made the least little error,   you had to start again. We were not allowed anywhere near the computer. A programmer took our programme and ran it through the machine. This together with the precision required to get everything exactly right meant that I lost interest in the process after I understood what was required to work it! This all came back when we experienced the recent IT Outage. It wasn’t caused by malice but by a mistake. It was a very small mistake in a software update with a single error in its code. This single error caused so much chaos and meant that I couldn’t order my repeat prescription online! When this was introduced by my practice, I thought it a great idea. Now I am not so sure. It is not

  21 July 2024 - Sunday When you come to the kirk, you come to a place apart. The ancient walls define a space which we call sacred because of what happens here. We do things together which have been done since time immemorial – we sing, we tell stories, we dress up, we pour water, break bread, drink wine. In our contemporary world, the scientists continually make associations with these things and tell us how being together, singing songs, acknowledging something that is bigger than ourselves, participating in playful activity are all good for our physical and mental well-being. But the world does not believe the scientists – and although that is disappointing it is also comforting. For the world doesn’t believe that God created the earth and Jesus is King of Kings so the world and the Kirk have to cope with much disbelief! But we find joy in the living God and His Word! For you shall go out in joy and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burs

  20 July 2024 Things may have changed by the time this blog is published but as things stand, Joe Biden is still heading for another Presidential election and hoping to gain a second term. At 81 years of age, he is only three years older than Donald Trump who has just survived an emotional assassination attempt. It seems extraordinary to me that Joe Biden has shown very little self-awareness into his own performance misnaming   Zelensky as Putin etc.   Either he is unable to exercise any self-awareness or he is unwilling to accept that he is not the best person to defeat Donald Trump and enter the White House for the Democrats. Why   is it that people and especially men find it difficult to accept that they are aging and there are plenty of younger people around who would be just as capable or even more capable than they to fulfil the President’s shoes? I can think of two good reasons. Firstly, he is addicted to power and all the influence he is able to exercise. We see this i

  19 July 2024 For some people, the sight of King Charles and Queen Camilla travelling down the Mall from Buckingham Palace in the Diamond Jubilee State Coach, pulled by six grey horses, ahead of the State Opening of Parliament, may have looked ridiculous in our ever expanding technological world! A real King with a crown upon his head and a Queen dressed in white beside him would certainly have attracted the attention of visitors to the city and even hardened royalists, who seek out these public displays of monarchy whenever they can experience them. I imagine someone who is good at arithmetic can calculate how much the nation benefits in additional income from these royal events. It may even be incalculable. But the colourful, if outmoded, public display of our constitutional Head of  State, actually adds a great deal to Government. By contrast, we have the attempted assassination of a former President of the United States and

  18 July 2024 Young people at school and university have finished their examinations and will shortly be finding out their results. Tests are an integral part of life. Jesus was tested too. He had three tests to sit. Turn stone into bread. Throw yourself off the temple. Win the whole world! He isn’t tempted by material wealth, the status of a celebrity, universal power. He passes all his tests with flying colours! Sadly, Peter wasn’t so successful. He failed his tests. Three times he denies knowing Jesus. Three times, Jesus asks him, ‘Simon, son of John, do you love me?’ When Peter answers affirmatively, Jesus gives him three important tasks to fulfil. Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep. Despite his failure, he is called to exercise a position of leadership in the Church. What does this say to us about examinations and tests? Firstly, they are not of ultimate significance. Success or failure can be used by God to fulfil his purposes. He chooses whomsoever he chooses.

  17 July 2024 There seems to be a liturgical dispute in the Syro-Malabar Church in India. This is an Eastern Catholic Church which is autonomous whilst being in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. The ‘syro’ part of the name refers to the use of the Syriac Rite and Malabar, now known as Kerala, is the centre of the Church. The Church has an ancient origin. Members believe that it was originally founded by St. Thomas, the Apostle, in 52AD. No one can confirm this in an authoritative way. But it has been around for many centuries. It has 3,224 parishes and 4.53 million members worldwide. Most are in India. For some time, the parishes have been worshipping in a similar way to Western Protestants and Catholics. The priest faces the congregation both to preach the Word and to celebrate the Sacrament. In 2021, there was a Synodical decision to face the people whilst preaching and to face East whilst celebrating the Sacrament. At least 400 priests objected to this. They di

  16 July 2024 Jesus was quite innovative to use the image of play to describe life in the Kingdom. ‘We piped to you and you did not dance!’ he said. ‘We wailed and you would not mourn!’ People didn’t respond to the invitation to play on the street. ‘We’re not playing!’ they said. As children of God, it’s not inappropriate to think about our life together in terms of children playing a street game. The most popular children’s toy is lego which is Danish for ‘play well’. But the simplest of all toys is the ordinary ball which encourages people to play together whether it be tennis at Wimbledon or football in Germany! There are three important dimensions to the image which Jesus uses. Firstly, play is a communal activity. There’s always room for everyone in the game. Everyone has a part to play. Everyone is needed to play effectively. Secondly, it’s an imaginative activity. How many street games were simply made up in our childhood? And so it is in the Kingdom. We use our imagina

  15 July 2024 In the New Testament, there are three distinctive pictures for heaven. The first is the house or as St. John famously describes it in the Authorised Version of his Gospel, ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.’ Inside the house we discover the second image for heaven - the meal, the marriage feast of the Lamb. It has been such a strong image that we talk about the Sacrament as a foretaste of heaven or this heavenly banquet. It is celebrated in St. John’s Revelation. Those who are called to it are described as blessed. The third image of heaven is the song. It has been a distinctive part of our worship for two millennia. Through the song, we give thanks to God.   At the end of the Last Supper, Jesus and his friends sing a hymn before going out to the Mount of Olives. The Sacrament is sometimes called ‘The Eucharist’ which is Greek for   ‘thanksgiving’. It is primarily a means of giving tha

  14 July 2024 Jesus not only commands us to break bread and share wine, he says, ‘This do in remembrance of me.’ It is all prefaced by what we call in the Kirk, ‘The Great Prayer’ and what the Anglicans call ‘The Eucharistic Prayer’. It has two important parts. The first is the remembering bit when we give thanks to God for all   that he has done for us in the Creation of the world, the incarnation of Christ and the establishment of the Church. The second is the invocation of the Spirit that the bread and the wine may become for us   the body and blood of Christ. The most distinctive part of our Scottish celebration and, indeed, the most beautiful part constitutes our understanding of what St. Paul describes as the shewing forth of the Lord’s death. This is done at the end of the Great Prayer through very simple but intentional actions. It is written out in our ‘Book of Common Order’ as a drama with specific rubrics such as ‘The minister breaks the bread.’ and ‘The minister ra

  13 July 2024 At the time of the Reformation, there were seven Sacraments but the Reformers argued that only two had divine authority. It wasn’t the only radical change which they made. Instead of seeing the Sacrament as a sacrifice upon an altar, they restored its original setting as a meal around a table. The kirk building was reordered and long tables purchased to be used in the Sacrament. We did this on Maundy Thursday in one of my parishes and the café style church which has been popular also brings people together around tables. It is intimate and conducive to a rich fellowship. The food at this table has been proscribed by Jesus for he has associated his body with the bread and his blood with the wine.   The Scottish Reformers recognized that there were two ways of looking at these elements. The Roman Catholics believed that they became the actual flesh   and blood of Jesus. Some Reformers took the opposite view that they remained bread and wine because they were just s

  12 July 2024 The King has clearly been watching the football. He sent a word of congratulation to Gareth Southgate and the England team congratulating them on reaching the final of the UEFA European Championship. They play Spain, the favourites, on Sunday. ‘ If I may encourage you to secure victory before the need for any last minute wonder-goals or another penalties drama, I am sure the stresses on the nation’s collective heart rate and blood pressure would be greatly alleviated!’ I liked his humour and his references to the games played. The drama surrounding the five penalties won in the penalty shootout against Switzerland was very intense. And the goal scored by Ollie Watkins in the 90 th minute of the Dutch game was unbelievable. He and Cole Palmer were last minute substitutes. Before going onto the pitch, Watkins said to Palmer, ‘Set up a goal for me!’ And that’s exactly what he did. This wasn’t solely the outcome of a heroic action on Watkins’ part but a strategy whi

  11 July 2024 According to statistics in the public domain, Turkey hosts more than four million refugees. Most of them are Syrian but a large minority also come from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. Shockingly, the largest group of refugees in Turkey are the 400,000 Syrian children aged between   5 and 9 years old! There is so much negativity surrounding refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. When Constantinople, the ancient capital of the Byzantine Empire, fell to the Sultan Mehmed II on 29 May 1453, it had been besieged for fifty-five days. The Empire had shrunk enormously. After a thousand years, the Roman Empire was finally over! The night before the city was sacked, there was a final service in the magnificent and most beautiful Hagia Sophia. Interestingly, despite the fractured state of the Church between East and West, this was an ecumenical act of worship with representatives of both the Greek and the Latin churches. The next day, the Sultan succeeded in sacking the city. H

  10 July 2024 The Revd. Will Pearson-Gee was an Army Chaplain rising to the rank of   major in 1999. He is now the rector of Buckingham where he said that some of the services for which he is responsible were ‘overflowing with widows’. So Kaya Burgess has reported. He has been so concerned about the lack of men in church that he raised it at the Church of England Synod in York. ‘What resources has the church developed to help people think about and practise evangelism among men?’   Two facts justify his concern. Firstly, 59% of worshippers in the Church of England are women. In some kirk congregations, this would be an under-estimate. Secondly, the British Social Attitudes Survey found in 2019 that at every age men were less likely than women to say they had a religion, went to church or believed in God. In his address to the Synod, Will Pearson-Gee argued that men who became Christians were more likely to bring their whole family with them. He also argued that the language of

  9 July 2024 There were two commendable things about the General Election. The Government changed hands without incident. An immediate transfer of power is embedded into our constitution. The outgoing Prime Minister visits the King. The King accepts his resignation and then invites another to take his place. It is all done so seamlessly and so mannerly. Everyone shakes hands. It is the King who facilitates this. He is above and beyond the politics and as such is best placed to moderate this change. For his own part, the King acknowledges the authority of another King, the King of Kings. The second thing that is worth noticing is that we had for a short period of time, a man whose religious allegiance was to the Hindu religion in Downing Street and another whose allegiance was to Islam in Bute House. They were both devout. Now we have a Presbyterian in Bute House. John Swinney is a member of the Kirk and has described himself in the past  as ‘a man of deep Christian faith’. We