LETTERS

Atonement Debate

I found Thomas Baldwin’s piece on Alastair McIntosh interesting, particularly Mr McIntosh’s wrestlings with the Atonement theory (February issue).

He’s not alone in that, and it put me in mind of a little book called Testament of Faith written towards the close of his life by William Barclay, Church of Scotland minister at Renfrew and later Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at Glasgow University.

It was Professor Barclay’s view that the Kirk, and indeed the Christian church as a whole, had hugely misunderstood the nature of God, and nowhere was that more apparent to him than in the church’s take on the Atonement.

Professor Barclay believed that Jesus didn’t come to change God’s attitude to men but to demonstrate God’s attitude to men. In short, for Professor Barclay, neither God nor Jesus were as the Christian church made them out to be.

He consequently rejected any notion of the wrath of God being unleashed on Jesus or of God obtaining satisfaction through his death, and he likewise rejected all belief in bloody sacrifice and penal substitution. Instead he held to an eternally loving God who wanted mercy, not sacrifice, a God who so loved the world that he sent Jesus to make that love fully known.

Because of his beliefs Professor Barclay was never flavour of the month with some sections of the church, but that’s not to say he was wrong. The fact is that many, on pondering the Atonement, have reached precisely the same conclusions as he did.

It’s entirely possible to travel through the Christian life without giving overmuch thought to what we’re about or to what we believe. In worship God’s people sing the line which says "till on the Cross as Jesus died the wrath of God was satisfied", but just how true that can be of the loving God (Abba) revealed to us by Jesus, must be decidedly questionable.

The Kirk holds to a penal substitutionary Atonement on account of the Westminster Confession, but some have regarded the Atonement theory as the most unfortunately successful piece of theology ever written.

Keith Fernie, Inverness

I wanted to say thank you for the article in February Life and Work about Alastair McIntosh.

Like him, I too have a problem with the Westminster Confession of Faith and particularly predestination as well as the signing of it in ordination for ministry and lay leadership.

I read it before signing it and could not in all conscience sign it as I am divorced, but was encouraged to sign as apparently there are many in the Church of Scotland who cannot in all conscience sign to it all.

I ask myself if this is the case why do we still have it even though some clauses had been removed in the 1980s? Why do we need a secondary confession of faith when we are asked by Jesus to love God and our neighbour? Isn’t that enough? It’s huge as it stands. Jesus goes on to tell us who our neighbours are and we see them every day as we go about and on our TV and computer screens as we follow news.

I’m also aware of how folk view the church as a “though shalt not” organisation from the street conversations we have when out with Street Pastors, even though many have not been in a church recently but their earlier experiences have pushed them away.

We need to be showing that God is alive and involved in all we do and Alastair McIntosh demonstrates this in his work with land reform amongst other areas he is involved in.

Thank you for this article and perhaps someone can answer my query about the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Mrs Noel Lord, Kenmay, Aberdeenshire

Book Thanks

We were delighted to read Ron Ferguson’s piece mentioning our anthology Tools of the Trade: Poems for new doctors , and asking readers to imagine a similar book to give to new ordinands starting their ministries.

The aim of Tools of the Trade is to help sustain both the compassion that doctors need to feel for all their patients, as well as the compassion they also need to find towards themselves in a demanding profession.

But one of the further joys of the book is also that it is a gift from the profession to its newest members. It’s a gentle reminder that, however difficult a situation they face, somebody has very likely faced the same before them, and understands what it feels like. “I felt that the book motivated me to go into the wards and do a good job for the patients every day,” a new doctor wrote: “but I also got some comfort in the poems that my challenges are not unique and there is a great support network within the profession.”

We think from comments like this that Tools of the Trade will be a friend to those who want to keep it in their pockets through the early days of their professional practice, and beyond. But – for anybody who’s wondering about turning Ron Ferguson’s imaginary book into reality – we can promise you that producing a book like this is just as rewarding as receiving it.

Copies of Tools of the Trade (£6 plus p+p), further information, and a selection of the poems, are available through the Scottish Poetry Library’s online shop www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/shop/catalogue/tools-trade-2nd-edition

Editors, Tools of the Trade: Lilias Fraser PhD, Projects Manager, Scottish Poetry Library; Professor John Gillies, Deputy Director,

Scottish School of Primary Care; Kate Hendry PhD, editor and poet; Dr Lesley Morrison GP and Ali Newell (Rev), Associate Chaplain, University of Edinburgh

Cartoon: Bill McArthur

Trident Comment

I am disappointed at the attitude of those opposed to the renewal of Trident.

In any debate, if any progress is to be made it is crucial that any participant makes clear that he/she understands exactly and clearly where the point of difference lies.

So, as a supporter of the United Kingdom replacing and modernising Trident, I can, without equivocation, make clear, I would not wish to use a nuclear weapon, and, if I controlled one, I would not see any inevitability in it being used. Indeed the policeman’s truncheon, or the the disciple’s sword in the garden of Gethsemane illustrate (on a very minor level of danger) this view point. I am sure every policeman hopes never to have to use his truncheon, and certainly Jesus was disappointed that the sword (which he would know was being carried) was used.

The practical problems facing our government, and that of the USA and Russia is that these weapons exist, whether we like it or not. We know that both Iran and North Korea have both the capability and the apparent desire to use these weapons.

These weapons have not been used in the last seventy years, and have only been used when one side in the Second World War possessed them, and to have failed to use them in the circumstances of 1945 would have resulted in far more deaths than happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is significant that the effect of the bomb on Hiroshima was not sufficiently serious to bring the Japanese to the peace table.

I think it would help my understanding of the effect of the CND proposals, if those proposing them would explain the implications on those living in South Korea or Israel after the UK and the USA had disposed of these awful weapons

John F Stirling, Helensburgh

Napier Anniversary

John Napier died on April 4 16 17 , 400 years ago, a year or so after William Shakespeare, having been born in 1550 .

On the death of his father, Sir Archibald, in 1608, John had become 8th Laird of Merchiston.

John Napier invented logarithms and is Great Britian’s first mathematician of distinction. On his aristocratic and creative shoulders stand many of today’s quantitative sciences. Log tables and sliderules gave way to electronic devices in the 1970s.

John Napier was a student at St Andrews University around 1563, barely a teenager. He delved deeply into the Book of Revelation, attempting to associate special numbers with ideas and events. Such numerology was perhaps more magic than rational process. Much later, in 1593, A plane discovery of the Whole Revelation of St John was published.

His magnum opus, his life’s work, was published in 1614 as Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio. The 300th anniversary of this event was marked by an international conference in Edinburgh in July 1914, with the delegates worshipping in St Giles’ Cathedral.

Logarithms simplified complex calculations, especially for astronomers and navigating sea captains. Napier deserves to be celebrated widely in 2017.

J Michael Buchanan, London

This article appears in the April 2017 Issue of Life and Work

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