Truth in love

COMMENT

WHILE going through some old files in my cabinet the other day, I came across a letter from an old friend. I had long forgotten about it, but when I read it I soon remembered the circumstances in which it was written. You see, it was a searing rebuke. And how!

To give you the context of the missive, I need to take you back to the heady days of the late 1960s. Student rebellion was in the air. Against the background of the Vietnam war, there were sit-ins at many university campuses. The world was changing.

I was a theology student at New College in Edinburgh at the time. I was part of a group that wanted to see changes in the church. Some pretty bright people were involved, including the late lamented Douglas and Elisabeth Templeton, and Dr Peter Matheson, lecturer in church history at New College. With another General Assembly of the Kirk approaching, we decided to hold a rival assembly. Calling it The Dissembly, we envisaged it going on all through the night. How romantic! We didn’t wear berets, but we saw ourselves as representing the rebellious zeitgeist.

I was charged with writing to various potential backers, explaining what we were trying to do. Not everyone was impressed, including the writer of the letter I’m talking about. It was an expression of grave disappointment.

“It required all my feelings of friendliness towards the signatories to keep me from turning it all away, because of the arrogant and destructive tone of it all”, the writer said. “When you say it could lapse into meaningless nihilism you are dead right. It seems to me that most of your loaded questions and your triumphalist aims are the expression only of a negative resentment and show no signs of any creative or constructive idea. I have often been rendered frustrated and in despair by the Assembly: it may be so again this year: but I also know that the concerns of the Assembly include many of the things you want, or for which you give the Assembly no credit.

“If I saw in your hand-outs the glimmerings of a new insight, of a genuinely ‘creative experience’ I would come to you with much greater enthusiasm.”

Ooft! The writer was right. We were a pretty arrogant bunch, quite pleased with ourselves. But the writer wasn’t finished. He enclosed a generous donation towards the Assembly’s expenses – “an expression of goodwill, despite the fierce criticisms I have made. You see you do ‘polarise’ – your immoderate attack produces an immoderate reply – but what good does that do?”

The writer closes with a postscript: “If you want to telephone, reverse charges”. Now I think that is pure class. The writer comes straight of the fence and tells it like he sees it. But as well as anger, there is a twinkle in his eye as he writes his cheque. He is “speaking the truth in love”.

“I was charged with writing to various potential backers, explaining what we were trying to do. Not everyone was impressed, including the writer of the letter I’m talking about. It was an expression of grave disappointment.

Who was the writer of this robust epistle? It was the Rev James A Whyte, Professor of practical theology at St Andrews University. I had got to know and admire Jim when I was an arts student there.

Did the Dissembly change the Kirk? No.

Am I glad we gave it a go? Sure.

And it was worth it just to get that letter.

This article appears in the September 2018 Issue of Life and Work

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