LETTERS

Burns Thoughts

The Very Reverend Dr John Chalmers in his timely article in the January edition of Life and Work (‘Flawed Nature’) makes the observation that, in the times of Robert Burns, ‘Scotland was trapped in the clutches of an insensitive theology’, which was challenged by Burns.

Dr Chalmers refers to a number of poems, in which Burns spoke out trenchantly against the ways of the Church, and he refers in particular to verses of Holy Willie’s Prayer.

The background to that poem was a long running dispute between Gavin Hamilton, a friend of Burns, and the local Church.

Hamilton was not to be intimidated and he took the case to the Presbytery of Ayr and the Synod of Glasgow.

The local Church came off second best at both of these levels within the Church’s hierarchy.

Burns resolved to come to come out in support of his friend and wrote the poem, Holy Willie’s Prayer.

Willie Fisher, an elder in the Mauchline Church of which the Reverend ‘Daddy ‘ Auld was the minister, is described in the poem as being at prayer and, in addition to his many invocations to God, expresses his strong conviction that God had picked him out as one of the Elect, who was predestined to be saved.

The poem delighted the New Lichts, the liberal-minded members of the Church, and caused consternation among the Auld Lichts.

I believe that Burns, in his satirical attacks within the verses of Holy Willie’s Prayer and in other poems, such as ‘Address to the Unco Guid’, was, not in the main, criticising the Church, but rather the hypocrisy and intolerance displayed within it. Ian W Thomson, Lenzie

Good From Evil

I was fascinated to read Thomas Brown’s letter in the November issue in which he wrote of Dr Donald Smith.

Donald Smith was our minister at Cults in the suburbs of Aberdeen in the 1960s and 1970s and my admiration for him remains undimmed all these years later.

Despite his ill treatment at the hands of the Japanese, which left him almost blind, he refused to give in to self-pity or hatred for his former tormentors.

His was a shining example of true Christian forgiveness.

My family (including my father who also served in the war against the Japanese) always referred to him as “Saint Donald”.

He wrote a book about his experiences with the title taken from Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress – And All the Trumpets. It is recognised nationally as an important historical document but, more important, I feel, is its message that good can come from even the worst evil.

The last line of the book, where he realises that he is safely home in Aberdeen when he sees from his train the light of Girdle Ness shining out into the northern darkness, brings tears to this Aberdonian’s eyes every time he reads it!

Grant Lawrence, (Elder Banchory Ternan East Church), Banchory

Vocations Plea

No matter how innovative our Church – semper reformanda – wants to be, the crying need is for vocations.

We are not alone in this.

The local RC diocese is equally struggling – two friends of mine have become deacons to help plug the gaps. It seems young people see careers, even in nursing and teaching, as having ladders to climb, not as vocations.

Even my grandchildren talk about salaries and statutes.

Vocation is not part of their vocabulary.

I wonder if this is due to lack of Old Testament teaching, at least in part.

An awful lot of the Old Testament is about God using the most unlikely characters eg Jacob the conman, Moses the murderer etc etc.

Even today God has called and used some pretty unlikely people but the message that God can call anyone to serve Him is not being bandied about.

Thomas C Bogle (Rev)

Legacy Question

Let me just say that Bill McArthur’s cartoon of the poor man and his dog (November) was excellent – a breath of fresh air!

We laughed!

Maybe we are often too serious? ‘Remember the elder brother; don’t be a misery like him!’

Recently having spent considerable time trying to decide what should be put into a will (do the young really bother about such things?) and paying lawyers for it, I often wonder about the best decision.

We know nothing is perfect, but, on the other hand, because we are stewards of God’s good creation, is it right to leave one’s savings to an organisation that will spend it not totally for the propagation of the Gospel or for teaching the young, but for other things such as heating large sanctuaries?

The question is: ‘How should a legacy, even the smallest one, be used?’

For the furtherance of Christ’s Kingdom, or for something else?

We wonder.

Dorothy Mackay, Aberdeen

Science and faith debate

In a lifetime of teaching I found that young people are increasingly interested in advances in science and technology. Many find that scientific advances conflict with Christian faith. I much enjoyed reading Steven Lee’s letter supporting the Moderator’s views on science and faith.

May I add some evidence?

There are many eminent scientists who are Christians and see no conflict between advances in particle physics and faith.

Some years ago, I read a lecture by the Rev John Polkinghorne,

Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University and Master of Queens’ College.

He had the rare gift of being able to share his Christian faith and knowledge of science with non-mathematical brethren such as myself.

Some of his illustrations have stayed with me and are worth sharing.

He tells us of the incredibly delicate balance between the forces of expansion and contraction at an early stage of ‘creation’ (the Planck time). So delicate was the balance that the two forces differed by only 10/60 – a statement that he illustrated for a non-scientist such as myself.

He explains as follows: if you took a target the size of a matchbox and placed it on the other side of the observable universe, 18,000 million light years away and took aim with a.303 rifle and hit the matchbox you would have achieved an accuracy of 10/60.

Without that degree of accuracy life on earth could not have developed to the point where many could be astonished by it.

John Polkinghorne goes on to say that such a creator cannot be fully comprehended within the limits of time and space.

Man has a choice to make.

Either we worship and wonder or ‘disbelieve’.

Later on the Rev John Polkinghorne resigned from his Cambridge chair to become Vicar of St Cosmos and St Damien at Blean in Kent.

He is one of many eminent scientists who are Christians today.

Bill Donaldson, Edinburgh

In the excellent exchange of letters about science and religion in the February (2019) Life and Work crucial points were made and here I wish to expand briefly on the nature of Truth.

Jesus said “I am the way the truth and the life”. In this saying he means that in his person and the way he has lived, you can see all the aspects of the fullest possible life and an unfailing love of God and man. From his viewpoint, truth in all our activities has the foundation of love, a selfless and unfailing love, the basis of the life of Jesus.

All the theologians mentioned by Ursula McKean had this love as the essence of the words which they uttered. I also mention Martin

Buber in which love is the essence of his famous “I and thou”.

Scientists also refer to this love as essential in their investigations (for example Barbara McClintock in “A feeling for the organism” by E.F.Keller and Michael Polanyi “Personal knowledge”)

Thus, as a foundation of all creativity there must be a passionate love, and this leads to truth in both religion and science. There is no need to worry about science opposing religion in any way. They have the same foundation.

Progress in our current political and global crises will also depend on our understanding of this aspect of human creativity. We need to learn to love like this!

John Kusel, Cumbernauld.

Structure suggestion

The extant rigid, fossilised presbytery system of inter-parish co-operation has passed its sell-by date and needs renewal.

How’s this for an idea? If each church group developed skilled access to social media, over time dynamic networks of cooperating churches could evolve, unconstrained by geography or even historical faith group allegiance.

In transition, formal matters, such as salaried staff appointments could be supervised more traditionally.

By greater reliance on social media, manpower demands and carbon footprints of administration of church would be greatly reduced.

Best practice and new ideas could be quickly shared.

I do hope that current discussions are open to modelling such maverick ‘blue sky’ responsibilities.

If not, the future may be very bleak indeed, in spite of wellmeaning efforts.

J Michael Buchanan, London.

Churches and Ministers

I think that we all know that ministry means the whole people of God. For everyone has a gift to be drawn on for the good of all.

More specifically, the ministry trained to serve the church and society includes a wide variety of callings. These obviously include ministers, but also OLMs, Readers, Deacons, Ministry Development Staff, Elders, specific university staff and many people in 121 George Street. There will be others employed by individual churches. However, the Church of Scotland still seems to give the impression that ministers are the ministry, when this is certainly not the case.

We know that many vacant churches are likely to remain vacant indefinitely.

The solution is not, in my view, to dramatically reduce the number of churches as it does make sense to have a Scotland-wide coverage of churches to maintain a witness and service across most of Scotland’s communities. This being the case, it requires a more radical approach than hitherto seen to enable and support a variety of staff to provide leadership and that includes elders.

We simply need to lose the mindset that every church requires a minister.

Every church will require certain roles to be carried out, but that does not mean that every church needs a minister. Perhaps the way to proceed is to say what the key leadership roles are for a church to be a church (eg pastoral, preaching, teaching, community development and management) and then enable such roles through a specific programme. One person cannot and should not perform all these roles.

Can’t we start from considering what the ministry of Christ looks like before we enlist, train and deploy people across the church?

Gordon J Sharp, Locum and Community Development Worker,

Dundee West Church, Dundee

Memory Thanks

In the December Life and Work, my eye was caught by the 1952 black and white photograph of the Scots International Church in Rotterdam.

Apart from the Moderator, the photo showed the robed figure of the Rev J Muir Haddow, the then minister of the Rotterdam kirk.

During the war, Muir Haddow was posted to Orkney as a chaplain and became very friendly with a local ATS girl, Joyce Leask.

Some time later, an RAMC doctor, David Anderson, who had been at St Andrews University with Muir, was also posted to Stromness and the two men got reacquainted.

Muir had to leave Orkney for a short time and asked David to ‘keep an eye on Joyce’.

He did rather more than that and, in March 1942, David and Joyce were married!

Muir was a very magnanimous man and stood as David’s best man at the wedding.

David and Joyce’s whirlwind romance (they met in May, got engaged in September and married in March) led some members of the congregation to believe that the minister was marrying Joyce to the wrong man, as they had only ever seen her with Muir!

In time, David and Joyce became my parents and Muir was a long term friend, visiting us regularly with his wife, Agnes, who, my mother always claimed, made a far better minister’s wife than she herself would ever have made.

They had four children, three boys and a girl, at least one of whom was probably born during their time in Rotterdam.

Muir was also a courageous man for the medals, which he wears in the photograph, also included a Military Cross.

He ended his ministry in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire and died some years later.

Thank you for the memory.

Sally Bartkowiak, Stromness, Orkney