Its amazing what God can do. Hardly finished that blog on evil in our streets, when saw this one on the BBC about street pastors. Where they are street crime has dropped by up to 84%. Immanuel, 'God is with us' and we can take Him to people:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7605938.stm
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
running away from evil, or standing up to it
"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Eph 6:10-17
Today it is reported that a group of young men, on trial for allegedly attempting to blow up aeroplanes between the UK and the USA, have not been found guilty. This, according to the BBC news website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7605583.stm) is described as being 'astonishing.'
But, is it? Isn't this as we expect from our courts in the UK? And why is this so?
Our American cousins look on with astonishment as our courts regularly take the side of the apparent or real offender against the victims and the weak. We may ridicule the Americans for their harsh legal system. But ours has a way of coming to 'astonishing' verdicts that appear to run against natural justice and the evidence presented.
As I implied above, I am not astonished. For, when you consider the powers and authorities involved in the UK the result will often go the wrong way. For evil is evil and good is good, despite what our secularist media and elites would have us believe. If there are no powers beyond this world and this life, then everything should be simply explicable. But, that is clearly not so.
Evil clearly exists, acting in horrendous inhuman ways that do not reflect what we all believe humans should be. And this goes for probably the huge majority of Muslims in this country. To them the actions and plans of islamist young British men is utterly and unpardonably evil. And yet, this evil grows and breed and acts in our country.
For those of us who have stood face-to-face with evil, it is no surprise that this is a power that is greater than that of the unspiritual masses in our country. To a jury who have been led to believe that it is all about mental decision making, when the result would say 'guilty' they find people 'innocent' as they lack the internal power to stand against the evil which drives these evil people.
I remember being told of a church prayer meeting in St Andrews where satan himself turned up. As he came into the hall every man in the room collapsed in a heap, losing all strength and courage. The women in the room stood up and drove him from the room. You see, my friend, one group had the internal strength to stand against evil, even satan himself, and the other group did not.
When evil confronts the spiritually weak, whether by pornography, drink, temptation to steal, gambling, etc., the weak have no power to stand, for they have no reason to stand and so they fall. The secularists are right in this one way: there is no reason for them to deny themselves every avarice and pleasure at the cost of others, for they have no knowledge of how to stand up against the evil that tempts them.
So, we have an ex-bishop in Scotland who denies that our Christ exists. We have priests who bugger children. We have ministers who chant Hindu mantras. We have elders who buy lottery tickets. For they have no power inside them to do otherwise and the darkness of their minds is clouded by human reasoning rather than illuminated by The Spirit of God.
On the other hand, we all fall and we all fail. St Peter denied the Christ. St Paul killed His followers. Moses murdered in God's name. King David committed murder and adultery. Before we stand and start to say, 'I thank you, O Lord, that I am not like ...', we should look at ourselves, cast dust upon ourselves and hear what God has to say about our country:
"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chr 7:14.
And so, we pray,
"Hasten, O God, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me ... I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay." Ps 70:1,6.
Knowing that,
"The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5)
There is darkness, there is evil, but, thanks be to God, there is a Redeemer and we know that He will stand in the last days upon this Earth, and we will see Him while we are still flesh and blood.
"Sing to the LORD, you saints of his; praise his holy name." (Ps 30:4)
Today it is reported that a group of young men, on trial for allegedly attempting to blow up aeroplanes between the UK and the USA, have not been found guilty. This, according to the BBC news website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7605583.stm) is described as being 'astonishing.'
But, is it? Isn't this as we expect from our courts in the UK? And why is this so?
Our American cousins look on with astonishment as our courts regularly take the side of the apparent or real offender against the victims and the weak. We may ridicule the Americans for their harsh legal system. But ours has a way of coming to 'astonishing' verdicts that appear to run against natural justice and the evidence presented.
As I implied above, I am not astonished. For, when you consider the powers and authorities involved in the UK the result will often go the wrong way. For evil is evil and good is good, despite what our secularist media and elites would have us believe. If there are no powers beyond this world and this life, then everything should be simply explicable. But, that is clearly not so.
Evil clearly exists, acting in horrendous inhuman ways that do not reflect what we all believe humans should be. And this goes for probably the huge majority of Muslims in this country. To them the actions and plans of islamist young British men is utterly and unpardonably evil. And yet, this evil grows and breed and acts in our country.
For those of us who have stood face-to-face with evil, it is no surprise that this is a power that is greater than that of the unspiritual masses in our country. To a jury who have been led to believe that it is all about mental decision making, when the result would say 'guilty' they find people 'innocent' as they lack the internal power to stand against the evil which drives these evil people.
I remember being told of a church prayer meeting in St Andrews where satan himself turned up. As he came into the hall every man in the room collapsed in a heap, losing all strength and courage. The women in the room stood up and drove him from the room. You see, my friend, one group had the internal strength to stand against evil, even satan himself, and the other group did not.
When evil confronts the spiritually weak, whether by pornography, drink, temptation to steal, gambling, etc., the weak have no power to stand, for they have no reason to stand and so they fall. The secularists are right in this one way: there is no reason for them to deny themselves every avarice and pleasure at the cost of others, for they have no knowledge of how to stand up against the evil that tempts them.
So, we have an ex-bishop in Scotland who denies that our Christ exists. We have priests who bugger children. We have ministers who chant Hindu mantras. We have elders who buy lottery tickets. For they have no power inside them to do otherwise and the darkness of their minds is clouded by human reasoning rather than illuminated by The Spirit of God.
On the other hand, we all fall and we all fail. St Peter denied the Christ. St Paul killed His followers. Moses murdered in God's name. King David committed murder and adultery. Before we stand and start to say, 'I thank you, O Lord, that I am not like ...', we should look at ourselves, cast dust upon ourselves and hear what God has to say about our country:
"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chr 7:14.
And so, we pray,
"Hasten, O God, to save me; O LORD, come quickly to help me ... I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay." Ps 70:1,6.
Knowing that,
"The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5)
There is darkness, there is evil, but, thanks be to God, there is a Redeemer and we know that He will stand in the last days upon this Earth, and we will see Him while we are still flesh and blood.
"Sing to the LORD, you saints of his; praise his holy name." (Ps 30:4)
Saturday, 6 September 2008
on Mr Webb, the Bible and sodomy
"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body." (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) I thought I'd state this first.
Harry Webb (Sir Cliff Richard), a leading figure in British evangelical Christian circles, has been reported as saying the Church should bless same-sex relationships, and that they are as valid as the Biblical example of one man - one wife, for life. It saddens me to see a man who was once such an example of the Christian faith reduced to such human words and thoughts. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8.)
There is little point in going over the well-worn ground of how the Word of God clearly puts sodomites outwith God's Kingdom. It is there, clearly and unambiguously. Well, it is, if you accept God's Word as his clear, unambiguous and unalterable stance. "Every word of God is flawless ... Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar." (Proverbs 30:5-6).
The only way a Christian can end up in a position that is not in accord with God's Word, is to have an attitude of pride, that the man knows better than God, that God did not see what the man sees, that God did not understand what the man understands, that if only God was as compassionate as the man then God would have written things differently, that God doesn't understand me and the things I am going through.
Of course, this is nonsense. "The LORD knows the thoughts of man; he knows that they are futile." (Psalm 94:11)
Our example is Christ in Luke 22:42: "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." As The Word of God also says in Romans 13:14: "Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.".
You see, my friend, as a person you and my desires are wrong. What we wish in our humanity is wrong: wealth, pleasure, importance, property, respect, etc. This was not the way of Christ, "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be held onto, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a slave, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!" (Phil 2:6-8).
It is clear that Christ's willingness to obey His Father was such that he turned away from all the vanities of this world and took all the hatred it could put upon him. No big house, big name, bosom buddies, wealth and the way of pleasure for the man who is willing to humble himself, follow Christ's example and stick to God's prescribed Way.
If you are tempted by sins - sexual, habitual, harmful - then Christ is the example to follow. " In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering." (Hebrews 2:10).
Mr Webb should learn, as we should all learn, that it is in suffering, not in carnal enjoyment, that the way to perfect salvation lies.
The second last word goes to St Paul, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders" (1 Corinthians 6:9).
The fact is that there are those who the British state calls 'Sir' who would disagree with The Word of God, and poo-poo what Jesus did for us. It was ever thus. The last word must go to The LORD Jesus Christ, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." (Matthew 7:13)
Be one of the few. Not one of the many,
Harry Webb (Sir Cliff Richard), a leading figure in British evangelical Christian circles, has been reported as saying the Church should bless same-sex relationships, and that they are as valid as the Biblical example of one man - one wife, for life. It saddens me to see a man who was once such an example of the Christian faith reduced to such human words and thoughts. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. (Isaiah 55:8.)
There is little point in going over the well-worn ground of how the Word of God clearly puts sodomites outwith God's Kingdom. It is there, clearly and unambiguously. Well, it is, if you accept God's Word as his clear, unambiguous and unalterable stance. "Every word of God is flawless ... Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar." (Proverbs 30:5-6).
The only way a Christian can end up in a position that is not in accord with God's Word, is to have an attitude of pride, that the man knows better than God, that God did not see what the man sees, that God did not understand what the man understands, that if only God was as compassionate as the man then God would have written things differently, that God doesn't understand me and the things I am going through.
Of course, this is nonsense. "The LORD knows the thoughts of man; he knows that they are futile." (Psalm 94:11)
Our example is Christ in Luke 22:42: "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." As The Word of God also says in Romans 13:14: "Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.".
You see, my friend, as a person you and my desires are wrong. What we wish in our humanity is wrong: wealth, pleasure, importance, property, respect, etc. This was not the way of Christ, "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be held onto, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a slave, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!" (Phil 2:6-8).
It is clear that Christ's willingness to obey His Father was such that he turned away from all the vanities of this world and took all the hatred it could put upon him. No big house, big name, bosom buddies, wealth and the way of pleasure for the man who is willing to humble himself, follow Christ's example and stick to God's prescribed Way.
If you are tempted by sins - sexual, habitual, harmful - then Christ is the example to follow. " In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering." (Hebrews 2:10).
Mr Webb should learn, as we should all learn, that it is in suffering, not in carnal enjoyment, that the way to perfect salvation lies.
The second last word goes to St Paul, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders" (1 Corinthians 6:9).
The fact is that there are those who the British state calls 'Sir' who would disagree with The Word of God, and poo-poo what Jesus did for us. It was ever thus. The last word must go to The LORD Jesus Christ, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." (Matthew 7:13)
Be one of the few. Not one of the many,
Thursday, 4 September 2008
On finding faith as Christian
Moving from atheism to Christianity is rarely a single step. It wasn't for me. I had to lose my small world view, delimited by the horizons of my understandings and perceptions, and open out to a world much bigger, richer and more varied than that of an atheist. It all reminds me of Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitch Hiker's Guide to The Galaxy. He tells Arthur Dent he can read his mind, 'It amazes me how you can live in anything so small.' It is amazing, and unnecessary, that an atheist can live in such a small world.
Of course, it does involve endlessly shutting windows, curtains and doors, in case new thoughts slip in and disturb the sanctity of the empty mind. I've said it before, but just why someone should believe that their perceptions and their cogitations are everything that happens, is beyond me. Its unprovable. I just can't think that small any more.
Several months went by between losing my atheist faith to finding God in Christ. It was not a journey I wanted to set out on, and it was certainly not the destination I was going towards willingly. But, it was a journey. To mix in more metaphors, being an atheist was like being in the Truman Show. once you know the show is a tiny show and its a fake, you just want to get out and get on. But, where is out and what is on?
Out there there are a lot of people trying to make sense of the real, big world beyond the tiny confines of atheism. But, who is pointing the right way and what are they on? There is no way anyone can logically sit down and demolish or absolutely compare any two religions, even new ones. After all, all our religions are pre-history, but they aren't prehistoric.
I once asked a pagan student how he defined paganism and lived as a pagan when paganism was banished from the UK centuries ago. He said, its difficult, but I try. At least the Scottish Catholic can go to the Isle of Barra and see a fragmentary community that traces its lineage right to St Barr in the 500's.
I see no way that anyone can say one religion is better than another, for to do so is to diminish and reduce it to rationalism, which is a useful technique, but insufficient to explain people's credos and ontologies. But, having leapt away from atheism, at least I was no longer angered and driven to hatred of all religious people. That was a great relief. I wonder if other uber-atheists can ever become calm people when put face to face with someone who disagrees with them.
Every religion claims to be unique and different. This is, of course, true. Every religion can appear attractive on the surface. Every religion attracts converts, and loses adherents too. As does atheism, our state religion in the UK.
The question is partly what attracted me to Christianity over all the others I considered in those months: Islam, Hunduism, paganism and no doubt others I have forgotten about. There was, what I can only explain as a lightness and freedom in Christianity that I did not find elsewhere. I felt Hinduism was confusing. Judaism was small and restricting. Islam was mediaeval and rule-based. Paganism was dark and weird.
I could do without confusion, restrictions, rules and weirdness. What I wanted was a solid place to stand. To find somewhere where I would feel the safety that atheism had once given me. Something that felt sound, intellectually, but was not restricted by narrow 19th century European rationalist thinking.
But, this makes it sound like a rational decision. It was that, but not only that. The loss of atheism had removed this barrier. I could now embrace how I felt, perceived and responded to the call of God. This is the completeness which religion brings over atheism. Atheism is a 2D world - at best - delimited by objective thought and comprehension. Religion is that, plus it is the rest of our being too. Where atheism is body and mind, religion is body, mind, spirit and soul. Religion appeals to the entire man, not just his reasoning.
For if life is just reasoning, what of those with dementia, mental illness and born retarded. Are they unfit to live as they cannot truly perceive things as they are. If these people slip into religiosity, are they lesser beings to be persecuted, tortured and killed. And, if sane people become religious, are they necessarily now insane and unfit for office in state, university or schools? Many uber-atheists would say: yes.
No. When you embrace religiosity as attempts to understand yourself with respect to the universal and the eternal, you are seeking to make sense of the entirety of your existence and being. To do less is to want to only read comic books, listen to Radio 1 and surf the Internet when there is a vast heritage of novels, music and experiences to be had away from your bedroom.
I cannot persuade anyone to give their life to following The LORD Jesus Christ, the carpenter from Nazareth, who preached for just three years, who made such astounding claims, who was tortured to death, and who is recorded in Roman and Jewish chronicles as having risen from the death, and whose followers were all willing (as many still are) to die for him (not to be confused with 'to kill for him').
But I would wish to persuade atheists to lift their eyes from their Dawkins tomes and see the world is greater than this short-lived man perceives it to be. His every book is the same: welcome to my world, come in, mind your head, find a space, sorry the room is so small, sit down and listen to me, the guru, talk about how I am right and everyone else out there is wrong.
You see, Dawkins is a bubble. He will go pop. He will die. He will be gone. And when he does go, in the words of Mr Potato Head in Toy Story: move along, citizens, nothing to see here, nothing to see. On that, Mr Dawkins, we are all agreed.
Are you really going to put your faith in a man whose gospel is, 'there is nothing else other than you and when you are dead that is it' over a man who said 'in my Father's house there are many rooms, if it were not so I would have told you so, and I go now to prepare a place for you.' I have my place, you, potentially have yours. But you need to join me on my journey to meet The Christ who has the keys to your room.
Of course, it does involve endlessly shutting windows, curtains and doors, in case new thoughts slip in and disturb the sanctity of the empty mind. I've said it before, but just why someone should believe that their perceptions and their cogitations are everything that happens, is beyond me. Its unprovable. I just can't think that small any more.
Several months went by between losing my atheist faith to finding God in Christ. It was not a journey I wanted to set out on, and it was certainly not the destination I was going towards willingly. But, it was a journey. To mix in more metaphors, being an atheist was like being in the Truman Show. once you know the show is a tiny show and its a fake, you just want to get out and get on. But, where is out and what is on?
Out there there are a lot of people trying to make sense of the real, big world beyond the tiny confines of atheism. But, who is pointing the right way and what are they on? There is no way anyone can logically sit down and demolish or absolutely compare any two religions, even new ones. After all, all our religions are pre-history, but they aren't prehistoric.
I once asked a pagan student how he defined paganism and lived as a pagan when paganism was banished from the UK centuries ago. He said, its difficult, but I try. At least the Scottish Catholic can go to the Isle of Barra and see a fragmentary community that traces its lineage right to St Barr in the 500's.
I see no way that anyone can say one religion is better than another, for to do so is to diminish and reduce it to rationalism, which is a useful technique, but insufficient to explain people's credos and ontologies. But, having leapt away from atheism, at least I was no longer angered and driven to hatred of all religious people. That was a great relief. I wonder if other uber-atheists can ever become calm people when put face to face with someone who disagrees with them.
Every religion claims to be unique and different. This is, of course, true. Every religion can appear attractive on the surface. Every religion attracts converts, and loses adherents too. As does atheism, our state religion in the UK.
The question is partly what attracted me to Christianity over all the others I considered in those months: Islam, Hunduism, paganism and no doubt others I have forgotten about. There was, what I can only explain as a lightness and freedom in Christianity that I did not find elsewhere. I felt Hinduism was confusing. Judaism was small and restricting. Islam was mediaeval and rule-based. Paganism was dark and weird.
I could do without confusion, restrictions, rules and weirdness. What I wanted was a solid place to stand. To find somewhere where I would feel the safety that atheism had once given me. Something that felt sound, intellectually, but was not restricted by narrow 19th century European rationalist thinking.
But, this makes it sound like a rational decision. It was that, but not only that. The loss of atheism had removed this barrier. I could now embrace how I felt, perceived and responded to the call of God. This is the completeness which religion brings over atheism. Atheism is a 2D world - at best - delimited by objective thought and comprehension. Religion is that, plus it is the rest of our being too. Where atheism is body and mind, religion is body, mind, spirit and soul. Religion appeals to the entire man, not just his reasoning.
For if life is just reasoning, what of those with dementia, mental illness and born retarded. Are they unfit to live as they cannot truly perceive things as they are. If these people slip into religiosity, are they lesser beings to be persecuted, tortured and killed. And, if sane people become religious, are they necessarily now insane and unfit for office in state, university or schools? Many uber-atheists would say: yes.
No. When you embrace religiosity as attempts to understand yourself with respect to the universal and the eternal, you are seeking to make sense of the entirety of your existence and being. To do less is to want to only read comic books, listen to Radio 1 and surf the Internet when there is a vast heritage of novels, music and experiences to be had away from your bedroom.
I cannot persuade anyone to give their life to following The LORD Jesus Christ, the carpenter from Nazareth, who preached for just three years, who made such astounding claims, who was tortured to death, and who is recorded in Roman and Jewish chronicles as having risen from the death, and whose followers were all willing (as many still are) to die for him (not to be confused with 'to kill for him').
But I would wish to persuade atheists to lift their eyes from their Dawkins tomes and see the world is greater than this short-lived man perceives it to be. His every book is the same: welcome to my world, come in, mind your head, find a space, sorry the room is so small, sit down and listen to me, the guru, talk about how I am right and everyone else out there is wrong.
You see, Dawkins is a bubble. He will go pop. He will die. He will be gone. And when he does go, in the words of Mr Potato Head in Toy Story: move along, citizens, nothing to see here, nothing to see. On that, Mr Dawkins, we are all agreed.
Are you really going to put your faith in a man whose gospel is, 'there is nothing else other than you and when you are dead that is it' over a man who said 'in my Father's house there are many rooms, if it were not so I would have told you so, and I go now to prepare a place for you.' I have my place, you, potentially have yours. But you need to join me on my journey to meet The Christ who has the keys to your room.
The lost faith of an atheist
I was an atheist, brought up in a family of atheists, a pure/natural scientist through and through. Then I stopped being an atheist and became a Christian. This is not that unusual a trip, but it one that continues to baffle atheists. How can you move from no-belief to belief?
Firstly, scientists are facts-based people so: (i) I used to be an atheist and now I am a Christian. Fact. You can discuss as you will the change, its reasons, etc., but not the fact of the change. You can also sling mud at me, but saying I am plain daft won't stick. I've got too many science degrees for those to stick.
Why did I stop being an atheist? Like every Christian I have a tale to tell. My one is not so unusual, but its in the underlying structure of the tale that the person of John-the-was-atheist and God-in-Jesus begin to appear more clearly. So, what is this tale?
Back in the 80's I was a highly sucessful IT consultant based in London, earning more than I could spend. Happy in my non-belief (though that is not a term I'd have recognised then.) Life was going forward in a yuppie-ish Thatcher's-in government sort of way. I was a great coder and enjoying it. Bacon rolls, kit-kat bars, beer, burgers and fries were my life. And my waistband was beginning to go through that early male phase of expansion I've been fighting ever since.
I was sitting eating in my hotel room one night when a bombshell hit me. It was what Thomas Kuhn would call a paradigm collapse. The thought was: I am not in control of my life. You see, the next stage was wife down here with me, with two babies, kids to posh school, divorce, old age, etc. This was the drift of life for so many of my contemporaries in London consultancy. It was as if London was a non-real parallel world that was OK until that Matrix moment. (But this was way, way before that movie came out. OK?!)
On that hotel bed I was dumfounded. If I was not in charge of my life, then, who, or what, was. I had a foreboding that all was not as neat, clean and easy as my atheism stated. There were forces over and above me and my computer programs. Forces that pushed me along in a sociological kind of way, but also in a harmful and personal kind of way. I hit a wall and was off the boat and into the water.
You see, atheism has no answers to anything. It is a faith that revolves around denying the existence of questions. If the question is allowed to be asked, then atheism can only survive as long as eyes are shut, fingers are in ears and you are lah-lah-ing along. Stop, squint, pull a finger out, and suddenly there is more to the world than a simplistic atheist belief would allow for.
When asked the question: is there more than this? Atheism says 'no'. Ask atheism why and it has no answer. You see, to be an atheist is to disengage from human debate and to deny the biggest questions in life, the universe and everything. To put forward notions that are so simplistic as to be, well, plain stupid at times. To deny the entire history of mankind and the bases of social and national structures across the world since the year dot.
Once the atheist asks, truly, 'Is there a God?' his belief system is in collapse. For, if he were to allow that the default answer is not a 100% definitive 'No', then he is no longer an atheist. The only way to remain the atheist, from my readings on atheist thinking, is to decide that every smarter person who lives or has ever lived, and that, for the record includes a certain Charles Darwin, is clearly deluded, stupid or mad. Which is clearly not provable. It is a statement of faith.
Once my atheism wobbled, and I allowed the brain to engage with the bigger questions, atheism was gone. Its a bit like a wee boy who believes girls are smelly and you get warts from touching them, being kissed for the first time in a playground game around 14 years old. The world rocks and reels. What is thing 'a girl?' He cannot hold onto his girls-are-horrible stance. Because girls taste so much better than no-girls ...
As God says, come and taste that The LORD is good. If you are denying yourself God, you are denying the most taste-bud tingling experience in your whole world ever ever. Come out of the shadows of atheism and explore the meaning of life beyond little you.
Firstly, scientists are facts-based people so: (i) I used to be an atheist and now I am a Christian. Fact. You can discuss as you will the change, its reasons, etc., but not the fact of the change. You can also sling mud at me, but saying I am plain daft won't stick. I've got too many science degrees for those to stick.
Why did I stop being an atheist? Like every Christian I have a tale to tell. My one is not so unusual, but its in the underlying structure of the tale that the person of John-the-was-atheist and God-in-Jesus begin to appear more clearly. So, what is this tale?
Back in the 80's I was a highly sucessful IT consultant based in London, earning more than I could spend. Happy in my non-belief (though that is not a term I'd have recognised then.) Life was going forward in a yuppie-ish Thatcher's-in government sort of way. I was a great coder and enjoying it. Bacon rolls, kit-kat bars, beer, burgers and fries were my life. And my waistband was beginning to go through that early male phase of expansion I've been fighting ever since.
I was sitting eating in my hotel room one night when a bombshell hit me. It was what Thomas Kuhn would call a paradigm collapse. The thought was: I am not in control of my life. You see, the next stage was wife down here with me, with two babies, kids to posh school, divorce, old age, etc. This was the drift of life for so many of my contemporaries in London consultancy. It was as if London was a non-real parallel world that was OK until that Matrix moment. (But this was way, way before that movie came out. OK?!)
On that hotel bed I was dumfounded. If I was not in charge of my life, then, who, or what, was. I had a foreboding that all was not as neat, clean and easy as my atheism stated. There were forces over and above me and my computer programs. Forces that pushed me along in a sociological kind of way, but also in a harmful and personal kind of way. I hit a wall and was off the boat and into the water.
You see, atheism has no answers to anything. It is a faith that revolves around denying the existence of questions. If the question is allowed to be asked, then atheism can only survive as long as eyes are shut, fingers are in ears and you are lah-lah-ing along. Stop, squint, pull a finger out, and suddenly there is more to the world than a simplistic atheist belief would allow for.
When asked the question: is there more than this? Atheism says 'no'. Ask atheism why and it has no answer. You see, to be an atheist is to disengage from human debate and to deny the biggest questions in life, the universe and everything. To put forward notions that are so simplistic as to be, well, plain stupid at times. To deny the entire history of mankind and the bases of social and national structures across the world since the year dot.
Once the atheist asks, truly, 'Is there a God?' his belief system is in collapse. For, if he were to allow that the default answer is not a 100% definitive 'No', then he is no longer an atheist. The only way to remain the atheist, from my readings on atheist thinking, is to decide that every smarter person who lives or has ever lived, and that, for the record includes a certain Charles Darwin, is clearly deluded, stupid or mad. Which is clearly not provable. It is a statement of faith.
Once my atheism wobbled, and I allowed the brain to engage with the bigger questions, atheism was gone. Its a bit like a wee boy who believes girls are smelly and you get warts from touching them, being kissed for the first time in a playground game around 14 years old. The world rocks and reels. What is thing 'a girl?' He cannot hold onto his girls-are-horrible stance. Because girls taste so much better than no-girls ...
As God says, come and taste that The LORD is good. If you are denying yourself God, you are denying the most taste-bud tingling experience in your whole world ever ever. Come out of the shadows of atheism and explore the meaning of life beyond little you.
On demons
In talking of demons, the fallen angels who rose up against Almighty God, it is too easy to be seen to admire them, as John Milton's Paradise Lost does. let's make something utterly clear, and from my own experiences, there is absolutely and utterly nothing to be admired about demons. They stink, they are deformed, they are utterly terrified of one small saint of God. The entire coterie of satan flees before a single small bent-over saintly Mother Theresa. She had more power in her tired old body until the moment she was taken home, than the entire fallen kingdom of hell.
I speak from experience, not from bookish theology. Demons run from saints and fear us. But - and this is an important if - only if we are standing in God's power and washed pure in the blood of the Lamb, The LORD Jesus Christ.
The first thing to note is they run from us and hide from us. I was walking past a shop in Dundee and my flesh rose in a flame of righteous anger. I knew there was a demon in the store beside me. I stepped in, and found myself quietly and determinedly seeking it out. It hid everywhere it could. It feared being seen by me, one small saint of God.
At another time, during a meeting I found myself filled with the same fire and sitting very, very quietly. I looked around the room, again slowly and deliberately and then saw it. It was sitting so close behind a man it was almost - but not - in him. It was the little beady red eyes I saw. And it saw me staring at it. Our eyes locked and I was all aflame with the same power that the angels that visit me have. Then something bounced off my chest. I felt a blow and it fled. I was uninjured, but it was - I know - utterly and completely terrified of my presence and of the great power of God that was glowing within me.
On another occasion people were complaining of a terrible smell in an upper room. It was like dog shite and as if a corpse was stuck below the floor boards. Sometimes it was strong, at other times it was absent. It was a terrible, foul smell indeed. I was downstairs in the loo and saw it. The demon had squeezed itself into a very small cupboard immediately below the floor above. It had done this in terror as the power of God was there with me. I used the words of Jesus and bound it (Matt 16:18) using words The LORD had recently led me to believe were for me and for my ministry.
The poor beast - yes, I felt some pity - was stuck there for months before The LORD arranged for its removal. On another occasion I was in conversation with a friend, in my living room, and he said, 'Look over there'. Beside the curtain was a red-eyed demon. It was standing transfixed by our stares, utterly terrified and trembling. The LORD told me this thing was a spy sent by the enemy to find out what we were saying.
Remember this: satan is only a created being. He is not omnipresent or omniscient. He only knows what we say and do as is reported to him. He is not God. He is not a god.
Anyhoo, I went over to this being, stood almost nose-to-nose with it, and bound it. It stood in the corner of my dining room for months before The LORD arranged for its removal. I again felt a tiny bit of pity, but that was all.
The biggest demonic encounter I had was with a friend. We were in charge of the renovation of a remarkably falling-down house. It was only 50 years old, but everything was falling apart: windows, floors, woodwork, etc. What was the problem? My friend, another Christian, said the house made him feel very cold. It was a remarkably damp and cold house.
We were standing outside one day, and opened the door. We found ourselves doing this with great care and precision. He went to step in and I put my arm in front of him. We both began to pray out loud, myself in English and my friend in a tongue of The Spirit. As we did so, demons rushed past us out of the house. They were running in a terrified melee, even bumping into and brushing us as they fled.
At last there was only one left, and he was one, I knew in my spirit, of the enemy's generals. For this was a Christian minister's house, and several ministers work had come to grief here in recent years. I saw him as the blackest blackness in a spare room at the back of the house. I prayed over it for some time, binding it in Christ's name.
The binding isolated it to that room. On subsequent visits I could move around the room. It moved away from me, enraged, a powerful general of the enemy of God, trapped and imprisoned by a simple saint of God. I eventually asked God what would happen to it and he said, 'I will take it away.' And He did.
My friend and I, on another occasion were talking and he said, 'There was a spirit of anger here.' He said he felt anger and violence. Later, we found in the garage a punch-ball and boxing gloves. Strange things for a pastor to have. In The Spirit we knew that a pastor here had been a man of violence. It was this weakness that had invited the demons in. And they came. And they came. Until the family and the house rotted and fell apart.
Demons and the enemy are corrupt. Everything they touch corrupts: families, lives, governments, etc. But, they are as nothing before one drop of the redeeming blood of the LORD Jesus Christ. Just one silly saint of God can turn aside an army of demons. More than that, they flee from us.
But, here's the rub, without the redemption of Christ there is only corruption, illness and death. As we stand with God, purified by Christ every day and hour, using the gifts he gives us in the spiritual realms (Eph 1:3), we will overcome the enemy and he will run from us.
But, it's a battle. Which side are you on: redemption or corruption.
I speak from experience, not from bookish theology. Demons run from saints and fear us. But - and this is an important if - only if we are standing in God's power and washed pure in the blood of the Lamb, The LORD Jesus Christ.
The first thing to note is they run from us and hide from us. I was walking past a shop in Dundee and my flesh rose in a flame of righteous anger. I knew there was a demon in the store beside me. I stepped in, and found myself quietly and determinedly seeking it out. It hid everywhere it could. It feared being seen by me, one small saint of God.
At another time, during a meeting I found myself filled with the same fire and sitting very, very quietly. I looked around the room, again slowly and deliberately and then saw it. It was sitting so close behind a man it was almost - but not - in him. It was the little beady red eyes I saw. And it saw me staring at it. Our eyes locked and I was all aflame with the same power that the angels that visit me have. Then something bounced off my chest. I felt a blow and it fled. I was uninjured, but it was - I know - utterly and completely terrified of my presence and of the great power of God that was glowing within me.
On another occasion people were complaining of a terrible smell in an upper room. It was like dog shite and as if a corpse was stuck below the floor boards. Sometimes it was strong, at other times it was absent. It was a terrible, foul smell indeed. I was downstairs in the loo and saw it. The demon had squeezed itself into a very small cupboard immediately below the floor above. It had done this in terror as the power of God was there with me. I used the words of Jesus and bound it (Matt 16:18) using words The LORD had recently led me to believe were for me and for my ministry.
The poor beast - yes, I felt some pity - was stuck there for months before The LORD arranged for its removal. On another occasion I was in conversation with a friend, in my living room, and he said, 'Look over there'. Beside the curtain was a red-eyed demon. It was standing transfixed by our stares, utterly terrified and trembling. The LORD told me this thing was a spy sent by the enemy to find out what we were saying.
Remember this: satan is only a created being. He is not omnipresent or omniscient. He only knows what we say and do as is reported to him. He is not God. He is not a god.
Anyhoo, I went over to this being, stood almost nose-to-nose with it, and bound it. It stood in the corner of my dining room for months before The LORD arranged for its removal. I again felt a tiny bit of pity, but that was all.
The biggest demonic encounter I had was with a friend. We were in charge of the renovation of a remarkably falling-down house. It was only 50 years old, but everything was falling apart: windows, floors, woodwork, etc. What was the problem? My friend, another Christian, said the house made him feel very cold. It was a remarkably damp and cold house.
We were standing outside one day, and opened the door. We found ourselves doing this with great care and precision. He went to step in and I put my arm in front of him. We both began to pray out loud, myself in English and my friend in a tongue of The Spirit. As we did so, demons rushed past us out of the house. They were running in a terrified melee, even bumping into and brushing us as they fled.
At last there was only one left, and he was one, I knew in my spirit, of the enemy's generals. For this was a Christian minister's house, and several ministers work had come to grief here in recent years. I saw him as the blackest blackness in a spare room at the back of the house. I prayed over it for some time, binding it in Christ's name.
The binding isolated it to that room. On subsequent visits I could move around the room. It moved away from me, enraged, a powerful general of the enemy of God, trapped and imprisoned by a simple saint of God. I eventually asked God what would happen to it and he said, 'I will take it away.' And He did.
My friend and I, on another occasion were talking and he said, 'There was a spirit of anger here.' He said he felt anger and violence. Later, we found in the garage a punch-ball and boxing gloves. Strange things for a pastor to have. In The Spirit we knew that a pastor here had been a man of violence. It was this weakness that had invited the demons in. And they came. And they came. Until the family and the house rotted and fell apart.
Demons and the enemy are corrupt. Everything they touch corrupts: families, lives, governments, etc. But, they are as nothing before one drop of the redeeming blood of the LORD Jesus Christ. Just one silly saint of God can turn aside an army of demons. More than that, they flee from us.
But, here's the rub, without the redemption of Christ there is only corruption, illness and death. As we stand with God, purified by Christ every day and hour, using the gifts he gives us in the spiritual realms (Eph 1:3), we will overcome the enemy and he will run from us.
But, it's a battle. Which side are you on: redemption or corruption.
On angels
Its a strange gift, perceiving angels. I gave a talk at St Andrews Baptist Church last year on my encounters with angels. One church member was disappointed that I could not give a clear visual description of God's holy army. We live in such a seen-it-believe-it society that so much of our created humanity is discarded by dawkins-esque reductionism.
I've taken him apart elsewhere, so let's not dig up his corpse to beat and hang him again. However, the echo of his rationalism is in danger of squeezing us into the world's mould (Romans 12:12). Step into God's reality; it is bigger and better than ours here and now.
A few years back, a friend invited me to spend the night at his house. He had, he said, an angel who came every dusk and stayed till dawn. This visitor had done this for years now. I wasn't sceptical, just curious, as I'd never seen an angel, so agreed to stay the evening and night chez him.
We had a pleasant meal in his Edinburgh Regency house. Followed by a particularly pleasant malt whisky. Suddenly, it's the only word, this being stepped from behind a curtain, well a curtain between our reality and God's, a stood himself at my left side, about a foot away.
I was rigid with shock. The glow of power from the angel was like standing next to a street electricity transformer. 'Do you see him?', my friend asked. 'Yes', was all I could reply, timidly. I sat rigid for several minutes, not even willing to look sideways. My friend, being more used to the presence, chuntered on, while I sat, whisky glass in hand, unable to move.
As the evening wore on, the angel moved across the room and took up position beside the curtains. I could only say I followed him with my eyes, but did not see anything in the electro-magnetic spectrum. However, occasionally his garment would move, and I did see this as a flash of almost white silk.
'I used to have a dog', my friend continued, 'he could see the angel.' Since then I've noticed that my cat sees where the angels are standing. Ever seen a cat pull its head up and stare into space - well, my experience is that he is watching something, but you can't see it.
Eventually, we went upstairs for the night. I got the spare room and slept well. Then I awoke in the middle of the night to find the angel in my room, looking intently at me. It was literally hair-raising. The power of this mighty being was making my every nerve tingle. He then went away and I could sleep again.
In the morning my friend said, 'That was strange last night. The angel is always there in the room. He never goes away. But, last night I got up to go to the loo, and he wasn't there.' I knew why and said, 'He came to my room.'
Since then I've had a whole lot more encounters with God's angels. They are sent from God, with a purpose, and are totally obedient to him, unlike their demonic fallen former brothers (I'll say more on them and my encounters with these at a later stage.) They step out of heaven, from the courts of Almighty God, sometimes directly from His presence, by His command, from behind the curtain which seperates us as the one in the ancient Temple did, and stand before us.
In my previous house I had an angel who stood at the top of the stairs. He allowed me, a couple of times, to put my hand out and touch him. It was an amazing experience of power and light. Everything glowed, vibrated and tingled in an astonishing way. He was huge, and he was there to guard my upstairs as my family slept. But, he did not like me doing this to him.
I once wandered off with my son to talk of things of God and a huge angel, an arch-angel I still believe, stood immediately behind us and dogged our steps so closely he was almost touching us. There was an explosion on the beach that night as we walked past. I ducked as I knew this was a spiritual attack, not least by the cackling that followed it, and was glad the angel was there. When we stopped at a bench for a chat, the angel went and stood in front of us, about 6ft away, and faced us, back to the beach. When we walked home he again dogged behind us, and disappeared when we arrived home.
More mundanely, I too have an angel who stands in my bedroom at night. He has to find a place to stand as the room is, well, a bit of a mess. He has tried beside the window, but gets in the road of my wife when she goes loo-hunting at night. He has tried standing near my stuff in the corner of the room, but keeps having to move as its near the door. Just the once I saw him move as my wife got out of bed. He moved in a flash from the door to the wardrobes. His speed of movement was almost instantaneous, but it did take place in real-time.
I had a bad day recently, sin had got the better of me and I'd forgotten to say sorry to God. During the night I awoke to find the angel closing in, then standing directly over me, his face about 18 inches from mine. They seem to have a 'power' button they can turn up and down. He was on 'high' and I was terrified. The fear of The LORD is the beginning of all wisdom indeed.
I pleaded with him to back off and then spent some time bringing my sins before The LORD Jesus Christ for his cleansing and forgiveness. The angel was still there last night, but on 'low', in front of the wardrobe as usual.
One thing you would not know without meeting God's angels, is that they are different from each other. I have encountered big ones, small ones, and wiry-powerful ones. Each one of them is different.
If you are a Christian, the best news is: they are on our side! If you are not, the bad news is: they are not on your side. Come over to God's side and gain some powerful companions.
I've taken him apart elsewhere, so let's not dig up his corpse to beat and hang him again. However, the echo of his rationalism is in danger of squeezing us into the world's mould (Romans 12:12). Step into God's reality; it is bigger and better than ours here and now.
A few years back, a friend invited me to spend the night at his house. He had, he said, an angel who came every dusk and stayed till dawn. This visitor had done this for years now. I wasn't sceptical, just curious, as I'd never seen an angel, so agreed to stay the evening and night chez him.
We had a pleasant meal in his Edinburgh Regency house. Followed by a particularly pleasant malt whisky. Suddenly, it's the only word, this being stepped from behind a curtain, well a curtain between our reality and God's, a stood himself at my left side, about a foot away.
I was rigid with shock. The glow of power from the angel was like standing next to a street electricity transformer. 'Do you see him?', my friend asked. 'Yes', was all I could reply, timidly. I sat rigid for several minutes, not even willing to look sideways. My friend, being more used to the presence, chuntered on, while I sat, whisky glass in hand, unable to move.
As the evening wore on, the angel moved across the room and took up position beside the curtains. I could only say I followed him with my eyes, but did not see anything in the electro-magnetic spectrum. However, occasionally his garment would move, and I did see this as a flash of almost white silk.
'I used to have a dog', my friend continued, 'he could see the angel.' Since then I've noticed that my cat sees where the angels are standing. Ever seen a cat pull its head up and stare into space - well, my experience is that he is watching something, but you can't see it.
Eventually, we went upstairs for the night. I got the spare room and slept well. Then I awoke in the middle of the night to find the angel in my room, looking intently at me. It was literally hair-raising. The power of this mighty being was making my every nerve tingle. He then went away and I could sleep again.
In the morning my friend said, 'That was strange last night. The angel is always there in the room. He never goes away. But, last night I got up to go to the loo, and he wasn't there.' I knew why and said, 'He came to my room.'
Since then I've had a whole lot more encounters with God's angels. They are sent from God, with a purpose, and are totally obedient to him, unlike their demonic fallen former brothers (I'll say more on them and my encounters with these at a later stage.) They step out of heaven, from the courts of Almighty God, sometimes directly from His presence, by His command, from behind the curtain which seperates us as the one in the ancient Temple did, and stand before us.
In my previous house I had an angel who stood at the top of the stairs. He allowed me, a couple of times, to put my hand out and touch him. It was an amazing experience of power and light. Everything glowed, vibrated and tingled in an astonishing way. He was huge, and he was there to guard my upstairs as my family slept. But, he did not like me doing this to him.
I once wandered off with my son to talk of things of God and a huge angel, an arch-angel I still believe, stood immediately behind us and dogged our steps so closely he was almost touching us. There was an explosion on the beach that night as we walked past. I ducked as I knew this was a spiritual attack, not least by the cackling that followed it, and was glad the angel was there. When we stopped at a bench for a chat, the angel went and stood in front of us, about 6ft away, and faced us, back to the beach. When we walked home he again dogged behind us, and disappeared when we arrived home.
More mundanely, I too have an angel who stands in my bedroom at night. He has to find a place to stand as the room is, well, a bit of a mess. He has tried beside the window, but gets in the road of my wife when she goes loo-hunting at night. He has tried standing near my stuff in the corner of the room, but keeps having to move as its near the door. Just the once I saw him move as my wife got out of bed. He moved in a flash from the door to the wardrobes. His speed of movement was almost instantaneous, but it did take place in real-time.
I had a bad day recently, sin had got the better of me and I'd forgotten to say sorry to God. During the night I awoke to find the angel closing in, then standing directly over me, his face about 18 inches from mine. They seem to have a 'power' button they can turn up and down. He was on 'high' and I was terrified. The fear of The LORD is the beginning of all wisdom indeed.
I pleaded with him to back off and then spent some time bringing my sins before The LORD Jesus Christ for his cleansing and forgiveness. The angel was still there last night, but on 'low', in front of the wardrobe as usual.
One thing you would not know without meeting God's angels, is that they are different from each other. I have encountered big ones, small ones, and wiry-powerful ones. Each one of them is different.
If you are a Christian, the best news is: they are on our side! If you are not, the bad news is: they are not on your side. Come over to God's side and gain some powerful companions.
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
God sent me to Largs
Mmmm ... sounds like a punishment. No! Largs is a bonny wee place, ferries every half-hour to Greater Cumbrae, ice cream and chip shops everywhere. Its just not St Andrews, though, is it. And I was in St Andrews and The LORD said to me, 'Go to Largs!' So, here am I and so is my family.
Backtrack. Rewind.
The problem with all stories is they have no real start. Did it start when I left Abertay University in Dundee to take up a post at Paisley University (now West Scotland University)? Yes, probably. I took the job for a new start, which I badly needed, then found myself commuting weekly from St Andrews to Paisley, and its Dumfries campus. Now, that aint an easy road to travel. Anyone who has used Scotland's roads knows they are poor and don't go easily from any point A to any other point B.
The problem is that Scotland is rugged and beautiful. There are rivers, lochs (lakes), mountains and valleys everywhere. To get from St Andrews to Paisley involves getting across the rivers Forth and Clyde, and often the Tay too. And these are huge rivers with very few bridges. In the winter it is easy to get up at 5am and head directly across Fife, the Forth, central Scotland and the Clyde. As the brighter days come on this gets harder and harder, until the 85 mile journey becomes 130 miles, not crossing the River Clyde until I have diverted via Loch Lomondside. Check a map - that is not an easy route.
This was all wearing me and my family down. A man away from his house is like a bird away from its nest (Proverbs 27:8). I was getting near the end, as was everyone else. Everything was creaking: my health, my work, my marriage, my relationship with my kids. It was surely a valley of a very dark shadow (Psalm 23).
I took to heading out in my car and going for a drive to get away from things in Paisley. One day I headed off, intending get to a childhood haunt, Garelochhead in West Dunbartonshire. I scooted off down the M8, but missed the Erskine Bridge turnoff. I just kept going and going and stopped in ... Largs.
I phoned my wife, 'Guess where I am?'. She answered, "Largs. I knew you'd be there. The LORD said to me, 'Largs'!"
I was dumfounded. Where on earth is Largs, I wondered? A quick look at a map and it was clearly 130 miles from St Andrews in a straight line; well, as straight as any line in Scotland every is!
Over the next few days I kept finding things saying, 'Largs' to me. We prayed about it and it seemed the place. We investigated further and it seemed ideal: good school, railway direct to Paisley where I am based, great views, but a wee bit seedy, especially when compared to the beauty of our long-time home in the mediaevial university city of St Andrews.
I popped back a few times and found myself outside the Brisbane Evangelical Church and knew in my spirit that this was to be our church. However, all these things need confirmation (Matt 18:16).
One day I was talking with one of my former games students, now studying at the Baptist College in my university. We were standing at the railway station when he said, 'OK, John, what's this about Largs?' At this word a train came in in front of us, going to "Largs"! We both laughed.
However, things were proving tough. Then the LORD spoke to me through The WORD. The words were 'act promptly'. So I made a determined effort to get our house ready around Spring 2008. I was still exhausted, but I knew we had to get our house ready to sell very quickly.
The LORD spoke again and said, 'signs and miracles' (Heb 2:4) would be used by Him to get us to Largs. The signs to 'Largs' kept appearing. Why would we need miracles?
We put our house on the market and it was sold in a flash to a family with cash. They made a decent but not generous offer and we both felt this was right. The estate agent wasn't so sure, but the 'act promptly' was in the back of my mind at all times. It always pays to obey God.
We went to see many houses in Largs, but were always disappointed by them. Nothing was clear & we weren't agreed. The 'two witnesses', my wife and myself, needed to be in agreement. We made one last charge, and decided to look at 5 houses in and around Largs. It was a long hike across the country, again. The first house was in Upper Skelmorlie, at the very top of the parish, 5 miles from Largs. It was a lovely old red sandstone building, deceptively large but would do fine. The second one (this begins to sound like a Goldilocks tale!) was too small, on a main road (not suitable for our old, fat cat, 'Mr Samson Poo'), but with gorgeous views towards the Isle of Arran. The third house was attached to a falling down house. We were really annoyed that estate agents could really be so dishonest, so we cancelled the viewing.
So, off uptown Largs for a cup of tea (me), coffee (Hazel) and a sticky bun (both). We sat in a silence and both agreed that the first house was indeed the house. We were agreed. We cancelled all the other viewings and went home to put our bid in.
Now, the house was on offer at a very low price. We put our bid in with a 24 hour limit. And waited. And waited. Days later we were told, 'There is another bidder and it goes to closing on Tuesday lunchtime.' I decided to bid another £30k. This felt right. If you are walking with Him, hearing and obeying Him become easier.
Tuesday lunchtime came and went. One hour later still no word. Something was very wrong. I knew the enemy was trying to stop me. Two Christian brothers bumped into me. The first one said, 'Phone the owner and ask him what is going on.' Amazingly, for me, I remember his name and called 118118. Amazingly they told me his number. I phoned it. Amazingly he answered it (he was usually posted away from home the previous weeks.) He told me, 'The estate agents are waiting for a higher bid.' I said, 'Thats not right. The closing date is passed!'
Then the second brother bumped into me and said, 'Call your lawyer.' I called him and he said, 'Thats not right. I'll call the estate agent.' Ten minutes later the owner called me and said, 'The house is yours!' I was exhausted and delighted.
This was a miracle upon a miracle upon a miracle, just as God had promised. Tutned out the estate agent (=the enemy) had tried to gazump my bid because the other bidder was offering more, but not cash, and the buyer wanted to accept my bid instead, cutting the estate agent's cut by a few pounds. She was frantically phoning the other bidder to get them to up their bid a bit more to take the house away from me. By God's good grace the phone went unanswered, until my lawyer phoned and threatened them with the entire force of the law.
Now, estate agents are evil, bad people. They certainly in that office in Largs. The enemy did not want us to get to Largs. But, the power of Almighty God is greater than the enemy's power (Job 33:12). Then we found out why we had to 'act promptly' - the entire British housing market crashed that week. if we hadn't marketed, sold and bought right when we did we would never have moved house. I don't want to even think what that would have meant. God loves His children and gives us good things. His grace is sufficient.
By signs and mircales we found ourselves in Largs. Or did we? We were moving to the village of Upper Skelmorlie 5 miles up the roadfrom the town of Largs. Then we got our 1900 title deeds, 'a house of red sandstone to be built in the settlement of Skelmorlie in the Parish of Largs.' And in Largs there is an old graveyard with the aisle of the old kirk where the people of Skelmorlie used to worship.
We are where God wants us to be. We are worshipping where He wants us to worship Him. What we don't yet know is why and for what purposes He has placed us here and in this wee church. I am sure that, as we wait, He will answer.
"Know therefore that the LORD your God is God. He is the fauthful God, keeping His covenant of love to thousands of generations of those who love Him and keep His commands. (Deut 7:9)
Backtrack. Rewind.
The problem with all stories is they have no real start. Did it start when I left Abertay University in Dundee to take up a post at Paisley University (now West Scotland University)? Yes, probably. I took the job for a new start, which I badly needed, then found myself commuting weekly from St Andrews to Paisley, and its Dumfries campus. Now, that aint an easy road to travel. Anyone who has used Scotland's roads knows they are poor and don't go easily from any point A to any other point B.
The problem is that Scotland is rugged and beautiful. There are rivers, lochs (lakes), mountains and valleys everywhere. To get from St Andrews to Paisley involves getting across the rivers Forth and Clyde, and often the Tay too. And these are huge rivers with very few bridges. In the winter it is easy to get up at 5am and head directly across Fife, the Forth, central Scotland and the Clyde. As the brighter days come on this gets harder and harder, until the 85 mile journey becomes 130 miles, not crossing the River Clyde until I have diverted via Loch Lomondside. Check a map - that is not an easy route.
This was all wearing me and my family down. A man away from his house is like a bird away from its nest (Proverbs 27:8). I was getting near the end, as was everyone else. Everything was creaking: my health, my work, my marriage, my relationship with my kids. It was surely a valley of a very dark shadow (Psalm 23).
I took to heading out in my car and going for a drive to get away from things in Paisley. One day I headed off, intending get to a childhood haunt, Garelochhead in West Dunbartonshire. I scooted off down the M8, but missed the Erskine Bridge turnoff. I just kept going and going and stopped in ... Largs.
I phoned my wife, 'Guess where I am?'. She answered, "Largs. I knew you'd be there. The LORD said to me, 'Largs'!"
I was dumfounded. Where on earth is Largs, I wondered? A quick look at a map and it was clearly 130 miles from St Andrews in a straight line; well, as straight as any line in Scotland every is!
Over the next few days I kept finding things saying, 'Largs' to me. We prayed about it and it seemed the place. We investigated further and it seemed ideal: good school, railway direct to Paisley where I am based, great views, but a wee bit seedy, especially when compared to the beauty of our long-time home in the mediaevial university city of St Andrews.
I popped back a few times and found myself outside the Brisbane Evangelical Church and knew in my spirit that this was to be our church. However, all these things need confirmation (Matt 18:16).
One day I was talking with one of my former games students, now studying at the Baptist College in my university. We were standing at the railway station when he said, 'OK, John, what's this about Largs?' At this word a train came in in front of us, going to "Largs"! We both laughed.
However, things were proving tough. Then the LORD spoke to me through The WORD. The words were 'act promptly'. So I made a determined effort to get our house ready around Spring 2008. I was still exhausted, but I knew we had to get our house ready to sell very quickly.
The LORD spoke again and said, 'signs and miracles' (Heb 2:4) would be used by Him to get us to Largs. The signs to 'Largs' kept appearing. Why would we need miracles?
We put our house on the market and it was sold in a flash to a family with cash. They made a decent but not generous offer and we both felt this was right. The estate agent wasn't so sure, but the 'act promptly' was in the back of my mind at all times. It always pays to obey God.
We went to see many houses in Largs, but were always disappointed by them. Nothing was clear & we weren't agreed. The 'two witnesses', my wife and myself, needed to be in agreement. We made one last charge, and decided to look at 5 houses in and around Largs. It was a long hike across the country, again. The first house was in Upper Skelmorlie, at the very top of the parish, 5 miles from Largs. It was a lovely old red sandstone building, deceptively large but would do fine. The second one (this begins to sound like a Goldilocks tale!) was too small, on a main road (not suitable for our old, fat cat, 'Mr Samson Poo'), but with gorgeous views towards the Isle of Arran. The third house was attached to a falling down house. We were really annoyed that estate agents could really be so dishonest, so we cancelled the viewing.
So, off uptown Largs for a cup of tea (me), coffee (Hazel) and a sticky bun (both). We sat in a silence and both agreed that the first house was indeed the house. We were agreed. We cancelled all the other viewings and went home to put our bid in.
Now, the house was on offer at a very low price. We put our bid in with a 24 hour limit. And waited. And waited. Days later we were told, 'There is another bidder and it goes to closing on Tuesday lunchtime.' I decided to bid another £30k. This felt right. If you are walking with Him, hearing and obeying Him become easier.
Tuesday lunchtime came and went. One hour later still no word. Something was very wrong. I knew the enemy was trying to stop me. Two Christian brothers bumped into me. The first one said, 'Phone the owner and ask him what is going on.' Amazingly, for me, I remember his name and called 118118. Amazingly they told me his number. I phoned it. Amazingly he answered it (he was usually posted away from home the previous weeks.) He told me, 'The estate agents are waiting for a higher bid.' I said, 'Thats not right. The closing date is passed!'
Then the second brother bumped into me and said, 'Call your lawyer.' I called him and he said, 'Thats not right. I'll call the estate agent.' Ten minutes later the owner called me and said, 'The house is yours!' I was exhausted and delighted.
This was a miracle upon a miracle upon a miracle, just as God had promised. Tutned out the estate agent (=the enemy) had tried to gazump my bid because the other bidder was offering more, but not cash, and the buyer wanted to accept my bid instead, cutting the estate agent's cut by a few pounds. She was frantically phoning the other bidder to get them to up their bid a bit more to take the house away from me. By God's good grace the phone went unanswered, until my lawyer phoned and threatened them with the entire force of the law.
Now, estate agents are evil, bad people. They certainly in that office in Largs. The enemy did not want us to get to Largs. But, the power of Almighty God is greater than the enemy's power (Job 33:12). Then we found out why we had to 'act promptly' - the entire British housing market crashed that week. if we hadn't marketed, sold and bought right when we did we would never have moved house. I don't want to even think what that would have meant. God loves His children and gives us good things. His grace is sufficient.
By signs and mircales we found ourselves in Largs. Or did we? We were moving to the village of Upper Skelmorlie 5 miles up the roadfrom the town of Largs. Then we got our 1900 title deeds, 'a house of red sandstone to be built in the settlement of Skelmorlie in the Parish of Largs.' And in Largs there is an old graveyard with the aisle of the old kirk where the people of Skelmorlie used to worship.
We are where God wants us to be. We are worshipping where He wants us to worship Him. What we don't yet know is why and for what purposes He has placed us here and in this wee church. I am sure that, as we wait, He will answer.
"Know therefore that the LORD your God is God. He is the fauthful God, keeping His covenant of love to thousands of generations of those who love Him and keep His commands. (Deut 7:9)
On the importance of belief and understanding
(previously posted in my video games blog, and removed here)
I'm not sure exactly how to react to those who were so upset by my anti-Dawkins blog. I had expected a solid flood of logic and scientific reasoning, but instead have found illogic and unscientific thought.
Science is a wonderful gift. The ability to deduce from repetition about the underlying nature of things via the scientific method is really wonderful. Without it we would not have aeroplanes, power stations, television or - shock! - video games. It is because we can do things repetitively that we understand nature to be regular and organised. And through our application of our understandings of the regular and organised nature of creation, so we can propose devices, from the steam engine to the mobile phone.
Every Science has its theoretical underpinnings. For Physics it is an ongoing feast of uncertainty, reminiscent of its old Scots university title: Natural Philosophy. Just today on BBC Radio 4 I heard a Physicist speak with enthusiasm about the possibility of demolishing some of their old theories and replacing them with new ones. I find Physics is like Rugby; once I understood it, but someone has changed the rules so often in the past few years that I don't get it any more from my first principles.
Physicists relish their uncertainty and the way their subject challenges our understandings of, frankly, everything: space, time, matter, energy, etc. The may be, as a PhD student at St Andrews once admitted, often only measuring the side-effects of their own experiments rather than something fundamentally true, but they feast on the feeling of not knowing where their subject is going.
My younger son is a Chemist. *sigh*. He finds his subject d-u-l-l. You see, there is nothing really new worth saying in Chemistry, and it is still mindset locked, he tells me, by the periodic table of the elements (devised by an apparently half-mad sex-fiend in a private lab in the middle of nowhere in deepest darkest Russia surrounded by female assistants .. hem hem!)
I am a Computer Scientist, and find the field endlessly fascinating. Its the applications of the technology and the use of Moore's Law to keep upping the ante while dropping the bucks per bang that makes this a wonderful field to be. Even if it has become rather stale in acadaemia in its attempts to achieve accepted status with the other sciences.
In my doctoral studies - into knowledge in CS education - I did a lot of Social Sciences. Mmmmmm. Dodgy stuff, by normal measures of Science. Kinda lost in a plethora of theories, politics, etc. But, doggedly plodding on in the hope of making some kind of sense to the amazingness that is human society. Mainly failing, but not for want of effort, and to be commended.
And that leaves my original field: Biology. What happened to it? In the 1970's it was a field of classification: kingdoms, genera, specie, etc. Now it has become an anti-religious rant of angry men writing pseudo- theological treatese that seem at times to have more akin with publications from The Jehovah's Witnesses or the late Senator McCarthy than with Science.
I've been pondering: why is this? I reckon the main reason is Biology's unfortunate accident as being the one Science which came head-to-head with religion in our times. It was a nasty battle, and is one which continues. Biology had Religion on the floor with some stunning evolutionary punches back in the late C19. But, it never gave Religion the death blow it required to end the battle. And this has left Biology in an uncomfortable position which some feel it necessary to defend.
But, this defence becomes ridiculous (literally) when Biology starts to make Theological statements of purpose, belief, meaning, life, the universe and everything. It is only Biology. We need Physics, Chemistry, Sociology, Psychology, Geography, Mathematics and even Computing Science too in order to make sense of our world. It is not necessary for Biology to try and explain everything; that's what we are all here for too - to help create understanding out of the utter and singular complexity that is life, the universe and everything.
Which brings me back to those who react with so little Science and Logic to the anti-Darwinian perspective. It is a perspective to an unprovable and transitory theory. It is in the nature of Science for theories to be challenged and where necessary to fall. I have never been there when an old theory fell, but I suspect it was something like we are seeing with the evolutionary Biologists: more heat than light, more abuse than reasoning, more threat than argument, more anger than calmness.
Of course, this is not something terrible which only afflicts Biologists. The great experts are Religionists. Intelligent Design is, IMHO, the ultimate straw man, for, if evolutionary Biology is inadequate as a final understanding of the nature of that great unknown: life; so why construct a theory designed explicitly to disprove something that will fall down of its own accord in due time, as all theories eventually fall. Put in Logical terms: don't attack what you perceive to be untrue using a lie packaged as a truth. Intelligent Design is more flawed than evolutionary theory, and so is not the Kuhnesque new paradigm which will ultimately replace the inherent dodginess which is evolutionary theory.
If evolutionary theory is eventually allowed out of its protected circle for open debate and discussion - as was allowed in the 1970's but is no longer permitted in some corners of acadaemia - and it then falls as being inadequate as an explanand, what replaces it? Unfortunately, history will tell us that subjects sometimes go into terminal decline when their meaning / belief systems / theories fail. And Biology is not alone in this crisis. In the wider academic world there are the Management Sciences (torn between being inherently capitalist but taught in statist environments) and Environmental Sciences (lost between the Scientifically unprovable but politically powerful paradigm of global climate change, and the neo-pagan religionists).
Subjects go through crises of confidence, some fail, some transform. Where did Philosophy go to when it became divorced from the Sciences? It is no longer a useful applicable subject and is now reduced to the fringes of the academe, despite once being 'the queen of the sciences'. Theology went through a similar crisis of confidence, not least brought on by the powerful and successful Darwinian attacks, and the end of Christendom in Europe brought about by a century of Anglo-Franco-German warfare. Theology had no easy answer to the 'where is God?' in the post-murderous wars of almost every year of last century.
So, why did Theology recover and bounce back. Partly it was due to the influx of knowledge on religions entering the UK. For to be ignorant of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc. is to be ignorant of the people of Britain. Also, partly to a new-found confidence in their religion by many Christians.
Where did this confidence spring from? After all, Christianity in the UK continues in a slow decline. But it shows no signs of disappearing, indeed is thriving in many places and individual churches. Of course, John, you'd say that wouldn't you, you're a Christian. Yes, but I am Scientist and so doubly unable to easily lie, for truth, not lies, are fundamental to knowing as well as believing.
As a Scientist, with a thirst for knowledge, I love exploring the more bizarre edges of life. The kinds of things that are not reported in journals as they go beyond the accepted world as we would perceive it. The kind of things that are best ignored by Atheists as these facts are not congruent with the pure rationalist view of life, the universe and everything.
I have a friend who has powers to heal. He is a senior academic at a university in Dundee. He goes out with his group in St Andrews and holds healing meetings. And people are healed. Not the kinda John Cleese-esque 'I got better' line when he turned back from being turned into a newt by a witch. He prayed with a Muslim friend with a dislocated shoulder; the shoulder clicked and moved five times, painlessly, and the shoulder was OK. He prayed for a woman with heart problems; an invisible hand (seen only by the movement of the woman's chest) manipulated the heart. He prayed for a long-term wheelchair bound woman; she jumped up and ran around shouting. These were in July. This man has his PhD, designed one of our most important government database systems, is an expert in his field, and can be seen doing this stuff for those who want to attend - or want to be healed.
The easiest thing for the Atheist to say is: rubbish; it never happened. This isn't the logical answer. The logical answer is to investigate further and find out what happened. Maybe there is another explanation than the one from Religion, but saying poo-poo like General Hogmanay Melchett doesn't butter any scones.
For the curious there is also the astounding appearances of the Virgin Mary - hang on in there, I'm not going to mention images on Christ in a chipatti in Bangalore ! - over a church a few years ago in Egypt. It was broadcast on television, there is video imagery of it on youtube, tens of thousands of people saw it. Her message was apparently that Christians and Muslims should live together peacefully. And they do in Egypt, despite the continued growth of the Christian church in that country. Again, rather than say something derogatory like an Ozzie sledging an English cricketer, the Scientific thing to do is to investigate fully and to attempt to understand and explain.
Perhaps the strangest one which I have no clear explanation for is the appearances of the Virgin Mary in Fatima in Portugal. The appearances were so regular that the world's press turned up. Atheist reporters, as well as the tens of thousands of believers and the curious present, noted some astounding events: her appearance, petals falling from the sky, perfume in the air, the sun dancing, etc. Again, I am not saying these are any proof for Religion (for that is not the nature of religious belief or faith). I just find these intriguing and almost irrefutable, unless everyone involved is an utter liar or it was all an unprecedented sequence of mass sensory delusions. Like Dawkins explanations of life, the universe and everything, I find these inadequate explanations for the reportage of honest people.
You see, there are areas of competence in each academic subject field. In some ways these are like individual lenses upon the one great reality. In many places they overlap and complement each other. In many cases they contradict each other. In most cases they are an amalgam of internal contradications (for example 'evolution' is not one single theory nor does it accord with other known Scientific theories or observations.)
You can't expect Computer Science to comment upon kids who kill after playing violent video games. When I comment on these I have changed my hat and become an Ethicist (but only because I have specific knowledge and training in this area.) You can't expect Physicists to comment on the role of nuclear power station in sustainability (that's for politicians and fringe groups). You can't expect Biologists to comment meaningfully on the future of a UK society of mixed races and religions (that's for politicians and theologians.)
So, I see a continued useful and sustained role for Theology. Because there is no sign that the role and place of Religion in our personal, national and international positions will decrease. Indeed, as our Christianity continues to become of the Evangelical kind (recent demographics say that the UK is becoming a primarily Baptist Christian country), and as British Muslims seek an expression beyond Pakistani militantism, so we need those who understand the place and role of Religion in the lives of believers. After all, I am one; I may well be an academic, but I am a Christian first and foremost.
But, Biology worries me. Is it being hijacked by the Atheist crew as a stick to beat Religion with? If so, I see no real harm being done to Religion. Instead there is increasing, if as yet anecdotal, evidence that Dawkins and his cronies are creating a cringe in other academics (not just in his field) and even in other atheists.
Religion is a wall that has been around since the beginning of mankind. The majority of the world's population are religious. In many advanced and advancing countries Religion continues to increase: China, South America, Korea, Russia, America. If you beat a stick against a wall, it is rarely the wall that falls apart first. And the real loser in this game could only be Biology.
No, if atheists wish to attack religion - why? - then they should stop using proxies and tackle the issues and merits of the cases head-on. But, then again, I wouldn't, even as a convinced and converted Christian, want to even attempt to take on any of the world's major religions or their religionists as, frankly, it is a battle that cannot be won.
I'm not sure exactly how to react to those who were so upset by my anti-Dawkins blog. I had expected a solid flood of logic and scientific reasoning, but instead have found illogic and unscientific thought.
Science is a wonderful gift. The ability to deduce from repetition about the underlying nature of things via the scientific method is really wonderful. Without it we would not have aeroplanes, power stations, television or - shock! - video games. It is because we can do things repetitively that we understand nature to be regular and organised. And through our application of our understandings of the regular and organised nature of creation, so we can propose devices, from the steam engine to the mobile phone.
Every Science has its theoretical underpinnings. For Physics it is an ongoing feast of uncertainty, reminiscent of its old Scots university title: Natural Philosophy. Just today on BBC Radio 4 I heard a Physicist speak with enthusiasm about the possibility of demolishing some of their old theories and replacing them with new ones. I find Physics is like Rugby; once I understood it, but someone has changed the rules so often in the past few years that I don't get it any more from my first principles.
Physicists relish their uncertainty and the way their subject challenges our understandings of, frankly, everything: space, time, matter, energy, etc. The may be, as a PhD student at St Andrews once admitted, often only measuring the side-effects of their own experiments rather than something fundamentally true, but they feast on the feeling of not knowing where their subject is going.
My younger son is a Chemist. *sigh*. He finds his subject d-u-l-l. You see, there is nothing really new worth saying in Chemistry, and it is still mindset locked, he tells me, by the periodic table of the elements (devised by an apparently half-mad sex-fiend in a private lab in the middle of nowhere in deepest darkest Russia surrounded by female assistants .. hem hem!)
I am a Computer Scientist, and find the field endlessly fascinating. Its the applications of the technology and the use of Moore's Law to keep upping the ante while dropping the bucks per bang that makes this a wonderful field to be. Even if it has become rather stale in acadaemia in its attempts to achieve accepted status with the other sciences.
In my doctoral studies - into knowledge in CS education - I did a lot of Social Sciences. Mmmmmm. Dodgy stuff, by normal measures of Science. Kinda lost in a plethora of theories, politics, etc. But, doggedly plodding on in the hope of making some kind of sense to the amazingness that is human society. Mainly failing, but not for want of effort, and to be commended.
And that leaves my original field: Biology. What happened to it? In the 1970's it was a field of classification: kingdoms, genera, specie, etc. Now it has become an anti-religious rant of angry men writing pseudo- theological treatese that seem at times to have more akin with publications from The Jehovah's Witnesses or the late Senator McCarthy than with Science.
I've been pondering: why is this? I reckon the main reason is Biology's unfortunate accident as being the one Science which came head-to-head with religion in our times. It was a nasty battle, and is one which continues. Biology had Religion on the floor with some stunning evolutionary punches back in the late C19. But, it never gave Religion the death blow it required to end the battle. And this has left Biology in an uncomfortable position which some feel it necessary to defend.
But, this defence becomes ridiculous (literally) when Biology starts to make Theological statements of purpose, belief, meaning, life, the universe and everything. It is only Biology. We need Physics, Chemistry, Sociology, Psychology, Geography, Mathematics and even Computing Science too in order to make sense of our world. It is not necessary for Biology to try and explain everything; that's what we are all here for too - to help create understanding out of the utter and singular complexity that is life, the universe and everything.
Which brings me back to those who react with so little Science and Logic to the anti-Darwinian perspective. It is a perspective to an unprovable and transitory theory. It is in the nature of Science for theories to be challenged and where necessary to fall. I have never been there when an old theory fell, but I suspect it was something like we are seeing with the evolutionary Biologists: more heat than light, more abuse than reasoning, more threat than argument, more anger than calmness.
Of course, this is not something terrible which only afflicts Biologists. The great experts are Religionists. Intelligent Design is, IMHO, the ultimate straw man, for, if evolutionary Biology is inadequate as a final understanding of the nature of that great unknown: life; so why construct a theory designed explicitly to disprove something that will fall down of its own accord in due time, as all theories eventually fall. Put in Logical terms: don't attack what you perceive to be untrue using a lie packaged as a truth. Intelligent Design is more flawed than evolutionary theory, and so is not the Kuhnesque new paradigm which will ultimately replace the inherent dodginess which is evolutionary theory.
If evolutionary theory is eventually allowed out of its protected circle for open debate and discussion - as was allowed in the 1970's but is no longer permitted in some corners of acadaemia - and it then falls as being inadequate as an explanand, what replaces it? Unfortunately, history will tell us that subjects sometimes go into terminal decline when their meaning / belief systems / theories fail. And Biology is not alone in this crisis. In the wider academic world there are the Management Sciences (torn between being inherently capitalist but taught in statist environments) and Environmental Sciences (lost between the Scientifically unprovable but politically powerful paradigm of global climate change, and the neo-pagan religionists).
Subjects go through crises of confidence, some fail, some transform. Where did Philosophy go to when it became divorced from the Sciences? It is no longer a useful applicable subject and is now reduced to the fringes of the academe, despite once being 'the queen of the sciences'. Theology went through a similar crisis of confidence, not least brought on by the powerful and successful Darwinian attacks, and the end of Christendom in Europe brought about by a century of Anglo-Franco-German warfare. Theology had no easy answer to the 'where is God?' in the post-murderous wars of almost every year of last century.
So, why did Theology recover and bounce back. Partly it was due to the influx of knowledge on religions entering the UK. For to be ignorant of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, etc. is to be ignorant of the people of Britain. Also, partly to a new-found confidence in their religion by many Christians.
Where did this confidence spring from? After all, Christianity in the UK continues in a slow decline. But it shows no signs of disappearing, indeed is thriving in many places and individual churches. Of course, John, you'd say that wouldn't you, you're a Christian. Yes, but I am Scientist and so doubly unable to easily lie, for truth, not lies, are fundamental to knowing as well as believing.
As a Scientist, with a thirst for knowledge, I love exploring the more bizarre edges of life. The kinds of things that are not reported in journals as they go beyond the accepted world as we would perceive it. The kind of things that are best ignored by Atheists as these facts are not congruent with the pure rationalist view of life, the universe and everything.
I have a friend who has powers to heal. He is a senior academic at a university in Dundee. He goes out with his group in St Andrews and holds healing meetings. And people are healed. Not the kinda John Cleese-esque 'I got better' line when he turned back from being turned into a newt by a witch. He prayed with a Muslim friend with a dislocated shoulder; the shoulder clicked and moved five times, painlessly, and the shoulder was OK. He prayed for a woman with heart problems; an invisible hand (seen only by the movement of the woman's chest) manipulated the heart. He prayed for a long-term wheelchair bound woman; she jumped up and ran around shouting. These were in July. This man has his PhD, designed one of our most important government database systems, is an expert in his field, and can be seen doing this stuff for those who want to attend - or want to be healed.
The easiest thing for the Atheist to say is: rubbish; it never happened. This isn't the logical answer. The logical answer is to investigate further and find out what happened. Maybe there is another explanation than the one from Religion, but saying poo-poo like General Hogmanay Melchett doesn't butter any scones.
For the curious there is also the astounding appearances of the Virgin Mary - hang on in there, I'm not going to mention images on Christ in a chipatti in Bangalore ! - over a church a few years ago in Egypt. It was broadcast on television, there is video imagery of it on youtube, tens of thousands of people saw it. Her message was apparently that Christians and Muslims should live together peacefully. And they do in Egypt, despite the continued growth of the Christian church in that country. Again, rather than say something derogatory like an Ozzie sledging an English cricketer, the Scientific thing to do is to investigate fully and to attempt to understand and explain.
Perhaps the strangest one which I have no clear explanation for is the appearances of the Virgin Mary in Fatima in Portugal. The appearances were so regular that the world's press turned up. Atheist reporters, as well as the tens of thousands of believers and the curious present, noted some astounding events: her appearance, petals falling from the sky, perfume in the air, the sun dancing, etc. Again, I am not saying these are any proof for Religion (for that is not the nature of religious belief or faith). I just find these intriguing and almost irrefutable, unless everyone involved is an utter liar or it was all an unprecedented sequence of mass sensory delusions. Like Dawkins explanations of life, the universe and everything, I find these inadequate explanations for the reportage of honest people.
You see, there are areas of competence in each academic subject field. In some ways these are like individual lenses upon the one great reality. In many places they overlap and complement each other. In many cases they contradict each other. In most cases they are an amalgam of internal contradications (for example 'evolution' is not one single theory nor does it accord with other known Scientific theories or observations.)
You can't expect Computer Science to comment upon kids who kill after playing violent video games. When I comment on these I have changed my hat and become an Ethicist (but only because I have specific knowledge and training in this area.) You can't expect Physicists to comment on the role of nuclear power station in sustainability (that's for politicians and fringe groups). You can't expect Biologists to comment meaningfully on the future of a UK society of mixed races and religions (that's for politicians and theologians.)
So, I see a continued useful and sustained role for Theology. Because there is no sign that the role and place of Religion in our personal, national and international positions will decrease. Indeed, as our Christianity continues to become of the Evangelical kind (recent demographics say that the UK is becoming a primarily Baptist Christian country), and as British Muslims seek an expression beyond Pakistani militantism, so we need those who understand the place and role of Religion in the lives of believers. After all, I am one; I may well be an academic, but I am a Christian first and foremost.
But, Biology worries me. Is it being hijacked by the Atheist crew as a stick to beat Religion with? If so, I see no real harm being done to Religion. Instead there is increasing, if as yet anecdotal, evidence that Dawkins and his cronies are creating a cringe in other academics (not just in his field) and even in other atheists.
Religion is a wall that has been around since the beginning of mankind. The majority of the world's population are religious. In many advanced and advancing countries Religion continues to increase: China, South America, Korea, Russia, America. If you beat a stick against a wall, it is rarely the wall that falls apart first. And the real loser in this game could only be Biology.
No, if atheists wish to attack religion - why? - then they should stop using proxies and tackle the issues and merits of the cases head-on. But, then again, I wouldn't, even as a convinced and converted Christian, want to even attempt to take on any of the world's major religions or their religionists as, frankly, it is a battle that cannot be won.
responses to my words on Mr R Dawkins
1.
'It is simply inadequate.'
Translation: Any answer is better than no answer.
I'm sorry if you are not satisfied that we can't fully explain everything in this wonderful, natural world just yet. But I promise, we're working very hard on it.
Your God of the Gaps is quickly running out of places to hide. And the youth of this world, like me and all my friends, are fully aware of the BS that religions the world over have been fermenting for eons. All these silly religions are headed for the waste bin of history where they belong. And the world will be a better place for it!
Cheers!
-------
my response:
Darron S,
I am a scientist and I have no doubt at all that Science will never ever be able to explain any more than a small part of what we perceive. That is it's track record. For example, no-one can ever know what is actually present and going on in a single teaspoon of living soil. It is beyond our ken.
Also, data that does not easily fit theory is rejected as a matter of training. We are trained as Scientists to seek data that fits theory, and reject data that does not fit theory.
That Science is a belief system was well documented by Thomas Kuhn in his seminal tome, 'the nature of scientific revolutions.' He called the scientific top-dog theory a 'paradigm' (indeed, he defined this meaning) and said the current theory stays until a mew, better one arrives.
Indeed, this is to be expected as Science grew out of the Christian tradition and so reflects theological concerns with written evidence, right-thinking and peer review. Science is an 'imprimatur' driven creed.
One day, the history of science tells us, evolutionary biology will cease to be top dog. In Physics we have seen the rise and fall of many models of reality in the course of several thousand years (even in the past century Einstein's work has been seen to be inadequate.)
As to Dawkins, to quote Shakespeare: methinks you do protest too much.
As to 'any answer is better than no answer.' Really? Ever tried that in an examination and seen if you get marks?
==========
2.
Clearly you have excelled in what Prof. Dawkins regards as child abuse. As a roman catholic no doubt you think 'a good job' in indoctrinating your young daughter to reject even the study of evolution as an alternative to your own 'belief' system,.
If evolution is indeed a belief it, at least, is a scientific belief whereas your belief is a theological one.
The difference is that the former is supported by a body of evidence which can be questioned, tested, verified and in some areas changed and discarded in light of new research adding to the body of evidence.
Religious belief, on the other hand, is purely based on faith with no support of evidence.
What evolution shows is that it is unnecessary to postulate the existence of a god or other 'super' being or power to explain the diversity and beauty of life and the natural world we see all around us.
Sad that truth and knowledge is so easily side-stepped for the sake of dogma.
-------
my response:
Vigilant Watcher,
Mmmm. Many, many straw men. A quite unscientific tirade, may I say. This is the problem with defenders of Scientism; they so easily become abusive and hurtful in defence of their ideas. It's a like reading religious fundamentalism.
To take your points, nonetheless. Almost nobody accepts Dawkins definition of child abuse; this is from the school of Humpty Dumpty definitions (no, this is not abuse, check your Lewis Carroll).
I accept your statement that evolution is a belief, but not your definition of religious belief. Perhaps I have an advantage being a Scientist, formerly an atheist and now a Christian. I know where you are coming from, but I would suggest you lack enough information on the nature of religious belief and are tilting at windmills.
Something to consider: if evolution is, as we agree, a belief system. That is, something that cannot be 100% proved beyond doubt. Then, what if you are wrong? For, if I am right in my belief system, then you are destined for eternity in hell and I for heaven. Again, this is not abuse, just a straight position of comparative belief systems.
===========
3. This is simply a brilliant piece and I congratulate you on it.
I have been chary of Dawkins's diatribes for over 20 years since his television series where he charged round the world seeking the most arcane Christian religious practices and turning to camera at the end to say 'See, there is no God.'
In all his 'proofs' that there is no God there's seems to be be no logic. And the points about the logic underpinning Dawkinsian evolution are the great mass of assumptions he takes for fact.
But in the argument over proofs there is one fact quite missed by Dawkinsians, which is perhaps the ultimate failure of logic ;-).
Science and logic are specifically - and by definition - about the material world which can be seen felt measured and subjected to testing.
Religious belief, God and arcane matters [Dawkins latest target with his friend French] are by definition not material. Ideas that materialist proof systems can be applied to the proof or disproof of God are therefore fundamentally illogical. Not to mention that there is actually no conflict between a process of development and the existence of God.
Were I drinking, John, I would raise my glass to you.
Joseph Harris
-------
my response:
The glass to raise is the covenant wine of His blood. Let us drink this always in memory of Him who died, rose again and will return to judge the living and the dead. For I am a simple servant of God, as are you. We are no better than Darron or VW (anon) above.
It's an inadequate analogy, but before I read Evelyn Waugh I did not know that written English could be so sublime. Before I met the Living Christ I had no idea that God was, or that He is love.
To those who have not yet met Jesus Christ I can only say: insufficient data, more research required!
'It is simply inadequate.'
Translation: Any answer is better than no answer.
I'm sorry if you are not satisfied that we can't fully explain everything in this wonderful, natural world just yet. But I promise, we're working very hard on it.
Your God of the Gaps is quickly running out of places to hide. And the youth of this world, like me and all my friends, are fully aware of the BS that religions the world over have been fermenting for eons. All these silly religions are headed for the waste bin of history where they belong. And the world will be a better place for it!
Cheers!
-------
my response:
Darron S,
I am a scientist and I have no doubt at all that Science will never ever be able to explain any more than a small part of what we perceive. That is it's track record. For example, no-one can ever know what is actually present and going on in a single teaspoon of living soil. It is beyond our ken.
Also, data that does not easily fit theory is rejected as a matter of training. We are trained as Scientists to seek data that fits theory, and reject data that does not fit theory.
That Science is a belief system was well documented by Thomas Kuhn in his seminal tome, 'the nature of scientific revolutions.' He called the scientific top-dog theory a 'paradigm' (indeed, he defined this meaning) and said the current theory stays until a mew, better one arrives.
Indeed, this is to be expected as Science grew out of the Christian tradition and so reflects theological concerns with written evidence, right-thinking and peer review. Science is an 'imprimatur' driven creed.
One day, the history of science tells us, evolutionary biology will cease to be top dog. In Physics we have seen the rise and fall of many models of reality in the course of several thousand years (even in the past century Einstein's work has been seen to be inadequate.)
As to Dawkins, to quote Shakespeare: methinks you do protest too much.
As to 'any answer is better than no answer.' Really? Ever tried that in an examination and seen if you get marks?
==========
2.
Clearly you have excelled in what Prof. Dawkins regards as child abuse. As a roman catholic no doubt you think 'a good job' in indoctrinating your young daughter to reject even the study of evolution as an alternative to your own 'belief' system,.
If evolution is indeed a belief it, at least, is a scientific belief whereas your belief is a theological one.
The difference is that the former is supported by a body of evidence which can be questioned, tested, verified and in some areas changed and discarded in light of new research adding to the body of evidence.
Religious belief, on the other hand, is purely based on faith with no support of evidence.
What evolution shows is that it is unnecessary to postulate the existence of a god or other 'super' being or power to explain the diversity and beauty of life and the natural world we see all around us.
Sad that truth and knowledge is so easily side-stepped for the sake of dogma.
-------
my response:
Vigilant Watcher,
Mmmm. Many, many straw men. A quite unscientific tirade, may I say. This is the problem with defenders of Scientism; they so easily become abusive and hurtful in defence of their ideas. It's a like reading religious fundamentalism.
To take your points, nonetheless. Almost nobody accepts Dawkins definition of child abuse; this is from the school of Humpty Dumpty definitions (no, this is not abuse, check your Lewis Carroll).
I accept your statement that evolution is a belief, but not your definition of religious belief. Perhaps I have an advantage being a Scientist, formerly an atheist and now a Christian. I know where you are coming from, but I would suggest you lack enough information on the nature of religious belief and are tilting at windmills.
Something to consider: if evolution is, as we agree, a belief system. That is, something that cannot be 100% proved beyond doubt. Then, what if you are wrong? For, if I am right in my belief system, then you are destined for eternity in hell and I for heaven. Again, this is not abuse, just a straight position of comparative belief systems.
===========
3. This is simply a brilliant piece and I congratulate you on it.
I have been chary of Dawkins's diatribes for over 20 years since his television series where he charged round the world seeking the most arcane Christian religious practices and turning to camera at the end to say 'See, there is no God.'
In all his 'proofs' that there is no God there's seems to be be no logic. And the points about the logic underpinning Dawkinsian evolution are the great mass of assumptions he takes for fact.
But in the argument over proofs there is one fact quite missed by Dawkinsians, which is perhaps the ultimate failure of logic ;-).
Science and logic are specifically - and by definition - about the material world which can be seen felt measured and subjected to testing.
Religious belief, God and arcane matters [Dawkins latest target with his friend French] are by definition not material. Ideas that materialist proof systems can be applied to the proof or disproof of God are therefore fundamentally illogical. Not to mention that there is actually no conflict between a process of development and the existence of God.
Were I drinking, John, I would raise my glass to you.
Joseph Harris
-------
my response:
The glass to raise is the covenant wine of His blood. Let us drink this always in memory of Him who died, rose again and will return to judge the living and the dead. For I am a simple servant of God, as are you. We are no better than Darron or VW (anon) above.
It's an inadequate analogy, but before I read Evelyn Waugh I did not know that written English could be so sublime. Before I met the Living Christ I had no idea that God was, or that He is love.
To those who have not yet met Jesus Christ I can only say: insufficient data, more research required!
On the inadequacy of Richard Dawkins
(originally published on my other blog list (video games!) and moved here, where it belongs)
There comes a time to be deeply personal in a blog. I walked into Borders in Weegieland last week and saw the latest of Dawkins' offerings. Every now and then someone decides they have found the answer to life, the universe and everything and steps out to convert everyone else to their viewpoint. And, as one of Dawkins allies put it on BBC Radio 4, everyone who believes something else or doesn't believe what Dawkins believes is, quite simply, mad.
What is this human need to be oh so right? Why do we seek ultimate truth and total understanding? Why do we not look into the history of ideas and see instead little Dawkins-ites popping up so regularly, causing more damage than good, more hurt than balm, more suffering than healing? What is it about humans that makes us so inadequate to the possibility - indeed, probability - that we are wrong.
One of the great human errors is to think that I am somehow at the turning point of thought and have come to that great realisation of truth. And so we must beat everyone else about the head to get them to start thinking right. To remove the inadequacy of thought in others.
Sometimes, when humans find the ultimate truth (or, rather, their own version of it) it is relatively harmless, at other times it is very nasty indeed. Without making any parallels beyond this, Jesus Christ's preaching on love (try the beatitudes) and God's seeking after man, the Buddha's offering of a way to personal enlightenment, the non-violence of the Mahatma do not create monsters in their true followers. (OK, I know that the Crusaders were Christians and the Japanese in WW2 were Buddhists; pace.) At other times this finding of ultimate truth can be immensely destructive, such as Marxism and Naziism (Marx's scornful words on 'the lumpen masses' were rarely recited by his followers.)
Other I-found-the-truth believers mainly cause themselves great harm. Such as David Ike deciding he is the son of God (OK, it caused almost irrepperable damage to the political green cause in the UK) or a son or daughter being lost to the Moonies.
What we believe and how we live out our beliefs affect ourselves, our nearest'n'dearest, and wider society. And this effect can be for better or worse. After all, Jesus Christ died at the age of 30 in a most horrific way, as well detailed by Mel Gibson. Belief in his resurrection from the dead led his closest followers to die terrible deaths too. Ouch!
I wonder on what measure Richard Dawkins measures the adequacy of his belief system. For belief system it is. Indeed, I am sure that, if he wanted to, he could easily refute every one of his positions and truths. This must be true because those at least as intelligent and far more eminent than him, such as Lord Robert Winston again recently on BBC Radio 4, have done so already. So Richard Dawkins could surely deal openly with the inadequacy of his own beliefs.
The problem is one of whether or not an explanation is adequate. In the eyes of many, the scientism and evolutionism of Dawkins et al simply isn't adequate. I was originally trained as a Biologist at the University of Glasgow and always had, even as an atheist, problems with evolutionary theory. Read that again carefully - even as an atheist I found it inadequate to explain scientifically and probabilistically what I see in the animal world (sorry vegetables, my Botany was pretty poor so, like brussels sprouts at Christmas, I'll put you to the side of my plate for now.)
My 15-year old daughter caught the dilemma well: 'daddy, I simply don't believe in evolution.' She was down to read it to Higher at school and saw how central this tenet of belief had become to the subject. So, she has dropped Biology in favour of History. Is it possible that Dawkins et al are beginning to create an isolationist bubble around their subject?
There is no proof - again read that again carefully - that evolution, the changing of species to species, takes place. There is ample proof of variation within species (e.g. in humans!) and of breeding boundaries between species (e.g. seagulls down the European Atlantic seaboard.) But, that one species changes into another one? None.
Also, blind change produces degeneracy not complexity and greater adaptability. To believe otherwise is to believe otherwise to logic. There are a host of other problems with evolution. The problem is that if you stated any doubts or contrary proofs in a Biology exam I bet you'd fail.
Again, it comes back to evolutionary scientism being a belief system. I should know because I had more than a foot in the camp for many years. It's just that the rock I was standing on kept wobbling - or I kept wobbling it - until I fell off. As a former atheist turned Christian, am I now mad or bad? Is Lord Robert Winston, who has created so many human lives in his in vitro fertilisation labs, who also left his youthful atheism for real Judaism also mad and bad?
The names of the potentially mad and bad who do not believe what Dawkins et al want us all to believe probably outnumber him and his friends. But, the real issue is that Dawkins et al really, really, really (to quote Shrek) believe that what they think and believe is true. This has taken them across a dangerous boundary where they have lost that natural human attribute: humility. Or, as Cromwell put it: to think it possible that you might be wrong.
Basiclly, Dawkins et al's creed is, IMHO, inadequate to explain what we know and see. It can't explain humanity in all its current, past and future complexity and un-understandability. Indeed, if you think you understand enough to believe you know (but, of course, Dawkins 'knows') what is going on, then your knowledge is of a poor and insubstantial kind (to quote Lord Kelvin.)
There are things we know and which we cannot grasp. That we know exist but we cannot prove exist. These things are often the most fundamental: love, life, death, etc. I know that I love my kids and I love my wife. But nobody can prove this. I know that I am alive. But nobody can prove this. I know I will one day be dead. But nobody can prove this.
I know there are good forms of love (a mum correcting her kids at a road crossing) and poor forms of love (e.g. nationalism.) I know that there is good life (e.g. teaching or nursing) and bad life (e.g. drug dealing or pimping.) I know that there is good death (e.g. running onto a road to push a kid away from a bus) and bad death (e.g. drowning in alcohol-induced vomit.)
I know that things exist in our perceptions. Ask yourself: what is Tesco? Russia? a train timetable?
And in all of these things I understand that Dawkins has an answer which involves scientism, propositonal logic and evolutionary theory. And, in all of them his answer is inadequate to explain to the clear and deep satisfaction of his readers that what he thinks is true and right and the only possible explanation for what we see around us.
In this, Dawkins' scientism is competing in a global world of isms. Roman Catholocism is the world's biggest ism. Islam is next. Hunduism next. Protestantism next. The somewhere down the line 5,000 years of Buddhism appears, with 3,500 years of Judaism. Each of these has a central tenet that, in modern terms, your mileage may vary. OK, in practice their followers have (had) difficulty grasping this difficult concept: that it is a faith they believe to be true, but cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
As I watch Dawkins et al producing their increasing pile of tomes on why-we-are-right-and-you-are-wrong, I worry what they will do once they can't convince everyone that they are the way, the truth and the life. Have a glance at history and you will see a four-way split that ideologues go for: acceptance of difference, loss of personal faith, decline of religion or violent enforcing of their view. Marxism was a way of thinking about the creation and ownership of wealth, that became unbelievably violent (nobody knows how many it killed), it's followers then went through lip service, before it utterly disappeared into the dustbin of history.
Judaism has seen its phases of acceptance of other belief systems, violent overthrow of them, loss of faith, but is still around 3,500 years on from Abraham meeting with Yahweh. Much similar can be said for the other belief systems, or religions if you prefer.
Dawkinsesque Atheism is another belief system. And, anthropologically, historically and sociologically it will go through the same processes of, dare I say it, evolution as the other systems. Dawkins is its St Paul, writing his letters of encouragement to his followers. But where, o where, in all of what he writes is something to compare with Judaism's 23rd Psalm (on God the personal shepherd) or Christianity's 1Cor 13 (on love)?
I know Muslims who claim that Islam is a religion of love (but I am not yet convinced either historically or theologically). Judaism states that 'Gods love endures forever'. Buddhists claim to be able to find a peace. I have a good friend who is a devout Hindu, who finds the Gospel of St John utterly sublime ('For God so loved the world ...') But, where is the love in Atheism?
Also, previous isms claim to have a way to create a better world. How do Dawkins' beliefs create a better place? One of the deepest inadequacies of evolutionary biology is it's belief in nature red in tooth and claw. It is a truism that this formed a central core to applied Naziism: that one people are better than others so the weaker ones must die. And this included those of inadequate belief systems (like Jehovah's Witnesses) as well of those of inadequate lifestyles (like homosexuals) and poorer genetic material (like gypsies, Poles and Jews.)
Again, this points to the inadequacy of Dawkinsesque atheism and scientism as something worth betting your life on. Would anyone who is a follower of Dawkins die for his beliefs, as St Stephen did at the feet of the mob with their stones? When put to torture and asked to spit on the works of their master, would any of them rather die as many Chinese Christians have done in the past twenty years?
Unfortunately, if given enough rope and enough followers the answer would be: yes. The vast majority of Germans woke up from Naziism as if from a very, very bad dream, or a hell of a hangover in a prison cell. But, some really truly believed in it and would rather die. Some killed their children rather than see them live in a non-Nazi state. Others shot themselves. But, most simply walked away.
Belief systems attract the genuine, the curious, the intelligent, the questioners, and the deep believers. I have mine and you, whether you recognise it or not, do also. For example, there is a majority of Scots probably who now believe Scotland would be better off as an independant-from-England country. There is absolutely no proof that this would be true. They just believe it is, and that's why I am not in their camp any more. It is an inadequate belief.
I am a Christian, and I have a good friend who is a Baptist minister's wife. She reckons the real problem with Islam is that it is plausible. Another friend, a Christian leader, reckons that if she weren't a Christian she'd be a Jew because the Old Testament is just so good. me, I'm happy being a confused Roman Catholic who attends an evangelical Protestant church.
You see, it all returns to this question of adequacy. From where I stand, and from where many, many others stand, Dawkinsism is simply an inadequate explanation for life, the universe and everything. It simple does not go far enough, nor is it complete enough or logical enough to withstand deep inspection.
It is simply inadequate.
There comes a time to be deeply personal in a blog. I walked into Borders in Weegieland last week and saw the latest of Dawkins' offerings. Every now and then someone decides they have found the answer to life, the universe and everything and steps out to convert everyone else to their viewpoint. And, as one of Dawkins allies put it on BBC Radio 4, everyone who believes something else or doesn't believe what Dawkins believes is, quite simply, mad.
What is this human need to be oh so right? Why do we seek ultimate truth and total understanding? Why do we not look into the history of ideas and see instead little Dawkins-ites popping up so regularly, causing more damage than good, more hurt than balm, more suffering than healing? What is it about humans that makes us so inadequate to the possibility - indeed, probability - that we are wrong.
One of the great human errors is to think that I am somehow at the turning point of thought and have come to that great realisation of truth. And so we must beat everyone else about the head to get them to start thinking right. To remove the inadequacy of thought in others.
Sometimes, when humans find the ultimate truth (or, rather, their own version of it) it is relatively harmless, at other times it is very nasty indeed. Without making any parallels beyond this, Jesus Christ's preaching on love (try the beatitudes) and God's seeking after man, the Buddha's offering of a way to personal enlightenment, the non-violence of the Mahatma do not create monsters in their true followers. (OK, I know that the Crusaders were Christians and the Japanese in WW2 were Buddhists; pace.) At other times this finding of ultimate truth can be immensely destructive, such as Marxism and Naziism (Marx's scornful words on 'the lumpen masses' were rarely recited by his followers.)
Other I-found-the-truth believers mainly cause themselves great harm. Such as David Ike deciding he is the son of God (OK, it caused almost irrepperable damage to the political green cause in the UK) or a son or daughter being lost to the Moonies.
What we believe and how we live out our beliefs affect ourselves, our nearest'n'dearest, and wider society. And this effect can be for better or worse. After all, Jesus Christ died at the age of 30 in a most horrific way, as well detailed by Mel Gibson. Belief in his resurrection from the dead led his closest followers to die terrible deaths too. Ouch!
I wonder on what measure Richard Dawkins measures the adequacy of his belief system. For belief system it is. Indeed, I am sure that, if he wanted to, he could easily refute every one of his positions and truths. This must be true because those at least as intelligent and far more eminent than him, such as Lord Robert Winston again recently on BBC Radio 4, have done so already. So Richard Dawkins could surely deal openly with the inadequacy of his own beliefs.
The problem is one of whether or not an explanation is adequate. In the eyes of many, the scientism and evolutionism of Dawkins et al simply isn't adequate. I was originally trained as a Biologist at the University of Glasgow and always had, even as an atheist, problems with evolutionary theory. Read that again carefully - even as an atheist I found it inadequate to explain scientifically and probabilistically what I see in the animal world (sorry vegetables, my Botany was pretty poor so, like brussels sprouts at Christmas, I'll put you to the side of my plate for now.)
My 15-year old daughter caught the dilemma well: 'daddy, I simply don't believe in evolution.' She was down to read it to Higher at school and saw how central this tenet of belief had become to the subject. So, she has dropped Biology in favour of History. Is it possible that Dawkins et al are beginning to create an isolationist bubble around their subject?
There is no proof - again read that again carefully - that evolution, the changing of species to species, takes place. There is ample proof of variation within species (e.g. in humans!) and of breeding boundaries between species (e.g. seagulls down the European Atlantic seaboard.) But, that one species changes into another one? None.
Also, blind change produces degeneracy not complexity and greater adaptability. To believe otherwise is to believe otherwise to logic. There are a host of other problems with evolution. The problem is that if you stated any doubts or contrary proofs in a Biology exam I bet you'd fail.
Again, it comes back to evolutionary scientism being a belief system. I should know because I had more than a foot in the camp for many years. It's just that the rock I was standing on kept wobbling - or I kept wobbling it - until I fell off. As a former atheist turned Christian, am I now mad or bad? Is Lord Robert Winston, who has created so many human lives in his in vitro fertilisation labs, who also left his youthful atheism for real Judaism also mad and bad?
The names of the potentially mad and bad who do not believe what Dawkins et al want us all to believe probably outnumber him and his friends. But, the real issue is that Dawkins et al really, really, really (to quote Shrek) believe that what they think and believe is true. This has taken them across a dangerous boundary where they have lost that natural human attribute: humility. Or, as Cromwell put it: to think it possible that you might be wrong.
Basiclly, Dawkins et al's creed is, IMHO, inadequate to explain what we know and see. It can't explain humanity in all its current, past and future complexity and un-understandability. Indeed, if you think you understand enough to believe you know (but, of course, Dawkins 'knows') what is going on, then your knowledge is of a poor and insubstantial kind (to quote Lord Kelvin.)
There are things we know and which we cannot grasp. That we know exist but we cannot prove exist. These things are often the most fundamental: love, life, death, etc. I know that I love my kids and I love my wife. But nobody can prove this. I know that I am alive. But nobody can prove this. I know I will one day be dead. But nobody can prove this.
I know there are good forms of love (a mum correcting her kids at a road crossing) and poor forms of love (e.g. nationalism.) I know that there is good life (e.g. teaching or nursing) and bad life (e.g. drug dealing or pimping.) I know that there is good death (e.g. running onto a road to push a kid away from a bus) and bad death (e.g. drowning in alcohol-induced vomit.)
I know that things exist in our perceptions. Ask yourself: what is Tesco? Russia? a train timetable?
And in all of these things I understand that Dawkins has an answer which involves scientism, propositonal logic and evolutionary theory. And, in all of them his answer is inadequate to explain to the clear and deep satisfaction of his readers that what he thinks is true and right and the only possible explanation for what we see around us.
In this, Dawkins' scientism is competing in a global world of isms. Roman Catholocism is the world's biggest ism. Islam is next. Hunduism next. Protestantism next. The somewhere down the line 5,000 years of Buddhism appears, with 3,500 years of Judaism. Each of these has a central tenet that, in modern terms, your mileage may vary. OK, in practice their followers have (had) difficulty grasping this difficult concept: that it is a faith they believe to be true, but cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
As I watch Dawkins et al producing their increasing pile of tomes on why-we-are-right-and-you-are-wrong, I worry what they will do once they can't convince everyone that they are the way, the truth and the life. Have a glance at history and you will see a four-way split that ideologues go for: acceptance of difference, loss of personal faith, decline of religion or violent enforcing of their view. Marxism was a way of thinking about the creation and ownership of wealth, that became unbelievably violent (nobody knows how many it killed), it's followers then went through lip service, before it utterly disappeared into the dustbin of history.
Judaism has seen its phases of acceptance of other belief systems, violent overthrow of them, loss of faith, but is still around 3,500 years on from Abraham meeting with Yahweh. Much similar can be said for the other belief systems, or religions if you prefer.
Dawkinsesque Atheism is another belief system. And, anthropologically, historically and sociologically it will go through the same processes of, dare I say it, evolution as the other systems. Dawkins is its St Paul, writing his letters of encouragement to his followers. But where, o where, in all of what he writes is something to compare with Judaism's 23rd Psalm (on God the personal shepherd) or Christianity's 1Cor 13 (on love)?
I know Muslims who claim that Islam is a religion of love (but I am not yet convinced either historically or theologically). Judaism states that 'Gods love endures forever'. Buddhists claim to be able to find a peace. I have a good friend who is a devout Hindu, who finds the Gospel of St John utterly sublime ('For God so loved the world ...') But, where is the love in Atheism?
Also, previous isms claim to have a way to create a better world. How do Dawkins' beliefs create a better place? One of the deepest inadequacies of evolutionary biology is it's belief in nature red in tooth and claw. It is a truism that this formed a central core to applied Naziism: that one people are better than others so the weaker ones must die. And this included those of inadequate belief systems (like Jehovah's Witnesses) as well of those of inadequate lifestyles (like homosexuals) and poorer genetic material (like gypsies, Poles and Jews.)
Again, this points to the inadequacy of Dawkinsesque atheism and scientism as something worth betting your life on. Would anyone who is a follower of Dawkins die for his beliefs, as St Stephen did at the feet of the mob with their stones? When put to torture and asked to spit on the works of their master, would any of them rather die as many Chinese Christians have done in the past twenty years?
Unfortunately, if given enough rope and enough followers the answer would be: yes. The vast majority of Germans woke up from Naziism as if from a very, very bad dream, or a hell of a hangover in a prison cell. But, some really truly believed in it and would rather die. Some killed their children rather than see them live in a non-Nazi state. Others shot themselves. But, most simply walked away.
Belief systems attract the genuine, the curious, the intelligent, the questioners, and the deep believers. I have mine and you, whether you recognise it or not, do also. For example, there is a majority of Scots probably who now believe Scotland would be better off as an independant-from-England country. There is absolutely no proof that this would be true. They just believe it is, and that's why I am not in their camp any more. It is an inadequate belief.
I am a Christian, and I have a good friend who is a Baptist minister's wife. She reckons the real problem with Islam is that it is plausible. Another friend, a Christian leader, reckons that if she weren't a Christian she'd be a Jew because the Old Testament is just so good. me, I'm happy being a confused Roman Catholic who attends an evangelical Protestant church.
You see, it all returns to this question of adequacy. From where I stand, and from where many, many others stand, Dawkinsism is simply an inadequate explanation for life, the universe and everything. It simple does not go far enough, nor is it complete enough or logical enough to withstand deep inspection.
It is simply inadequate.
God is with Russia (2)
The previous blog was about the past, but today Russia finds herself attacked by her enemies. It is so easy not to see things as God sees them. To see not Russia, but the USSR. This would be a mistake. They are not the same.
I have been deeply worried about what we are doing demonising Russia in recent weeks. I wasn't sure where this worry was coming from until yesterday when The LORD granted me a vision of him. In The Spirit I saw The LORD cradling Russia in his lap. It was like the parable of Abraham and Lazarus in Luke 16:25.
In the vision I was looking at The LORD and he was staring towards *us*, towards western Europe. In this vision The LORD is very much on the side of Russia and against us. We are standing in opposition to The LORD God Almighty in all his power, and He is protecting Russia against us.
Earlier on, during the day, I had been oppressed by a feeling of things being very, very wrong. I asked for a confirmation after the vision and The Word was from Luke 4:16:19 -
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."
What did this mean? It means that Jesus Christ is protecting Russia in accordance with His primary mission: to protect the helpless poor and weak against the bullying strong.
How can this be so, how can God have taken these sides?The answer is simple. It's in the words: if God be for us, who can be against us (Romans 8:31). To put it the opposite way: if God be against us, who can be for us?
In the vision and in the interpretation God's wrath is against the United Kingdom in particular. How does the UK differ from Russia in God's eyes? Russia has stayed true to the gospel of Jesus Christ, in hard and deadly times. Britain has abandoned the gospel for lies from secularists and liberals, welcoming in new religions and resurrecting old dead ones.
In Russia the church hangs on, often in pain, preaches the word, worships in spirit and in truth and prays and prays and prays for Mother Russia. The church gives herself for Russia and Russia is blessed by the prayers of the faithful.
In Britain the church is lost and wandering. The Church of England is lost in its sins, embracing homosexuality and no longer sticking to what has been believed and preached by all men and at all times. The church has abandoned the harsh truths of the gospel for intellectualism and false popularity. These Jesus did not do.
Our British political leaders are liars and self-seeking cheats. Our Prime Minister overthrew the previous one - hardly a saint either - desperate for years to take over his office. Our Foreign Secretary attacks Russia violently in a simialr vain attempt to take the top job. The leader of HM opposition tours Georgia. They seek their own greatness and not that of their country or her people.
As Isaiah says (33v1), "Woe to you, O traitor, you who have not been betrayed! When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed; when you stop betraying, you will be betrayed."
The LORD hates deceit. The UK is led by people who would not be out of place in ancient Rome. This is why The LORD God Almighty has taken up a stance against us. From God's viewpoint we are unrighteous and embracing evil, while Russia is righteous and seeking truth.
Add in the rest of the EU and all you see is politicans seeking power over principle, seeking to damage Russia lest she hurt their grand plans for money and power. Russia threatens their secular empires.
And God looks on, cradles Russia in His bosom, and stares at us. We are now in a place where God is against our country. I am only a messenger.
Read the whole of Isaiah chapter 33 and see what The LORD ahs to say about where the UK is today. I fear for the country's future. But faithful, praying, worshipping, suffering Russia I am jealous of with God behind, above, below and around her.
I have been deeply worried about what we are doing demonising Russia in recent weeks. I wasn't sure where this worry was coming from until yesterday when The LORD granted me a vision of him. In The Spirit I saw The LORD cradling Russia in his lap. It was like the parable of Abraham and Lazarus in Luke 16:25.
In the vision I was looking at The LORD and he was staring towards *us*, towards western Europe. In this vision The LORD is very much on the side of Russia and against us. We are standing in opposition to The LORD God Almighty in all his power, and He is protecting Russia against us.
Earlier on, during the day, I had been oppressed by a feeling of things being very, very wrong. I asked for a confirmation after the vision and The Word was from Luke 4:16:19 -
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour."
What did this mean? It means that Jesus Christ is protecting Russia in accordance with His primary mission: to protect the helpless poor and weak against the bullying strong.
How can this be so, how can God have taken these sides?The answer is simple. It's in the words: if God be for us, who can be against us (Romans 8:31). To put it the opposite way: if God be against us, who can be for us?
In the vision and in the interpretation God's wrath is against the United Kingdom in particular. How does the UK differ from Russia in God's eyes? Russia has stayed true to the gospel of Jesus Christ, in hard and deadly times. Britain has abandoned the gospel for lies from secularists and liberals, welcoming in new religions and resurrecting old dead ones.
In Russia the church hangs on, often in pain, preaches the word, worships in spirit and in truth and prays and prays and prays for Mother Russia. The church gives herself for Russia and Russia is blessed by the prayers of the faithful.
In Britain the church is lost and wandering. The Church of England is lost in its sins, embracing homosexuality and no longer sticking to what has been believed and preached by all men and at all times. The church has abandoned the harsh truths of the gospel for intellectualism and false popularity. These Jesus did not do.
Our British political leaders are liars and self-seeking cheats. Our Prime Minister overthrew the previous one - hardly a saint either - desperate for years to take over his office. Our Foreign Secretary attacks Russia violently in a simialr vain attempt to take the top job. The leader of HM opposition tours Georgia. They seek their own greatness and not that of their country or her people.
As Isaiah says (33v1), "Woe to you, O traitor, you who have not been betrayed! When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed; when you stop betraying, you will be betrayed."
The LORD hates deceit. The UK is led by people who would not be out of place in ancient Rome. This is why The LORD God Almighty has taken up a stance against us. From God's viewpoint we are unrighteous and embracing evil, while Russia is righteous and seeking truth.
Add in the rest of the EU and all you see is politicans seeking power over principle, seeking to damage Russia lest she hurt their grand plans for money and power. Russia threatens their secular empires.
And God looks on, cradles Russia in His bosom, and stares at us. We are now in a place where God is against our country. I am only a messenger.
Read the whole of Isaiah chapter 33 and see what The LORD ahs to say about where the UK is today. I fear for the country's future. But faithful, praying, worshipping, suffering Russia I am jealous of with God behind, above, below and around her.
God is with Russia (1)
What we are doing with regard to Russia has worried me. Many moons ago I taught myself to read Russian to help me support the suffering church during the darkest days of soviet state terrorism. Through this I learned that God is at work in Russia in a way that is as unique as Russia herself is.
To digress from the point, I remember spending - as did many - lots of time praying for Fr Alexander Ogarodnikov. he was an Orthodox priest imprisoned by the state for his work for the gospel. His conditions were terrible. Nobody except some powerless Christians cared about him. The West and its powerful leaders didn't care.
But, we prayed hard and then one day on the bus to work I was reading The Scotsman, Edinburgh' daily newspaper. Now, nothing is as secular and sold-out to ultra-liberalism than The Scotsman. Its a rag of a paper that tells lies about God and God's people. But that day, by God's good grace, the front left column said, 'Alexander Ogarodnikov released.'
I could have - perhaps should have - leapt for joy. Not only had God heard our private and quiet prayers, but even The Scotsman newspaper could not hold back God's truth from being told!
God loves Russia. During the terrible years of sovietism she struggled on, her church bleeding and dying in her Christ's example. And it was Christ who redeemed Russia from the communists, not least through the work of Pope John Paul II.
One of the Words of The Blessed Virgin Mary to the Roman Catholic Church was: pray fo the redemption of Russia and I will give her to you. One of the sadnesses is that they didn't, and He didn't.
To digress from the point, I remember spending - as did many - lots of time praying for Fr Alexander Ogarodnikov. he was an Orthodox priest imprisoned by the state for his work for the gospel. His conditions were terrible. Nobody except some powerless Christians cared about him. The West and its powerful leaders didn't care.
But, we prayed hard and then one day on the bus to work I was reading The Scotsman, Edinburgh' daily newspaper. Now, nothing is as secular and sold-out to ultra-liberalism than The Scotsman. Its a rag of a paper that tells lies about God and God's people. But that day, by God's good grace, the front left column said, 'Alexander Ogarodnikov released.'
I could have - perhaps should have - leapt for joy. Not only had God heard our private and quiet prayers, but even The Scotsman newspaper could not hold back God's truth from being told!
God loves Russia. During the terrible years of sovietism she struggled on, her church bleeding and dying in her Christ's example. And it was Christ who redeemed Russia from the communists, not least through the work of Pope John Paul II.
One of the Words of The Blessed Virgin Mary to the Roman Catholic Church was: pray fo the redemption of Russia and I will give her to you. One of the sadnesses is that they didn't, and He didn't.
The second time I saw The LORD Jesus Christ
Its good to start at the beginning. But, where is the beginning? It's been a long and painful process to get where I am. Like Moses, Abraham, Peter and so many much, much greater men than I am, I have stumbled my way to where I am.
That sounds like I did this myself. Nope. I did the stumbling. God did the picking up, dusting down and putting back onto my feet.
But the blog site title: Seen The LORD. Yes, it's true, I've seen The LORD Jesus Christ. And I'm not the only one. But back to my tale.
When I was converted back in 1982 The LORD gave me certain of His gifts. These are often called charismatic gifts, but to me they are just how He made me and how I am. I speak/pray in tongues, I feel His Spirit, I see His Spirit, I open The Bible and he speaks directly with an interpretation, I know how He feels on certain issues such as Russia and the UK.
However, once, just once, I saw The LORD with my own eyes. I was on holiday with my wife in the Scottish Highlands, staying in a somewhat unexpectedly shoddy wee hotel for a few days. The dead flies on the windowledges where we ate our breakfast were grim, the rooms were poorly and cheaply furnished, the shower was problematic - you get my drift, it needed a few hundred thousand pounds spent on it. And soon.
Things were very strange in the hotel. There was a feeling of the presence of the enemy at times. It felt more like a video game where things were hiding than a happy, clean hotel. My wife and I were finding things affecting us strangely as we went to bed one night.
I awoke tingling all over. Tingling is too small a word. Aflame. The room was utterly black, but it wasn't empty. Two demons stood by the bed. A tall, thin one stood directly to my left, about one foot away, and a short dwarfish one stood at the foot of the bed.
You ask: how did I see this in a black room? Some things you see 'in the spirit'. I knew they were there as really as if two men with shotguns had appeared in my room. The one to my left was staring directly at me and the one at the foot of the bed was smirking.
I was rigid with power and apprehension. Immediately I went into prayer, silently, asking for The LORD's help and protection. This went on for some time, perhaps ten minutes. Then they both moved to the bottom of my bed and went into my suitcase and took something out. Something that should not have been in there. Something that I had that I shouldn't have had.
My friends, this is the secret. Sin opens the door to the enemy. He went straight to my suitcase and took out the sign of my recent sin. The sin wasn't important, nor did it negate my membership of God's house. But the sin was a crack to let the enemy in.
Then I, in the spirit, arose from my bed and went afetr the two demons. The dwarfish one I imprisoned and the tall one I chased. I caught up with him and took the item back.
At this the room utterly cleared, the darkness withdrew, and I was alone. Again, my friend, sin must be retrieved and owned up to. This was my sin, and I had to face up to it. It was in my hand, in the spirit, and the enemy, having no power over me, fled.
As I lay in bed, sweating and shaking a bit, an image began to form at the foot of my bed. I was drawn to it and kept looking at what this was. Slowly a profile began to appear. A well-chiselled face, with a classic mid-length beard. this face was facing to my left and was talking with someone.
It was like watching a video clip. I watched for perhaps only ten seconds as the image formed - or rather as I began to perceive the image. At last the image was so clear that I suddenly realised just who was talking. It was The LORD Jesus Christ himself.
I was watching what seemed to be a live feed direct from heaven. He was talking with someone and a portal had opened to let me see Him at work in His father's house.
But, as the realisation of who it was dawned, I suddenly became totally overcome by a feeling of dirt, uncleanness and dread. I felt like a child caught stealing by a shopkeeper, or breaking his father's tools, or stealing from his mother's purse. I was looking at The LORD of all creation, purity itself, and here was I, in the spirit, holding the sinful object that I had placed in my suitcase.
I had retrieved the object, but his purity made it all too clear that I was utterly sinful and filthy in the sight of Almighty God. I looked away, fearing that He might turn sideways and look at me. For I knew His look would utterly pierce and break me. I knew He knew what I had done.
In His mercy he kept on talking as I watched. Once I turned away and then looked back, He was gone. It was just me and my wife in a rather grotty hotel room.
In the morning I told her. She knew in her spirit immediately what the demons had come for. Our sins are not even hidden from ourselves. We both resolved to not walk in these old ways any more, but to walk more in His light.
That is the only time I have been priveleged to see His face. He looks remarkably as people 'imagine' Him to look. This may annoy some in our PC world, but he was strong-jawed, with strong cheekbones, white, with blonde uncut hair and a medium length beard. he was wearing a simple middle-eastern tunic (but I could only see him from the shoulder/collar area up.)
You may think I am mad. I have three degrees, teach computer science and love my wife and family. I go to a fairly ordinary church and meet with lovely and fellow-struggling Christians there.
But, for those who are not Christians, who do not believe what we believe, I can only say: I have seen The LORD as surely as I have seen Scotland, Japan, Canada, Sir Bob Geldof, Sir Norman Foster, etc.
Jesus Christ is alive and working today.
That sounds like I did this myself. Nope. I did the stumbling. God did the picking up, dusting down and putting back onto my feet.
But the blog site title: Seen The LORD. Yes, it's true, I've seen The LORD Jesus Christ. And I'm not the only one. But back to my tale.
When I was converted back in 1982 The LORD gave me certain of His gifts. These are often called charismatic gifts, but to me they are just how He made me and how I am. I speak/pray in tongues, I feel His Spirit, I see His Spirit, I open The Bible and he speaks directly with an interpretation, I know how He feels on certain issues such as Russia and the UK.
However, once, just once, I saw The LORD with my own eyes. I was on holiday with my wife in the Scottish Highlands, staying in a somewhat unexpectedly shoddy wee hotel for a few days. The dead flies on the windowledges where we ate our breakfast were grim, the rooms were poorly and cheaply furnished, the shower was problematic - you get my drift, it needed a few hundred thousand pounds spent on it. And soon.
Things were very strange in the hotel. There was a feeling of the presence of the enemy at times. It felt more like a video game where things were hiding than a happy, clean hotel. My wife and I were finding things affecting us strangely as we went to bed one night.
I awoke tingling all over. Tingling is too small a word. Aflame. The room was utterly black, but it wasn't empty. Two demons stood by the bed. A tall, thin one stood directly to my left, about one foot away, and a short dwarfish one stood at the foot of the bed.
You ask: how did I see this in a black room? Some things you see 'in the spirit'. I knew they were there as really as if two men with shotguns had appeared in my room. The one to my left was staring directly at me and the one at the foot of the bed was smirking.
I was rigid with power and apprehension. Immediately I went into prayer, silently, asking for The LORD's help and protection. This went on for some time, perhaps ten minutes. Then they both moved to the bottom of my bed and went into my suitcase and took something out. Something that should not have been in there. Something that I had that I shouldn't have had.
My friends, this is the secret. Sin opens the door to the enemy. He went straight to my suitcase and took out the sign of my recent sin. The sin wasn't important, nor did it negate my membership of God's house. But the sin was a crack to let the enemy in.
Then I, in the spirit, arose from my bed and went afetr the two demons. The dwarfish one I imprisoned and the tall one I chased. I caught up with him and took the item back.
At this the room utterly cleared, the darkness withdrew, and I was alone. Again, my friend, sin must be retrieved and owned up to. This was my sin, and I had to face up to it. It was in my hand, in the spirit, and the enemy, having no power over me, fled.
As I lay in bed, sweating and shaking a bit, an image began to form at the foot of my bed. I was drawn to it and kept looking at what this was. Slowly a profile began to appear. A well-chiselled face, with a classic mid-length beard. this face was facing to my left and was talking with someone.
It was like watching a video clip. I watched for perhaps only ten seconds as the image formed - or rather as I began to perceive the image. At last the image was so clear that I suddenly realised just who was talking. It was The LORD Jesus Christ himself.
I was watching what seemed to be a live feed direct from heaven. He was talking with someone and a portal had opened to let me see Him at work in His father's house.
But, as the realisation of who it was dawned, I suddenly became totally overcome by a feeling of dirt, uncleanness and dread. I felt like a child caught stealing by a shopkeeper, or breaking his father's tools, or stealing from his mother's purse. I was looking at The LORD of all creation, purity itself, and here was I, in the spirit, holding the sinful object that I had placed in my suitcase.
I had retrieved the object, but his purity made it all too clear that I was utterly sinful and filthy in the sight of Almighty God. I looked away, fearing that He might turn sideways and look at me. For I knew His look would utterly pierce and break me. I knew He knew what I had done.
In His mercy he kept on talking as I watched. Once I turned away and then looked back, He was gone. It was just me and my wife in a rather grotty hotel room.
In the morning I told her. She knew in her spirit immediately what the demons had come for. Our sins are not even hidden from ourselves. We both resolved to not walk in these old ways any more, but to walk more in His light.
That is the only time I have been priveleged to see His face. He looks remarkably as people 'imagine' Him to look. This may annoy some in our PC world, but he was strong-jawed, with strong cheekbones, white, with blonde uncut hair and a medium length beard. he was wearing a simple middle-eastern tunic (but I could only see him from the shoulder/collar area up.)
You may think I am mad. I have three degrees, teach computer science and love my wife and family. I go to a fairly ordinary church and meet with lovely and fellow-struggling Christians there.
But, for those who are not Christians, who do not believe what we believe, I can only say: I have seen The LORD as surely as I have seen Scotland, Japan, Canada, Sir Bob Geldof, Sir Norman Foster, etc.
Jesus Christ is alive and working today.
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