I attended a useful lecture last night on The Forgotten John Bunyan, whose Pilgrim's Progress is a Christian classic. The adjective 'Forgotten' partly referred to Bunyan's language, imagination and use of metaphors, which were controversial in 17th-century British Christianity. Pilgrim's Progress is sometimes described as the first novel, but this is not accurate because Don …
Category: Biography
Reunions and Partings
The One Show on BBC 1 tonight draws attention to reunions and partings. I was watching this programme because the results of the BBC programme 20th-century Icons are announced on it. The finalists were clarified in tonight's programme and I have updated my blogpost. However, the same show had a marvellous story about the reunion …
The 20th-century Icon
Rarely can it be so clearly demonstrated that people, and even whole societies, cannot see what is plainly in front of their eyes. Not only is this a theological truth, illustrated by the atheism believed by intelligent people, but the current BBC2 series Icons is yet another example of this common phenomenon. The aim …
Iolaire memories
The centenary of the Iolaire disaster should not pass without comment, although it is a sad way to begin 2019. It was even sadder for those affected in the Outer Hebrides in 1919 awaiting their loved ones' return from the horrors of the First World War. It is appropriate that the centenary is properly commemorated …
An Introduction to Zugology
Zugology is the theology of balanced Christianity. It is a new branch of theology that overarches all current branches of theology, being the summation of them all. Systematic theology, biblical theology, historical theology, experimental theology, comparative theology, etc. The list goes on. Zugology is that branch of theology which requires the balancing and integrating of …
Edward P. C. Greene 1937–2018
Not many Free Presbyterians will have an obituary in The Times. So today's obituary of Edward Greene, former elder in the London congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, is a rare event. Edward was larger than life, physically and phenomenally. A day in the life of Edward Greene was rarely normal. It was …
Memory lane – 40 years on
A self-select band of 1978 Graduates visiting the Wolfson Medical School Building, the University of Glasgow, on 5th October 2018. On Friday and Saturday this week I met with 'old' medical colleagues whom I had not met for 40 years. It was the 40th anniversary of the 1978 Gamma Year Club, the Medical class who …
My two Inverness landladies
One of my Inverness chapters came to an end this afternoon. I stood by the open grave of Isabel Margaret Grant (1927-2018), the first of my two landladies when I was a student for the Christian ministry during two years 1980-1982 in Inverness. On the gravestone were the names of her parents. Below these was …
Celebrating a grand lady
There have been a few ladies in my life. The first one was my beloved mother, and I suppose I need to mention my two sisters who knocked the awkward corners off my teenage life. The grand lady in my life is my good lady, Elizabeth, the Home Secretary, His Master's Voice and She Who …
Andrew Ferguson Boyd 1952–2018
Yesterday I buried my only brother, the first of my siblings to reach heaven. Being three years older than me, it seems that he was destined to be always ahead of me. He was ahead of me into this world, ahead of me into the kingdom of heaven, ahead of me into the kingdom of …
