Many people in the UK are living in fear – workers are afraid of losing their job, politicians are afraid saying the wrong thing, top footballers are in fear of racial abuse, and Jews are in fear of antisemitism. Even children are in fear, of being abused on social media and of climate change. Parents …
Category: Reformation
Why we need Christian voices in public life
A "Christian Voice" is a Christian articulating a Christian perspective on issues. It is not enough to have a Christian perspective, but one needs to articulate it. The Scottish National Party measures everything in terms of Scotland, the feminists in terms of gender, the homosexuals in terms of sexuality, the Greens in terms of the …
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Selective quotations
We have a very clear and recent example of selective quotation by the BBC in its commentary surrounding the use of parliamentary privilege to name Sir Philip Green as the anonymous person who secured a court injunction preventing The Daily Telegraph publishing allegations of sexual and racial harassment. While other commentators quite rightly concentrate on …
Selective Scottish history
There are some centuries of Scottish history that are overlooked in favour of other ones. This morning I was at a meeting of about 30 senior men who were asked to name the main events in Scottish history. The list of options went all the way from the battle of Bannockburn (1314) to the Highland …
What is the Establishment Principle?
The Establishment Principle is that biblical principle which states that God is sovereign over secular and ecclesiastical affairs, and that He has established a relationship between these two sovereign spheres in which the state and the Christian church are to acknowledge each other as divinely-appointed institutions, to mutually support and encourage each other, but not …
The ark of the covenant and the third temple
There is a movement afoot among orthodox Jews to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and to this end they have been looking for a red heifer without blemish to dedicate the temple. Although there have been discredited claims in recent decades, there are now rumours that a suitable red heifer has been found and that …
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The Seven C’s of Christian action
A Happy New Year to one and all! Let us begin 2018 by considering the 7 C's of Christian action. It will be good to incorporate them into New Year Resolutions. There have been many books written on Christian doctrine, many biographies of Christians which motivate to Christian action, but not as much about the …
The Protestant reversal
The Protestant Reformation was a revival of biblical scholarship which led to the recovery of the Gospel. Nowadays things are not so clear. There are many documented examples of Roman Catholic clerics being ignorant of the Bible at the time of the 16th-century European Reformation, and in such an environment it was relatively easy for …
Homosexual Christians – an oxymoron?
There are real oxymorons – "Unitarian Christians" and "Arian Christians" – and there are what ought to be oxymorons but are only too real – flawed Christians and sinful Christians. Is it any surprise? Biblical students and students of human nature should not be surprised. So why is it a great surprise that there are …
Scotland needs a Reformer
The main message from the 500th anniversary of the European Reformation is that Scotland needs a Reformer. We have plenty of theologians and preachers, but no reformer. Scotland's Reformer was John Knox but we have fallen upon such backsliding times that we need a new one, but at present Scotland has no reformer. A reformer …
Donald's Thoughts 