
What you have heard from me... entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others.
Friday, 5th June. I came home to find a flier from our local Sangoma, or “traditional healer” (they used to be called witchdoctors) stuck between the upright stanchions of the gate. Small, printed in blue ink on cheap paper, in both isiXhosa and English, it advertised the remarkable services of Dr. Juma and Mama Mia. Here was a one stop solution for a vast array of predicaments. I selectively quote some of the ailments this pair claims to be able to fix. They include, “winning the lotto, marriage problems, shop accounts, bring back lost lover, TB, loose or gain weight, luck, diabetes, bewitchment.” Beneath a stylised picture of a suited, pipe-smoking, bones-casting Sangoma was the strapline: “Come hear about you and spread the news.”
Incongruous as it may seem, those words immediately transported me back to Scotland and the aftermath of the Church of Scotland Assembly’s recent decision to endorse homosexuals in ministry. A decision that has split the Auld Kirk deeper than most realise, or are prepared to admit and one that the Assembly will surely rue. Although, I assume, the members of the Kirk’s majority might be inclined to dismiss Dr Juma’s claims, his strapline, nevertheless, sits remarkably comfortably with them.
The focus of the Church’s message used to be on the equally breathtaking claims of personal, moral and spiritual renewal made by Christ. But unlike Dr Juma, he proved to be as good as his word and thousands testify to the change he has made in their lives. There was a time when they loved to tell their stories of him finding them just as they were and making them new men and women. Such testimonies, from “the guttermost to the uttermost,” as they were sometimes described, used to be the stuff of informal church gatherings, the stock-in-trade of Christian publishers and the substance of Sunday sermons. Congregations were gripped by the dynamic of such passages as I Cor. 6.9-11, which, with its litany of the unhappy and lost – the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, thieves, gluttons, drunkards, revilers and swindlers – concluded with the affirmation of transformation; “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” And how they just loved to emphasize the glorious adversative conjunction, “But!”
That theme of conversion was also reflected in the hymns and songs of the day. Typical was Rufus McDaniel’s “Since Jesus came into my heart,” which, sung with gusto, reinforced the glad message of Christ the Transformer.
I have ceased from my wandering and going astray,
Since Jesus came into my heart!
And my sins, which were many, are all washed away;
Since Jesus came into my heart!
The theologically cognoscenti might have smirked patronisingly behind their hands and the ‘unco righteous’ might have tut-tutted at such homely and unsophisticated lyrics, but far too many had experienced Christ’s life changing power to permit the truth to be gainsaid. Today, however, such songs are largely silent, abandoned because their theology, as well as their style, is considered passé. And along with the hymns and songs of conversion, has gone the converting Christ. In his place stands an anaemic, impotent and politically correct substitute, who pats his acolytes on the head, affirms them just as they are, and then leaves them and their transgressions strictly alone. Although the word “testimony” is, I am told, still used in such circles, the more the focus swings away from Jesus, the more it has become a synonym for autobiography. So, as Dr Juma might say, “Come hear about you and spread the news.”
Pulpits which once proclaimed conversion by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and through the power of the Spirit now promise nothing more exciting than a Sunday morning quick dash along the aisles of the spiritual supermarket, picking and mixing whatever is palatable, topical and chic from a disparate range of ‘spiritualities.’ The most life transforming aspect of such services is the Fairtrade tea, coffee or juice served afterwards. Fewer and fewer attend these Sunday Philosophy Clubs simply because there is nothing in them that can’t be gained from a ‘long lie,’ a leisurely breakfast, a visit to the local Tesco or Sainsbury and a relaxing read of the lifestyle columns of the Sunday Herald or Sunday Mail.
Monday, 8th June. I attended our local King William’s Town ministers fraternal. It was held in the Bisho Community Church, where the minister Mangaliso Matshobane gave a short opening talk telling us how, ahead of the recent elections, he and some colleagues travelled to all nine of South Africa’s provinces to pray for and with the candidates. As they moved from place to place he was increasingly made to consider that his concerns might have been misplaced. Of course, it was right to pray for the politicians, parliament and the nation, but more and more he came to see that the nation was the way it was because the church was the way it was. The searing and confronting Scripture passage he then read and passionately applied was Isaiah 1.10-20, where God calls his people ‘Sodom’ and challenges them to state what right they had to trample his courts preoccupied with religious rituals and self-righteous liturgies, when his uncompromising priority for them was, “wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil.” But even here, in the blazing heat of God’s judgment, lies encouragement for the faithful; as Calvin reminds Assembly minorities and other loyal but marginalised groups:
Hence it comes that hypocrites are proud of their numbers; and weak men, terrified by the pompous display of those numbers stagger. …but we ought to be satisfied with knowing that, though the number of the godly be small, God still acknowledges them as his chosen people; and we ought also to call to mind that consolatory saying, Fear not little flock; for it is your Father’s good please to give you the kingdom.
Wednesday, 10th June. This is the night of our small group Bible Study. We have been working through 2 Timothy with Matthias Media’s study guide, Run the Race. This week we first explored Paul’s highly topical warning about “scheming, manipulative people who were influencing and leading others away from the truth.” We then marveled at the power of Paul’s faith. Even when things seemed to be falling apart at Ephesus and his own prediction was being fulfilled, that “from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things,” (Acts 20.30), he knew that God always has the last word. Convinced that his investment of time and energy in the Gospel was not for a lost cause or a forlorn hope, he felt profound contentment as he looked back over a full life well lived. Though possibly facing Caesar’s executioner, he could speak of that final journey from time to eternity in a spirit of triumphant expectation.
Yet, lest we be accused of concluding on a somewhat escapist note, I was also delighted to learn on Friday, that in the aftermath of the fateful Assembly there is a real desire among those with a love for the orthodox Christian Gospel to come together for prayer and mutual support. Dominic Smart, minister of Gilcomstom South Church of Scotland, Aberdeen, recently told his congregation that, “The situation in the Church of Scotland is worse for evangelicals than we thought.” And he was frankly open-minded regarding the question of staying in the Church, although that was, “probably the option that most people found most instinctively attractive before the Assembly.” He added, however, that, “It’s fair to say that many are reconsidering that … in the light of what actually happened. Going somewhere is …an option; [and just] because we aren’t doing it straightaway no-one should think that it couldn’t ever happen.” And in the meantime? Dominic hopes to see “people [drawn] together from different parts of Scotland and …from different strands of the Presbyterian Church.” That is what so many others in Scotland are hoping for. All they need to do to make it happen is to phone around, put some dates in their diaries and turn up.
What they are saying