New First Minister, Same "Progressive" Agendae

A man the same age as me is the new First Minister of Scotland. Politicians, like policemen, are getting younger. It was the result that the SNP hierarchy wanted, but I can’t say I’m thrilled by it.

Some might think that is because I write as a Christian and Humza Yousaf is a Muslim. Many Christians, however, would be more enthusiastic about Mr Yousaf, if like Kate Forbes, his faith shaped his politics more rather than less! Forbes, in line with her faith, was open about her opposition to same-sex marriage. Yousaf supports it, despite skipping the vote on it due to ‘pressure from the mosque’ (according to former Health Secretary Alex Neil). Concern among Christians about Mr Yousaf is not about his faith but that he is the continuity candidate – pushing the exact same ‘progressive’ social agenda as Nicola Sturgeon.

Bible-believing Christians will argue that this is not good news for the country, but from a political perspective, it is not even good news for the SNP. Unionists feared Forbes but welcome Yousaf. Many commentators believe that the issue which finally brought an end to Nicola Sturgeon’s reign was, to quote the Times, ‘her government’s sending a male rapist to a female prison because he said he was a woman’. Sturgeon repeatedly refused to answer the question of whether Isla Bryson was a man or a woman, because Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill allows for self-identification. Yousaf was the only candidate who vowed to plough on with challenging the UK Government’s veto of the GRR Bill. When asked the question that stumped Sturgeon, Yousaf said, ‘I don't believe Isla Bryson is truly, and genuinely, a trans woman’.  As the SNP’s own Joanna Cherry pointed out, merely to say this would be be ‘transphobic’ in terms of the definition of transphobia adopted by the party’s National Executive Committee, and potentially open Yousaf up to a charge of hate speech under his own Hate Crime Bill. Incidentally, former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars has described that last Bill as ‘one of the most pernicious and dangerous pieces of legislation ever produced by any government in modern times in any part of the United Kingdom’. One of the most extradentary revelations of the leadership contest was the SNP being forced to admit (despite their previous denials) that while pursuing these issues, they had lost 32,000 members in two years. Surely it is significant that the two leadership candidates who were critical of gender ideology received over 50% of the first preference votes.

One issue which largely flew under the radar during the leadership contest was that of abortion. On paper, Christians and Muslims generally agree that abortion is wrong as it is the taking of a human life. Mr Yousaf, however, has promised to bring forward proposals to decriminalise abortion in the ‘current parliament term’. This would mean introducing abortion on demand, for any reason, up to birth in Scotland. Polling from Savanta ComRes on whether time limits for abortion should be increased showed that only one per cent of British women wanted the time limit to be extended to more than 24 weeks and one per cent wanted it to be increased right through to birth, in contrast to 70 per cent of women who favoured a reduction in time limits. The change would position Scotland drastically away from the European Union, where the most common abortion time limit among EU countries is 12 weeks. Premature babies can survive outside the womb at a younger age than the current UK abortion limit – removing that limit altogether is hardly the mark of a compassionate society.

Where does all this leave us? Surely it highlights that the diversity our society values has severe limits. It would be hard to make a case that gaffe-prone Yousaf has demonstrated much political competency in his previous roles. Crucially, however, he is committed to the progressive agenda of his predecessor. The closeness of the final vote, despite the demonisation of Forbes at the beginning of her campaign – not to mention the dramatic fall in SNP membership – suggests that people are ready for change.

The greatest change we need however is not political. What we need most of all is someone who can tell us why we’re here, what’s wrong with the world, and what human flourishing really looks like. The only one who can do that is God himself. Every politician will ultimately disappoint us because none of them are the Messiah. He has already come, and his name is Jesus.

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 30th March 2023

I Will Build My Church

Stephen reviewed the following book for the February 2023 Banner of Truth magazine:

I Will Build My Church: Selected Writings on Church Polity, Baptism, and the Sabbath
Thomas Witherow; Jonathan Gibson (ed.)
Westminster Seminary Press, 2021
313 pp., hbk, $29.99
ISBN 9781733627269

Why would anyone read a little-known, nineteenth-century Irish Presbyterian writing about secondary issues? Sinclair Ferguson’s answer in the foreword is that this trilogy really sets out to answer the questions of how God wants us to regulate our church, family and weekly lives. As for being unknown, a new 70-page biographical sketch by the editor fills out the life story of a man trained under Thomas Chalmers, who pastored a small-town church of almost 2,000 people, before becoming the first Church History and Pastoral Theology Professor at Magee College, Derry.

Witherow’s Apostolic Church seeks to bring Prelacy, Independency and Presbyterianism before the bar of Scripture. While he claims to have entered the project with misgivings as to which would triumph, he unsurprisingly finds Presbyterianism to meet all the Apostolic criteria (Independency meeting half, and Prelacy none). His only real departure from historic Presbyterianism is a radical two-office view which sees no place for a distinct ordination for ministers.

The second work, Scriptural Baptism, robustly sets out the paedobaptist position. Witherow writes as a man who had seen the 1859 Revival lead to defections from the Presbyterian Church, and takes no prisoners.
His work on the Sabbath (a published address) is the weakest of the three. Witherow’s Sabbatarian conclusions are biblical, but some of his argumentation is problematic, not least the claim that our Lord breached ‘the inspired interpretation…of the Mosaic law’.

The three works have been lightly edited for readability. The decision to characterise them all as ‘Presbyterian distinctives’ seems odd when only one of them is. While a number of footnotes say that the editor was unable to locate sources for quotations or books, all are easily found using Google.

Overall, this is a very valuable volume and many will feel that Witherow’s arguments have never been answered.

Adoption Conference

On Saturday 4th March we held a conference entitled ‘Adoption and the Church’, with the intention of helping us be better prepared as a church to welcome adopted children into our midst.

We began the day with a talk from Rev. Peter Loughridge (North Edinburgh RPCS) about the glorious doctrine of Adoption in Bible - how as Christians we are not simply justified (declared righteous), but welcomed into God’s family.

Peter’s wife Emma then spoke about their experience of raising two adopted daughters, as well as practical ways a church can welcome adopted children.

After a buffet lunch, Barbara Ogston (wife of a local Church of Scotland minister who works for Adoption UK), spoke about their experience of adoption, as well as the particular challenges that children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder can have.

The conference finished with a question panel where those in attendance had the opportunity to ask questions of the three speakers.

We hope to have videos from the talks at available shortly on our YouTube page.

We are grateful to Trinity, Hamish and Campbell for coming along and putting on some activities for the children during the talks.

"As Long as You Have Your Health"

Last month, 400 people attended a meeting in the Millennium Centre about the future of the town’s GP practices. Another 150 were turned away. Understandably, people are very concerned about their health, and where they can turn when they are unwell.  

One related phrase we hear frequently is ‘As long as you have your health’. Financial disasters can be recovered from. Burnt down houses can be rebuilt. But if you get sick, your future is no longer in your hands. Sometimes your greatest hopes in life will be disappointed. But ‘as long as you have your health’.

It sounds like a good way of keeping things in perspective – but is it actually true?

As he often does, Jesus challenges the inherited cliches through which we view the world. Four friends once brought their paralysed friend to him. Given the huge crowd that had gathered to hear him, they weren’t able to get into the house where Jesus was. So they thought outside the box, went up on the flat roof, made a hole in it, and lowered their friend down. Imagine the surprise of those in the house as they started to hear banging and scraping above their heads! As bits of soil and sticks start falling onto the ground, and chinks of light appeared, and then daylight began to stream into the room.

But the biggest surprise is what Jesus says when the man on the stretcher reaches the floor. Think of the sense of anticipation as the crowd wait to see the paralysed man healed. But Jesus looks at him and says: ‘Your sins are forgiven’. It wasn’t what anybody was expecting! It’s as if Jesus was reading from the wrong script. Here is a man who can't move his limbs – who is crying out to be healed – and Jesus starts talking about sins and forgiveness. Can’t Jesus see that the man has more pressing issues needing dealt with?!

But actually, Jesus is dealing with his most pressing issue. As Jesus looks at this man he sees that he has two defining problems – and he deals with the most important one first. If what he chose to address first seems surprising to us, it only highlights that our priorities aren't always the same as his.

After all, if Jesus had only healed the man of his paralysis, what good would that have been to him in another fifty of sixty years? If, as the Bible teaches, we were made to live forever. And if, to quote the tagline of Russel Crowe’s film Gladiator, ‘what we do in life echoes in eternity’. Then surely our most pressing need in this life is to have our broken relationship with God restored. And to have the sins which separate us from him dealt with.

Many would say there is no such thing as sin. And yet when it comes time to die, many are overwhelmed by guilt. New York paramedic Matthew O’Reilly said in a TED talk that almost all the critically injured people he comes across respond in three ways when he is honest with them and tells them they are dying. He says: ‘The first pattern always kind of shocked me. Regardless of religious belief or cultural background, there is a need for forgiveness. Whether they call it sin, or they simply say they have a regret, their guilt is universal’.

Whether we ‘have our health’ or not is irrelevant in the face of this universal guilt. But amazingly, in Jesus Christ we have someone who claims to be able to deal with our guilt once and for all.

His claim to be able to forgive sins provoked scepticism then, as it does now. After all it’s one thing to claim to be able to forgive sins – but how do you prove it? And so Jesus followed up his claim by physically healing the paralysed man ‘that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins’. He did the miracle that they could see, so they would know that he had done the miracle they couldn’t see.

I believe that the miracles Jesus and the Apostles did were unique and not ones we are called to try and replicate today. However, I have seen God’s miraculous power at work in the lives of those who haven’t had their health – for example, who have been wheelchair bound for decades – but have had an infectious faith and joy in Jesus despite their circumstances. ‘As long as you have your health’? I’m grateful for my health, but I’d take a faith like theirs over it any day.

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 23rd February 2023