Something special in danger of being lost

I’ve just about calmed down after Stranraer’s extra-time play-off win. Billed as the most important match in the club’s history, there were plenty of nervy moments across the two legs. Everyone in the ground that day is still asking how João Baldé’s two chances – towards the end of normal time and extra time respectively – stayed out. If they had, it would have been hard to see a way back into the tie – and a way back into the SPFL. Sam North (‘Footy Adventures’ on YouTube) summed it up with the title: ‘150 Years of History Saved in 120 Minutes’. The club were on the brink – but came back.

As a minister, I couldn’t help but apply it to churches. We live at a time when many churches – often older than 150 years – are closing. When it comes to a football club, it’s fairly obvious why its loss would be a bad thing for a community. But do we lose anything when churches close?

Many would say ‘no’. They belong to a different era, and there’s no need for them in modern society. Others mourn the loss of architecture, or of a building with which many memories are associated – or of a place where they hoped their funeral would take place.

But can a case be made for the closure of churches being a net loss for a community? Perhaps surprisingly, I would argue that the closure of a church is not a loss in every case. When the Bible’s message is no longer proclaimed, and a church is functioning out of mere traditionalism, there’s little point in it still existing. In fact, it’s worse than that. If those looking for hope happen to come in, all they will find are counsels of despair: ‘be a nice decent person and you’ll earn your way to Heaven’. Self-improvement is the message of every religion except Biblical Christianity.

It's also worth pointing out that a building closing and a church closing are not the same thing. In the New Testament, ‘the church’ is the people, not the building. A church building is simply where the people meet to worship. Sadly, by the time a building closes, the church has often long since stopped being what it was meant to be – a worshipping community of diverse people who genuinely love one another because of the Holy Spirit’s work in their lives.

But what about when Bible-believing churches close? To put it another way: what does a post-Christian Scotland look like? We value things like compassion, freedom, equality, and consent – but as Glen Scrivener demonstrates in his book ‘The Air We Breathe’, these are fundamentally Christian values. When churches close, it’s not as if these things disappear overnight. But when the foundations on which they’re built disappear, we discover they aren’t as self-evident as we once thought. Just ask the Romans. 

It was reported last week that for the first time, most people in Scotland say they are not religious. Yet a non-religious society still has the concepts of guilt, sin and shame – but without the redemption which Christianity offers. Many thought that as Christianity disappeared, society would become less moralistic. The opposite has proved to be the case. People have a keen sense of morality – recycle, don’t eat meat, reduce your carbon footprint. Those who fail to support the ‘right’ cause feel the wrath of cancel culture. Our society has as keen a sense of morality as ever – but no place for forgiveness.

If Stranraer had gone down, the effects would have been instant and obvious: Civil Service Strollers and Heart of Midlothian ‘B’ visiting Stair Park, smaller crowds, a vastly reduced budget. The closure of gospel-preaching churches may not have such an immediate impact, but a post-Christian Scotland may not be the utopia many expect. Jonny Cash sang: ‘They say they want the kingdom, but they don't want God in it.’ And as Scrivener puts it: ‘The kingdom without the King is not a place of liberation so much as a place of judgment’. 

Above all the church is important because it is ‘through the church that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known’ (Ephesians 4:10). That wisdom was seen above all at the cross of Jesus Christ – where God’s justice and mercy shone out so clearly. Stranraer fans could sing ‘We are staying up’, because of what those on the pitch had done. In the same way, the believer looks at the cross, and sees that, because of Jesus, a place in God’s family is now ours, and the door of Heaven itself has been opened. 

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 30th May 2024

Goodbye to Trinity!

At the end of April, we said goodbye to Trinity after her 7 months’ Short-Term Service in Stranraer. Trinity had been with us since the end of September, during which time she has been involved in all aspects of congregational life, teaching Sunday School, helping us get the drop-in restarted, doing one-on-one Bible studies, getting involved in local schools and helping different folk in the church in lots of ways behind the scenes.

We are grateful for her time with us and will miss her! Would you join us in praying that God will send us people to take over some of the roles she’s left behind?

The Bible Verse in Every Supermarket

One of the decisions our kids face most mornings is whether they want maple syrup or golden syrup with their porridge. But in the last couple of months, something has changed about Lyle’s golden syrup packaging – it no longer features a dead lion.

The fact that it ever featured a dead lion was often a surprise to many. Occasionally someone would share that fact on social media, and people would respond in horror: “My whole life has been a lie”. So why a dead lion, surrounded by bees? The answer is found in the Biblical book of Judges.

Samson, a very flawed leader of God’s people, killed a young lion with his bare hands on his way to find a wife. When he returned to marry her, he went to see the carcass of the lion, and found a swarm of bees and honey inside it. He scraped some out, ate it, and then went on to set the following riddle before some of his wedding guests:

      “Out of the eater came something to eat.
Out of the strong came something sweet.”

Hence the Golden Syrup logo and tagline: “Out of the strong came forth sweetness”, which had remained the same since 1883. It reflected the strong Christian faith of the company’s founder, Abram Lyle – a Greenock man and an elder in St Michael’s United Presbyterian Church.

Captain Scott took a tin with him on his ill-fated Antarctic expedition in 1910. It was rediscovered by explorers in 1956, with the tin and syrup still in good condition. In 2007, Tate & Lyle were awarded a Guinness World Record for the longest unchanged brand packaging. Now, the famous logo has been changed on everything except the iconic green tins.

Some Christians have been up in arms about the change; I personally find it hard to get too bothered – as long as the tins continue to retain it!

The publicity does however provide an opportunity to look more closely at this Bible verse which is displayed in every supermarket. Samson’s riddle has long been interpreted as speaking of more than simply honey inside a lion. Or rather – the honey inside the dead lion becomes a picture of God’s ability to bring good out of evil. Such imagery is particularly vivid since the devil is described by the Apostle Peter as a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8).

According to the English Presbyterian minister Arthur Jackson, what Samson saw reminded him of ‘how God is usually accustomed to bring for his children good out of evil after the same manner’. One New Testament example of this is how the Apostle Paul’s imprisonment led to the good news of Jesus becoming much more widely known. It also led to his fellow Christians becoming much more bold to speak the word without fear. And so he could say: ‘What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel’ (Philippians 2:12).

Indeed, the picture of sweetness being brought out of death answers one of the questions Christians are most frequently asked: ‘If God is good, why is there evil in the world?’ And yet as Edward Reynolds, seventeenth century Bishop of Norwich, reminds us: ‘Certainly, God is so good, as that he would not permit evil to be, if he were not so powerful as to turn it to good’.  

Above all, God’s ability to bring sweetness out of death is seen at the cross. The Italian Bible commentator, Giovanni Diodati said that Samson’s riddle points to: ‘the sweet and saving food brought forth by Christ’s death, by which he destroyed death and the devil’.

For the Christian, new life comes from the place of death. For the first disciples, death by crucifixion seemed like a disaster for Jesus. It looked like too big an obstacle to overcome. And yet from that place of shame and torment comes eternal life for all who will trust in him.

So will I stop buying squeezable bottles of Golden Syrup and stick to the tins in protest at the change? Not at all. The Bible describes Jesus himself as ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah’. And so in a way, even the brand change could be seen as a pointer to his resurrection: a dead lion becomes a living one.

The Bible, untouched by many today, describes its own contents as ‘sweet’. In invites us to ‘taste and see that the LORD is good’. Perhaps the publicity around the logo change will encourage some to do just that – and discover something that for Abram Lyle was sweeter than Golden Syrup.

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 25th April 2024.