Amanda

Let me put a scenario before you: There is a whole society perishing for lack of biblical knowledge. Most citizens know zero about God’s truth. But a public event has occurred that thrusts you, a Christian, into the limelight. And you have just about two minutes to read a portion of Scripture that millions of people will listen to via television and internet. This may be the only exposure they will ever have to the Bible. What would you choose to read?

This was just the situation last week when Margaret Thatcher died. She had two children who have not brought great credit to their parents. Their son, especially, has actually brought them great shame. But they have two grandchildren. And these grandchildren have been brought up in Texas under the eye of an evangelical mother (first wife of Thatcher’s son, Mark)  and stepfather. The children are, apparently, committed Evangelicals themselves.

At Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, granddaughter Amanda Thatcher, nineteen, stepped up to the lectern of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and read what I am guessing she, or she and her family ( Or perhaps Margaret Thatcher herself?) had decided were the most relevant nine verses of those sixty-six books of the Bible. What did they choose?

Ephesians 6: 10-18: (here, in part)

“….Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places….”

Now, aren’t those a walloping few verses to present to some of the most powerful people in the world, gathered in that sanctuary? (Are you guessing she and her family also are feeling that darkness I talked of a few days ago?)

We know that, during the Lord’s temptation by Satan, Satan said to Jesus regarding the kingdoms of the world:

“To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will….”

Christ did not argue with him, did he? Because on one level, it was true.

Satan is the great powerbroker in much of life. And little Amanda called him, and his human agents, out on it. Or, at least, God did.

I do not know much about Margaret Thatcher’s political heritage. I was too busy raising small children at that time to pay attention.

But, as many in the news media are saying, it seems that her genes have skipped a generation and her ‘iron’ qualities are present in this young girl.

May God be with her.

And a little note: Have you heard that beautiful song that seems to be sung on so many British state occasions – including the Thatcher funeral – “I Vow to Thee, My Country”?

 Google that title with Katherine Jenkins and you are in for a treat.

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I Will Build…

I am still rattling, wheezing and spacey. A couple of examples:

I had my tiniest granddaughter with me yesterday, and saw that she was carrying around a bag of oranges I had bought for my son, Andrew. I said to her, “No, no, Elinor. You can’t have those. They are for Uncle Orange.”

Then later that day I shot off an email to our pastor’s wife and signed it, “Love, Mom.”

So I think it best if I go with a quote today. Who knows what I might do or say otherwise….

Again, from “Tortured for Christ” by Richard Wurmbrand. A wondrous truth during the time of Communist oppression in Europe:

“It would be unfair to speak only about the Protestant Underground Church.

The Orthodox Christians in Russia were completely changed. Millions of them have passed through prisons where they had no beads, no crucifixes, no holy images, no incense, no candles. The laymen were in prison without an ordained priest. The priests had no robes, no wheat bread, no wine to consecrate, no holy oils, no books with prepared prayers to be read, And they discovered that they could get by without all these things, by going to God directly in prayer. They began to pray and God began to pour forth His Spirit upon them. A genuine spiritual awakening, very similar to  fundamental Christianity, took place among the Orthodox in Russia under communism.

So it happened that in Russia, as well as in the satellite countries, there existed an Orthodox Underground, which was in reality evangelical, fundamental, and very close to God. It kept, only by the power of habit, a very little of the Orthodox ritual. This Orthodox Underground has also given great martyrs. …”

Who but God can take one of Satan’s masterpieces, Communism, and have it – in spite of its most malign desires –  build His kingdom?

“He who sits in heaven will laugh them to scorn; the Lord will hold them in derision.”

Deathbed Conversion

I suppose we all question the reality of deathbed conversions. We know that they can take place because the thief on the cross was assured of his salvation as he was dying. But are they likely? My guess is no.

Still, there is interesting anecdotal evidence that some hard-hearted people are at least considering biblical truths as they face death. Do you remember I told you of the final words of Charles IX of France, the murderer of countless French Protestants? “What blood, what murders! …Oh my God pardon me if thou canst…I am lost…”  Clinging to his Protestant nurse…

And as Henry VIII lay dying, although he remained Catholic, he chose to have that great Protestant, Archbishop Cranmer, with him at his deathbed. Cranmer encouraged him, if possible, to give him a sign that he had determined to trust in Christ alone for his salvation. Henry squeezed his hand tightly just before dying.

God knows. Obviously, no human being can judge the sincerity of such incidents. But, sincere or not, I am sure these scenes where there seems to be last-minute repentance are rare. I would guess the habitual disregard of God over a lifetime is hardly ever changed even as death approaches.

There was a book published in 1898 called, “Dying Testimonies of Saved and Unsaved” by a man called Solomon B Shaw. I found it online. (Just google the name if you are interested, and you can read it on several different sites).

The people dying without Christ were mostly quite knowledgeable about Christianity – this was the Victorian Age, after all! (Though there are testimonies from earlier centuries, too) And the all-too-common theme was that there was no longer grace available to them. They simply could not turn, could not repent. They had denied too vehemently what they knew too clearly. Compassionate Christians would try to reason with them that this was not so. But person after person would insist God had completely withdrawn from him.

The week after reading this, I had an identical experience at my Christian hotline. A young woman called saying she had turned from Christ while a teen and lived sinfully for years. She now understood clearly what she had done and that she was accountable to God. But, try as I might, I could not persuade her grace was available to cover her sin. She kept insisting God had irrevocably turned from her. “He is gone. He is not there for me. I can’t repent. It is too late…Too late!”

Fearsome words. Terrifying words.

Obviously, the very significant moral to this sad tale is to never, never toy with God. May we seek to press this into the hearts of our children with everything in us. And may we not take those first steps into sin that can eventually disqualify us from our great and holy God….”I never knew you….”

All That Stuff

In Canada we have a counterpart to NPR called the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. One day many years ago I was driving home after visiting my kids’ school. I turned on CBC and heard a great comedic monologue called “All That Stuff.” The fellow narrating it was talking about our propensity to collect. He said our homes are really just ‘big boxes’ that we put our ‘stuff’ into. It was hilarious and I have never forgotten it.

I was thinking about ‘stuff’ again the other day – I think because friends of ours, about our age, are selling their large, riverfront home. With great regret? Sorrow? No, with great joy. They can’t wait to get rid of it. Isn’t that life? Or rather, Christian life.

What we collect in early life – and that is the age to collect and nest-build, nothing wrong with it – we love to divest ourselves of in later life. ‘Stuff’ just loses its allure. As simple as that. It stops being interesting. Not completely, but very substantially.

What, oh what, do materialists do with this very natural facet of aging? Christians can lay down their attachment to objects knowing they are transitory anyway. The eternal becomes naturally more and more real, more compelling, and fills the vacuum with excitement at the approaching eternal inheritance.

But if you have lived for stuff, by intention or by default? What a death that death of desire, or at least the satisfaction of desire, must be. It is fascinating to me that men think they can get away with ungodliness. The God of heaven and earth truly catches them in their own traps.

The fragility of the material was brought home to me with great force when my mother died almost twenty years ago. She and Dad had fairly recently downsized from a home to an apartment. I had helped her sort through her things in preparation for this. And I was amazed as Mom determined she could not bring all her carefully collected mementos of European trips with her. Not even a single tourist brochure. All went into the garbage.

Then she died within two or three years of that move. My sisters and I went into her apartment and in a few hours had sorted, packed and cleared her things away. The apartment was cleaned and there was no physical trace of her ever having lived there. Or ever having lived at all, for that matter.

I remember the words of John Knox as he went out from an audience with Mary, Queen of Scots. Grieved by the worldliness of her court, “Knox addressed himself to the queen’s ladies. ‘O fair ladies,’ said he, in a vein of raillery which the queen’s frown had not been able to extinguish, ‘how pleasing were this life of yours, if it should ever abide, and then, in the end, we might pass to heaven with all this gay gear! But fie upon that knave Death that will come whether we will or no.’” (Wylie: The History of Protestantism)

Death is an amazing phenomenon.

But more amazing, of course, is Life Himself. The Pearl of Great Price. Our eternal treasure.

Wurmbrand Again

Francis Schaeffer insisted that Communism was, in a way, a Christian heresy. It assigned a value to man that no atheistic philosophy could possible give it, but was borrowed from the Bible. And it was only by blood – in this case the blood of the bourgeoisie, the oppressors –  that heaven could be attained.

Richard Wurmbrand, who lived as a Jewish Christian under both Nazi and Communist governments, says that the latter was by far the worst. But he faithfully witnessed to even atheistic Soviet soldiers at the cost, eventually, of his own freedom. He said that the best friend the Christians had as they spoke of Truth was the other person’s conscience. And what a master he was of aiming brilliant spiritual/’psychological’ arrows right into hearts. Listen to these two incidents:

“On a train, a Russian officer sat in front of me. I had spoken to him about Christ for only a few minutes, when he broke out with a wave of atheistic arguments. Marx, Stalin, Voltaire, Darwin, and other quotations against the Bible just flew from his mouth. He gave me no opportunity to contradict him. He spoke for nearly an hour to convince me there is no God. When he had finished, I asked him, “If there is no God, then why do you pray when you are in trouble?” Like a thief surprised while stealing, he replied, “How do you know that I pray?” I did not allow him to escape, “I asked my question first. I asked why you pray. Please answer!” He bowed his head and acknowledged, “On the front, when we were encircled by the Germans, we all prayed. We did not know how to do it. So we said, ‘God and spirit of mother’” ….

Isn’t it interesting that Wurmbrand did not counter intellectual argument for intellectual argument? As he said, he flew right for his ally, the other man’s conscience. We know there aren’t atheists in foxholes, as this man attested. Probably there aren’t many intellectuals, at least mere intellectuals, either….

The second incident came during an interrogation in prison:

In prison, the political officer asked me harshly, “How long will you continue to keep your stupid religion?” I said to him,,”I have seen innumerable atheists regretting on their deathbeds that they have been godless; they called on Christ. Can you imagine that a Christian could regret, when death is near, that he has been a Christian and call on Marx or Lenin to rescue him from his faith?” He began to laugh – “A clever answer.”

So simple. So profound.  Even the Communist interrogator saw the absurdity of this…and laughed!

A Puzzle

We all know the Christian maxim that the best thing a parent can do to bless a child is to love the other parent well…

In my life I have seen a few what I would call A++ marriages. The husband obviously adores his wife. The wife loves being adored and is secure and content in the relationship. There is a discernible, ongoing physical attraction that most of us would associate with very new marriages.

Beautiful! Biblical!

But I have seen over the years often – to my complete surprise and mystification – that the children of the marriage do not do well. The only conclusion I have been able to reach – and this is by no means a real answer – is that the children are, somehow, not ‘drawn up’ into the relationship. And, honestly, I have not even quite known what I mean by that. But it is as far as I have been able to get in my understanding.

Well, Tim gave me the book “When Character Was King” when I saw him on Sunday. It is Peggy Noonan’s biography of Ronald Reagan. In it she touches quickly on this very phenomenon. Although she does not deal with it from a Christian perspective, she deals with it succinctly and clearly. See what you think:

“The writer Marie Brenner wrote in ‘The House of Dreams’ her biography of the Binghams, the great newspaper clan of Louisville, Kentucky, of the closeness of the patriarch Barry Bingham and his wife, Mary. They were like ‘two halves of the same whole’. Their union was so close, their relationship so consuming of the other’s self that….it left their children out. There was no room for them in their parents’ completion. Barry and Mary were The Relationship and The Relationship took the oxygen out of the room; their children went elsewhere to breathe.

The same, essentially, has been said of the Reagans. Their marriage was a small house with one room and it was theirs. All of the Reagan children have spoken of this in one way or another, that they felt at different times and to varying degrees kept away, kept out, and it is no doubt true.”

Life in a fallen world has such unpredictable elements, doesn’t it? So complex!
Is the basic problem simply the exclusivity of the relationship, as Noonan outlines? Could it be sexual overtones that children perceive on some level and are not able to deal with?

I don’t know.

I have simply observed it.

And the City is Filled with Violence

Today I thought I would post a passage from my beloved “History of Protestantism.” It describes the death of the young French king, Charles IX in 1574, just twenty-one months after he agreed to the mass-murder of the Protestants in his kingdom – what is called the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. But first, just a single paragraph describing the first hours of St. Bartholomew’s itself:

“By and by the sun rose; but, alas, who can describe the horrors that the broad light of day disclosed to view! The entire population of the French capital was seen maddened by rage, or aghast with terror. On its wretched streets, what tragedies of horror and crime were being enacted. Some were fleeing, others were pursuing; some were supplicating for life, others were responding with the murderous blow, which, if it silenced the cry for mercy, awoke the cry for justice. Old men and infants in their swaddling clothes, were alike butchered on that awful night. Our very page would weep were we to record all the atrocities now enacted….”

Now several  months later:

“…The king’s constitution, sickly from the first, had been drained of any original vigor it had ever possessed by the vicious indulgences in which he lived, and into which his mother, for her own vile ends, had drawn him; and now his decline was accelerated by the agonies of remorse – the Nemesis of the St. Bartholomew. Charles was rapidly approaching the grave. It was now that a malady of a strange and frightful kind seized upon him. Blood began to ooze from all the pores of his body. On awakening in the morning his person would be wet all over with what appeared a sweat of blood, and a crimson mark on the bed clothes would show where he had lain…..

…the man who had stipulated, when giving orders for the St. Bartholomew Massacre, that not a single Huguenot (French Protestant) should be left alone to reproach him with the deed, was now waited upon on his death-bed by a Huguenot nurse!

As she seated herself on a chest, and was beginning to doze, she heard the king moan and weep and sigh. She came gently to his bedside and, adjusting the bedclothes, the king began to speak to her; and heaving a deep sigh, and while the tears poured down, and sobs choked his utterance, he said,

‘Ah, nurse, dear nurse, what blood, what murders! Ah, I have followed bad advice. Oh, my God, forgive me! Have pity on me, if it please thee. I do not know what will become of me. What shall I do? I am lost; I see it plainly.’

Then the nurse said to him, ‘Sire, may the murders be on those who made you do them; and since you do not consent to them, and are sorry for them, believe that God will not impute them to you, but will cover them with the robe of his Son’s justice. To him alone you must address yourself.’

Charles IX died on the 30th of May, 1574, just twenty-one months after the St. Bartholomew Massacre, having lived twenty-five years and reigned fourteen…”

Final comment: there was great celebration in Rome at the news of St. Bartholomew. It was commemorated by the Pope with both a painting and medals…

Father of His Country

I told you that Tim gave me a long biography of George Washington for Christmas. He was a name to me, of course, but with next to no content. (In Quebec, we studied very little American history)

Let me tell you what most interested me about his life – at least his life as set forth by one biographer, Ron Chernow. Chernow attempts balance as every good biographer does, but I would say his political sympathies are definitely with ‘big government’ thinkers. I think this colors his appreciation of the issues that emerge as Washington switches from military to political power.

My niece, Jo, wanted to know what I think of various American presidents, so, Jo – this one is for you!

What surprised me most:

1) I had no idea that the Continental Army labored under such disadvantages while fighting the British. I knew they had hard times but was astounded to learn that they routinely lacked food, shelter and clothing. I did not know that much of the population preferred to sell their food and their wares to the British. I was unaware that much of the citizenry vacillated as to which side to support, especially as the Continental Army had few early victories.

2) Adding to the above, I was amazed to learn that Washington lacked even gunpowder at times – a fact he hid from people and officers alike for two reasons: to support morale and to prevent the British from finding out this important fact.

3) I did not know that the French alliance was key to the eventual success of the Continental forces. This is not to the shame of that army. How could they have taken on both British sea and land power alone at that point?

4) I had never understood that the determination and commitment of Washington was what kept this little army intact until it could eventually – along with the French – fight its final, successful battles against the British.

5) I did not know that Washington was truly venerated by both people and leaders even before assuming the presidency. This was based largely on a character perceived as incorruptible.

6) The implicit trust in his integrity meant that the framers of early government structures were willing to leave them somewhat vague. They trusted Washington to fill in the details with the best interest of the country in mind. They would not have trusted any other leader in this way.

7) The country, from the beginning, was broken into two general categories: those who wanted a strong central bank that could assume debt, a professional army, and a strong central government generally –  with a strong executive branch in particular. The chief proponents of this were Washington himself and Alexander Hamilton. It was generally the ‘northern’ perspective, the ‘Federalist’ view.

And there were those who greatly feared all of the above. They wanted limited federal power, a dominant Congress, (instead of a dominant Executive branch) states rights, and no central bank or federal debt. This position was held by Jefferson and Madison. It was the ‘southern’ perspective. the ‘Republican’ one.

8) Washington came to identify himself so much with the former – the Federalists – that he decided he would move north if the Union did not survive.

9) Jefferson maintained that Washington did not understand economics enough to see how dangerous the notion of a central bank was, He blamed Alexander Hamilton for influencing him in this direction.

10) Washington’s own financial interests were adversely affected by the time he took to serve his country. (Though he tended to overspend, anyway) He struggled financially all his life.

11) As Washington assumed strong central power and filled in details of how the Constitution was actually to function – what it ‘meant’, he very much formed the nation.

12) He therefore was, indeed, the “Father of His Nation”.

13)He astounded the world by obtaining and laying down supreme military power, then achieving and retiring from the pinnacle of political power – all as the nation had trusted he would do.

14)Therefore, “First in peace, first in war, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

Americans, what do you think?

Oh, For a Delete Button

Tim bought me a massive biography of George Washington for Christmas and due to new babies, intervening quick reads, and life in general I am only now finishing it. I know we have all heard that Washington was a Mason and I am sure we have all wondered to what extent he was committed to the order. Unfortunately, it seems very much so. It is a Read This and Weep episode of American history:

“On September 18,1793,at Mount Vernon,Washington greeted a fife and drum corps from Alexandria and presided over a festive procession to install the cornerstone of the Capitol. After he crossed the Potomac, many Masons gathered to receive him, appareled in their order’s ceremonial garb. The grand parade to the ceremonial site proceeded under the auspices of Lodge No. 22 of Alexandria and the Grand Lodge of Maryland and its assorted chapters. Officiating as Grand Master, Washington donned the elaborately embroidered Masonic apron that, in happier times, had been a gift from Lafayette’s wife. To the sharp reports of cannon, Washington stepped into a trench, hoisted a trowel, and spread cement on the cornerstone before pouring oil, corn, and wine over it as spectators offered up Masonic chants. Incorporated into this southeast corner of the Capitol was a silver plate engraved with the words “the year of Masonry 5793.”

Again we see what a checkered affair life, and so history, is. My understanding is that most godly American pastors were in favor of the American Revolution. Were they, as a group, not called the “black brigade” or something along these lines? In his biography of George Whitefield, Dallimore says that the great evangelist was a noted voice favoring independence from Great Britain. So, we know there were many fervent prayers before God’s throne for his blessing on this new republic.

But then, alongside, occultism….On the part of the Father of the Nation….Who was, horizontally speaking, a great man, without a doubt…

Weird, evil, and troubling.

A thought: This makes me wonder about the continuing influence of Masonry. We Evangelicals give it not a thought, but I suspect it is still a considerable force in our society. I know recently during a mayoral contest in our community, one of the candidates approached John with a Masonic handshake…..

Another reason to fast and pray without ceasing for our nation…

Entering the Church:Part Three

The next stop on our ecclesiastical journey was an Evangelical Anglican church. This might sound like a misnomer, but – not really. Let me tell you a little about the early history of Anglicanism.

Did you know that Henry VIII, the founder of the Church of England, was a younger son? He was not supposed to be king at all, but was trained, instead, in Catholic theology.  When his older brother died, Henry, of course, became Prince of Wales. There was then considerable controversy as to whether or not he should marry his older brother’s widow. Henry’s father was loathe to lose her huge dowry, and Henry himself was very fond of her. The main factor against this marriage was the biblical curse they felt was applicable:

“If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity. He has uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.” (Leviticus 20:21)…And every king of that era most wanted a male heir…

In any case, Henry got a special dispensation from the Pope to override any possible biblical curses (!) and did go ahead with the marriage once he became king. His wife, Catherine of Aragon, bore six children, including three sons, but all died in infancy except Mary. As time went on, Henry became convinced the curse of Leviticus was on his marriage in spite of the papal dispensation.

As he had become attracted to a much younger woman, there were now two reasons to seek a divorce. The Pope went back and forth. In the interest of preserving the sanctity of marriage? Not at all. The nobility freely obtained annulments of their marriages. The chief deterrent was the political and military power of Catherine’s family. The poor pope was between a rock and a hard place. As a powerful monarch himself he had to choose which other powerful monarch he should offend….(Are your tears flowing?)

Henry became tired of the pope’s maneuverings and decided the Catholic church in England would cut ties with the papacy. He would be its head;not the Pope. He did not intend major theological changes. He was, as I have said, a committed Catholic theologian himself. But, to some extent, change did come, under the influence of men who had been impacted by the Reformation.

After Henry’s death, his brilliant son, Edward VI, became king. He ascended the throne as a child, but a child determined to establish true Protestantism in his realm. He and his advisors took the English church as far toward the Reformed position as was possible in the few years of his reign.

When Edward died, his half-sister, Mary, was crowned queen. She was the daughter of Catherine, the queen Henry first divorced, and shared her mother’s Catholic faith. She determined to re-establish Catholicism  and many faithful Protestants died as martyrs during her reign. Thankfully, it was brief.

Next, another daughter of Henry, Mary’s half-sister, Elizabeth, became queen. She determined to let there be a spectrum of theological belief in the Anglican church. And so it remains. You can still be anything from evangelical to Anglo-Catholic in that particular church

So, we found an evangelical congregation to attend in Toronto.

What did we most like about it? How did it bless us?

As with the Pentecostals, mainly through individual relationships. We made many close friends there that we remain in contact with, and always will.

I first heard of group Bible Studies there, and learned what systematic study of a biblical book meant. As far as I know, there had been no such thing in the Pentecostal churches.

Those were the pluses and they are substantial.

The negatives, as I see them?

The church seemed, on the whole, too sensitive to worldly status.

There was at least one pedophile, protected and unexposed in the congregation. He almost gained access to my older son.

There was not systematic preaching or Bible study tapping the most substantial riches of Anglicanism – that Protestant, Reformed tradition established under Edward VI, the boy-king. I heard much of John Stott and CS Lewis. I learned nothing of Archbishop Cranmer, Edward VI’s right hand man.

So, I was left knowing there was such a thing as systematic Bible study, but feeling cheated of its deepest expression. Surely, ‘systematic’ Bible study insinuated, well, a system of theology. And we knew we had not found that.

To be continued…..