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Some of us recently enjoyed the ‘Zoomutopia’ conference on ‘Suffering and the Glory of God’, organised by Gospel Reformation UK. The videos of the 3 talks and Q&A session are available to watch below:
GR UK also run a podcast called Grukology which seeks to encourage the planting and revitalisation of winsomely Reformed churches in the UK. One of the hosts, Josh Rieger, is pictured below with Stephen and Willow a couple of years ago:
Forty years ago today, Rev. Gerald Milligan was inducted as minister in Stranraer, after six years of ministry in Milford, Co. Donegal. He came to Stranraer two years after the retirement of Rev. Moffett Blair.
Although Gerald retired in 2010, he stayed on as stated supply until the ordination of Rev. Stephen Steele in 2015, and since then has served as an elder in the congregation.
Below are some photos from when the Presbytery marked Gerald’s retirement in 2010:
You can listen to some of Gerald’s sermons below:
Why (or did!) did God make a world with coronavirus? and Can the coronavirus be reconciled with the existence of a loving God? are the titles of two recent articles by John Lennox, emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford.
He has also written a short book entitled Where is God in a Coronavirus world? which is available here. If you live locally and would like a copy, please let us know!
You can watch also watch an interview with him below:
Another helpful resource is Coronavirus and Christ, a free book by John Piper. You can read it here or listen to it below:
In light of the pandemic, Stephen preached two one-off sermons about it, and you may also find our current series’ on Romans 8 and He is Able to be particularly relevant at the current time.
There’s also a series of articles on the Gentle Reformation website, including this one by Warren Peel: ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great’.
In this month’s Banner of Truth magazine, Stephen has a review of a book by his MA supervisor, Andrew Holmes. Although obviously focused on the Irish situation, there are many links to Scotland. For example, Holmes notes that by 1919 one reviewer of a book on the atonement could claim it as evidence that ‘Calvinism is dead in North Ireland and South Scotland’.
How had such a situation come about? Perhaps not by the means we might expect. Holmes writes: ‘In Scotland, organised revivalism after 1859 was more important than liberal theology in weakening attachment to confessional principles such as election and the nature of the atonement’.
You can read the review below:
The Irish Presbyterian Mind: Conservative Theology, Evangelical Experience and Modern Criticism, 1830-1930
Andrew R. Holmes
Oxford University Press, 2018
279pp., hbk, £65 / $85
What was the greatest threat to confessional Calvinism in the nineteenth century? Many would say liberal theology – but in this compelling book Andrew Holmes identifies conservative evangelicalism as a greater danger. Particularly as a result of revivalism, the very definition of what it meant to be a conservative church changed – even as many stood firm against higher criticism.
Although the word ‘Irish’ in the title might put some off, one of the many strengths of the book is how the Irish mind is rooted in the global picture – whether the eventual impact of the Scottish believing critics, the links with Princeton and Charles Hodge, the influence of Keswick holiness, the importing of American revivalism or Gresham Machen’s influence on the new Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
One area where Holmes seeks to draw a distinction between the Irish situation and the American one is over Darwinian evolution. Although usually sympathetic to the confessional position, Holmes equates Creationism with American Fundamentalism. Many Irish Presbyterian ministers came to accept Darwinism, and their initial resistance is described as seeming in hindsight ‘irredeemably out of touch’.
A question Irish Presbyterians must face in every generation is whether their ultimate loyalty is to Christ or the Union. Holmes notes that the appointment of one ‘believing critic’ as theology professor was opposed because he was a supporter of Home Rule, not because he rejected ‘the incredible dogmas’ of plenary and verbal inspiration.
Holmes’ thesis is that Irish Presbyterianism remained conservative during the period. Certainly, the majority of members and elders remained conservative Christians. Yet many ministers and professors were clearly unorthodox, but easily survived heresy trials by appealing to the language of evangelical experience. ‘The problem for conservatives was that they were not uniformly confessional’, nor was the new denomination formed by those who left.
Throughout, the book highlights the elasticity of ‘conservative evangelicalism’ and the needed recovery of confessional categories.
You can read Stephen’s previous Banner reviews here.