Another Essay Taking Shape

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Richard Dawkins and "The Root of All Evil?"

Many people were fascinated by Prof. Dawkins attack on faith in his recent TV series "The Root of All Evil" (Channel 4, 9th/16th Jan). What has been interesting has been how scientists with a Christian faith have responded to his claims. The following link points to an insightful review by Denis Alexander, first published in The Times Higher Ed Suppement.

Click here to view article.

Monday Pic on Tuesday

M-Way Madness

In the last four days I have driven to London and back, a nice little 1000mile trip. With 14 hours of driving, backache, and depressing depreciation on the car!

Now whenever I close my eyes, I can see the white road markings going past me - my own version of white line fever I suppose.

Boris, Noris and Doris were very well behaved on the long journeys, mostly due to the fact that my wife won an in-car DVD player on ebay and they were Disneyed into complete submission, if not stupifaction.

David Scott 1932-2006

On Monday, we went to the funeral for David Scott, who died the previous week. He was a warm hearted, gentle, sincere man of God, who had trusted Christ for decades. He had a wonderful, almost unique, ability to make individual people feel welcomed, loved, and valued both in the church community and elsewhere. Born to missionary parents in China before the war, David's family was imprisoned by the Japanese and then expelled from China by the Maoists. They moved back to Scotland, first to Wishaw and then to Perth, where they lived in the house we now own. David's parents lived in this house for the rest of their lives, and David visited us recently to look around the place and reminisce.

He had been ill for some time, and re-appeared at church at the end of 2005 for a few weeks, when he thought he was beating the illness. His final decline was rapid, and though that means he was taken from us sooner than anticipated, medically this was a mercy. My wife saw David shortly before he died. He still radiated love and delight at seeing people, and the enormous hug he gave her was full of strength.

So many people remember his smile, his warmth, his deep Christian commitment, his strong handshake and bear-hugs. We miss him because the love of Jesus radiated from him. Our thoughts and prayers are not with David, as he is now safe with The Lord - but with his wife Anne, and their children.

A Hazy Shade of Monday

thoughtfortheday

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." (Eph 2:10, NIV)

Whilst I am not convinced by that old line that "God has no hands but ours....", which seems to make Him dependent on our co-operation to achieve His purposes; I am concerned that unless I co-operate, I will miss my opportunity to be involved in what He is doing.

I pray that I will have the discernment and wisdom to know what good I should do today, and the responsive will to do it, and the servant's heart to do it joyfully. We may be God's workmanship - but judging myself alongside that prayer, I know I'm but a work in progress!

Number Thirty-Five

Happy Birthday to Me! The day got off to a fine start, then Boris, Norris (and to an extent Doris, too) sang Happy Birthday to me, and gave me some nice hill-walking related presents. 35 - that's OLD!

MP3 Bible Teaching

An amazing range of sermons is available for free download (you have to register - but there's no fee) from www.allsouls.org . You can search the sermon data base either by Bible passage or by preacher's name. If you do so - you'll find that virtually no corner of scripture is left untouched, while some of the well-known speakers include John Stott, Don Carson, Dick Lucas, Luis Palau, Alec Motyer, Alister McGrath, Rico Tice, Derek Tidball, Elaine Storkey, Peter Jensen, David Jackman and more.. (so loads of variety in both style and emphasis). Do yourself a favour - if you have an iPod and a long journey anywhere ahead of you - begin with John Stott's (pictured above) series on "The Integrated Christian".

Monday

Next Winter's Wood

Next winter's wood has arrived. I've spent many happy hours splitting and staking it.