Is God Relevant?

Hi there!  I am Alex Holmes, a retired Presbyterian minister, sharing with you some of my thoughts garnered over the years of a ministry in the United Kingdom, Canada and the USA.  I pose the question for you to consider – “Is God Relevant?”

Let me at least begin with an irrefutable statement.  Either He is relevant to every part of life, or He is an outgrown conception belonging to the infancy of the race, and now in our maturity to be cast aside; in that case religion, the church, the sacraments, worship services and prayer go by the board.

We ought to realize that if we decide God is not relevant, we reduce people to the status of clever animals. When God departs, I would suggest that the soul of humankind also departs. There is a vital relationship between any living organism and its relevant environment.

Let us turn to our Bibles, here we have a library of books written by over a hundred authors and covering a period of over 1,000 years. Throughout this library runs a theme; God matters! The first four words in the Bible give us the key. “In the beginning God.” We have no science as such in the Bible but when the writer speaks of such things as those with which science now deals, it is to tell us that God created them and owns them. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” “the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,” “the sea is His and He made it.”  We have poetry in the Bible, we have history, we have parable, biography and prophecy.  And the Bible concludes with the strange dreams of John, hard to understand, but shining with the overall authority of God reigning for ever and ever.

Is God relevant?  Does God matter?  Do we really mean, even at Christmas—Glory to God in the highest, or do we say with far more sincerity with the poet Swinburn, Glory to man in the highest, for Man is the master of things.  There is an Old Dutch fable of Spider in the Barn, which one afternoon saw a thread that stretched up into the dark unseen above him and thought how useless it was.  He snapped it and his web collapsed and he was trodden underfoot.  When we cut the thread that holds us in living touch with the Unseen we fall! 

Is God relevant?  Let us work for a better country, a better world and join all the people who are sincerely working and praying for it. 

In Henry Van Dusen’s book They Found the Church there he tells of an American airman being shot down over a south sea Island during World War II.  He hid in the bushes – at the beginning of this century if captured he would have been boiled  and eaten. But not now he was found cared for and his injuries treated—he lived to say that he had seen the real thing on that island.

The history of the Christian church tells us that hospitals began through the influence of the church.  Schools were all church schools; dramas were first played in churches.  There was a time you could not be an actor unless you were a religious person.  Great music was set to religious words.  Such as The Messiah and Elijah.  Our Courts of Justice were held in churches.  The bar to which the barrister was called was the Communion rail.  The whole of life was organized around God, we have almost severed the thread and it is a vital thread.  If it is severed we shall fall and in falling join the 14 civilizations like Rome, Greece, Egypt, Babylon and the rest.

Toscanini, a world famous conductor, rehearsing Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony is reported to have said to the members of the orchestra, Who are you? Who am I? You are nothing! I am nothing!  Beethoven, Beethoven is everything!

The living Christ is everything for the Christian.  He is their Lord and their God.

Social Justice Matters

For discussion of social justice and related matters…

Clergy Conversations

A topic for clergy conversations…

Church Members Connection

A topic for connecting church members…

Fostering our Presbytery

A topic for discussing how to best foster our presbytery…

Spirituality

For discussion on spirituality and related matters…

Our denomination

A topic for discussion of our denomination…

Reinventing Monday Morning

   I know some pastors, elders, and members who for a variety of reasons: frustration, indifference, anger, hurt feelings, etc. have severed their emotional ties with our Church and especially our Presbytery.  Their names may still be on rolls.  They may even show up occasionally and pretend they are not disaffected.  But the heart felt passion they once had for our larger Presbyterian Church is gone.  I, Gary Larson, am one of them.

   At the core of my situation is the feeling that my voice is not and has not been heard.  Of the hundreds of letters I mailed to the Presbytery office and committee chairmen over 27 years as Pastor in Olean, I can count on one hand the responses I received.  These were not letters of anger or protest.  They were inquiries, responses, information, ideas.  The reputation Presbytery has of being unresponsive and only coming to call when there is trouble is an earned reputation.  Who is there to Shepherd the shepherds?  Who takes initiative to keep in touch with and unconditionally support pastors laboring in the outposts?

   In our Church’s history, we have valued minority opinions. Today, I sense that we are so deafened by the din of activity, distraction, and noise that minority voices are neither solicited nor heard.  We sometimes think a few protestors filmed on the nightly news represent the “opposition”.  Not so.  They are only the louder voices and only a small segment of the opinions that find expression.  Many other voices remain silent.  I think we need to gently coax these many silent voices into expression so that we all can benefit from a more complete understanding.

   I would like to begin a forum, similar to that of Monday Morning, for those of you who remember that little magazine of by gone years.  I would like to see the “silent” voices of our Presbytery use this avenue to share their feelings and thoughts.  I would like to see that we can banter around ideas in an honest search for truth.  I would like to see that those who have disconnected have chosen to re-connect with their Church.  Is it too late for some?  Have they slammed shut, locked, and bolted the steel door forever?  Honest feelilngs to be sure.  But MY faith keeps nudging me to believe that closed doors can be reopened, feuds can end, and friendships can be restored.

   In our Presbytery, we have tried to be open to disagreement over the years.  But honestly, we can’t always attain the objective of “disagreeing agreeably”  We don’t have to walk on egg shells worrying that we might say or do something to hurt another’s feelings.

My perspective is that anyone who tries to do anything worthwhile will be misunderstood by some.  Heavens!  Probably somebody is taking offense at what I’m trying to do here.

   But, it’s a simple invitation for dialogue, not so much for those who talk freely and often too much, who too much love the limelight.  But this invitation is for those of you out there in your outpost who just want to be heard, and maybe even appreciated.  I’ll be writing more, and I hope you will also.

   Gary Larson