Engineering and Theology

From the Garden to the City

2012-02-06T17:26:00.007Z

From the Garden to the City : The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology is the title of a short book by John Dyer, director of Web development at Dallas Theological Seminary.

From the Garden to the City deconstructs the concept of technology and examines it through the lens of Scripture. Studying Bible passages and insights from the best thinkers on technology, theology and culture, John Dyer shows how technology left unexamined can enslave us rather than honour God and fulfil his plan for us. With helpful observations and practical applications, he issues an urgent challenge to live faithful lives in this technology-saturated modern world.

This is an excellent book - faithful to the Bible - yet up to date with its knowledge of technology. I highly recommend it.

Bible Overview (Lent Course)

2011-03-31T19:14:00.005+01:00

I have created a website to provide links to the Lent Course presentations for the Bible Overview track that I ran at St Mary's Cheadle. This six week course was on Wednesday evenings, and began on March 9, 2011.

Update: By popular demand, the course is being repeated during Lent 2012. The first session is on February 22.

New website for M'Cheyne resources

2011-01-05T07:13:00.003Z

A new website for Robert Murray M'Cheyne resources has been designed by a friend in Surrey.

We hope that you will like the fresh design of the new site. The process of adapting items from the old UK Online website is ongoing, but much is there already.

Please update your bookmarks and links, especially if you had linked online to the old website.

UK Online have delayed their closure by a week. It will close on 21 January, 2011. From then on, my email address ending in @ukonline.co.uk will no longer reach me.

There is a contact form on the new site.

UK Online will close in January 2011

2010-12-01T20:06:00.002Z

UK Online will close on 14 January 2011.

This means that my 14 year old website will then disappear (as such).

It is likely that the contents will still be accessible via the Internet Archive.

Here is a link to the M'Cheyne page via the Wayback Machine.

The menus should still be navigable, though page loading may be slow.

This Year's Biography: Robert Murray M'Cheyne

2010-11-16T16:38:00.002Z

Desiring God

Every year at our Pastors Conference, John Piper delivers a biographical message on a bygone saint whose life and influence are in some way instructive for us today.

At this next Pastors Conference, Piper will be focusing on Robert Murray M'Cheyne, the Scottish pastor, poet, and man of prayer from the 19th century. M'Cheyne died very young—he was only 29—but his life and writings have had a powerful and enduring impact on the church, for the better.

Conference details: Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 31 - February 2, 2011

McCheyne, McGonagall and the West End of Dundee

2010-06-22T14:22:00.003+01:00

This talk was given last night during Dundee's WestFest.

David Robertson takes a look at the influence of Christianity in general and St Peter's in particular on the West End of Dundee, examining the impact of two famous west enders, the preacher, pastor and poet Robert Murray McCheyne, a former minister of St Peter's Church and William Topaz McGonagall. McGonagall is one of Dundee’s most famous citizens – the ‘world’s worst poet’ was actually a member of St Peter’s and his tragic/comic life gives surprising insight into 19th Century Dundee life.

The audio recording of this talk is now available online. Click here.

M'Cheyne's Bible Reading Calendar now available in Thai

2010-05-12T11:06:00.001+01:00

Missionaries in Thailand have translated M'Cheyne's Bible Reading Calendar into Thai.

http://bit.ly/bp5bXP

May God bless this to His Church in Thailand.

COWBOYOLOGY

2010-03-05T14:37:00.004Z

http://cowboyology.blogspot.com/

*** Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds*** [Hebrews 10.24]

This is the blog of Clint Humfrey in Alberta, Canada.

He's a fan of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, as well as being a pastor, a NT scholar and a rancher.

Years ago, he contributed the guest essay Of Common Ilk to my M'Cheyne pages.

The Diary of Jessie Thain

2010-01-20T14:11:00.004Z

A friend emailed me today, and his message included this line, "If I remember correctly, R.M.M. was engaged when he died, and I assume that you have known his fiancée’s name.". The initials denote Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-43), the main subject of my website. Here's how I responded.

The general consensus is that he may have been engaged to Jessie Thain, though I have never seen a primary source proof that would cinch this. Some editions of Alexander Smellie's biography of R. M. McCheyne (a burning light) have as an appendix, Extracts from the diary of Jessie Thain.

His note prompted me to Google for her name and I came across this gem, from which I include a brief quotation below.

In his interesting book, “Robert Murray McCheyne,” Dr. Smellie mentions the fact that McCheyne was twice engaged to be married. The excellent young lady whom he first honoured with an offer of his life and love was discouraged by her relatives who thought they saw in McCheyne’s frail body a foreshadowing of an early death. The other young lady was the writer of this Diary. Certainly her references to McCheyne’s death in her Diary are strongly suggestive of a relationship nearer than that of a pastor to his flock. Spiritual affection for those in whom we see the image of the Lord is an ennobling grace which may not always be free from pain; but the love of Jessie Thain for Robert McCheyne, while holy and intensely spiritual, appears also to have the additional marks of the fond and reciprocating attractions of nature. One cannot but admire the delicacy and refinement with which she touches on this subject.

The online page from which this quotation is taken is entitled, Jessie Thain (The Friend of Robert Murray McCheyne) - Edited by Rev. Murdoch Campbell, M.A. The editor's introduction is dated Ross-shire, September, 1955.

Miss Thain was born 31st July, 1820, and was thus seven years younger than the one she loved. Her diary covers the period 31st December, 1843 to 28th November, 1847. M'Cheyne died on 25th March 1843, aged only 29, and there is a diary entry for the same date in both 1844 and 1845. It makes poignant reading.

NB. A 2003 paperback edition from Shiloh Publications is SOLD OUT. There were earlier editions in 1961 and 1967, as well as the originally edited one of 1955. These may sometimes appear in used book stores, whether online or in retail shops.

The Solitary Throne

2010-01-18T13:50:00.006Z

Mahatma Gandhi once wrote, "I am unable to place Jesus Christ on a solitary throne." In response to this, two books appeared in the 1930s, both with the title, The Solitary Throne, written by Christian authors.

The Solitary Throne: Some religious beliefs of Mahatma Gandhi in the light of Christ's teachings, by Brenton Thoburn Badley (1876-1949). Madras : Methodist Pub. House, 1931 (rep. 1935).
The Solitary Throne: Addresses Given at the Keswick Convention on the Glory and Uniqueness of the Christian Message, by Samuel Marinus Zwemer (1867-1952): London, 1937.

Zwemer's book was also intended as a direct rebuke to Gandhi’s statement.

Where do you place Jesus Christ?

Are you like Gandhi, merely an admirer of his life and teachings, but unable to place him where God has placed him? Or are you like both Badley and Zwemer, not only his admirer, but his true follower, believing in your heart and confessing with your mouth that He has been exalted to the highest place that heaven affords?

This hymn by J. G. Deck puts it succinctly,

1 O GOD, Thou now hast glorified
Thy holy, blest eternal Son;
The Nazarene, the Crucified,
Now sits exalted on Thy throne:
To Him in faith we cry aloud,
Worthy art Thou, O Lamb of God.

2 Father, Thy holy name we bless,
And gladly hail Thy just decree
That every tongue shall soon confess
Jesus the Lord of all to be;
But oh, Thy grace has taught us now
Before that Lord the knee to bow.

3 Him as our Lord we gladly own:
To Him alone we now would live,
Who bowed our hearts before Thy throne,
And gave us all that love could give.
Our willing voices cry aloud,
Worthy art Thou, O Lamb of God.

Jesus the Nazarene, once crucified, but then risen from the dead, now sits exalted on a solitary throne, at the right hand of God.

The Origins of Silent Reading

2010-01-09T14:52:00.003Z

I want to share something I just discovered during a Google search. I was already aware that silent reading was a development that occurred during European history, but this title homes in on how radical a change this was at the time.

Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading, by Paul Saenger

Product Description

Reading, like any human activity, has a history. Modern reading is a silent and solitary activity. Ancient reading was usually oral, either aloud, in groups, or individually, in a muffled voice. The text format in which thought has been presented to readers has undergone many changes in order to reach the form that the modern Western reader now views as immutable and nearly universal. This book explains how a change in writing—the introduction of word separation—led to the development of silent reading during the period from late antiquity to the fifteenth century.

Over the course of the nine centuries following Rome’s fall, the task of separating the words in continuous written text, which for half a millennium had been a function of the individual reader’s mind and voice, became instead a labor of professional readers and scribes. The separation of words (and thus silent reading) originated in manuscripts copied by Irish scribes in the seventh and eighth centuries but spread to the European continent only in the late tenth century when scholars first attempted to master a newly recovered corpus of technical, philosophical, and scientific classical texts.

Why was word separation so long in coming? The author finds the answer in ancient reading habits with their oral basis, and in the social context where reading and writing took place. The ancient world had no desire to make reading easier and swifter. For various reasons, what modern readers view as advantages—retrieval of reference information, increased ability to read “difficult” texts, greater diffusion of literacy—were not seen as advantages in the ancient world. The notion that a larger portion of the population should be autonomous and self-motivated readers was entirely foreign to the ancient world’s elitist mentality.

The greater part of this book describes in detail how the new format of word separation, in conjunction with silent reading, spread from the British Isles and took gradual hold in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The book concludes with the triumph of silent reading in the scholasticism and devotional practices of the late Middle Ages.

Enjoy and learn!

International Conference on Computing and Mission (ICCM)

2009-12-31T18:05:00.001Z

The International Conference on Computing and Mission (ICCM-Europe) takes place in the Netherlands 10-13 March, 2010.

'Engineering and Theology' matches 'Computing and Mission'.

I have therefore just booked to attend.

I hope to have opportunities to share information about Go Bible for mobile phones.

Geese in Their Hoods (Spurgeon on Romanism)

2009-10-26T12:52:00.007Z

Following the recent news about Pope Benedict's invitation to disaffected Anglicans to join the Church of Rome, I bring to mind the writings of Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92) that touch on the tendency (even in his day) of some in the Church of England to drift back towards Romanism.

His article, Geese in Their Hoods is well worth reading, not only for his observations during his travels in Europe but also for his candour in confronting the errors of Rome.

The nineteenth of the Church of England's Thirty-nine Articles is mild in comparison with Spurgeon's treatment of such "too-hot-to-handle" issues today. viz.

XIX. Of the Church.
The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.
As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith.

You can still obtain the 1997 reprint, edited by Timothy F. Kauffman, published by White Horse Publications.

Retirement

2009-10-23T19:18:00.001+01:00

Just a short post to inform readers that I retired four weeks ago, after over 36 years in the semiconductor industry. For most of that time I worked as a test engineer on power semiconductor devices, all at the same site in Stockport, which was under five different company names over this period:

Associated Semiconductor Manufacturers (ASM) Ltd.
Mullard Limited
Philips Components
Philips Semiconductors
NXP Semiconductors

Due to the current recession, there was a need to reduce "head count", and a call for voluntary redundancies was announced in April this year. I volunteered almost straightaway, was accepted in June, and finished work on 25 September.

I had already switched from full-time employment to part-time in June 2008, so I enjoyed 15 months of having Mondays free before finishing. This gave me a taste for retirement, but not for inactivity.

Now that I am the Go Bible project leader for the CrossWire Bible Society, I have more than enough to fill my waking hours. This brings the engineering and the theology even closer together than I could have imagined.

The slow death of congregational singing

2009-02-02T18:54:00.001Z

The slow death of congregational singing
by Mike Raiter, Principal of Victoria Bible College
The Briefing, April 2008.

It seems like genuine, heartfelt congregational singing is experiencing its dying gasps. But why does it matter and why should we care? Mike Raiter brings us back to the Bible to inject our singing with new life.

I was at a convention recently, seated near the rear of the auditorium. The music team at the front were ‘leading’ (and I use that word advisedly) and we were singing. Well, we were meant to be singing. And so I did what I've done quite often lately: I closed my eyes and listened to the singing. The song leaders with their microphones were clear and distinct. I could identify each of the several instruments accompanying the singers. But if you blocked out the ‘worship team’, all that was left around the building was a barely audible murmur. I opened my eyes and looked around. Most folk were either standing silently, not even making a pretence of singing, or were little engaged in the activity.

I turned to a friend next to me and commented, “No-one's singing”. He looked at me as if I'd just observed that no-one was flying.

more ......

Rhode Island Coffee and books

2008-12-27T15:37:00.002Z

One day before Christmas I had a coffee and a Danish pastry at Rhode Island Coffee on Little Underbank in Stockport. There were a few books related to Rhode Island on the window ledge, so I browsed through one of them.

It was Marguerite Appleton, A Portrait Album - Four Great Rhode Island Leaders.

Here is the Amazon link.

The time I spent there was enough to read the first chapter, which was about Roger Williams, (1603-1883), the co-founder of Rhode Island. He is credited for originating either the first or second Baptist church established in America.

He also wrote, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for Cause of Conscience (London, 1644). This is his most famous work, and was the ablest statement and defence of the principle of absolute liberty of conscience that had appeared in any language. It is in the form of a dialogue between Truth and Peace, and well illustrates the vigour of his style.

A pleasant interlude in a brief shopping errand.

Statistical analysis of Bible verse lengths

2008-12-26T15:18:00.005Z

In the course of my Go Bible activities, I found it necessary to perform a statistical analysis of Bible verse lengths, in order to test a conjecture that there had been systematic truncation in the particular source text that I had been working with. This was the French translation by Pirot and Clamer.

This is an illustration of where my Engineering and Theology interests and skills overlap.

The underlying probability distribution would be of interest to statisticians.

Cubic polynomial best fit below the mode, where mode length = 79 characters
Linear best fit above the mode

The chart lends weight to my truncation conjecture. There was a second peak of verses with length=255. The few slightly longer verses may be explained by word-wrap effects.

Further details are given in this Go Bible Forum topic. If you are not a forum member, you will first need to register before logging in.

Messianic Good News

2008-12-20T17:21:00.003Z

Messianic Good News is a non-profit organisation, founded in 1950 for the purpose of proclaiming the good news of salvation in Jesus the Messiah to Jews and Gentiles primarily through the written format. They publish and distribute tracts and books for outreach as well as the quarterly, “Messianic Good News,” through which they aim to encourage and equip readers with a deeper understanding of the faith. These articles are available on the website.

They recently hosted a conference in South Africa, on the subject, ISRAEL IN THE LAST DAYS - a critical look at popular views of the end times. The speakers were:

Stephen Sizer - who spoke on Israel from a theological perspective
Kevin Daly - who dealt with the misconceptions in popular dispensationalist views
Peter Cohen - who spoke on the prophecies of Daniel 9 and Matthew 24
Alan Morrison - who gave a two part paper on "the Restoration of all things".

Transcripts of all the conference talks are now available.

God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?

2007-08-27T19:03:00.000+01:00

New book out from LionHudson on 7 September 2007.

With new atheism loudly gaining more and more media attention, and religion seemingly being backed into a corner with nobody to stand up and rationally defend it, John Lennox’s new book God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? is a much needed addition to the science and faith debate.

God’s Undertaker is an intelligent response to the claims of new atheism, which, based on the evaluation of modern scientific evidence, argues that theism sits more comfortably alongside science than atheism.

Written by John Lennox, a well respected academic and mathematician, the book has received acclaim from top scientists as well as respected figures in the religious community and will provide a thought provoking and fresh basis for discussion.

I have already pre-ordered a copy. The author is a friend from my time at Cambridge University (1966-1969).

The linked page also gives details of a public debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox, to be held in Birmingham, Alabama, USA on 3 October 2007.

Atheist Delusion and Richard Dawkins

2007-06-08T16:13:00.000+01:00

The Atheist Delusion website is a useful compilation of critiques of Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion.

The welcome page begins, "Richard Dawkins, the world's most famous atheist, makes his home in Oxford, England. It was in Oxford, back in 1978, while sitting in a biology class in Magdalen College School, that I was first exposed to Richard Dawkins' favoured theory of human origins - Darwin and Wallace's idea of 'evolution by natural selection'. Sitting in one of the biology labs of a School founded in 1481 and attended by the likes of Sir Thomas More, William Tyndale, Cardinal Wolsey and John Foxe, I learnt of an idea that, according to Richard Dawkins, makes it possible to be 'an intellectually fulfilled atheist'."

The webmaster is Michael J. Penfold of Bicester on Oxforshire.

Pentecost - Sunday 27 May 2007

2007-05-27T21:24:00.000+01:00

Our blest Redeemer, ere He breathed
His tender last farewell,
A Guide, a Comforter, bequeathed
With us to dwell.

He came in semblance of a dove,
With sheltering wings outspread,
The holy balm of peace and love
On earth to shed.

He came in tongues of living flame
To teach, convince, subdue,
All powerful as the wind He came
As viewless too.

He came sweet influence to impart,
A gracious, willing Guest,
While He can find one humble heart
Wherein to rest.

And His that gentle voice we hear,
Soft as the breath of even,
That checks each fault, that calms each fear,
And speaks of Heav’n.

And every virtue we possess,
And every conquest won,
And every thought of holiness,
Are His alone.

Spirit of purity and grace,
Our weakness, pitying, see:
O make our hearts Thy dwelling place
And worthier Thee.

Harriet Auber (1773-1862)

A letter to the Global Church from The Protestant Church of Smyrna

2007-05-22T21:06:00.000+01:00

Dear friends,

This past week has been filled with much sorrow. Many of you have heard by now of our devastating loss here in an event that took place in Malatya, a Turkish province 300 miles northeast of Antioch, the city where believers were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). On Wednesday morning, April 18, 2007, 46 year old German Christian and father of three Tilmann Geske prepared to go to his office, kissing his wife goodbye and taking a moment to hug his son and give him the priceless memory, “Goodbye, son. I love you.”

Tilmann rented an office space from Zirve Publishing. Zirve was also the location of the Malatya Evangelist Church office. A ministry of the church, Zirve prints and distributes Christian literature to Malatya and nearby cities in Eastern Turkey. In another area of town, 35 year old Pastor Necati Aydin, father of two, said goodbye to his wife, leaving for the office as well. They had a morning Bible Study and prayer meeting that some other believers in town would also be attending. Ugur Yuksel likewise made his way to the Bible study.

None of these three men knew that what awaited them at the Bible study was the ultimate testing and application of their faith, which would conclude with their entrance into glory to receive their crown of righteousness from Christ and honor from all the saints awaiting them in the Lord’s presence.

On the other side of town, ten young men all under 20 years old put into place final arrangements for their ultimate act of faith, living out their love for Allah and hatred of infidels who they felt undermined Islam.

On Resurrection Sunday, five of these men had been to a by-invitation-only evangelistic service that Pastor Necati and his men had arranged at a hotel conference room in the city. The men were known to the believers as “seekers.” No one knows what happened in the hearts of those men as they listened to the gospel. Were they touched by the Holy Spirit? Were they convicted of sin? Did they hear the gospel in their heart of hearts? Today we only have the beginning of their story.

These young men, one of whom is the son of a mayor in the Province of Malatya, are part of a tarikat, or a group of “faithful believers” in Islam. Tarikat membership is highly respected here; it’s like a fraternity membership. In fact, it is said that no one can get into public office without membership in a tarikat. These young men all lived in the same dorm, all preparing for university entrance exams.

The young men got guns, bread knives, ropes and towels ready for their final act of service to Allah. They knew there would be a lot of blood. They arrived in time for the Bible Study, around 10 o’clock.

They arrived, and apparently the Bible Study began. Reportedly, after Necati read a chapter from the Bible the assault began. The boys tied Ugur, Necati, and Tilmann’s hands and feet to chairs and as they videoed their work on their cellphones, they brutally tortured our brothers for almost three hours.

Neighbors in workplaces near the print house said later they had heard yelling, but assumed the owners were having a domestic argument so they did not respond.

Meanwhile, another believer Gokhan and his wife had a leisurely morning. He slept in till 10, ate a long breakfast and finally around 12:30 he and his wife arrived at the office. The door was locked from the inside, and his key would not work. He phoned and though it had connection on his end he did not hear the phone ringing inside. He called cell phones of his brothers and finally Ugur answered his phone. “We are not at the office. Go to the hotel meeting. We are there. We will come there,” he said cryptically. As Ugur spoke Gokhan heard in the telephone’s background weeping and a strange snarling sound.

He phoned the police, and the nearest officer arrived in about five minutes. He pounded on the door, “Police, open up!” Initially the officer thought it was a domestic disturbance. At that point they heard another snarl and a gurgling moan. The police understood that sound as human suffering, prepared the clip in his gun and tried over and over again to burst through the door. One of the frightened assailants unlocked the door for the policeman, who entered to find a grisly scene.

Tilmann and Necati had been slaughtered. Ugur’s throat was likewise slit and he was barely alive.

Three assailants in front of the policeman dropped their weapons.

Meanwhile Gokhan heard a sound of yelling in the street. Someone had fallen from their third story office. Running down, he found a man on the ground, whom he later recognized, named Emre Gunaydin. He had massive head trauma and, strangely, was snarling. He had tried to climb down the drainpipe to escape, and losing his balance had plummeted to the ground. It seems that he was the main leader of the attackers. Another assailant was found hiding on a lower balcony.

To untangle the web we need to back up six years. In April 2001, the National Security Council of Turkey (Milli Guvenlik Kurulu) began to consider evangelical Christians as a threat to national security, on equal footing as Al Quaida and PKK terrorism. Statements made in the press by political leaders, columnists and commentators have fueled a hatred against ‘missionaries’ who they claim bribe young people to change their religion.

After that decision in 2001, attacks and threats on churches, pastors and Christians began. Bombings, physical attacks, verbal and written abuse are only some of the ways Christians are being targetted. Most significant is the use of media propaganda.

From December 2005, after having a long meeting regarding the Christian threat, the wife of Former Prime Minister Ecevit, historian Ilber Ortayli, Professor Hasan Unsal, Politician Ahmet Tan and writer/propogandist Aytunc Altindal, each in their own profession began a campaign to bring the public’s attention to the looming threat of Christians who sought to “buy their children’s souls”. Hidden cameras in churches have taken church service footage and used it sensationally to promote fear and antagonism toward Christianity.

In an official televised response from Ankara, the Interior Minister of Turkey smirked as he spoke of the attacks on our brothers in Malatya. Amid public outrage and protests against the event and in favor of freedom of religion and freedom of thought, media and official comments ring with the same message, “We hope you have learned your lesson. We do not want Christians here.”

It appears that this was an organized attack initiated by an unknown adult tarikat leader. As in the Hrant Dink murder in January 2007, and a Catholic priest Andrea Santoro in February 2006, minors are being used to commit religious murders because public sympathy for youth is strong and they face lower penalties than an adult convicted of the same crime. Even the parents of these children are in favor of the acts. The mother of the 16 year old boy who killed the Catholic priest Andrea Santoro looked at the cameras as her son was going to prison and said, “he will serve time for Allah.”

The young men involved in the killing are currently in custody. Today news reported that they would be tried as terrorists, so their age would not affect the strict penalty. Assailant Emre Gunaydin is still in intensive care. The investigation centers around him and his contacts and they say the case will fall apart if he does not recover.

The Church in Turkey responded in a way that honored God as dozens of believers and pastors flew in as fast as they could to stand by the small church of Malatya and encourage the believers, take care of legal issues, and represent Christians to the media. When Susanne expressed her wish to bury her husband in Malatya there were many complications. However, in the end Tilmann was buried in an old Armenian graveyard on April 20th.

Ugur was buried by his family in an Alevi Muslim ceremony in his hometown of Elazig on April 19th, his believing fiance watching from the shadows as his family and friends refused to accept in death the faith Ugur had so long professed and died for.

Necati’s funeral took place in his hometown of Izmir, the city where he came to faith. The darkness does not understand the light. Though the churches expressed their forgiveness for the event, Christians were not to be trusted. Before they would load the coffin onto the plane from Malatya, it went through two separate xray exams to make sure it was not loaded with explosives. This is not a usual procedure for Muslim coffins.

Necati’s funeral was a beautiful event. Like a glimpse of heaven, hundreds of Turkish Christians and workers came to show their love for Christ, and their honor for this man chosen to die for Christ. Necati’s wife Shemsa told the world, “His death was full of meaning, because he died for Christ and he lived for Christ… Necati was a gift from God. I feel honored that he was in my life, I feel crowned with honor. I want to be worthy of that honor.”

Boldly the believers took their stand at Necati’s funeral, facing the risks of being seen publicly and likewise becoming targets. As expected, the anti-terror police attended and videotaped everyone attending the funeral for their future use. The service took place outside at Buca Baptist church, and he was buried in a small Christian graveyard in the outskirts of Izmir.

Two assistant Governors of Izmir were there solemnly watching the event from the front row. Dozens of news agencies were there documenting the events with live news and photographs. Who knows the impact the funeral had on those watching? This is the beginning of their story as well. Pray for them.

In an act that hit front pages in the largest newspapers in Turkey, Susanne Geske in a television interview expressed her forgiveness. She did not want revenge, she told reporters. “Oh God, forgive them for they know not what they do,” she said, wholeheartedly agreeing with the words of Christ on Calvary (Luke 23:34).

In a country where blood-for-blood revenge is as normal as breathing, many many reports have come to the attention of the church of how this comment of Susanne Geske has changed lives. One columnist wrote of her comment, “She said in one sentence what 1000 missionaries in 1000 years could never do.”

Many Christians in Malatya will most likely move out, as their families and children have become publicly identified as targets to the hostile city. The remaining 10 believers are in hiding. What will happen to this church, this light in the darkness? Most likely it will go underground. Pray for wisdom, that Turkish brothers from other cities will go to lead the leaderless church. Should we not be concerned for that great city of Malatya, a city that does not know what it is doing? (Jonah 4:11)

When our Pastor Fikret Bocek went with a brother to give a statement to the Security Directorate on Monday they were ushered into the Anti-Terror Department. On the wall was a huge chart covering the whole wall listing all the terrorist cells in Izmir, categorized. In one prominent column were listed all the evangelical churches in Izmir. The darkness does not understand the light. “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also.” (Acts 17:6)

Please pray for the Church in Turkey. “Don’t pray against persecution, pray for perseverence,” urges Pastor Fikret Bocek.

The Church is better having lost our brothers; the fruit in our lives, the renewed faith, the burning desire to spread the gospel to quench more darkness in Malatya …all these are not to be regretted. Pray that we stand strong against external opposition and especially pray that we stand strong against internal struggles with sin, our true debilitating weakness.

This we know. Christ Jesus was there when our brothers were giving their lives for Him. He was there, like He was when Stephen was being stoned in the sight of Saul of Tarsus.

Someday the video of the deaths of our brothers may reveal more to us about the strength that we know Christ gave them to endure their last cross, about the peace the Spirit of God endowed them with to suffer for their beloved Savior. But we know He did not leave their side. We know their minds were full of Scripture strengthening them to endure, as darkness tried to subdue the unsubduable Light of the Gospel. We know, in whatever way they were able, with a look or a word, they encouraged one another to stand strong. We know they knew they would soon be with Christ.

We don’t know the details. We don’t know the kind of justice that will or will not be served on this earth.

But we pray-- and urge you to pray-- that someday at least one of those five boys will come to faith because of the testimony in death of Tilmann Geske, who gave his life as a foreign Christian in Turkey, and the testimonies in death of Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel, the first martyrs for Christ out of the Turkish Church.

Details in this letter were obtained through various news and media sources based on preliminary press releases and interviews. The court cases are pending and specific evidence and autopsy reports from the crime are not yet available to the public.

Reported by Darlene N. Bocek (01 May 2007)

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Please pass this on to as many praying Christians as you can, in as many countries as you can. Please always keep the heading as “From the Protestant Church of Smyrna” with this contact information: izmirprotestan@gmail.com // http://www.izmirprotestan.org

The device formerly known as the mobile phone

2007-05-16T22:51:00.000+01:00

This phrase was repeated several times by Sir David Brown during the course of his presenting the prestige Mountbatten Memorial Lecture in Manchester earlier this evening, under the auspices of the IET. It was a fascinating presentation, with some lively observations about history and technology changes since (Lord) Louis Mountbatten was born in the year 1900 AD.

So many things are coming together in the latest generation of mobile phones that even a few years go were unimagined. The title of the lecture was Ringing The Changes - The Then, Now And Wow! Of Seamless Mobility.

He presented some visionary ideas on how technology and society is changing, and will continue to change in the near future, some of these having far reaching effects on our lives. He concluded his talk by outlining how businesses like Motorola (of which he is the chairman here in the UK) are driving down the prices of mobile handsets such that they will be affordable in developing countries to more than the small governing elite, with the contracts for the low cost handsets setting the pace to overcome the "digital divide", and bring untold economic and educational benefits to millions of people.

I came away thinking how much the Church of Jesus Christ is given a great open door by means of these changes to bring the Gospel as the water of life to a thirsty world. All of us can each play a small part in ensuring that these technical developments may become more a force for good than a means for increasing wickedness and unrighteousness. Pray for all those involved in the enabling and steering of these changes, whether in business, science, technology, engineering, government, as well as for those disciples of Christ who are seeking to use these means to further the kingdom of God.

Albanian Go Bible for Java enabled Mobile Phones

2007-05-12T20:55:00.000+01:00

Since my earlier posts about Go Bible and ThML Viewer, I have successfully used GoBibleCreator 2.2.2 to make the Albanian Go Bible for Java enabled mobile phones. I have installed this on my K750i model and it works seamlessly.

A copy has been sent to Jolon Faichney, the owner of the Go Bible site, so I trust it will not be long before it becomes available for download.

In closing I should say that I also used the same method to create Go Bible versions as follows:

Haitian Creole Translation
Spanish Reina Valera Translation
French Darby Translation
Greek NT (Stephanos 1550)
Korean Translation (untested)

Some of the other ThML files I downloaded using the ThML Reader program have given rise to problems which have not yet been resolved. These can be classed as follows:

Greek (Modern) Translation - Philippians was missing!
Croatian Bible, Latvian NT, Maori NT, Latin Vulgate - all gave parsing errors.

Mobile Daily Devotions on your Java enabled phone

2007-05-12T12:19:00.000+01:00

Though I am not generally one who makes a lot of use of "third party" daily devotional material, other Christians may find this link helpful, if it gets them more into the Bible each day.

From Mobile Daily Devotions you can download various daily reading applications to your Java enabled cellphone. These include:

* Our Daily Bread
* Global Prayer Digest
* Daily in Christ
* Streams in the Desert
* Devotions by Warren Wiersbe

If anyone comes across the M'Cheyne Bible Reading Calendar as a Java application, please leave a comment here with details.

ThML Reader

2007-05-11T17:16:00.000+01:00

ThML Reader is a free Windows program for reading files that are formatted in ThML which denotes Theological Markup Language.

I tried installing this on my new Acer Aspire 5630 (Windows XP Media Edition with IE7) and the program stopped responding when I tried to open any library item. However, I also installed it on our older Dell Inspiron 2500 (Windows ME with IE6) and everything worked fine. I have reported the problem to Christian Scholar, I suspect there is an incompatibility with IE7 that needed to be addressed.

ThML public domain catalog items include the complete Bible in several languages. For example, yesterday, I installed the Albanian Bible mainly out of curiosity. cf. One of my fellow alumni of Trinity College Cambridge is Founder and Director of the Albanian Evangelical Mission.

Here's the opening verses of Mark's Gospel in Albanian.

1 Fillimi i Ungjillit të Jezu Krishtit, Birit të Perëndisë. 2 Ashtu si është shkruar tek profetët: ''Ja, unë po dërgoj lajmëtarin tim para fytyrës tënde, i cili do të përgatit udhën tënde përpara teje. 3 Ka një zë që bërtet në shkretëtirë: "Përgatitni udhën e Zotit, drejtoni shtigjet e tij"''.

ReadManiac - Bookreader for mobile phones

2007-04-18T18:58:00.000+01:00

http://www.deep-shadows.com/hax/ReadManiac/

While I'm on the topic, I'll mention this free Java application too. It's a bookreader that can read files stored anywhere on your cellphone's memory stick as well as having the capability to make dedicated readers for particular eBooks downloaded from the network.

Wattpad - read and share your stories on your mobile phone

2007-04-18T18:49:00.000+01:00

http://www.wattpad.com/

Another great freeware application for Java enabled mobile phones. It's not just for sharing personal stories. Already most of the public domain texts from Project Gutenberg have been uploaded. You can download these for reading on your cellphone.

I've recently uploaded three books by Rev. William Haslam (1818-1905).

Go Bible for Java enabled Mobile Phones

2007-04-18T18:45:00.000+01:00

http://www.go-bible.org/

Free downloads of Bibles are available in several languages which can be installed easily on Java enabled mobile phones. I am seriously impressed with this. Worked very smoothly with my new Sony Ericsson K750i model.

Original Published Works of Robert Murray M’Cheyne

2007-01-01T15:57:00.000Z

In May 2006, D.R. Booker did a fine service in his Running Well blog by providing a PDF download of the items by Robert Murray M’Cheyne that were published in the Scottish Christian Herald, a periodical that appeared in the years 1836 to 1841. Booker wrote,

Many eminent Scottish ministers had original works published in TSCH, including Robert Murray M’Cheyne. In all, M’Cheyne published twelve original pieces, many of which, have not been republished since, and have laid hidden within the pages of these rare volumes for well over a century.

Visit Original Published Works of Robert Murray M’Cheyne for further details.

Nigel Lee (1946-2006)

2006-07-30T14:48:00.000+01:00

Nigel Lee: loving the lost, passionate for Christ, 1946-2006

The link is to the obituary of my friend Nigel Lee in the May 2006 issue of the magazine Evangelicals Now. Nigel and I were at university together in the late 1960s, and became close friends after I became a Christian in 1966. We were at the same college (Trinity), though reading different subjects (he read English, I read Mechanical Sciences). Both of us were active in the CICCU (Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union) and in Operation Mobilisation, to which we were introduced in the summer of 1967. We both attended the Open Brethren meeting at Roseford Hall in Cambridge, which was where both of us were baptized as believers in the Spring term of 1967.

Nigel went on eventually to become one of the foremost evangelists and Bible teachers in Great Britain, and was frequently in demand as a speaker at University Missions and Christian conventions.

He is now eternally with the Lord Jesus Christ whom he loved and served so well.

Not everyone agrees on climate change!

2006-05-01T17:28:00.000+01:00

The idea everyone agrees on climate change is a fallacy

This personal column by Ruth Lea in the Telegraph Business section today (2006-05-01) should be a firm reminder to gullible Archbishops and other feeble-minded Christians that the alarmist news headlines about man-made global warming are without sufficient warrant. It's all down to natural statistical variations! Ruth Lea concludes with a statement from Dr Dennis Bray that "the dissenters are in a healthy majority".

I'm content to be counted among the dissenters.

When weaknesses occur?

2006-04-20T19:10:00.000+01:00

"Weaknesses occur, as always, when men fail to work out the full implications of what they believe, and also when they fail to understand what it is that they are actually doing."

F.R. Coad, A History of the Brethren Movement,
Exeter : Paternoster Press (1968) ISBN 0853640858.
Second edition (1976) ISBN 0853641641.
Modern reprint: Vancouver : Regent College (2001) ISBN 1573831832.

I first read this book by Frederick Roy Coad over 33 years ago, and coming to this quotation towards the end of his work, I was so impressed by the wisdom of these words that I copied them into my journal. The sub-title of the book about the Christian Brethren was "its origins, its worldwide development and its significance for the present day".

Although this summing up remark had a particular relevance to the subject he was writing about 38 years ago, I thought then, and continue to think today, that it has a much wider application to all manner of circumstances in the sphere of religious faith and practice. Ponder these words deeply, and see what it might mean for you to avoid the same kinds of failure he was writing of.

Isn't it the duty of every thinking Christian to "work out his salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure" ? (Phil. 2:12b,13).

200 years ago in Kabul, Afghanistan

2006-04-15T10:29:00.000+01:00

The recent news about Abdul Rahman the Afghan Christian who was sentenced to death in Kabul for apostasy from Islam has prompted me to do something which I've been meaning to do for some time.

There is an almost forgotten story about a remarkable series of events that began about two hundred years ago in Kabul, relating to the coming to faith in Jesus Christ of one of two friends who were traveling through Asia after their pilgrimage to Mecca.

The story begins like this:

SABAT was the son of Ibrahim Sabat, of a noble family in Arabia, who trace their pedigree to Mahomed. Abdallah was his intimate friend., and also a young man of good family. They agreed to travel together, and to visit foreign countries. Both were zealous Mahomedans. Accordingly, after paying their adorations at the tomb of their prophet, they left Arabia, travelled through Persia, and thence to Cabul. Abdallah was appointed to an office of state under the king of Cabul, and Sabat leaving him there, proceeded on a tour through Tartary.

While Abdallah remained at Cabul, he was converted to the Christian faith by the perusal of a Bible belonging to an Armenian Christian, then residing at Cabul; for the Word of God is the sword of the Spirit. In Mahomedan countries it is death for a man of rank to become a Christian. Abdallah endeavoured, for a time, to conceal his conversion; but finding it no longer possible, he determined to flee to some of the Christian Churches near the Caspian Sea. He, accordingly, left Cabul in disguise, and had gained the great city of Bochara in Tartary, when he was met in the streets of that city by his friend Sabat, who immediately recognized him. Sabat had heard of his conversion and flight, and was filled .with indignation at his conduct. Abdallah knew his danger, and threw himself at the feet of Sabat. He confessed that he was a Christian, and implored him by the sacred tie of their former friendship to let him escape with his life. “But, sir,” said Sabat, when relating the story, “I had no pity. I caused my servants to seize him, and I delivered him up to Morad Shah, king of Bochara. He was sentenced to die, and a herald went through the city announcing the time of his execution. An immense multitude attended, and the chief men of the city. I also went and stood near to Abdallah. He was offered his life if he would abjure Christ, the executioner standing by him with his sword in his hand. ‘No,’ said he, ‘I cannot abjure Christ.’ Then one of his hands was cut off at the wrist. He stood firm, his arm hanging by his side, but with little motion. A physician, by desire of the king, offered to heal the wound if he would recant. He made no answer but looked stedfastly towards heaven, like Stephen the first martyr, his eyes streaming with tears. He did not look with anger towards me. He looked at me, but it was benignly, and with the countenance of forgiveness. His other hand was then cut off. “But, sir,” said Sabat in his imperfect English, “he never changed, - he never changed. And when he bowed his head to receive the stroke, all Bochara seemed to say, What new thing is this?”

For the full story of what happened afterwards in Sabat's own life, go to the article Sabat the Arabian, by Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-43) now posted on my website.

For news about how you can help Christian believers facing pressure from Islamic societies and governments, please visit the website of the Barnabas Fund.

Meanwhile also, please continue to pray for those Afghan Christians today who unlike Abdul Rahman are not able to find asylum in a foreign country like Italy, but who face the continued danger of being persecuted inside Afghanistan, away from the eyes of reporters and the world media.

Note: The original spellings have been retained in the article by M'Cheyne. Bochara in this story is modern day Bukhara in Uzbekistan.

Care not Killing

2006-04-15T10:07:00.000+01:00

Care not Killing

Care NOT Killing is a UK-based alliance of individuals and organisations which brings together human rights groups, healthcare groups, palliative care groups and faith-based organisations with the aims of:

1. Promoting more and better palliative care
2. Ensuring that existing laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide are not weakened or repealed during the lifetime of the current Parliament
3. Influencing the balance of public opinion further against any weakening of the law

Please visit it soon and sign their petition against Lord Joffe's Bill - that seeks to legalise assisted suicide.

The Evangelical Library e-books project

2006-04-15T09:54:00.000+01:00

There was a media release about the launch of this project in January 2006. I'd like anyone visiting this blog to become aware of this useful study resource.

The Evangelical Library e-books project

From the Aims page:

The development of the internet has been a change in global communications as significant as the development of the printing press. It is our desire to use modern technology as a tool to further the Kingdom of Christ on earth. We believe that the Evangelical Library contains a wealth of wisdom from the past for Christians of this generation.

The e-books project is seeking to make this wisdom accessible for Christians world wide in a way that allows rapid discovery of the relevant sections of the text on the one hand and a full preservation of the original document in image format on the other.

Our long term goal is to provide an electronic library which will supplement the physical libraries of pastors around the world. We aim to integrate this material so that relevant passages are quickly provided for any passage of scripture.

We aim to aid pastors around the world as they seek to "Make disciples of every nation... teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you.".

Note: The project is open to all, not just to members of the Evangelical Library!

SAS soldier quits Army in disgust at 'illegal' American tactics in Iraq

2006-03-13T16:00:00.000Z

Telegraph | News | SAS soldier quits Army in disgust about Iraq

Thank God for such an honourable British soldier!
Visit the Telegraph online to read the full story.

See also
Telegraph | News |
'I didn't join the British Army to conduct American foreign policy' - his first interview since being honourably discharged from the Army last year.

Encyclopedia Puritannica Project

2006-02-03T20:00:00.000Z

The Encyclopedia Puritannica Project (EPP) is an inter-denominational federation of Christians who are committed to the orthodox truths of Scripture. They believe these truths to be well understood, articulated, and applied by the Puritans and other Reformed teachers—both past and present. Many of their works have been forgotten by the modern church and have thus become practically inaccessible. It is their desire to see these works, among the best in the history of Christendom, go forth to the nations once again. This project, begun in 1998, is dedicated to the accomplishment of this task.

I have just made a brief visit to this site, which looks promising as a potential resource for pastors and other Christian leaders and students. The CD contents are listed on the web-site, so it's easy to see what you'd get if you paid the $99.95 for version 3. There are works by 112 authors ranging from Archibald Alexander to Thomas Witherow. Testimonials are somewhat sparse! There's only one so far.

"What About Revelation 20?

2006-01-06T21:00:00.000Z

Article by Dr Cornelis P. Venema.

Not often would one post a blog by quoting first from the last footnote of an article, but this web-page was found by searching for the exact phrase, "premillennial diplopia".

5. Perhaps this is the place to mention a phrase coined by Jay Adams in his criticism of Premillennialism. Adams uses the phrase ‘premillennial diplopia’ to describe the double-vision that often characterizes its reading of Scripture in general and the book of Revelation in particular. Because differing visions that describe the same history and events are read as though they described different events in sequence, a doubling occurs (two second comings of Christ or victories at the end of the age, two resurrections, etc.). See Jay Adams, The Time Is At Hand, pp. 17-40.

The main article by Cornelis P. Venema is entitled, "What about Revelation 20?". He expounds the structured view of the book of Revelation as championed by William Hendriksen. His first section is headed, "The Millennium is now", so you can see that it's written from an amillennial perspective.

Jay Adams' phrase "premillennial diplopia" was one of the triggers that set me on my journey away from dispensationalism in the 1970s.

A collection of Articles & Reports by Mr. Robert Fisk + Audio & Video

2005-12-26T12:15:00.000Z

For the last few weeks since it was published, I've been slowly making my way through Robert Fisk's book, The Great War for Civilisation, the Conquest of the Middle East. Currently, I'm just over half way through its 1366 pages. I've just finished chapter 17. Robert Fisk, reporter for the Independent, is one of the great reporters of our time, and for the last 20 years has reported on all the major events in the Middle East. If you're unsatisfied by the lies and deceit regurgitated by much of the media about the situation in Iraq, then I urge you to read some of Fisk's articles on this web-site, A collection of Articles & Reports by Mr. Robert Fisk. Better still, get the book yourself, and read it like I'm doing. If you're a Christian and reading this post, I plead with you to not believe the triumphalist neo-conservative garbage being posted by some 'evangelical' commentators such as Peter Glover, who seems to have sold his soul to George Bush and Dick Cheney.

Make a start by reading this interview: "War is the total failure of the human spirit".

Biblical Chronology - Dating of the Exodus and Birth and Crucifixion of Jesus

2005-12-23T20:53:00.000Z

Doig's Biblical Chronology - Dating of the Exodus and Birth and Crucifixion of Jesus

Was Jesus born on December 25th?
When was he crucified?
When was the Exodus from Egypt?

If these questions have fascinated you, then visit this site and check the evidences.

Running Well: Andrew Bonar: Minister of the Gospel

2005-12-11T15:12:00.000Z

Running Well: Andrew Bonar: Minister of the Gospel

Andrew A. Bonar was the friend and biographer of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, the main subject of my own web-site. In this blog, D R Brooker writes, "Through what I can only consider to be a "smiling providence", I came into possession of a Bible that at one time belonged to the Scottish minister, Andrew A. Bonar (1810-1892), the younger brother of Horatius Bonar. " There are two posts in his blog each describing the pages pasted in the front and back covers of Bonar's Bible. They make fascinating and challenging reading.

Wikipedia edits by this author

2005-09-01T22:05:00.000+01:00

I have been quite active in Wikipedia recently...Here's just a few pages I've contributed to in a small way.

Reliability engineering

Tessellation

Robert Murray M'Cheyne

List of open source software packages

Riemann hypothesis

Surface-mount technology

Rhyming dictionary

Protestant Reformers

Donatist

William Huskisson

The Ilston Book

Sacralism

Generalized extreme value distribution

CICCU

Robert Anderson (theologian)

That's enough to give the flavour of some of my interests, in engineering, theology, maths, history, etc.

EnviroSpin Watch

2005-06-21T20:03:00.000+01:00

http://greenspin.blogspot.com/

EnviroSpin Watch is a "Weblog monitoring coverage of environmental issues and science in the UK media. By Professor Emeritus Philip Stott. The aim is to assess whether a subject is being fairly covered by press, radio, and television. Above all, the Weblog will focus on science, but not just on poor science. It will also bring to public notice good science that is being ignored because it may be politically inconvenient."

It was his letter to the Telegraph published on June 10th that reminded me of earlier encounters with Philip Stott on the web and other news media.
'Can humans combat climate change?'

The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity

2005-06-16T18:38:00.000+01:00

The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity

The London Institute for Contemporary Christianity vision includes the following, "Britain will be radically transformed when 'ordinary' Christians are envisioned and equipped to make a difference where they are, where they spend most of their time, where they have most of their relationships, where people can see the difference Christ makes in their workplaces, schools, universities and neighbourhoods.

LICC will contribute to winning Britain by convincing successive generations of Christians that all of life comes under the Lordship of Christ, and that all of life is intended to be a context for worship, mission, ministry and active Christian engagement."

Emphasis mine [DFH]

I've been looking at the LICC site today. It has lots of useful articles and resources. Take alook for yourself.

Main Page - Sage Community Wiki

2005-05-28T12:07:00.000+01:00

Main Page - Sage Community Wiki

I've recently been making good use of the Sage extension to Mozilla Firefox. This is an excellent way to manage and use news feeds and feeds from other sources such as blogs and forums. And being open source, it is free and well supported.

During the past few days I have been contributing (anonymously) to the Sage Community Wiki. I've also been learning about how to import and export OPML in the Sage news reader, and have successfully downloaded OPML files for this purpose.

The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience - Books & Culture

2005-05-13T20:24:00.000+01:00

The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience - Books & Culture:
"The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience" by Ronald J Sider.

This book by Ronald J Sider was mentioned briefly by Mike Newman in his sermon last week. There's a lengthy extract from it in this page on the Christianity Today site. The author asks why so few Christians live up to what they profess to believe. The context is North America, but there are lessons we could learn from on this side of the Atlantic too. Visit the article. Comment below if you have something serious to say on this subject.

'The Triumph of Technology' - The 2005 Reith Lectures

2005-04-04T19:01:00.000+01:00

Every year BBC Radio 4 broadcasts a series of annual lectures in honour of the BBC founder Lord Reith.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2005/

The subject of this year's lecture series is: 'The Triumph of Technology'. This year's Reith Lecturer is the distinguished engineer, Lord Broers who is President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and Chairman of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

Theme: "Technology can and should hold the key to the future of the human race".

The Triumph of Technology lectures will be broadcast on Wednesdays and Saturdays in April and May. The programme presenter is Sue Lawley.

The first broadcast is on Wednesday, 6th April 2005, at 8.00pm BST.
For full schedule, visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2005/schedule.shtml

I hope to listen to these lectures - and will record any further comments here in this blog as the series progresses.

"Peace Like A River"

2005-02-22T19:34:00.000Z

FaithWriters.com-Christian Devotionals - Peace Like A River:

This page is one of several which retells the story of Horatio Gates Spafford (1778-1832) who was a successful attorney in Chicago, where he was active in church, and blessed with a wife and four daughters. It tells of the tragic circumstances which befell his family and that led to the writing of the hymn, When peace like a river attendeth my way.

I'm just posting this link because we sang the hymn in our Church last Sunday evening, and perhaps not many in the congregation know the background. It is more well-known by the refrain, It is well, it is well with my soul.

The CyberHymnal has this hymn on-line.

Strategic Edge: Radically effective personal development training

2004-12-10T16:00:00.000Z

Strategic Edge: Radically effective personal development training

A mini-review of a training course.

Along with a sizeable group of colleagues from Philips Semiconductors, I have just attended a two day off-site training course on Personal Excellence given by Nicholas Bate of Strategic Edge. My overall impression of the course was positive and valuable. The material was a a good distillation of the various strands of wisdom collated from a wide variety of sources. It was well presented and there was a good mix of listening to presentation and taking part in activities with other course members. It was not doctrinaire - it did not focus on the teachings of the latest fashion in management gurus. We learned to manage our time and state more effectively, to accelerate our reading and learning, and to use assertiveness as a productive behaviour mode. Course distinctives included the idea of setting a 'personal compass' and having a 'master list' to ensure overall balance in your life, including both work and personal goals.

Why should I BLOG this under Engineering and Theology?

Just three observations, which could be classed as a friendly critique.

1. The notion of beliefs as being highly flexible and readily changed. This should be challenged. The given example of 'Father Christmas' and young children was a rather facile analogy, in my opinion. The presenter gave no acknowledgement that many people have strongly held convictions as beliefs, which should never be abandoned lightly without adequate reasons. Even so, in the immediate context of how people's behaviour is often held back by irrational limiting beliefs about themselves or their situation, there is considerable validity in the proposition.

2. The practice of meditation as several minutes relaxation in which the mind is just focussed on the breathing rhythm. This draws on the now 'all too common' Eastern usage of the word meditation. Though it is fair to say that the speaker was not promoting any religious view as bound up [for example] in Transcendental Meditation. Even so, the fact is that a few sources of the course wisdom did seem to stem from the East, such as [for example] his choice of the Sanskrit word dharma to mean life purpose, on the grounds that there is no single equivalent word in the English language.

3. The principle of self-reference as opposed to external-reference, in the context of being true to our chosen principles of action. Fair enough in the context of not letting what other people might think determine our behaviour, but ultimately futile if the self is our sole reference point for predication and action. For the Christian believer, this should never be so. Our ultimate reference point should be how we stand in relation to the Creator, who is over all and blessed for ever.

Most of us thoroughly enjoyed the course, and all of us were challenged in various degrees by the questions it raised and the ideas and techniques that were taught. It was certainly much better than any other courses I've attended during my engineering career. I'd definitely give it 19/20 as a score.

Making links difficult - use punctuation characters!

2004-10-02T19:32:00.000+01:00

It was quite a job getting the link right for the previous post. The page I linked to had an apostrophe in the filename. The blogger editor just truncates everything from the punctuation character. It isn't so clever that it automatically replaces ' by %27 like I just had to do.

Such is life! But then, an engineer like me will not be beaten by the problem.

THE DIGNITY OF MAN AND BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

2004-10-02T19:05:00.000+01:00

THE DIGNITY OF MAN AND BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

This page is the abstract of a thesis at the University of Durham, City of Durham, England, UK.
The following Reformed doctrines are investigated in relation to man's role working in a business enterprise:

man as the image of God and work as a vocation from God
covenanting in the context of human relations within the firm
the sovereignty of God in relation to the structure of the economic system
stewardship in the context of the rewards of work

Without having read the full thesis, any comments of mine would be superfluous at this stage, except to say that it gives the impression that a useful piece of work has been done, one which merits the attention of Christians working in a business enterprise, a situation in which [like myself] many engineers find themselves.

The page does not indicate who the researcher was, but I found the page from a link posted on the site of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham.

What is an Evangelical?

2004-09-25T14:57:00.000+01:00

This question is the title of chapter sixteen in the book Knowing the Times - Addresses Delivered on Various Occasions 1942 - 1977 by D. M. Lloyd-Jones. [Banner of Truth, 1989]. The chapter records a series of three addresses given at the IFES Conference at Schloss Mittersill, Austria, in 1971. There is much in this book, especially in this chapter, with which I am in whole-hearted agreement. I commend it to you for your thoughtful study.

Here are the section headings:

I
THE CONSTANT NECESSITY FOR DEFINITION
RECENT HISTORY AND CHANGES
RE-EXAMINING OUR NAME
THE DANGER OF WRONG DIVISIONS
SUCCUMBING TO THE ECUMENICAL SPIRIT
'THE HOLY SPIRIT, NOT DOCTRINE'
NON-EVANGELICAL OPPOSITION TO ECUMENISM

II
GUIDING PRINCIPLES : (1) THE PRESERVATION OF THE GOSPEL
GUIDING PRINCIPLES : (2) LEARNING FROM HISTORY
GUIDING PRINCIPLES : (3) MAINTAINING NEGATIVES
GUIDING PRINCIPLES : (4) NO SUBTRACTIONS OR ADDITIONS
EVANGELICAL PRIORITIES
WATCHFULNESS
DISTRUST OF REASON
THE PLACE OF REASON
OTHER MARKS OF AN EVANGELICAL
UPPERMOST CONCERNS

III
FOUNDATIONAL AND SECONDARY TRUTHS
JUSTIFYING A VITAL DISTINCTION
THE NECESSITY OF OPPOSITION TO DOCTRINAL INDIFFERENTISM
SCRIPTURE: THE ONLY AND FULL AUTHORITY
CREATION, NOT EVOLUTION
THE FALL AND EVIL
ONE WAY OF SALVATION
THE CHURCH: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES
SECONDARY TRUTHS NOT ESSENTIAL TO UNITY

Longsight Market "Bloggs"

2004-09-25T14:37:00.000+01:00

This is a painting that I did at school circa 1963. It was loosely based on recollections of my childhood visits (with my mother) to the market in Longsight, Manchester UK. The painting was displayed briefly at an exhibition of school art in the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester.

You might wonder what this has to do with either Engineering or Theology?
Not much, actually! I'm just exploring the technology of blogging, and there seemed nothing more appropriate to upload than a picture which included the word "Bloggs".

Why Engineering and Theology?

2004-09-23T21:28:00.000+01:00

Simple really. I'm a Chartered Electrical Engineer who is interested in Christian Theology. This blog will cover topics of interest in both areas. Maybe some posts will touch on both at the same time?

I've been working in the semiconductor industry since 1973. My theological position is that of a Reformed Evangelical. I also have my own web-site, which has been on-line since 1997. I live in the United Kingdom.

'The Callings' by Paul Helm

2004-09-23T21:27:00.000+01:00

Further to the theme of my previous post, the book by Professor Paul Helm has been helpful to many. In The Callings (a Banner of Truth paperback) has some sound advice for Christians. Paul Helm believes that many Christian's lives have been harmed by thinking that the only worthwhile way to live is in some kind of 'Christian' career. In fact God 'calls' the vast majority of Christians to serve him in the occupation that they are in. This book shows that instead of dividing life into 'spiritual' and 'secular' compartments, every moment of it can be lived fully to the glory of God.

Highly recommended!

The Calvinistic Concept of Culture

2004-09-23T21:04:00.000+01:00

How should a Christian live in a secular world?

That is the subject that was explored at some depth in a book by Henry R. van Til, first published in 1959. In the book The Calvinistic Concept of Culture, he presented the vital issue of the relationship between religion and culture. The author used the term culture to designate "that activity of man, the image-bearer of God, by which he fulfills the creation mandate to cultivate the earth, to have dominion over it, and to subdue it." Culture, therefore, is removed from a totally secular context, and is placed instead in the arena of Christian activity and influence, constructively viewed from a biblical perspective. The book unfolded both the historical development and the [then] contemporary implications of the Calvinistic framework of culture and theology. Though written 45 years ago, the lessons in it are just as relevant today as they were in 1959.

I read this book during the mid 1970s, and looking back over the past 30 years, I suppose it considerably influenced my own thinking about work during the development of my career as an engineer.

Additional information: (added 2005-05-22)

The Calvinistic Concept of Culture is now available as a free download (3.5 MB) in Acrobat .pdf format from the Contra Mundum web-site.