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Recent reading: from creaking stairs to the cross

September 2, 2025 by westportexperiment

Just finished listening to this audiobook, The Creaking on the Stairs: Finding Faith in God Through Childhood Abuse. Very highly recommended. Rosaria Butterfield says in the forward, “The most disturbing book that I have ever read, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.” While I can’t say it is the most disturbing book I’ve ever read, the subject matter is beyond doubt extremely disturbing … and yet heavenly at the same time, which is why I heartily second Rosaria.

The author, Mez McConnell, was raised up in an extremely dysfunctional and highly abusive home. After coming of age, he fell into gross, reckless sin, became a criminal, and did hard time; but Christ had other plans. And so at the “time appointed,” Christ made a trophy of this sinner, plucking him as a brand from the burning and liberating his heart from anger, bitterness, and resentment.

The book is part narrative, part theology and spiritual reflection. It reminds me in many ways of Augustine’s great Confessions and Thomas Halyburton’s Memoirs, especially in its adult, post-conversion reflections on childhood, sin, and grace. (If you’ve never read those two classics, then tolle, lege! And for a taste, read Augustine’s thoughts on the ‘pear tree’ incident.) Further, Creaking is dramatic theodicy—if not directly inspired by the Book of Job, then at least resonating highly with it. If God is and is good, then why is there suffering?

This book is for those who have suffered abuse, Christian or not. It’s also for those who live with those who have or want to understand how better to love and support sufferers. Really, it’s for everyone. And I would be surprised if this doesn’t end up being something of a modern, Christian classic of autobiography, like Joni Eraekson Tada’s Joni and Rosaria Butterfield’s Secret Thoughts. Oh, and add those two to your list as well!

Posted in Audio Resources, Recent Reading (Book Recommendations), Sabbath/Religious Reading | Leave a Comment »

Bannerman on the unity and catholicity of the Church

August 26, 2025 by westportexperiment

“In the second place, the principles laid down demonstrate the evil of schism, or of causeless separation in the Church. The visible Church of Christ was intended by Him to be catholic and one; and notwithstanding of the dissemination far and wide throughout the world of the separate societies of professing Christians, it would be one in reality, as comprehending all and uniting all, were it not for the sinful infirmities of its members. That can be no light offence which gives to the one kingdom of God in this world the appearance of a kingdom divided against itself, and liable to fall. It were impossible, indeed, to deny that there may be real and sufficient ground for separation from some particular local Church. That a particular Church may itself apostatize from the faith, or be guilty of imposing upon its members terms of communion, to comply with which would be sin, there cannot be a doubt; and in such a case separation becomes a duty to be discharged, and not an offence to be avoided. But in separating in such circumstances from the Church, the schism lies not with the parties who separate, but with the Church that compels and causes the separation. In thus going forth from it, we maintain, in fact, rather than infringe on the higher unity of the one Church of Christ. But for parties to separate wantonly, and on insufficient grounds, from the communion of the visible Church, is a grave and serious offence against the authority of Christ in His house. To go out from the communion of the visible Church, and to widen its breaches wilfully, and for trivial reasons, is to set ourselves against the desire and design of Christ that His kingdom in this world should be catholic and one. And when schism is aggravated by the permanent abandonment of a Church profession and Church state,—when causeless separation from any one Church of Christ is followed by the disavowal of all,—when the outward profession that makes a man a member of the visible Church is cast off, and all Christian fellowship is disowned, the guilt incurred is of a ruinous kind.” ” The visible Church,” says the Confession of Faith,” is the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation” (emphasis mine).

James Bannerman, The Church of Christ

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Whole doctrine catholicity | “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners” (Song 6:10)?

Posted in Catholicity, Communion of the Saints, Connectionalism & Conciliarism, Free Church of Scotland, Separatism & Schism, The Visible Church | Leave a Comment »

Willison’s lament over schism & division

August 26, 2025 by westportexperiment

“Schism and division among the ministers and members of the church is a grievous malady that we at present labour under. Surely it is a most unnatural distemper that causes the sheep of Christ to bite and devour one another, and the members of Christ to separate as aligns; yea, not only to break up Christian communion, but break out in uncharitable reflections, bitterness, wrath, clamour and evil speaking, one against an other. A strange distemper! that puts those who will delightfully worship God together through a whole eternity, in such a case, that they cannot keep fellowship together here! A distemper that makes men renounce communion with those they once delighted in, and with whom the glorious Head doth still hold communion: that takes many off from the vitals and essentials of religion and employs their time in public controversies about party opinions, the grounds of separation, the characters of preachers, and things which rather tend to be. get alienation of affections, and angry quarrels, than to promote saving knowledge, faith, love, and godly edifying. Oh! how, like a judgment is that spirit of strife and division which God hath poured out upon this land for our former misimprovement of the gospel, and contempt of many glorious evils Christ? and calamities! Ah, what a flood-gate doth it open to many evils and calamities! That is a true doth word it of the apostle, James iii, 16, “Where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work.” What a plague must that be that produces every evil work? What a dreadful disease it is, that turns Christian converse into vain janglings, that hinders social prayers, that mars the success of the gospel, weakens the interest of religion, propagates all kind of evil, and exposes the church to the scorn and derision of her enemies! How applicable is that word to us, Lam. ii. 13, “Thy breach is great like the sea, who can heal thee?” Surely none but he that hath the balm of Gilead.”

Whole doctrine catholicity | “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners” (Song 6:10)?

Posted in Catholicity, Church of Scotland, Connectionalism & Conciliarism, Separatism & Schism, The Visible Church | Leave a Comment »

Calderwood on Protestant promotion of learning

August 21, 2025 by westportexperiment

The following is a passage from David Calderwood’s The Pastor and the Prelate (1628), a short and very punchy treatise contrasting the godly Presbyterian pastor’s mentality over and against the worldly, time-serving prelate (bishop, etc.) of the episcopal Church under the Stuarts. In this chapter, he shows how the “pastor” far better serves the interests of the commonwealth and the good of the social fabric of society, while the “prelate” is a barnacle if not a blight upon the kingdom. One particular area is in their two very different approaches to education—or shall we say, Christian public education! I’m almost done audio-recording the book; present uploads here for your listening pleasure.

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The PASTOR would have learning to grow, and, considering that schools and colleges are both the seminary of the commonwealth and the Lebanon of God for building the temple desireth earnestly that there might be a school in every congregation, that the people might be more civil, and might more easily learn the grounds of religion; he would have the best engines chosen and provided to the students’ places in universities, the worthiest and best men to the places of teachers, who might faithfully keep the arts and sciences from corruption, and especially the truth of religion, as the holy fire that came down from heaven was kept by the Levites: he desireth the rewards of learning to be given to the worthiest, and, after they have received them, that they be faithful in their places, lest by loitering and laziness they become both unprofitable and unlearned.

The PRELATE is not so desirous of learning in himself as of ignorance in others, that he only may be eminent both in kirk and commonwealth, and all others may render him blind obedience and respect. He devoureth that himself which should entertain particular schools: he filleth the places of students without trial of their engines, to please his friends and suitors, contrary to the will of the masters and the acts of the foundations: he filleth the places of learning not with the most learned, but the wealthiest sort, who, for any vigilance of his, might both corrupt the human sciences and bring strange fire into the house ofGod. If a learned man happen to attain to one of their highest places, which they call the rewards of learning, incontinent, their learning beginneth to decay, and their former gifts to wither away. So that their great places and prelacies either find them or make them unlearned.

Posted in Audio Resources, Care for the Youth, Church of Scotland, Education | Leave a Comment »

Rethinking the shroud?

August 12, 2025 by westportexperiment

Hmm. I had long written this off. But now I’m not so sure—could this indeed be authentic? I’m not at present aware of what biblical or theological reasons would rule it out. If it is fraudulent, it would be a 2CV. But if it’s real, it is no less a violation of the ban on images than the Ark of the Covenant, or for that matter, the sacramental bread and wine.

If you have read more deeply on this question, historically and scientifically, and are convinced it is a fraud, leave a comment and share some references.

(Standard caveats. And I am a very, very orange-blooded Protestant, I assure you!)

Posted in Apologetics & Evidences | Leave a Comment »

Church establishments inherently corrupt?

August 12, 2025 by westportexperiment

“An establishment may . . . be the occasional, but not the efficient cause of mischief. The machine may be faultless; but exposed, as it must be, while the species lasts, to the intromission of hands, which to a certain degree will taint and vitiate all that they come in contact with. The remedy is not to demolish the machine, and transfer the hands which wrought it to other managements and other modes of operation—There will still be corruption notwithstanding.” And even a reformed establishment can be re-corrupted: “The human nature which you thus transfer, will carry its own virus along with it” (Thomas Chalmers, Works 11:454).

Or, in other words, bad men can make a bad use of good things.

Posted in Establishments, Protestantism & Romanism, Thomas Chalmers | Leave a Comment »

Canaan, Eden, and the resurrection promise

August 12, 2025 by westportexperiment

“But now, to apply all this to the subject under consideration—the earthly inheritance : If that inheritance was promised in a way which, from the very first, implied a resurrection from the dead, before it could be rightly enjoyed; and if all along, even when Canaan was possessed by the seed of Abraham, the men of faith still looked forward to another inheritance, when the curse should be utterly abolished, the blessing fully received, and death finally swallowed up in victory,—then a twofold boon must have been conveyed to Abraham and his seed, under the promise of the land of Canaan; one to be realized in the natural, and the other in the resurrection state, —a mingled and temporary good before, and a complete and permanent one after, the restitution of all things by the Messiah. So that, in regard to the ultimate designs of God, the land of Canaan would serve much the same purpose as the garden of Eden, with its tree of life and cherubim of glory—the same, and yet more; for it not only presented to the eye of faith a type, but also gave in its possession an earnest, of the inheritance of a paradisiacal world. The difference, however, is not essential, and only indicates an advance in God’s revelations and purposes of grace, making what was ultimately designed for the faithful more sure to them by an instalment, through a singular train of providential arrangements, in a present inheritance of good. They thus enjoyed a real and substantial pledge of the better things to come, which were to be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”

Patrick Fairbairn, The Typology of Scripture

Posted in Earthy Eschatology, Eschatology, Free Church of Scotland, Redemption Accomplished, Redemption Applied, Redemptive History | Leave a Comment »

Parish mission: pouring oil on troubled waters

July 29, 2025 by westportexperiment

In the following passage, Thomas Chalmers writes of the secondary, ‘collateral’ benefits of an aggressive, national parish system in bringing the Gospel to the masses. The “moral distance” of estranged classes within society would tend to melt away, and so indirectly rejuvenate the outward social and political order of the nation:

“The more that this [moral] distance is alleviated by the subdivisions of locality, the more do the charities of common companionship mingle in the commotion, and exude an oil upon the waters that assuages their violence. They are the towns of an empire, which form the mighty organs of every great political overthrow, and if a right parochial system in towns would serve to check, or rather to soften, the turbulence that is in them, then ought the establishment of such a system to be regarded by our rulers as one of the best objects of patriotism” (Chalmers, Works, 14:388).

Not that we can revive a national establishment without a mass awakening and a groundswell of support both by people and princes. Yet, Chalmers contended, we can all engage in local parish mission at the grassroots level, seeking the regeneration of communities as we pray and wait for national repentance.

[image source]

Posted in Establishments, Parish Theory & Practice, Social Byproduct, Social Issues, Thomas Chalmers | Leave a Comment »

“The order of this charity”

July 29, 2025 by westportexperiment

The following is drawn from William Ames’ Marrow of Theology 2.16, “Of Justice and Charity toward our neighbour.” A Reformed orthodox treatment of the ordo amoris or order of love.

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13. The order of this charity is this: that God is first and chiefly to be loved by charity, and so he is, as it were, the formal reason for this charity toward our neighbour. Next after God we are bound to love ourselves, namely with that charity which respects true blessedness; for loving God himself with a love of union, we love ourselves immediately with that chief charity which respects our spiritual blessedness. But secondarily, we should love others whom we would have partake of the same good with us. Moreover, others may be deprived of this blessedness without our fault, but we ourselves cannot; and therefore we are more bound to will and to seek this blessedness for ourselves than for others.

14. This is why the love of ourselves has the force of a rule or a measure for the love of others: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.

15. Hence it is never lawful to commit any sin for another’s sake, even though our offence may seem small, and to be a chief good which we should seek for another. For he that wittingly and willingly sins, hates his own soul. Pro 8.36, He that sins against me, offers violence to his own soul. Pro 29.24. He that partakes with a thief, hates himself: he hears cursing and does not declare it.

Continue Reading »

Posted in Christian Ethics, Common Grace, Conscience & Casuistry, Natural Law, Paternalism & Patriarchy, Political Theory & Theology, Postwar Consensus, Nationalism, Puritans & Puritanism, Social Issues, William Ames | Leave a Comment »

Recent reading: Luther, teenagers, and robots

July 29, 2025 by westportexperiment

Some more personal reading recommendations. First, finished reading Luther in Love to the family in our Sabbath down time. We’ve read a number of his other books for younger readers—and the young at heart—all of them well-researched and well-written. I thought this one in particular really exhibited Bond’s literary excellence. Very easy to read. My only quibble is that the book’s title would lead you to think that its central theme is his relationship with his wife, Katharina von Bora. Their relationship is prominent, to be sure; but it’s really more a life of Luther. But if you really want to read some historical fiction featuring their Christian romance, I’d highly recommend, Kitty, My Rib, by E. Jane Mall.

Another book I read to the family was the non-fiction book by David Murray, Why Am I Feeling Like This? A Teen’s Guide to Freedom from Anxiety and Depression. This is the best thing I’ve come across from a Reformed perspective, addressed to adolescents. He covers the range of emotional pathologies, whether full-blown disorders or just the phases of that often tumultuous transition from childhood to adulthood. Very insightful, very appropriate, and very accessible. This is helpful also to share with others who are trying to help their teenagers weather their feelings biblically and wisely. You can read the introduction and the first chapter here, where he introduces “Circular Sarah.”

Finally, my last recommendation is a modern, secular classic, the sci-fi I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. Now, this genre is not my typical go-to, but my son put me on to it, and I was not at all disappointed. Originally published in 1950 and written about a futuristic world set in the 21st century, it is quite striking how very prescient Asimov was in terms robotics and artificial intelligence. The book is a catena of short stories featuring a handful of characters and their robotic counterparts who really prove to be a foil and a looking-glass for themselves as humans, in all their fancy, fury, and folly. I was quite surprised with how Asimov combined the technical, literary, and philosophical in a compelling way. Definitely both sides of the brain were working full power! And yet so tragic to consider that the celebrated author was a Russian Jew turned atheist. Man can imagine artificial intelligence and foreshadow it with elegance; and time has shown that he can bring it into being. Yet in his hubris he cannot and will not return to the Source. “Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?  For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:20-21). When one looks at the image above, what does he see but a dead idol, the stump of Dagon, the hollow shell of a man? Even so, the idol-maker is just “like unto them.”

And check out my growing library of devotional and theological resources from our rich and diverse Reformed heritage here.

Posted in Audio Resources, Recent Reading (Book Recommendations) | Leave a Comment »

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