
I always feel uneasy going to shop closing down sales. Last month I was profoundly affected by the closure of Borders in Inverness. As I walked amongst the emptying shelves clothed by the merest fig leaves of 90% off signs I felt like a ghoul on a night out.
Yesterday my graveyard excursion was to Wesley Owen, Inverness. I was not one of their best customers but I must say, in mitigation, that their products did not really line up with my needs. I am not really a Joel Osteen fan, I think his teeth intimidate me and serve to feed several of my neurosis. Hillsongs CDs really are the evangelical equivalent of Battenberg cakes. Allow me a brief excursus on Battenbergs – far too sweet, I never eat the marzipan, quite enjoy the sponge but only ever take one slice. Hillsongs, I can cope with one song at a time but spare me the DVD, Abba baptized.
So, back to Wesley Owen. I bought two books. The first was Mr Hill’s Big Picture by John Fowler. First impressions are mixed. Some interesting little cameos of Disruption characters like Hugh Miller and Thomas Chalmers stood out as promising some light reading. I loved one description of Chalmers, ‘broad leonine countenance, that beaming liberal smile.’ I think I would like both of these things! John Fowler buys into the whole ‘present day Free Church is miserable’ idea, he describes the Presbytery hall located in the Free Church offices as ‘a room of astonishing elegance considering its dour immediate surroundings.’ Does he not know that dour is the new exuberant?
My other purchase was The Doctrines of Grace by James Montgomery Boice and Philip Ryken. This is simply a great book. It was the last book to be written by Boice, written actually in the last six weeks of his life when he knew the situation was terminal. The book essentially outlines the doctrines of grace and is built on the thesis that a robust Calvinism is good for the church and when it is abandoned it generally leads to liberalism. I agree with this totally. I worry that we have drifted into a faux conservatism which is more sociologically driven than theologically. There is a particularly useful section on the doctrine of reprobation. I did not realize that Boice was a hymn writer, and such a good one too.
This ghoul left the shop with his two purchases and went to Starbucks, Eastgate Mall …… it’s just not the same!
Yesterday my graveyard excursion was to Wesley Owen, Inverness. I was not one of their best customers but I must say, in mitigation, that their products did not really line up with my needs. I am not really a Joel Osteen fan, I think his teeth intimidate me and serve to feed several of my neurosis. Hillsongs CDs really are the evangelical equivalent of Battenberg cakes. Allow me a brief excursus on Battenbergs – far too sweet, I never eat the marzipan, quite enjoy the sponge but only ever take one slice. Hillsongs, I can cope with one song at a time but spare me the DVD, Abba baptized.
So, back to Wesley Owen. I bought two books. The first was Mr Hill’s Big Picture by John Fowler. First impressions are mixed. Some interesting little cameos of Disruption characters like Hugh Miller and Thomas Chalmers stood out as promising some light reading. I loved one description of Chalmers, ‘broad leonine countenance, that beaming liberal smile.’ I think I would like both of these things! John Fowler buys into the whole ‘present day Free Church is miserable’ idea, he describes the Presbytery hall located in the Free Church offices as ‘a room of astonishing elegance considering its dour immediate surroundings.’ Does he not know that dour is the new exuberant?
My other purchase was The Doctrines of Grace by James Montgomery Boice and Philip Ryken. This is simply a great book. It was the last book to be written by Boice, written actually in the last six weeks of his life when he knew the situation was terminal. The book essentially outlines the doctrines of grace and is built on the thesis that a robust Calvinism is good for the church and when it is abandoned it generally leads to liberalism. I agree with this totally. I worry that we have drifted into a faux conservatism which is more sociologically driven than theologically. There is a particularly useful section on the doctrine of reprobation. I did not realize that Boice was a hymn writer, and such a good one too.
This ghoul left the shop with his two purchases and went to Starbucks, Eastgate Mall …… it’s just not the same!





