‘20th Century’ Category

I just read in the Vic Report (Winter 2009), 18 that Grace Irwin (1907-2008) has gone to be with the Lord. She died September 16, 2008.

After graduating from Victoria College in 1929, she served for 38 years as “a charismatic teacher of classics at Toronto’s Humberside Collegiate Institute.” In addition to her teaching, she was also an amateur actress into her nineties and an authoress, penning excellent lives of John Newton and Lord Shaftesbury. I distinctly remember reading her fascinating autobiography a few years ago when my family and I vacationed at Port Elgin on Lake Huron.

She also pastored Emmanuel Evangelical Church in Toronto for many years, after retiring from teaching. The church had been founded by H.H. Kent, a student of T.T. Shields (did all the men in those days have the same letters for their Christian names?)–and while I would disagree with her taking on such a role–she leaves behind a tremendous legacy in the city of Toronto.

Her memorial service was taken in part by one of her nephews, the well-known Christian publisher John Irwin, who referred to an occasion when Grace addressed an audience in the University of Toronto’s magnificent Convocation Hall.

“Grace stood at the podium and announced that Erasmus had written long ago what she wished to say to those who now packed Convocation Hall. For several minutes she read, or rather recited from memory, with great expression, Erasmus’s Latin preface to the New Testament.”

(HT: SUZANNE’S BOOKSHELF )

For a great picture of Grace Irwin, see http://www.mirror-guardian.com/article/56790.

Also recently deceased is the great hymnwriter, Margaret Clarkson (d. March 17, 2008), aged 93. I still remember hearing her lecture on hymnody at Central Baptist Seminary, where I taught first, in the 1980s.

“Insist on yourself; never imitate.” So Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) in 1841. Before now I had read only a sermon of Emerson. But today I bought Barack Obama, The Inaugural Address (Penguin, 2009), a kind of keepsake edition. And combined with it were three addresses by Abraham Lincoln—his two inaugural addresses and The Gettysburg Address—and also Emerson’s Self-Reliance, which has the above quoted statement.

It is so Western, so quintessentially Enlightenment. And in one key sense, so fundamentally non-Christian. It militates against mentoring and advocates individualism to the highest degree. Yet, for me, Christianity increasingly is learning a path from others who have gone before. Hebrews 11 is so central to my vision of what it means to be a Christian. Of course, there is a place for doing what God has called you specifically to do—but Emerson’s thought is a plea for dismantling all the authorities and carving out your own philosophical vision.

To me, the whole project is horrifying and I understand why Emerson’s contemporary John Henry Newman (1801-1890) reacted so strongly against it and ended up embracing the authority of Rome. While I do not think that is the answer, his rejection of such rank exaltation of the individual is instinctually correct.

On this day, in 1945, Helmuth James von Moltke (b.1906) was excuted by the Nazi regime for being a Christian and refusing to acknowledge Adolf Hitler as his supreme commander in all things.

Von Moltke was the son of an English woman and a wealthy German landowner, the latter was in turn the grand nephew of a famous German Field Marshall from the First World War. Throughout the 1930s Moltke had opposed Hitler and the Nazi regime, and regarded their accession to power as a catastrophe of the first magnitude. During the war years he actively opposed Hitler, but unlike some others he came to reject the idea that assassinating Hitler was the way to correct matters within Germany. He was a Christian who refused to behave as the Nazis did. In January 1944, though, he was arrested for his active resistance to Hitler. He was put on trial in January 1945 and he rejoiced in the fact that eventually his trial boiled down to one fact, that he, as a Christian refused to accept Hitler’s demand for total and absolute obedience.

At one point in his trial, his judge, Roland Freisler, shouted at him: “Only in one respect are we [i.e. the Nazis] and Christianity alike: we demand the whole man!” Freisler then asked Moltke: “From whom do you take your orders? From the Beyond or from Adolf Hitler?” “Who commands your loyalty and your faith?” Moltke rightly saw these questions as the decisive ones of his entire trial. As he told his wife in a farewell letter, he was on trial simply as Christian and nothing else. From the point of view of the Nazis, because as a Christian he refused to give total obedience to Hitler, he had to die.

Ever since I read some of his letters to his wife Freya in the 1970s, I have found his life to be a source of tremendous inspiration.

What a shock to read of Richard John Neuhaus’ death. Like Dr. Russell Moore, I too will miss his lucid and pungent prose. And I too plead guilty to always turning to the back first when I read my monthly copy of First Things. There are four or five journals/magazines I have a subscription for—a couple of professional history journals—and then there is First Things. How often the journal has been an oasis for me. I thank God for Richard Neuhaus.

And do read the quote from Neuhaus that Dr. Moore includes in his appreciation.

Another literary figure for whom I have a great admiration and who recently died was Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008). His literary masterpieces from my perspective were parts of The Red Wheel–August 1914, November 1916, Lenin in Zurich–and then One Day in the Life of Ivan Denosovich (a difficult read emotionally). I read many of his essays when a much younger Christian and deeply appreciated his critique of the godlessness and soul-lessness of Communism, especially when I had once professed myself a Marxist.

For a recent obituary, see Alexander Solzhenitsyn: Dissident writer who exposed the moral infamy of Soviet Communism by Mark Le Fanu (The Independent, August 5, 2008). See also John Piper, “Thank You, Lord, for Solzhenitsyn.”

Art and religion have long gone hand in hand. One thinks of the base use of the arts to create idols for worship. But, on the other hand, one needs to remember Bezalel, who was inspired by the Holy Spirit “to desvise artistic designs” in gold, silver, and bronze for use in the Temple (Exodus 31). And the Spirit filled this man so that his artistic ability might be a blessing to the people of God.

It is no less true today. One thinks of Rembrandt’s work, for example. Or the twentieth-century artist Pauline Baynes, who has just died. Her marvellous drawings of figures to accompany the Narnia tales of C.S. Lewis will long be remembered by this writer/reader.

For a recent obituary, see Pauline Baynes: Illustrator who depicted Lewis’s Narnia and Tolkien’s Middle-earth by Brian Sibley (The Independent, August 6, 2008).

Iain H. Murray,
Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace
(Edinburgh/Carlisle, Pennsylvania:
The Banner of Truth Trust, 2008)

I am biased when it comes to books by and on Martyn Lloyd-Jones. By the grace of God, this man’s preaching and teaching has exercised such an influence for good in my life, I find it hard to pick up a book like this and not be reminded again of the central importance of this man’s ministry—not simply for my life—but for the life of the Church in the modern Western world. I trust that I do not think his ministry is the model for every conceivable Christian ministry (see the remarks on p.xi-xii, 6-7), but here is a man whose teaching the Church in our day needs to hear and heed. Lloyd-Jones’ great concern was “the recovery of true spiritual power amid the decline of Christianity in Britain”—and we might add, “and in the western world in general” (p.xiii; see also p.26-28). Some of his emphases in this regard were controversial, in particular his assertion of a distinct second work of the Holy Spirit, which he held in common with such Puritan authors as Richard Sibbes and Thomas Goodwin (p.127-163). And it would be easy to dismiss his great concern because of one’s disagreement with him on this specific issue. But that would be a great mistake. Murray has his disagreements with “the Doctor” in this matter (p.162-163), but he is rightly confident that Lloyd-Jones’ life and teaching can still be a great help to us today. The first chapter, entitled “The Lloyd-Jones Legacies” (p.3-28), is thus in some ways the key theme of the whole book—the way in which the emphases of Lloyd-Jones’ remarkable ministry are needed as much now as when they were first made.

In tracing the specific ways that Lloyd-Jones’ great concern for true spiritual revival is of present significance, Murray especially looks at: the Welshman’s deep conviction about the life-changing power of biblical preaching (p.17-22, 29-54) and that true preaching is a gift of the Holy Spirit (p.83); his evangelistic use of the Old Testament (p.55-83)—a rarity today among Reformed and Evangelical men; and his quarrel with fellow Reformed men who believed they could work with out-and-out liberals (p.165-208—see also p.263-267). Along the way there are numerous details about his preaching (p.85-106, 227-255) and a very helpful comparison between Lloyd-Jones and the Victorian Baptist C.H. Spurgeon, the similarities of their ministries and also the differences between them (p.109-125). Finally, a CD in a jacket at the back of the book which contains a tremendous sermon by Lloyd-Jones on the way men and women die—either “in their sins” or “ in the Lord”—serves as a reminder of the power of God that rested on his preaching.

What is clear from Murray’s examination of Lloyd-Jones’ legacy is that although his ministry cannot be taken as an exact blueprint of what biblical ministry looks like, its main emphases can be seen as typical: Christianity as fundamentally and ultimately a God-centered religion, the Church’s desperate need for the power of the Holy Spirit, the glorious transformation brought about by anointed preaching. Oh for such in our day!

According to a Fox News passed on to me by a friend, “1 in 4 Britons Think Winston Churchill Never Existed”! I know—it sounds ludicrous! One of the most powerful memories of my childhood in England was Churchill’s funeral—I can almost see the headlines now announcing his death. What are we coming to? If this is an accurate assessment of the state of historical ignorance, it is no wonder tripe like the Da Vinci Code seems plausible to so many. This is one of the key reasons for studying and teaching history: there is so much bad history out there. And the idea that Churchill never existed is bad history at its worst!