Day Off Week 28 2025

Another day off last Tuesday. Main things was reading the Tim Dieppe book, very interesting, and one or two other things. I also listened to some editions of More or Less from the Radio 4 archive, something I haven't done in a while. Also had a chipotle and a coffee.

Day Conference on Islam

It was good to be back at the seminary in Finchley again last Saturday this time to hear Tim Dieppe on the subject of the Challenge of Islam. Tim heads up Christian Concern and over the years had gathered a great deal of information about Islam in this country and written on it many times (much of this has been put together in a recently piblished book). The pattern of the day was that Tim spoke in the morning and took questions and then after lunch (kindly provided) he did something similar but more on reaching Muslims rather than simply on Islam. At the end of the day we heard from a converted Muslim seeking to win others to Christ to this day, an appropriate way to close.

Death of Quranic scholar Keith Small

I noticed that in The Times yesterday there was an obituary for Dr Keith Small who died on December 6 aged only 59. I did not know the name but he was clearly an evangelical scolar who made an importnat contribution to the debate with Muslims. An obituary by Julia Cameron can be found here.

Midweek Meeting June 6 2018 etc

For quite a while I have been reporting on this blog what goes on at our regular meetings on the Lord's Day and on Wednesday nights. I didn't do this at first but as these loom so large in my weekly life it seemed strange to say nothing about them week after week.  There is an opitimum two or three day turn around time between each one and sometimes I am a little late with my updates.

We are quite late in the week for this one but I think that has turned to my advantage in the end. I say that because on Wednesday we had a visiting speaker. It was Robin Asgher from Cranford. Robin grew up in Pakistan and I first met him when I was a lecturer on the EMF course. He went on to do two years at the Seminary and was my assistant for a year before beginning as a church planter in Cranford, West London. He always speaks about me and that time very warmly.

It was great to have him back then and hear a little about the work in Cranford which now includes opportunities at nearby detention centre with immigrants interested in the Christian faith. The main topic was reaching out to Muslims. We are having a special focus on outreach in the area this month. He has a lot of experience in that area and had helpful things to say.

One reason I am not sorry to have left this report a little is that the next evening we had a visit from Luke Jenner, who had been lecturing on Acts at the Seminary. He is one of many students who, like Robin, were regularly with us during their time at seminary. Generally speaking I think these were positive times for the men involved. We certainly appreciated having them with us. (I am tempted to start listing them but I will leave someone out I'm sure. There are many. Robin, Mark Raines, Ian Middlemist and Andrew Lolley stand out as they also served as assistants). Most of these men are in ministry at present. I get rather discouraged sometimes and one bright spot that makes me confident it has not been as bad as I feel is these former members of the congregation.

The other reason I am glad that I have delayed is that Robin was encouraging us to be friendly to Muslims and to take time to get to know them. Well, today was the first day of door to door and a deacon and I knocked in one of the high rise flats near the church. Most people were out though those who were in were friendly enough. Then we knocked a door and the lady, a Muslim, I recognised from a local shop. She invited us in for a cuppa and we had a good chat while some Hindi gameshow played on a TV in the corner. She was very positive about Islam (though not fasting and unenthusiastic about some of its modern manifestations). One could think of several women in the congregation who might be able to befriend her and I must get hold of a bilingual New Testament for her. An encouraging start then.

We also had our second actual men's meeting. I must report on that elsewhere.

Spectator Article

I picked this up from Guy Davies on Twitter. Unsurprising, it is a matter of concern. The BBC is in a  powerful position to choose what they consider to be news. See here.

Dr Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture 2017 Ramon Llull

Monument Palma, Mallorca
(Olaf Tausch, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons)

For some years now the London Seminary has put on an annual lecture in memory of Dr Lloyd-Jones the seminary's founder. This year Hicham from France spoke on the forgotten pioneer missionary to Muslims, the Franciscan Ramon Llull (c1232-1325). He is also remembered as the first writer in Catalan. His writings before conversion are apparently on the bawdy side. Born in Mallorca, he is also buried there. Between times he learned Arabic and travelled to Tunisia seeking to win Muslims to Christ. Hxxxx, who was very positive about Llull despite his Romanist background, has been able to consult some of his Arabic writings in Barcelona, which added to his knowledge of the man, though many mysteries remain. The only biography is Samuel Zwemer's 1902 work. It was a refreshing privilege to hear this paper, which will hopefully stir many to such pioneer work also. About 40 were present.

Lecture at the Seminary

I received this news from the Seminary recently 

RAYMOND LULL MISSIONARY TO THE MUSLIMS Dear Friend You are invited to attend this year's Martyn Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture, to be held at 7pm on Tuesday 10 October 2017 at London Seminary. It will take place in the Kensit Evangelical Church building, which is on the same site as the Seminary. The address is 104 Hendon Lane, London N3 3SQ. The lecture this year will be given by Hxxxx, who serves as pastor of an evangelical church in France and seeks to reach out to local ethnic minorities. He is a founder of “Word of Hope Ministries” and “La Voix des Prophètes”, English and French literature ministries producing literature for Muslim evangelism. There is no charge for attending the lecture, and all are welcome. David Green Acting Principal

Carey Conference 2016 Day 1

It's great to be in Swanwick for the Carey Conference once again. It was my privilege to kick things off with a paper on John Owen, this year being the four hundredth anniversary of his death. I will try to publish my findings somewhere soon. We then heard Mike Bullmore of Trinity in Deerfield, Illinois on the functional centrality of the gospel. You can get a taste of his helpful themes here. We than had a very helpful session on "mosquereaching" to round the evening off.

Programme for Carey Conference 2016

The programme for the Carey Conference, January 5-7, has now been published.

Tuesday 5th

Registration from 12.00 to 13.00 and 13.45 to 14.30 13.00

Lunch (if pre-booked)

14.30 John Owen - Gary Brady / Women’s Track – Julia Jones

16.00 Tea 16.30 The Functional Centrality of the Gospel - Mike Bullmore

18.30 Evening Meal

20.00 xxxxxx

Wednesday 6th

07.45 Prayer

08.30 Breakfast

09.30 The Gospel and Pastoral Character – Mike Bullmore

11.00 Coffee

11.30 Communion with God – Phil Heaps

13.00 Lunch

14.30 Free Time

16.00 Tea 16.30 Q&A / Women’s Track – Julia Jones

18.30 Evening Meal

20.00 The Gospel and Pastoral Labour – Mike Bullmore

Thursday 7th

07.45 Prayer

08.30 Breakfast

09.30 Confronting & Connecting: The Gospel as the Subversive Fulfilment of Culture – Dan Strange

11.00 Coffee

11.30 Conference Sermon – Andrew King

13.00 Lunch & Depart

Abraham Conference at John Owen Centre

I spent yesterday at the John Owen Centre here in London, with about 50 others, at the Abraham Conference they have organised. Garry Williams, Director of the centre, began by outlining the work of the centre and then we were into the first session in which former LTS principal Philip Eveson helpfully outlined what we have in Genesis about Abraham, using diagrams to show the various chiasms and drawing out some interesting points about the careful way the Book of Genesis appears to be constructed. We had more of that sort of thing in the session after lunch when LTS Vice-principal David Green took us through the text showing us the significance of the word Ra'ah to see and its cognates and sometimes homonyms too. Again this was very interesting and helpful.

Personally, I found the third paper from James Mulrooney, an Edinburgh PhD candidate, who will be lecturing at LTS from this term, the most stimulating even though he used the phrase iconic mimesis at one point. He took us through Genesis 22 arguing for a nuanced typology that helpfully understood Abraham, Isaac and the ram in specific bounded terms. The paper generated a good discussion, most people being favourable to what was proposed while others were more sceptical.

In the evening we had the Lloyd-Jones Memorial Lecture, which was open to the public. Peter Law, a local pastor who regularly lectures in the middle east, was given the subject The great Abrahamic faiths? and he gave us some of the background to this phrase then argued, leaning on Daniel Strange, for a subversive fulfilment, that is a balanced acceptance of commonalities while seeking to expose and challenge differences.

Looking forward to day two.

James R White on the Qur'an

We live in an area where there are many Muslims. Opportunities to speak are few and far between but I feel it is important to at least know something about Islam. James R White's book What every Christian should know about the Qur'an is probably a correct title as well as an eye catching one. He painstakingly works his way through the material writing about Muhammad and the supposed revelation of the Qur'an, what it says about the Trinity, the cross, salvation, the gospel and other matters such as supposed prophecies about Muhammad in the Bible and how the Qur'an reached its present form. He writes firmly but fairly and if any suitably educated Muslim would sit and read this book they would be forced to stop and consider many things. It is also very helpful to Christians in informing us on the things we need to know and showing where the argument needs to take place. This book is well worth getting hold of. For a proper review see Themelios 38:3.

Spurgeon on religious terrorism

I have started ion Tom Nettles' wonderful new biography of Spurgeon Living by revealed truth and noticed this from his fast day sermon at the Crystal Place in 1857. Whole sermon here.

 

Any religion that does not infringe upon morality is beyond the force of legislature. But when once religious teachers teach immorality, and when once a religion compels men to sin, down with it; no toleration to it. It is impossible that there should be any quarter strewn to vice, even though embellished with the name of religion. If it be any man's religion to blow my brains out, I shall not tolerate it. If it be any man's religion to meet me as the Thugs do, and garotte me, and murder me, I shall not tolerate his Thugism. If it be a man's religion to commit bestial acts in public, I for one would touch his conscience, but believing that he has none, I would touch him somewhere else.

Multicultural London

London's multicultural nature is all around us but occasionally you notice it in particular. Last Saturday I walked past our nearest Hindu Temple and could hear music. There was  obviously a big event going on there. I supposed the music must be Indian but on closer inspection I saw there was a pipe band in full regalia roasting under the sun. Apparently the band is South Asian and makes use of Indian Dhols with more traditional Scots drums.

Then today I saw in a local Costa (an Italian company founded in London that employs mostly East Europeans) a notice saying that they are opening until 10 pm for Ramadan, which begins today.

More from the census

Norwich had the highest proportion of people reporting no religion with 42.5 %, closely followed by Brighton and Hove with 42.4 %.

Some local authorities in Wales also reported some of the highest levels of no religion. Caerphilly had the largest percentage point increase since 2001 of 16.7 to 41.0 %! Blaenau Gwent, Rhondda Cynon Taf and Torfaen also saw large increases of no religion with 16.0, 15.5 and 15.4 percentage points respectively.

In London, the boroughs of Newham, Harrow, Brent and Redbridge had the lowest proportions of the population reporting no religion. Other areas under 15 % included Slough in the South East (with many Hindus and Sikhs) and Knowsley, Blackburn with Darwen, Copeland, Ribble Valley and St Helens in the North West.

Tower Hamlets has the most Muslims (34.5 %) Harrow has the most Hindus (25.3 %) Slough has the most Sikhs (10.6 %) Barnet has the most Jews (15.2 %) Rushmoor in Hampshire has the most Buddhists (3.3 %).

Godless Wales and Norwich

The results of the 2011 census are appearing. The main points on religion are as follows:

 

Despite falling numbers Christianity remains the largest religion in England and Wales in 2011. Muslims are the next biggest religious group and have grown in the last decade. Meanwhile the proportion of the population who reported they have no religion has now reached a quarter of the population.

• Christianity was the largest religion, with 33.2 million people (59.3 % of the population). The second largest religious group were Muslims with 2.7 million people (4.8 % of the population).
• 14.1 million people, around a quarter of the population in England and Wales, reported they have no religion in 2011.
• The religion question was the only voluntary question on the 2011 census and 7.2 % of people did not answer the question.
• Between 2001 and 2011 there has been a decrease in people who identify as Christian (from 71.7 % to 59.3 %) and an increase in those reporting no religion (from 14.8 % to 25.1 %). There were increases in the other main religious group categories, with the number of Muslims increasing the most (from 3.0 % to 4.8 %) which sounds like it is lower than the Muslim birth rate.
• In 2011, London was the most diverse region with the highest proportion of people identifying themselves as Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and Jewish. The North East and North West had the highest proportion of Christians and Wales had the highest proportion of people reporting no religion.
• Knowsley on Merseyside was the local authority with the highest proportion of people reporting to be Christians at 80.9 % and Tower Hamlets had the highest proportion of Muslims at 34.5 % (over 7 times the England and Wales figure). Norwich had the highest proportion of the population reporting no religion at 42.5 %.

Westminster Conference 2012 05

The graveyard slot on the second day went to Roger Welch whose task was to survey 1400 years of history looking for patterns in Christian response to Islam and so we went through the various areas mentioning dhimmitude, John of Damascus, the crusades, Ramon Lull, Nicholas de Susa, Luther, Calvin, Samuel Zwemer, etc and modern contextualisation. It was a helpful survey and led into a tame but fairly well informed discussion of reaching Muslims today. It was good to have at least looked at the subject even if we were at a very general level. As ever the need to befriend people rather than read books about their religion came over strongly. Stephen Clark chaired.

Banner Reports

Rather than one report session this year we have had a number of reports before the main sessions. So far we have heard from Carcassone, France. H is married to the eldest daughter of my elder (oops! Deacon)  Mike de Jong and is doing a sterling work.

We also heard from John Gibbon who has worked for many years in Mongolia. He was speaking in our church recently. He and his Mongolian wife are not able to live in the country at the moment but have plans to return to the far east.

Then this morning Sukra from Indonesia, still 85% Muslim, who, with his colleague also here, is involved with MERF and the work of Presbyterian churches in Southern Sulawesi.

Praying for Saudi Arabia

From Global Prayer Digest

Saudi Prince Al-Saud was making a strong appeal to some of the Council of Ministers in his father’s Kingdom. “The lesson to be learned from the recent upheavals in the Middle East is that Arab governments can no longer afford to take their populations for granted, or to assume that they will remain … subdued. Nor can the soothing instruments of yesteryear which were meant to appease serve any longer as substitutes for meaningful reform. For any reform to be effective, it has to be the result of meaningful interaction and dialogue among the different components of a society, most particularly between the rulers and the ruled. It also has to encompass the younger generation which, in this technologically advanced age, has become increasingly intertwined with its counterparts in other parts of the world.”
Saudi Arabs make up the majority of Saudi Arabia’s 25.7 million people. However, almost 35 percent of the inhabitants are from outside of the country. Officially Saudi Arabs follow a strict form of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism. No faith other than Islam is permitted among Saudi citizens. However, there are nearly a million Christians from foreign countries in the land.

Strange teaching 01

Dan Strange lectures at Oak Hill on Culture, Religion and Public Theology. He has recently completed an SCM book (with Gavin D'Costa and Paul Knitter) called Only One Way? Three Christian Responses to the Uniqueness of Christ in a pluralistic world. This morning at LTS he shared with us his thesis, which is in summary

Non-Christian religions are sovereignly directed, variegated and dynamic human idolatrous distortions of divine revelation behind which evidence demonic deception. Being antithetically against yet practically dependent upon the truth of the Christian worldview, non-Christian religions are 'subversively fulfilled' in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He defended this thesis with a very carefully worked out biblical and theological argument. He used the following headings (before the break):

1. YHWH's transcendent uniqueness: God and Trinity

Implications - 1. Yahweh's transcendent uniqueness 2. God's name and glory 3. Derivative uniqueness of Israel and the church

2. The perilous exchange: creation and fall

The relationship between Christianity and other religions is one of both principial discontinuity and practical continuity.

1. Principial discontinuity

Antithesis between true and false faith

Lies about God which lead to divine judgement and human disintegration

Deception which only brings disappointment, disillusionment and destruction

Religions are worldviews

Here he took the example of Islam. Its unity without diversity idea works it out in all sorts of ways.

2. Practical continuity

Like Christians, unbelievers are full of inconsistencies with their own views. Elements here include

Anthropological complexity

Historical or phenomenological complexity

Personal complexity

Other religions are made of imaginal, remnantal, influential and demonical revelation.
(To be continued)

Things Seen and Heard

So I am at the bus stop on the Kilburn High Road and three smartly dressed girls in hijabs on their way home from Primark are talking and one has a camera taking pictures. They are not dressed very alike but they look like they could be sisters, two of a similar age and one a bit older. The language they are using sounds rather European, which is counter-intuitive. May be its Malay, I guess. So I politely ask. Swedish, they say! They are from Stockholm. Of course, I've been caught out like this before with African speakers. As for them being sisters, the older girl tells me she is from Iraq and the other two are from Turkey and Lebanon. All Arabic anyway.