Charlie Kane and the Blue Remembered Hills
January 4, 2012
For a couple of reasons I have been revisiting some of the formative influences on my thinking as a Christian. Writing an article on atonement, I have been re-reading essays by James I. Packer; and preparing to review the recent collection of essays on the life and work of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, I have spent time thinking about how much I benefited from `the Doctor.' Converted to Christ in a non-Christian home at aged 17, I was clueless as to what to read; thankfully, kind friends directed me to the work of these two men. A battered copy of God's Words went with me to college; a copy of Knowing God was carried overland from London to Athens to the Soviet border in Turkey - as was the Doctor's book on the Sermon on the Mount (no small thing in a rucksack). From those books - and from these men -- I learned the seriousness and the beauty of the gospel and the basics of the faith.
Looking back, I now realize how much of my thinking on everything was decisively and permanently shaped by these early influences. There are things in one's youth that one remembers and which later seem something like Houseman's blue remembered hills: the happy highways where I went but cannot come again. Not in this case: all the theology I have is basically an elaboration of what I learned from reading these two giants; my cares and concerns, my core understanding of the gospel, is what I received from them. The authoritative revelation of God in the scriptures; the fall, the incarnation, above all the cross and resurrection and the hope of the life to come. These are still foundational to my understanding of the gospel and I hope they are still my priorities.
Someone asked me recently why I seem so alienated from what appears to be the cutting edge in American conservative evangelicalism.Frankly, I have stopped regarding myself as an evangelical over here, in a way that I do back home. Why? Well, at a time when Christian leaders in the USA are apparently writing explicit sex books, when there are confused signals on the Trinity, when art and cultural transformation and social justice are increasingly the talking points and the kind of themes and priorities I learned from Drs. Packer and Lloyd-Jones are at best assumed, at worst eclipsed by such things - frankly, it is very hard not to feel alienated, and an alien, in such circumstances.
Re-reading Packer and Lloyd-Jones is a delight. Just basic Christian priorities laid out with no frills, no spin, no soul patches, no Barnum and Bailey pyrotechnics. For someone well into his forties, such reading perhaps provokes the occasional Charlie Kane 'Rosebud' moment; but it is a delight nonetheless. Almost thirty years on, I still have an awful lot to learn from these men, and my debt of gratitude can never be repaid.
As you age, starting to sound like your dad is bad enough; sounding like your grandad is even worse, but here goes: I am glad I am not young today. Who knows what I might be told to read?
Looking back, I now realize how much of my thinking on everything was decisively and permanently shaped by these early influences. There are things in one's youth that one remembers and which later seem something like Houseman's blue remembered hills: the happy highways where I went but cannot come again. Not in this case: all the theology I have is basically an elaboration of what I learned from reading these two giants; my cares and concerns, my core understanding of the gospel, is what I received from them. The authoritative revelation of God in the scriptures; the fall, the incarnation, above all the cross and resurrection and the hope of the life to come. These are still foundational to my understanding of the gospel and I hope they are still my priorities.
Someone asked me recently why I seem so alienated from what appears to be the cutting edge in American conservative evangelicalism.Frankly, I have stopped regarding myself as an evangelical over here, in a way that I do back home. Why? Well, at a time when Christian leaders in the USA are apparently writing explicit sex books, when there are confused signals on the Trinity, when art and cultural transformation and social justice are increasingly the talking points and the kind of themes and priorities I learned from Drs. Packer and Lloyd-Jones are at best assumed, at worst eclipsed by such things - frankly, it is very hard not to feel alienated, and an alien, in such circumstances.
Re-reading Packer and Lloyd-Jones is a delight. Just basic Christian priorities laid out with no frills, no spin, no soul patches, no Barnum and Bailey pyrotechnics. For someone well into his forties, such reading perhaps provokes the occasional Charlie Kane 'Rosebud' moment; but it is a delight nonetheless. Almost thirty years on, I still have an awful lot to learn from these men, and my debt of gratitude can never be repaid.
As you age, starting to sound like your dad is bad enough; sounding like your grandad is even worse, but here goes: I am glad I am not young today. Who knows what I might be told to read?
