Scottish National Party — Sabbath Breakers
This is not a political comment but it should have a message for our Scottish readers. The Scottish National Party, so much in the news in recent times held a Party Conference in Oban last May. Let readers note, if they have not done so already, that this Conference began on Friday, 30th May 1969, and continued to include Sabbath, the 1st of June. On the Sabbath Day the Conference discussed the draft constitution for Scotland under self-government, which included giving Gaelic equal status with English. We are aware that other political parties show in one way or another, scant respect for God’s holy day. But the Scottish National Party in beginning their appeal to the people of Scotland, have completely forgotten and desecrated, what used to be called
the Scottish Sabbath. They were more concerned with self-government and Gaelic, than with the law of God. It appeared that the Provost of Oban welcomed delegates in his official regalia. What an opportunity he had as the Chief Magistrate to oppose this Party’s disregard for the Lord’s Day!
World Council of Churches and the Pope
It has been reported that the Pope was to visit the World Council of Churches headquarters in Geneva in June, at the time of writing. This is a confirmation of what has been said, time and again, that the W.C.C. has no interest in Reformation or evangelical doctrine or principles. It is indeed an organisation which is a real danger to the true Church and Cause of Christ in our day.
A Foolish Act
Lord Provost Alexander MacKenzie of Dundee claims to be a Total Abstainer as to drink. Yet he opened a new Brewery depot at Edison Place, Dundee, recently and was presented with an inscribed beer tankard. His folly and weakness appears when he said he was at a loss to understand why the honour of opening the premises had fallen to him. As a teetotal man he should have immediately considered it no honour at all to open a drink depot and declined the invitation. It was as simple as that. But it seems his mind worked along other lines.
The Assembly’s Guests
That the presence of Her Majesty the Queen at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland should coincide with the first visit of a Roman Catholic priest as an official guest to the Assembly is hardly a happy portent of events to come. When we take into consideration the anti-christian nature of the Roman Catholic system, what but a perverted charity could be responsible for extending such an invitation and at such a time to a Roman Catholic priest. What was even more sad was the lack of protest from within the Church of Scotland itself against this event, so that it was left again to Rev. Ian Paisley from Belfast to show that the event did not command universal approval. Surely Scotland has fallen on sad days when a Church claiming to be the successor to the Church of John Knox has so few Protestant witnesses within its pale. — D.B.McL.
Parliament and Divorce
In June the Divorce Reform Bill and the “Sunday” Entertainments Bill, two Bills vitally affecting the life of the nation will again have been before Parliament. But for the action of the Government in allowing some of its own time so that these Bills
could be further debated, they would before now have fallen by the way. Should this legislation ever reach the Statute Book the Government will bear heavy responsibility for the consequences. It is regrettable in the extreme that the Government of the day should take such a conspicuous part in undermining the divinely appointed institutions of marriage and the Sabbath and so be engaged in destroying the spiritual and moral foundations of society. — D.B.McL.
Heart Transplants
Heart transplants, which have again figured in the news, have highlighted the question of the point of death and whether doctors in certain cases can adequately determine this. The use of patients who have suffered what is termed irreversible brain damage as heart donors has brought the whole matter to the public notice. Some leading doctors have expressed grave concern and Dr Dixon, Fellow and Director of Studies in Medicine at Cambridge has written in the Cambridge University Medical Journal that “the moment of human death cannot be discerned with accuracy and precision.” The Scriptural outlook demands that there must be no concession in this matter to the humanist viewpoint that if persons have suffered irreversible brain damage there is little virtue in keeping them alive and that they are proper subjects as heart donors. This attitude is pagan in the extreme and does not reckon with the claims of the Divine law. What must be established beyond a shadow of a doubt in all cases is that the donor’s life is indeed extinct. — D.B.McL.