Rev. K.D. Macleod
ONE must assume that religion in the USA is in a very healthy state — if one takes at face value the professions of Americans to be born again. Yet the very extent of this profession is enough to make even the most credulous observer a little sceptical of the genuineness of such claims, especially when their religion seems to make so little impact on the lifestyle of most people. Although many American leaders — their “born-again” Presidents among them — are not ashamed of their religion and speak of prayer in a way that would, sadly, be almost unthinkable in the UK, yet religion and worldliness seem to go hand in hand throughout the USA.
One’s suspicions are confirmed by a recent survey of American adults which reveals gross ignorance of basic Christian doctrines. For instance, 15% of those who claimed to be born again did not accept the statement, “The Bible is totally accurate in all of its teachings.” Again, 29% clearly have no conception of the kind of saviour they need if they are to be saved; they accepted the survey statement, “When He lived on earth, Jesus Christ was human and committed sins, like other people.” Roughly the same proportion, 30%, denied a literal resurrection; they agreed with the statement, “Jesus Christ was a great teacher, but He did not come back to physical life after He was crucified.”
After seeing these figures no one need be surprised to find that 39% of these “born again Christians” seem to think that they do not really need a saviour; they accept that “if a person is generally good, or does enough good things for others during their life, they will earn a place in heaven.” They agree with this statement although it would seem that for the purpose of the survey, born-again Christians were defined as those who believe they will go to heaven because they “have confessed their sins and accepted Jesus Christ as their Saviour”.
An even greater proportion, 80%, approved of the statement, “The Bible teaches that God helps those who help themselves.” While it may be rather ambiguous, this statement does illustrate the man-centredness of modern American religion.
Finally, 49% deny that the devil is a person; they accept the statement, “The devil, or Satan, is not a living being, but a symbol of evil.” If they know their Bibles at all these people clearly do not believe what the Word of God teaches. It is worth noting that the numbers who are on shaky ground for other doctrines are much higher than the proportion who reject the reliability of Scripture.
The world has obviously entered the Christian Church. In fact, when Americans who do not profess to be born again were surveyed, their beliefs were not wildly different; 45% (only 15% more than professed Christians) denied Christ’s resurrection, and 68% (19% more) said that Satan is no more than a symbol of evil.
One has no wish to condemn every American who makes a profession of conversion. That would be absurd. Yet the extent of false profession is vast: far beyond anything that we experience in the UK. Religious observance — of a kind — is far greater in the USA, but no one should think it harsh to question the claim of a large proportion of those who say they are born again when 43% of them had not even read their Bible in the previous week.
What need there is for a race of ministers to be raised up who would go out in the name of Christ and preach as Jonathan Edwards did in his famous awakening sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God!
Obituary
Mr Alistair McKenzie, Deacon, Dingwall and Beauly
ALISTAIR MCKENZIE was born into a Church of Scotland home in the Black Isle, Ross-shire, in 1909. His father, who was a native of Little Lochbroom in Wester Ross and had been brought up in a pious home where the Sabbath was carefully observed, instilled Christian principles into his children. Young Alistair did not rebel against that upbringing and grew up to be an upright person who continued to attend the Church of his fathers, was diligent in his business of farming near Fortrose, and was transparently honest in his dealings with others. However, he had no interest in spiritual matters: it was to his worldly business and affairs that he gave priority.
Although he went regularly to the local Church of Scotland he did not stand in the way of his wife (a daughter of the late John MacLeod, an elder in the Edinburgh Congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church) attending the services of the Free Presbyterian Church in Dingwall when she had the opportunity of being taken there by a friend. Indeed he encouraged her.
One Sabbath evening in 1959 he went, not to the Church of Scotland service, but to the Free Presbyterian service in Dingwall, and took his family with him. It was not the minister of the congregation, the Rev. D.A. MacFarlane, whom he heard that evening but the late Alick MacLennan, missionary and elder in the congregation, whose turn it was to conduct the service. So impressed was he by what he heard from Mr MacLennan that he
said, “I’ve never heard a sermon like that. I’ve never heard anything like it.” He also said that he would not be attending the Church of Scotland again. He continued attending the Free Presbyterian Church services regularly, at first on Sabbath evenings only, but then on Sabbath mornings and mid-week also, as his farming duties permitted. He appreciated Mr MacFarlane’s preaching and appeared to be having some serious thoughts about eternal issues.
His continued and determined attendance at the public means of grace, his evident interest in them, and his diminished interest in worldly things made it appear to some that perhaps a saving change had taken place in him and that his affections were set on things above. On one occasion he was invited and pressed to attend a worldly social function connected with the farming community of which he was a respected and knowledgeable member. When the time came for him to prepare to go to the function he had no heart for it and decided to stay at home. When asked next day about his absence he quietly said, “Well, we just didn’t want to go, and I decided we wouldn’t go.” Never again was he troubled with such invitations. However, his conduct in that matter was not the result of a saving change but of the workings of a conscience in which the Holy Spirit was striving.
Alistair McKenzie was a man of few words when it came to speaking about his own spiritual experience, but it appears that his serious thoughts rose to a height when his sister-in-law died suddenly in hospital in Edinburgh in 1969 and when, 10 weeks later, his mother-in-law became seriously ill and died. One evening, as he was conducting family worship at home, he read these solemn words: “Be ye also ready.” They pierced his heart like a knife, convincing him of his awful lack of preparation to meet his God, and moving him to be right earnest in seeking that preparation. However, it was some considerable time before he entertained the hope that he was reconciled to God through the blood of the Cross.
It would seem that this occurred one day when, accompanied by an elder of the Church, he went to deal with some business matter. They spent much of the day engaged in spiritual conversation. He was asking many questions, for the greater business of his soul’s safety weighed upon him, and the elder was giving answers and explanations from the Word of God. As they travelled home in the evening, still talking about spiritual verities, light broke in upon his soul, and the way of salvation through Christ and Him crucified was made clear to him by the secret illumination of the Holy Spirit. So overcome was he by this gracious visitation to his soul that he could not refrain from saying, “The like of this has never happened to me before.”
He was received as a member in full communion in August 1979, ordained
as a Deacon of the Dingwall and Beauly Congregation in May 1986, and proved to be a gracious, wise and practical office-bearer. In its tribute to him the Deacons’ Court stated, “He discharged the responsibilities of his office conscientiously and zealously and was accorded a warm place in the esteem and affection of his fellow-office-bearers and of the Congregation.”
In his prayers in public and in his speaking at the fellowship meeting at communion seasons there was an attractive freshness and savour which, as the above-mentioned tribute says, “was the fruit of a deep consciousness of his own utter unworthiness and of the supreme worthiness of his Saviour.” When “he spoke to the question” at the fellowship meeting, his illustrations, drawn from his farming experience, were sometimes quite striking.
The cause of Christ was exceedingly dear to him and he had a keen and prayerful interest in the work and witness of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The 1989 division in the Church grieved him to the quick, but no one had any doubt about his genuine loyalty to the Church and his whole-hearted support for the stand it had to make during those testing days.
During his last illness in 1993 he had considerable discomfort and pain, but he was upheld by the “Father of mercies and the God of all comfort” and was enabled to endure his affliction with much patience. Some who visited him in his illness came away from him feeling that it was they themselves, rather than he, who benefited from the visit. He continued coming to the house of God until near the end despite much weakness, and we could not but feel that these words of the Psalmist could most appropriately be put into his mouth:
“The habitation of thy house,
Lord, I have loved well;
Yea, in that place I do delight
where doth thine honour dwell.”
During his illness he had been looking forward to being present at the August communion season in Dingwall but that was not to be. He passed away peacefully on the Thursday following the communion, 5th August, 1993, at the age of 84, to enjoy, we believe, that perfect communion with God which is the eternal portion of the spirits of just men made perfect. While his passing away brought him “to be with Christ, which is far better”, and to the “full enjoying of God to all eternity”, it has left a great blank in his family circle, in the congregation, and in the Church.
May we heed, as he did, that call, “Be ye also ready,” and may his sorrowing widow, daughter and son, and all the members of the bereaved family, to whom we express again our sympathy, be enabled to say about his God, “This God is our God for ever and ever: He will be our guide even unto death.” NMR