SUMMER 2021 NEWSLETTER
journey through this lockdown time, the work of helping people to think biblically and theologically continues. In this newsletter, you will read about an online Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference, which was something we didn’t know how to do just six months ago! Together with the new, we continue to encourage the work of Elders’ Training and support the encouraging mission of Under The Rainbow. The RCRT Board have been very hardworking, offering support and advice to Andrew, helping him to plan and deliver the successful Dogmatics Conference and nourishing the seeds of new ideas to help grow the work of RCRT in the months and years to come. The mission of RCRT, to help people think biblically and theologically, is being worked out in three areas, encouraging scholarship and writing, educating and training elders and other church leaders, and promoting orthodox evangelical Christianity. The breadth of these three areas of work means that all Christians in Scotland and in all parts of the Church in Scotland will be encouraged by the ministry of RCRT. If you think that RCRT can support ministry and mission in your parish or congregation, or network, please contact us, and we can talk and pray together about how we can partner with you. I recently spoke with a friend I met more than 25 years ago at a Rutherford House training seminar. After all these years, we still remember with thankfulness the ministry of RH and the lessons we learned for ministry in our parishes. Church and ministry are in very different places in 2021 than in 1994, and so is RCRT. However, our prayer and desire is to serve the Church in Scotland for effective ministry and mission for the next 25 years. Thank you for your prayers and support for RCRT in our mission. Gordon Kennedy Chair of the RCRT Board 2
Having spent the past two years establishing the work of RCRT, building on the foundation of our predecessor Rutherford House, we must now press on to fulfil the potential of the centre. Having established the office base for RCRT in the Highland Theological College and having appointed Professor Andrew McGowan and Mark Stirling to carry out the programmes agreed by the Trustees (many of which are reflected in this Newsletter), we are ready to move forward. In order to do so, we need to raise some financial support. We are looking for those who share our vision to contribute to the work. As you will understand, the expenditure on staff, buildings and programmes continues, even during lockdown. Can you or your church help by making a donation to our work? If you would like to make a one-off donation, please go to our website (www.rcrt.scot) and click on the ‘Donate’ button. What we particularly need right now are regular monthly donations, through standing orders. This would greatly assist us in our financial planning. If 100 people gave £5 per month, 100 gave £10 per month and 100 gave £20 per month, this would go a long way to meeting our commitments. To set up a standing order, please email Mark Stirling and he will provide you with the relevant form to complete: mark.stirling@rcrt.scot Our task is to help people to think biblically and theologically. If you believe that this is important, then please support us. Thank you. 3
Now that the hard work of planning and running the Edinburgh Dogmatics Conference is past, Professor McGowan and Mark Stirling have been reviewing and consolidating the RCRT database in preparation for future mailings. They have also been working through boxes of historic Rutherford House documents, which will be scanned before shredding. At the end of the summer, when restrictions are eased, they hope to work through the boxes of books published by Rutherford House, in preparation for sending many of them to Africa. This work of scanning and shredding, together with disposing of the books, should enable us to empty the container where currently everything is stored! Professor McGowan recently spoke at a Zoom meeting of the Scottish Evangelical Theology Society. He spoke about the RCRT Ecclesiology Project and led a discussion on the Church and its Unity. Some of what he said was based on work he has been doing for his book on The Unity of the Church. Oxford University Press (OUP) has just published the next volume in its series of Handbooks. It is entitled The Oxford Handbook of Divine Revelation. This is a 700-page volume with contributions from many scholars. Professor McGowan wrote the chapter on 'Inerrancy'. Unfortunately, the publisher being OUP, the book retails at £110. Professor McGowan has also contributed a chapter on the 8 th commandment to a volume being produced by the World Evangelical Fellowship in partnership with the World Reformed Fellowship. He has also submitted chapters for two books to be published in 2022 and is working on a chapter for a third book. The Soldiers' and Airmen's Scripture Readers Association (known as SASRA) is preparing a 2021 Remembrance Devotional. Professor McGowan has contributed a meditation on the theme of sacrifice from 1 John 4:10. In the autumn, Professor McGowan expects to resume Elder training, including a day conference for Elders in his own Presbytery of Ross. 4
We had originally intended the conference to be in person in Edinburgh, but the regulations governing the pandemic made this impossible. Instead, we held the conference by Zoom. This decision, while forced upon us, proved to be of great benefit to the conference. We had registrations from over 70 people from 11 countries. This was a larger number of attendees than any of the recent in-person conferences. One Malaysian postgraduate said that he and his colleagues could not normally attend such a conference, being in Edinburgh, with associated travel and accommodation costs and was delighted that they could attend by Zoom. The international nature of the conference did present some timing problems but we made the pre-recorded lectures available to those who missed lectures due to their time zones! The quality of the papers was very good and both the papers and the discussion were much appreciated in the feedback we received. The lecturers now have until 1st September to revise their papers for publication in our Ecclesiology Series. We were very grateful to Rev Stuart Love who managed the conference as Administrator, giving some considerable time to pre-meetings for planning as well as the two full days of the conference. He was ably assisted by Mark Stirling. 5
We are excited to report that we have begun to think about creating a Bible app for teenagers. The Rutherford Centre for Reformed Theology exists to help people to think biblically and theologically. To accomplish this aim, we have worked with congregations, elders, ministers, and academics. However, we have not done anything specifically for teenagers. Many teenagers have grown up with little or no Bible knowledge, and to get them to read the Bible and books about the Bible often proves difficult. Teenagers do, however, use their phones and computers to access information. So, the intention is to create an app that will teach them what the Bible is, what the Bible says, and how to read the Bible. We have been in discussion with the copyright holder of The Lion Handbook to the Bible and with the Editor of its publisher Lion Hudson, to discuss using some of the material from that marvellous resource to provide links within the app. We are at an early stage in our discussions, but the response has been very positive. This is a major undertaking, and our ability to carry it through will be dependent upon being able to raise the finance to make it happen. Do you share our vision? Could you become a financial supporter of this project? Do you have skills or experience that could help? If so, please contact the Director or Mark Stirling. This work has great potential, and we ask that you remember it in your prayers. 6
Keefe, we are currently developing our Theology 150 project and are keen for people to get involved. We all know the importance of reading in our Christian life, but sometimes we struggle to find the time to read or complete a book once started, seldom getting past the first 100 pages! Theology 150 is here to help. Theology 150 can be found on the RCRT website and has been created to review Christian books with no more than 150 pages. These books cover a variety of important Christian and theological topics and are well worth a read. The good thing about Theology 150 is that the books are reviewed and rated by other readers just like you! We would encourage you to get involved. If you come across any good short theology/Christian books in your travels, please let us know—we value reviews of great books! To contribute, all you need to do is visit our website and select the Theology 150 page. Alongside the regular updates on the Website and a newly added Twitter feed, Under the Rainbow has recently produced a DVD resource entitled ‘A Grief Perspective: One man’s experience of grief’ with the assistance of the Scottish Prison Service. It is an interview between a prison chaplain and an inmate, Paul, who is serving a life sentence. Like many prisoners, Paul landed in prison, having gone through considerable loss in his life, and in the new found time away from the chaos of life, grief from previous losses descended. The DVD is a simple interview where Paul shares his own experience of losing twins and his father 20 years previously. Already it has proved a blessing in the prison, where prisoners can watch the halfhour DVD in the privacy of their cells. Copies of the DVD are being circulated in each prison estate in Scotland. A very significant number of prisoners suffer from grief, especially after entering the prison population, and it is hoped this resource will enable them to know comfort and seek out help. 7
We are delighted to announce that Mark Stirling has been appointed as Personal Assistant to Professor Andrew McGowan, the Director of the Rutherford Centre for Reformed Theology. Mark worked for sixteen years with children with additional needs. More recently, he completed a First Class honours’ degree in history with the University of the Highlands and Islands. He has significant experience in administration and is well qualified to help RCRT in the next stage of its development. 07342 124667 @RCRT.scot www.rcrt.scot RCRT RCRT Scotland @CentreReformed director@rcrt.scot mark.stirling@rcrt.scot Under the Rainbow @utr_org_uk undertherainbow.org.uk RCRT Registered Office: 3 Melville Crescent, Edinburgh, EH3 7HW A charity registered in Scotland: SC015111 8
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