Selling Baptist Life: Part 2. Alexander MacLaren

'This Memorial Stone was laid by Alexander Maclaren D.D. LittD., President of the Baptist Union 1875-76 and 1901-2 on Wednesday 24th April 1901.'

Many of us have benefited from the Dr Maclaren's sermons, published with an enthusiasm not so far short of those of C H Spurgeon (though without the same earthy wit).  What would the good doctor make of the disengagement of this building that he witnessed in its proud inauguration?

He might do quite well - here is Maclaren preaching on God's refusal, delivered by the prophet Nathan, to allow King David to build him a house (i.e. a Jerusalem Temple):

Unless we can with our hearts rejoicingly confess, 'Thou art the King of glory, O Christ! Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,' we do not pierce to the full understanding of Nathan's prophecy.
He, that is Christ, has built the true Temple, in that His body is the seat of sacrifice and of revelation, and the meeting-place of God and man, and inasmuch as through Him we are built up into a spiritual house for an habitation of God. In Him is fulfilled the great prophecy of 'My Servant the Branch,' who 'shall build the Temple of the Lord' and 'be a Priest upon His throne.' In Him, too, is fulfilled in highest truth the filial relationship... In that filial relation lies the assurance of Christ's everlasting kingdom, for 'the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.'

God's work is never ultimately about buildings.

Selling Baptist Life - Part 1: The Statue

Years ago, in the heart of one of the world's greatest cities, there was a building that was used by Baptist Christians.  I could have found that out by research, but the actual reason that I know is that I went there.

It was not a building that was especially encouraging.  It looked and smelled as though the maintenance level was determined by the needs of the budget more than the needs of the premises.  Nevertheless it represented the Great Baptist Headquarters and it was in Central London.  (To be technical it is not in London at all but in Holborn aka London Borough of Camden - the Free Churches have always been and remain almost entirely outside the City of London).

The Grand Vision that bequeathed the building to the current generations of British Baptists was that of early 20th Century Free Churchmanship, the same sense of Grand Vision that bequeathed a beautiful Edwardian church in Muswell Hill where I serve - complete with its galleries that imitate the old Langham Hall where the Promenade Concerts first began.

No Baptist congregation today would build such a chapel, and neither would the Baptist Union of today build the building in Southampton Row.  And so, in 1989, the building was sold. Today it is a hotel. Yet these old buildings are hugely instructive and symbolic and Baptist House is the more so for having been sold.

Here's the outside:

Yes, that's right.  A statue.

It is not very easy to understand a statue on Baptist House.  Baptists, after all, have scant love of statues and even at the height of ecumenism (the movement that blurred some lines between denominations in the hope of a visible unity) Baptists rarely had much positivity toward statuary.

Given the Biblicist nature of Baptists we might have expected a Biblical figure - John the Baptist perhaps?  Instead, leaving Biblical figures to the Catholics and High Anglicans the Biblical Baptists resorted to congregationalist John Bunyan.  He was probably, but not certainly, a Baptist too.  And famous.  But quite what a passer by is supposed to do with him remains a mystery.  Surely not a slight bow?  Not a garland on a saints day?  What, then?

Anyhow, fascinatingly the renovation of the building to an upscale hotel included bringing the statue into pristine condition, such as had not been seen since, perhaps, about 1905/6 as the London grime took hold.

Statues, you see, pose no threat.  Whereas the real John Bunyan was put in gaol, his statue can be secularly renovated without fear that it will ever do harm.  That's why we need living faith and not stonework.

Candlemas, the Presentation of our Lord, and Groundhog Day

As the sun drenches a the morning of February 2, there is a lot to celebrate.  Or not.

If Candlemas be fair and bright, Come, winter, have another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain, Go, winter, and come not again.

Yes, here we are, halfway to the Spring Equinox - not a fact readily noticeable on social media, but more obvious to ancient peoples whose lives were ruled by changing seasons.

They looked for signs of spring, omens.  The animals perhaps?  Did they know?  A bear here,  a squirrel there.  Or, if you'd emigrated to Pennsylvania a woodchuck, or groundhog. And the clearer the sky was (i.e. the animal sees its shadow), the more wintry it was likely to remain (high pressure established and all that - though known by experience rather than meteorology).

The legendary film Groundhog Day uses it as the background for its story of day repeats.  But what the day is really about is - when is is the change coming?

And so it was that on 'this' day (using December 25 as his birthday), Mary and Joseph present the Christ-child Jesus, as required in the law, at the Temple,  And Anna rejoices and Simeon - well, let Johannes Eccard do this bit for us;

When to the temple Mary went,
And brought the Holy Child,
Him did the aged Simeon see,
As it had been revealed.
He took up Jesus in his arms
And blessing God he said:
In peace I now depart, my Saviour having seen,
The Hope of Israel, the Light of men.

Help now thy servants, gracious Lord,
That we may ever be
As once the faithful Simeon was,
Rejoicing but in Thee;
And when we must from earth departure take,
May gently fall asleep and with Thee wake

All the woodchucks in the world cannot end the winter.  But Christ came to do just that.