Thanksgiving Wisdom: 1. Not Back to Normal

In this week of Thanksgiving in America, I'd like to look back to the Pilgrims from whom the festival derives.  They have become lost in the current ferment of the United States, a later political creation, but 400 years ago a body of people set sail on the Mayflower (well, they actually set sail on another ship first) to join other settlers on the shores of the New World.

Many were from a church in Holland that had been formed from Christians fleeing England, and they have become known as the Pilgrim Fathers. The majority of the Church in Leiden, Holland stayed back, as did their Pastor.  It was the younger, more adventurous who set sail, yet the harsh conditions took many of their lives in the opening years of settlement.   Thanksgiving was born out of gratitude for their first Harvest.  

John Robinson, their Pastor, never did the journey from Holland (though he had previously fled England of course).  Yet his wisdom and determination played a large part in the Mayflower story and I want to look at a few things he said or wrote:  first this, from a letter to a sympathetic English nobleman who had supported them throughout:

It is not with us as with other men, whom small things can discourage, or small discontentments cause to wish themselves at home again . . . we hope not to recover our present helps, neither look ever to attain the like in any other place in our lives . . .

This quotation reminds us of wisely adopting a pilgrim spirit in this world.  Covid-19 has left everyone wanting to recover normality - these pilgrims understood they were giving up a lot in order to go forward.

As the disciples might have done when they left their nets by Galilee to follow Jesus. With Jesus most of the good things are in front, not behind.

Baptists for a pandemic: 3. Joseph Binney

Augusta, Georgia' figures in the modern media each year.  It's golf course annually hosts one of the four great world Tournaments.  It is known for its pristine beauty - a far cry from a windy links course on the coast of Britain, for example.

Augusta is, for America, an old city.  It sits on the border of South Carolina.  In the mid 1800s it was part of the increasing influence of the Baptists, though also pointedly in their North-South divisions regarding slave ownership.

Pastor Joseph Binney and his wife arrived at its First Baptist Church because they had been unable to stay in Burma (today, Myanmar).  Ill health had cut short their missionary endeavours.  

The safer environs of Augusta did not turn out to be safe however.  In 1854 an epidemic of Yellow Fever arrived in the city.  You can be vaccinated for Yellow Fever today - but there is still no medical cure if the mosquitos win.  

Deaths were reported, and the people of the city fled.  The Binneys left the city but lived nearby, Joseph returning each day to minister to the sick and dying.  The missionary who had been defeated by ill-health, was found in its midst.

Almost inevitably, Joseph eventually caught the fever.  

He survived.

He not only survived, but recovered sufficient strength to leave Augusta - and return to Burma as a missionary!

Here was a man, a family, whose calling was stronger than their challenges.  May we be like them.

Baptists for a pandemic 2. John Bunyan

When Church of England envoy Terry Waite was held captive in Beirut by Hezbollah in the late 1980s he famously received a postcard from well wishers in England.  It bore an image in stained glass of John Bunyan writing in prison.  The meaning was - good can come from confinement.

It is impossible to overestimate the literary and spiritual value of Pilgrim's Progress, a book so skilled that people of any religion and none can enjoy it while deep-thinking Christians can mine it and children can engage easily with its story.  It is inevitably still mentioned in lists of primary English literature.

Yet Bunyan spent about 12 of his 60 years in gaol.  He was primarily known in his day as an Independent/Baptist preacher but his lasting fame belongs to his writing and his writing owes much to his years of lockdown.

Very unwise it is of us to dismiss lockdowns as unproductive.  Had Bunyan been a Baptist Pastor today he would have been out of prison more but, if he had written anything, it probably wouldn't have outlived him.  I feel I know - I've read what today's preachers write . .. 

Baptists for a pandemic: 1. Thomas Grantham

I have been reading about some Baptists who I think are very useful for our pandemic season.

First, and on one level most interestingly, I begin with Thomas Grantham.  That I hadn't heard of him on July 12th will be obvious from my blog of that day.   But that is to my shame.  For Thomas Grantham was very well-known in the 17th century.

It is important to note that what I am about to reveal is not at all unique to Thomas.  He was the most famous advocate of the position because at the time because he was, well, famous.  His book Christianus Primitivus was one of the great early Baptist theologies.

Thomas Grantham represents a marked strand in Baptist history that rejected congregational singing.  As Baptists, more than most, we are bewailing our loss of freedom to sing in the pandemic.  It is peculiar to note that our forefathers were quite strongly opposed to the practice.  One cantor singing a Psalm was the preferred rule.

We imagine Thomas Grantham to be very 'strict', but that turns out to be false.  Thomas Grantham held the view that 'Christ died for all', which was a 'General' Baptist 17th century interpretation, creating an openness and evangelistic edge that many stricter Baptists (and others) rejected.

The next time I complain of a year without congregational singing I will remember that some of the most formative years of Baptist fellowships were decades without congregational singing.  So no excuses for us complaining that we can't go on like this!