A good friend has said this to me more than once. But yesterday, a very vivid memory came back, of running up a rather more crowded platform than shown above on Delhi station, from which the Agra express was leaving. I pushed Hilary and children onto the train (the smallest was thrown on I think), before I succeeded in jumping on myself just as we ran out of platform. On more than one occasion, in the days of non-locking doors, I did the same on my own, jumping on rather faster accelerating London-bound trains at Newcastle station, for Traidcraft meetings.
Reflecting further, the verse in Hebrews 2 comes to mind, about Jesus Christ “bringing many children to glory.” Is there still time (just) to keep all but a rump of the Anglican Communion together? Not of course for its own sake, nor for the sake of past supposed glories, but for the sake of the unity of all orthodox denominations, many facing far greater challenges even to death, in order to fulfill the Great Commission, of making disciples of all nations (even in benighted England) – seeing many children enter the Kingdom of God in Christ?
47 years ago at Cranmer Hall, St Johns, Durham, a fellow-student and I wrote to the Church Times, calling for a re-appraisal of a 1945 report “Towards the Conversion of England.” It has been commissioned by Archbishop Temple in the darkest days of the war and he set out its main themes, but died before it was published. For a few weeks after our Church Times letter, several more letters were published on the subject, and we received encouraging personal replies. Turning to the report once more, I copy its concluding paragraph, which quoted from a conference in Jerusalem in 1924, of “Christian workers among Moslems….”
“The only spiritual dynamic is the Living Spirit of the Crucified and Risen Christ Himself. The whole. . . world is awaiting the release of this vital force through human personalities, vitalised by the Holy Spirit, and witnessing with a new power to the Cross of Christ as the central fact of faith and life. We submit that the spiritual dynamic for such a compelling witness is, in the good purpose of God, always available. But there is nothing in the Bible or in the experience of the Church to express that it is available cheaply. Each marked release of the Holy Spirit of God in human lives must be at the cost of definite surrender and prayer.”
Again, it is salutary to read Mark Durie’s blog, a link to which is at the end of my blog earlier in February.
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