Weekend Reads: Two men and the gospel

L. Charles Jackson’s Riots, Revolutions, and the Scottish Covenanters: The Work of Alexander Henderson (Reformation Heritage Books, 2015) is so stiff with scholarly citations and recommendations for further work that it could’ve had “A Ph.D. Dissertation” in the same place that many publishers put the disclaimer “A Novel.”

Alexander Henderson (1583–1646) was a Scots minister, sometime moderator of the Scottish General Assembly, and co-author of The Solemn League and Covenant, a document signed by Scotland as a nation in 1643. Its general point was to craft a civic “league” of unity between the different social orders in Scotland and then to make a solemn “covenant” between Scotland and the Lord Jesus Christ, whereby Scotland promised to obey Christ’s commands and establish Presbyterianism as the official church. Though this sounds strange indeed to modern ears, it was very well received in early modern Scotland. Many committed Christians, including Henderson, saw it as the best hope for the preservation of true Christianity in opposition to the idolatrous worship practiced by the Roman Catholic Church. In particular, Henderson saw what he called “Romish” idolatry as being as much a political threat as a religious one. After all, God judged those who turned from the truth and broke their covenants; were Scotland to depart from its God-fearing, non-idolatrous worship, the wrath of God would bring temporal disaster upon the realm.

King Charles I had other ideas. He saw moderately ceremonious worship as perfectly appropriate for Scotland and England, and he sought to impose it on Scotland. Henderson, almost in spite of himself, emerged as leader of the opposition to this policy. He crafted a simple narrative in which Presbyterian ecclesiology stood against idolatrous worship and thus would bring God’s temporal and spiritual blessings to any nation that supported it.

Jackson’s historical work is careful, precise, and painstakingly neutral, to the point that I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shout, “Well, what about it? Was Henderson right?” You won’t find that question even mentioned in Riots, Revolutions, and the Scottish Covenanters, much less answered.

Erwin Lutzer’s He Will Be the Preacher: The Story of God’s Providence in My Life (Moody Publishers, 2015) provides a chatty overview of the author’s life from birth to grandchildren. I was impressed by his ability to tell the story without being fake and without saying bad things about anyone.

The accounts of his parents’ childhoods in Ukraine during World War I were heartrending. Things improved dramatically after they immigrated to Canada, where Lutzer was born in Saskatchewan. His early life was saturated with the Bible—the book’s title comes from the words his pastor’s wife spoke over his cradle—and he credits his ministry to the prayers of his parents.

After Bible college in Canada, then a degree at Dallas Theological Seminary, Lutzer began pastoring a Baptist church in Chicago in the early 1970s. In 1977, he resigned in order to pursue graduate studies. His first Sunday without a pastoral charge, he decided to worship at Moody Church, a historic congregation in Chicago. The pastor was walking out the door, going home sick, and asked Lutzer to fill in for him. So with 10 minutes’ notice, Lutzer preached for the first time in that pulpit. He’s now pastored there for 35 years.

Both these ministerial biographies testify to Lutzer’s conclusion that “There is no substitute for the man of God taking the Word of God by the power of the Spirit of God and proclaiming it to the people of God.” Henderson’s political achievements were dead in a generation. But the gospel both men preached endures.