The Tories had been in the political wilderness during Tony Blair’s triple premiership.  They experimented with a few ineffectual leaders. William Hague was the first Tory leader who never became Prime Minister. Iain Duncan Smith “the quiet man” failed to make any breakthrough. Then Michael Howard experienced the same.

Eventually the Tory Party chose the fresh-faced David Cameron in a competition that resembled a beauty contest rather than a serious challenge, by-passing competent and educated Malcolm Rifkind.

Cameron showed how little he knew about world history when he said during his first visit to the United States: “We were the “junior partner” in 1940 when we were fighting the Nazis”, whereas America had not even entered the war in 1940. This shows how ill-prepared he was for leadership. The same failure to understand world history led to his rapprochement along with George Osborne with the Chinese premier Xi Jinping. Three days before he was elected UK Prime Minister in May 2010 Cameron said that he had no plans to redefine marriage, but he changed his mind under the influence of his Lib Dem coalition partners. Marriage was redefined on his watch, which he now considers to be one of the greatest legacies of his administration.

He was succeeded by Theresa May who as Home Secretary made the solemn pledge to a Conservative Party Conference to “Watch my lips, I will say this only once”, that the immigration numbers would be brought down to the tens of thousands by the next Parliament. As Tory Prime Minister she announced a snap General Election and lost a 24-point lead in the Polls because she did not know how to campaign.

Opposite her was Jeremy Corbyn, sprung unexpectedly into the Labour leadership, supported by Momentum, a movement which gave him the largest political party in Europe. However, he could not convince the electorate that he had a programme for government, or that he was a safe pair of hands, and so he lost out in the next General Election to Boris Johnson, whose post-Brexit premiership was made possible by Nigel Farage’s skilful political sense, whom Johnson did not thank. This resulted in Labour losing 60 seats in its worst result since the 1935 General Election. The public appetite was swinging like a pendulum as it witnessed the puerile incompetence of political leadership.

Johnson was educated enough but he did not know how to run a political party far less the country.  He was hampered by the Covid pandemic, his own illness and the fierce anti-Brexit campaigning by poor losers among the Europhiles.

Tory in-fighting led to their going through a series of ineffectual Prime Ministers.   Liz Truss had ideas but no idea how to implement them. Rishi Sunak did not know what he was trying to do and he announced a snap General Election in the pouring rain outside 10 Downing Street, a parody of his washed-out Government. This time, Nigel Farage was not so accommodating to the Tories leading to another record collapse, not of Labour this time but of the Tories.

Amidst this chaotic political confusion, Labour benefitted. The public mood swung away from the Tories back to Labour – anything was better than the Tories. The old adage “be careful what you wish for” could not be more appropriate. Labour had ditched Jeremy Corbyn and elected Sir Keir Starmer as its leader, who now became Prime Minister. He had supported Jeremy Corbyn while Corbyn was leader, but then expelled him from the Labour Party for perceived antisemitism, a harbinger of his catastrophic leadership.

Keir Starmer proved so bad that he has become the most unpopular Prime Minister since records began. His international standing is disastrous and after many years to prepare in Opposition he became UK Prime minister with no idea how to govern, having broken many of his election pledges, appointed a Chancellor of the Exchequer who knows little about the economy and is trying to learn on the job. Starmer is in the process of selling-out Britain and today he is fighting for his political life for his inept appointment of Peter Mandelson as the British ambassador to the United States.

Public awareness of ineptitude

The public are now very aware of the UK’s ineffective political leadership. Starmer’s premiership has co-incided with the rapid rise in the Polls of Reform UK under Nigel Farage which has overtaken both the ‘governing’ Labour Party and the diminishing Tory Party.

The two-party dominance of British politics is now being seriously challenged for the first time in 100 years and political pundits speak openly of Nigel Farage as the next Prime Minister.

Governing political parties who had learned to deceive and manipulate a politically-illiterate public have been caught out by the reality of broken-Britain. The current generation of young people are discovering that they have been short-changed by their elders.  Many 20-year-olds are still living at home with their parents, with poorer prospects than their parents.  

The public is now aware that career politicians have failed the nation, as surely as the national churches have failed their nations.  These politicians have no idea how to run the economy nor to manage the unintended consequences of their policies.

Current politicians in positions of leadership are non-descript. We need quality in public life.  It is so bad that Rupert Lowe is looking for non-political candidates for his Restore Britain party, and when Nigel Farage announced Reform UK candidates at a recent Press Conference in Hull, his selling point was that “hardly any of these guys and girls have ever been involved in politics before“. This shows how broken British politics is.

What the country needs is not career politicians, nor non-political politicians, but Christian politicians. The country needs Christian Voices in the public square. There is a Christian Party. How about joining it or giving it your support?

Since their employment in the war effort in WWI, some women promoted and developed the feminist movement.  Men were pushed aside as women took control of their fertility, and since the oral contraceptive pill became generally available in the 1960s, fathers have been marginalised when women sought to abort their own babies in order to assert their autonomy (which literally means “self-law”, a law unto oneself).

21st century

The experience of UK women in the 21st century is changing.  Pakistani rape gangs have come to light, targeting tens of thousands of vulnerable young girls, whose mothers did not abort them but neither did they protect them from predatory muslim men. Older women are being attacked by aggressive men out of the blue. Some muslim men think that they have “every right” to rape women who are not properly dressed.  Which part of the koran gives them this right? Can someone supply the reference? ChatGPT does not supply one. Who teaches these men? They need the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Males were marginalised in the 20th century and are not mentioned in the abortion debate nor lectures to the current time.

Women are beginning to learn some of the extremes in gender issues.  It is time to recall that God made man in His own image, “male and female created He them” Gen 1:26-27.  They are equally in God’s image, and together they complement each other in a wholeness that expresses the character and image of God.

Last time, Apollo 17 was so close to the Moon’s surface, about 110km, that the crew had a limited view of it, but this time Artemis II’s Orion spacecraft will be over 4000 miles from the surface so that the crew can view the whole Lunar disc, seeing areas and features never before seen by unaided human eyes. Its nearest approach will be 4,067 miles, more accurately calculated just before Orion went round the back of the Moon and confirmed after the event.

Today the Orion Spacecraft and its crew will surpass the longest-ever human travel around the Moon by Apollo 13 in 1970.

US Eastern Time is 5 hours behind current British Summer Time.

The Orion spacecraft is now in “the Lunar sphere of influence”, pulled more by Moon’s gravity than Earth’s. The crew has named the Orion spacecraft as Integrity. You can track it in real time here.

“Praise the LORD. Praise the LORD from the heavens: praise Him in the heights.”

Psalm 148

1 The Lord of heav’n confess,
On high His glory raise.
2 Him let all angels bless,
Him all His armies praise.
3 Him glorify
Sun, moon, and stars;
4 Ye higher spheres,
And cloudy sky.

5 From God your beings are,
Him therefore famous make;
You all created were,
When He the word but spake.
6 And from that place,
Where fix’d you be
By His decree,
You cannot pass.
7 Praise God from earth below.

1650 Scottish metrical second version of Psalm 148

Links:

1 Apr 2026: NASA launch.

A diagram of the Artemis II Flight Path throughout its mission.

Current live streaming. 6 Apr 2026: 2:13 p.m. BST 22,000 miles away from the Moon. 3:37 p.m. 19,000 miles from the Moon.

6:37 p.m. BST: 22 minutes from bypassing the Apollo 13 record distance. Dr Kelsey Young is the lead for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, at this point overseeing and confirming the upcoming photographic imaging.

6:57 p.m. BST: the countdown clock stopped displaying with 10 seconds to go.

Flyby and its purpose

Orion’s Flyby’s speed was 3,139 mph relative to the Moon, during which time the crew observed and photographed multiple target sites on the Moon’s surface to investigate the surface geology of the Moon. It is worth recalling that all of earthly life exists within the narrow surface geology of the Earth and its narrow atmosphere. We know of no life of any sort anywhere else in the Universe, except on the Orion spacecraft! for these 10 days of the Artemis II mission. All humanity is in the following photograph.

11:41 p.m. BST: the first live view of Integrity, the Moon and the Earth in one photograph

The Flyby LOS

Just before Loss of Signal, Pilot Victor Glover reminded his listeners of one of the mysteries in the Universe – love on Earth. Jesus Christ in response to, What is the greatest command? said to love God with all that you are, and Jesus “being a great Teacher”, He said the second commandment was equal to it, to love your neighbour as yourself. Drawing upon this, he said that Orion’s crew felt the love from Earth and “we love you from the Moon” – described by Mission Control as a Love letter from the other side of the Moon all the way to the Earth, three minutes before Loss of Signal, with the comment “How great Thou art”.

The crew photographed Earthset just before Integrity disappeared behind the Moon with LOS Loss of Signal. LOS lasted about 40 minutes during which time 1. Integrity’s closest approach to the Moon, at MET (Mission Elapsed Time) 5 days 0hrs 25mins 34seconds was 4,067 statute miles, and 2. its furthest distance from Earth at MET 5 days 0hrs 27mins 39seconds was 252,756 statute miles, which was 4,112 miles further than Apollo 13. As it comes out of LOS, it will photograph Earthrise, recalling Apollo 8’s iconic Earthrise photograph from much closer to the Moon, and it will begin its return to Earth under Earth’s gravitational pull.

On its return from the Moon to Earth, Orion experienced the first Solar eclipse seen from the Moon, lasting 54 minutes of totality because the Moon is so close and appears so much larger than the Sun. This photograph shows Earthshine on the Moon. The Sun’s light reflects off the Earth, which the crew reported as very bright, and reflects back to the Moon so that a crescent of light can be seen on the Moon, which is not completely black because of this Earthshine, described as “amazing” by the crew. They could see “the majority of the surface of the Moon” because of this Earthshine.

Here is a historical video about Artemis I and II with plans for Artemis III and IV: the most complex engineering feat so far in human history.

Two recent solar eclipses in America 2017 and 8 Apr 2024, which was almost exactly two years ago.

Friday 10 Apr 2026 – Flight Day 10

Parachute Deployment Sequence

11 Apr 2026: Integrity crew happily back on the ground.

Some of the best images of the Mission although some commentary is wrong, such as the previous most distant mission being Apollo 8 in 1968 instead of Apollo 13 in 1970.

However, I witnessed two errors within an hour today that I thought I would highlight.

The first error was at a midday prayer meeting where we read in the New Living Translation at John 7:8 Jesus saying: “I’m not going to this festival, because my time has not yet come.”

However, a few verses later it says: “But after his brothers left for the festival, Jesus also went, though secretly, staying out of public view.” In other words, according to the New Living Translation, Jesus told a lie. He said that He was not going and then He went.

The more observant readers will notice a footnote – “Some manuscripts read not yet going.”  In other words, Jesus told His brothers that He was not yet going to the festival. This is very different. However, multitudes of readers never read the footnotes, and certainly not the preacher or whoever is reading the chapter publicly.  So the average person hears Jesus apparently telling lies.

This does not trouble many Christians, just as the Jesuitism that I heard earlier in the day does not trouble them either.

The facts are:

1. not “some” but most manuscripts read “not yet”.
2. the New Living Translation uses the critical text of the New Testament, about which many Christians know nothing or do not care.
3. current versions of the English Bible are slowly changing the thinking of Christians by changing the translations of the Bible, but many Christians do not know this, nor do they care.

This example should show thinking Christians the error of the critical text and the folly of those who follow it.

However, apathetic Christianity is the order of the day.

Jesuitism

As for the Jesuitism I witnessed earlier in the day, who cares? Who wants to hear it?

Many Christians do not know what Jesuitism is, nor do they care, nor do they want to know.  The result is that many are led by the nose back into the errors of Roman Catholicism.

The second error I witnessed within an hour is the declaration that “Jesus died for everybody”.

Thinking Christians might ask several questions in response to this:

1. so what did Jesus die for? What did He accomplish by His death?

2. if Jesus died for everybody, why is anyone in hell, or is there nobody in hell?

3. how many Christians care about this false doctrine?

Apathetic Christians do not trouble themselves with such questions and simply respond: Doctrine divides. As if Jesus had never said that this is exactly what His doctrine does Mat 10:34.

Update:

3 Apr 2026: US President Donald Trump also thinks Jesus “died for all of us”, showing one facet of the false religion that surrounds him. It is difficult for powerful people to find the truth because of the time-servers who surround them.

“I’ll speak Thy word to kings, and I
with shame shall not be moved.”

Scottish Metrical Psalm 119 verse 46.

They are briefed by the civil service and even cabinet meetings are choreographed. It must be depressing for thinking politicians that they are not allowed to express their own thinking. It is all scripted for them by the civil service.

I often wondered how Government ministers could pick up a new brief so quickly, but it appears that they simply need to learn their lines, like actors.

Led by the nose

However, it is a common experience of human beings to be led by the nose.

One of the most important mediums for mass indoctrination is music, which leads large numbers of adoring fans by the nose.

Music has an extraordinary effect upon the human spirit and on human behaviour. Songs determine the theology of a church, which is why they should sing the biblical Psalms, and songs determine the character of a people.

Critical thinking

Jesus Christ teaches criticial thinking to His people. There are many aspects to this teaching, but in this case if one removes the music from the words, many a musical performance amounts to very little value, and sometimes the words are positively harmful.

A letter in The Times on 19/5/2021 claimed that children and indeed adults seldom listen to the words, let alone think about them. The tune is what matters.

It reminds me of the Pied Piper leading away the children of the town with his music.

One of Scotland’s unofficial National Anthems Flower of Scotland has a catchy tune, and its words may be appropriate in some settings, but why Scotland should continue to define itself by England at national football and rugby matches suggests an unhealthy Scottish nationalist sentiment. It even includes the lines “That fought and died for / Your wee bit hill and glen.” There are better things to die for, and love for the motherland or fatherland was used both by Hitler and Stalin in the Second World War to drive millions to their untimely death; nor has the sentiment died with them. Take away the catchy tune, and do we have a national ode that is anything more than historic? How does it apply in our time, unless it is a call to rise again to fight and die for your wee bit hill and glen? Are such sentiments appropriate in our era? However, “the tune is what matters” and how few consider that the words are stirring a nationalist and anti-English spirit. Scotland can identify its national character, contribution and standing in the world by better sentiments than these.

Similarly, the French national anthem has a stirring warlike tune, matching the warlike words and yet again invoking “the Fatherland” as its motive. However, warlike hymns have been abandoned long ago, so how do we justify such warlike words now, unless we interpret them as metaphors for non-violent opposition – a lesson taught by Jesus Christ, but a lesson not learned by the Crusaders moved by the pope of Rome, nor by the international leadership perpetuating war to the present time. The Prince of Peace is left out of the equation and people continue to sing their catchy tunes with little thought given to their warlike words.

The UK has a puppet Government and the major influencers of our children are musicians, and of adults the mainstream media and social media. They have long ago missed out on what they could have learned from the Bible.

We need to return to biblical Christianity and learn how assess the truth, speak the truth and appreciate the truth.

One could begin by singing the biblical Psalms and learning from them what godly behaviour is.

Such is my copy of the 1650 Scottish metrical version of the biblical Book of Psalms. It sits beside my chair and is one of the most influential books of the Bible, simply because I use it every day.

Many Christians overlook the Psalms. The advantage of a metrical version is that you can sing the Psalms every day and learn to recite them. The theology is divine and it covers the wide range of Christian spiritual experience, more so than man-made hymns.

The Scottish metrical version is composed in such a way that one can sing any one of the 150 Psalms to any common metre tune, to Amazing Grace or even to Auld Lang Syne, if one knows very few tunes. Martin Luther saw no reason why the devil should have the best tunes. 150 Psalms amounts, in practice, to about 750 selections for singing. The Rev. Donald MacLean, my mentor in Glasgow, used to say that if one cannot find a Psalm to suit one’s sermon, then change the sermon.

Family worship

I use my Psalmody every day at morning and evening family worship. It is so worn from daily use that my good friend Neil Maclean, now in heaven, gave it a new leather cover with a gold-leaf title. Neil will feature again when I write about future books. He was for a while the manager of the Free Presbyterian Bookshop and he was well-versed in current religious literature, the American scene and Scottish ecclesiastical history.  I owe a lot to him and he deserves a well-merited mention in my series of influential books.

John M. Brentnall

In the providence of the Most High, I came under the musical tutelage of the Rev. Dr John Michael Brentnall in the early 1970s at the very time of my conversion to faith in Jesus Christ. He was a music teacher called into the Christian ministry and studying in Glasgow at the time. He took a psalmody class in my local congregation and I discovered that I was a tenor singer. I purchased my first Scottish split-leaf Psalter on 21/9/1973.

I had learned Sol-fa over a decade earlier in my first primary school, Dunard Street School, Glasgow, little realising how much it would feature in my later life.

Divine Psalmody

I learned my tenor-part singing from Brentnall’s class in 1973-74, which created a life-long interest in psalmody. So every day of my life I have him to thank for this. It supplanted my playing of the Highland bagpipes. For about a decade I was part of the Highland Harmony Singers, singing the praises of God from the Book of Psalms in and around Inverness. Brentnall also had a psalmody class in Inverness during his year there as a divinity student, which was before my time.

My first publication, after my son James prompted me for a copy, was What’s that Tune? A Melody Index of Sol-fa Tunes, published in 2009. It is a unique index to Scottish Psalmody tunes appearing in all the Scottish Psalters produced in the 20th century, while also teaching the reader how to use Sol-fa. Sol-fa enables easy indexing of tunes in a way that Staff notation does not.

Many people in Highland Harmony Singers purchased it in 2009 but the Free Presbyterian Bookshop failed to stock it in spite of three requests. Mind you, neither does it have any booklets against Arminianism. Kenneth MacLean, Gairloch, of the Highland Harmony Singers wrote an appreciative one-page review in the rival ecclesiastic publication by the Associated Presbyterian Churches, and John Brentnall, of course, also wrote a review in Peace & Truth magazine, of which he was the editor. In the 1990s I had inserted my own “mini-copy” into my pulpit copy of the Scottish Psalter. When my son James saw it, he wanted a copy for himself, which prompted my making it available by publication.

Usefulness of the Book of Psalms

A familiarity with the Book of Psalms will demonstrate how godliness operates in society, particularly as the composer of so many Psalms was David, King of Israel, “the sweet Psalmist of Israel”, “a man after God’s own heart”. His godliness while ruling Israel at a difficult time is the God-given guidance for our own lives, and his life gives the lie to the mantra that “religion and politics don’t mix”. They mixed very well in King David, and in many others since.

Daily singing of the Psalms reinforces God’s mind for us as individuals and as nations. The recovery of Psalm-singing will go some way to the recovery of true Christianity in families, churches and nations. They give the proper biblical vision of the bright future for the Christian church.

Yea, all the mighty kings on earth
before Him down shall fall;
And all the nations of the world
do service to Him shall.
Now blessed be the Lord our God,
the God of Israel,
For He alone does wondrous works,
in glory that excel.
And blessed be His glorious name
to all eternity:
The whole earth let His glory fill.
Amen, so let it be.

Psalm 72:11,18-19

Links to other influential books:

22 Feb 2026: The Christian Bible and The Mother’s Catechism. The first post in this series.

21 Mar 2026: the influence of music on human behaviour.

Politics is broken and three new Parties are plying their trade – Reform UK and Advance UK were joined by Restore Britain last month.

Most people can see the problems, but what is the solution?

For every horrendous story, you may ask: How could this be allowed to happen?

My question used to be: Where were the Christians? That was six years ago.

Things have become noticeably worse in these six years. My answer to my own question is now – there are no Christians worthy of the name. They are melting away like snow off a dyke.

This is why Britain is broken. Britain is not just broken (past tense), but it is being broken (present, passive tense).

1990s

In the 1990s I regularly asked the question: What will happen when the last Christian retires from the boardrooms in the country? We see the result now. Moral and social chaos.

More people are recognizing the effects of losing Christianity. “You don’t miss the water till the well runs dry.” The well of effective Christians has run dry. Even Richard Dawkins now supports cultural Christianity, after discovering that secularism cannot resist aggressive islam, contradicting his earlier attitudes to Christianity, far less aggressive secularism.

These national decisions that are ruining Britain are made by groups without sufficient Christian care nor Christian conscience available in the decision-making process.

This moral and spiritual collapse is not new.  The Lord spoke about it through the prophet Isaiah:

“Why should you be stricken any more? you will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.”

Isaiah 1:5

Government, people and children

The “whole head” can apply to the failure of Government to deal with the predatory rape gangs and the “faint-hearted” can apply to those too frightened to address the issues. There are not enough Christians available to stop them and to protect Britain’s children. When the most vulnerable in a society are not protected, that society has failed its own people. More and more platforms are criticizing Britain’s leadership or, rather, lack of leadership. Even the USA and Israel bypassed Britain’s involvement in their recent decision to attack Iran.

The once-trusted medical profession has had its credibility severely damaged by its handling of the 2020-2021 coronavirus pandemic.

Recovery?

UKIP, Reform UK, Advance UK and Restore Britain want to restore Christianity, but what sort of Christianity?  Is it Roman Catholicism? and if not, what will it be?

Current politics staggering from political party to another manifests various knee-jerk reactions to Britain’s lamentable state. “The corruption runs deep.”

Rather, we need a larger and Christian vision through the Prince of peace, Jesus Christ.

It is an unspeakable privilege to have the acquaintance of those who know the Gospel of free grace through Jesus Christ, and who understand why the Christian Bible is reliable. Many opinion-makers, or ‘influencers’ as they are now called, are devoid of this knowledge, being misled by the false Christianity that abounds in our day and which has led to the decline in Christianity in Britain.

The godly psalmist king David articulated a promise for the future:

“All the kings of the earth shall praise Thee, O LORD, when they hear the words of Thy mouth.”

Psalm 138:4

This is why Britain and Christianity in Britain are in decline – the king of the UK, and all the kings of the earth besides, do not hear God’s Word.

Things can change, but it takes those with Christian Vision to begin the process.

I have now decided that I can begin the same project with books that have been influential in my life and, in the process, I can integrate a potted biography of any significant persons associated with them.

It is a privilege to remember people associated with significant books, and more so with texts of Scripture. Preachers have this privilege when people remember particular sermons on specific texts of Scripture, and when these texts are read in one’s daily Bible reading, then these preachers come to mind. The same can be said about books.

I have read books from the whole spectrum of human life, but this series is primarily about Christian books. There may be little point in mentioning scientific or medical books, but significant events in these spheres, with their related books, may arise from time to time, such as when I was at Stornoway communion in August 1993 and I heard on the news that Fermat’s Last Theorem had been proven. I went immediately to buy a newspaper.  The internet was not readily available in those days, although I was involved in setting up the first ecclesiastical website in Scotland at the time. However, these stories will need to wait their turn.

School books

This series is about books that have been influential in my life, in approximate chronological order so that I do not need to give priority to any book over another. School books are obviously early, but they were not influential in a religious manner. I noticed that the simplified paraphrase Bible for children was a dumbed-down version of “the real deal”. It did not prompt me to read the Bible. Some school books may be mentioned if they arise when dealing with other matters, such as my English-teacher Colin Black’s introducing me to Thinking with Concepts in my last year at school, and for the first time I began to enjoy English lessons.  I discovered during his class discussions that I had an aptitude for ‘thinking with concepts’.  Little did I know at the time how this would develop, for I was majoring on scientific subjects at school rather than linguistic and philosophical ones. This period coincided, I do not know why, or whether a book suggested it, with a daily early-morning cold bath!  This experiment lasted for only one term of school and has never been repeated, although my new neighbours told me that they have a daily cold shower followed by a warm jacuzzi to encourage blood circulation.

Early authorship

I also began my scribal activities at school and after one summer holiday I showed my schoolfriends The Rules of Shove-Halfpenny which I had composed during my family’s one-month summer vacation in Harris. This was to ensure that rainy break-times, when we could not play football in the school playground, would be suitably employed indoors on tabletops or desktops under the direction of regular and agreed rules. Regular competitors, such as Kenneth Caldwell, have never crossed my path since I left school, but I met Norman (“Nat” N. A. T.) Fyfe at a rare school reunion some years ago.  Another scribal composition, along with my brother Andrew, was a map of Harris with its rivers and lochs to assist our orientation as we roamed its hills during these annual family holidays.  One day Andrew caused alarm when he had not returned by late afternoon. He had twisted his ankle many miles away on the hills above sandy Luskentyre on the west of the island.  There were no mobile phones in these days. 

We holidayed with my mother’s sister Joan and her postman-husband Roddy on the rocky east side of the island at 4 Kendebig on The Golden Road just before Miavaig. Our domestic search-party headed off into the hills, where my aunt’s cows roamed daily after we led them up the road each morning, through the cattle grid.  Presumably the cows were relieved to escape our twisting their tails to keep them on the move, while suited armed with a sturdy stick to prod them and protect us as children from any unwelcome bovine reaction. In retrospect, I admire their patience, but we were probably less irritating than the flies that their tails kept swiping away from their derrière, awaiting the next cow pat to land on the road.

Eventually Andrew was sighted limping over the hills, and the cows were collected at the same time from their waiting at the cattle grid.  They were housed in the byre, where my uncles Roddy and Donald took turns each night to muck out the byre and then milk them. In the morning they were milked by auntie Joan, or ‘Shonag’ as she was known in the Gaelic, or ‘Da Joan’ by her namesake, my younger sister Joan. I can still hear the thud of her milk churn as she beat some of the milk into butter and crowdie. This was an easier task for us as children to do, than trying our hand at milking a cow, an art perfected only with practice. Possibly my Harris holidays merit a series of their own.

I do not post new blogposts on the Christian Sabbath. My Sabbath is full with biblical exegesis which feeds my soul throughout the Lord’s Day, whereas composing a blogpost takes up too much unnecessary time on the Sabbath. However, the work for this blogpost has already been done, and looking for a significant day on which to launch this new and significant series, I reserved and scheduled it to post automatically today on yet another personal milestone – my 71st birthday today.

So where do I begin? At the beginning.

The Christian Bible

I am a man of one book, more than any other. I have read countless books, but in my teenage years, when I came under spiritual concern for my soul, I determined to know one book more than any other. This book is the Christian Bible, the inspired God-given record of the Person, mission, life and work of the Son of God in human nature, the Lord Jesus Christ, Whom to know is “eternal life” and Who gives meaning and purpose to my life, and Who can do the same for you.

“We know that the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”

1John 5:20

The Lord Jesus Christ is not only the love of my life but He is the Lord of my life, guiding me day by day as my Lord and my God.

Jesus is even now ruling from His throne in heaven Ps 110:1 over all things for His church Eph 1:20-23. He is overseeing the progress of His kingdom throughout the nations of the world, and I have access to Him by prayer any time I wish Heb 4:14-16 and Heb 10:19-22.

The apostle John wrote: “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God.”

1John 5:13

Thus I determined that the Christian Bible would be the one book that I would know better than any other. I have spent a lifetime in its study and I have composed my personal Bible commentary.  I feed upon the Bible every day and obtain new matter Mat 13:52 for my soul in communion with my Lord and Saviour.  The Son of God reveals God the Father to me by the guidance and teaching of the Holy Spirit. This satisfies my soul more than any other experiences in the world, and it is a daily blessing.

How did it begin?

As a young teenager, one Sabbath afternoon, in a moment of boredom, I pulled my Bible off its shelf and opened it at random to read it. It opened somewhere in the Book of Revelation and I read from this point onwards to the end of the Book. It was interesting but puzzling. Obviously I could not understand its details but the overall impression created in my mind was that there is a great battle in the Earth between the forces of good and the forces of evil. It looks as if evil is going to win, but in the end it is good that wins. It should be useful for people to realise that justice will catch up on their wickedness; it is the end of the matter that counts 1K 20:11. Recently a fellow Christian said to me that reading the Book of Revelation on one’s own could only lead to confusion without someone to explain it. Truly, this was the Ethiopian Eunuch’s experience reading Isa 53:7-8 but my experience contradicts such an opinion about the Book of Revelation because I picked up the gist of the Book although I think I had never read the Book of Revelation before.

The result was that this led to my reading the whole Bible from the beginning to the end and I have not stopped reading it ever since. Beginning at Genesis took me a year or more to reach Revelation at the end of the Bible, and by then I knew that the Bible would be my lifelong study.  I quite liked the thought that it would take so long to reach the Book of Revelation again, because its message was disturbing, as it is meant to be, but the second time around was not so disturbing because 1. I knew what to expect and 2. by the second time I had read the whole biblical corpus with which to interact with the Book of Revelation.

I was not yet converted; I did not even know the Gospel. Although I had attended the Church of Scotland each Sabbath morning with my parents, I did not know the way to heaven nor how to avoid hell, for I did not know much about either place and gave no thought to them. So the Bible was my textbook on things religious.

My Harris holidays showed me that there was better preaching than I was hearing in my local Church of Scotland, so in my late teens I began to attend my mother’s native church, the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland where I heard the Gospel preached for the first time from my father-in-Christ 1Cor 4:15, the Rev. Donald MacLean, a master preacher who majored on the majors, through whose voracious reading I learned subjects that I have heard no other preacher cover so thoroughly. His emphasis on “the Word and Spirit”, like Hugh Martin‘s The Abiding Presence, helped my Bible study. Some years later, the preaching and Christian fellowship of the Rev. Dr. John M. Brentnall developed my Bible study more thoroughly. The Bible became supremely important and after more than 50 years of reading, discussion and debate, I assert that if people cannot argue their case from Scripture then they need to learn to do so. The whole purpose of reading other books about Christianity should be so that you can understand the Bible better and how it applies to yourself and others.  This is the only authoritative source about Jesus, His Person, office, character and teaching. 

Rather than study the Bible, thousands of academics study theologians, history, and other disciplines, and finding faults of one kind or another, their scepticism increases. These academics impress the gullible with their learning and undermine the faith of multitudes 2Tim 2:18. This shows the importance of being grounded in the Scripture Col 1:23. It also explains these accounts of “evangelical turned atheist”, “evangelical turned Romanist”.  Such changes do not arise from biblical exegesis but usually by some other means. Conversions in the opposite direction, towards Christ and Christianity, are almost always biblically-based. Muslim conversions to Christianity may not begin by Bible-reading but usually some extraordinary providence begins the process and leads them to the Bible.

Thankfully, the Lord led me in His providence to Jesus Christ and to the Bible in my teenage years.  Everything and everyone claiming to be Christian has been tested by this infallible touchstone. Jesus’ radical teaching taught me critical thinking and enabled me to test claims to Christianity, church tradition and spirituality. He warned me against false Christianity and thereby He taught me self-examination.

The apostle Peter told us to make use of the Bible as our guide in things Christian, not an imaginary and usurping college of Roman Catholic cardinals.

The Mother’s Catechism

Strictly speaking, The Mother’s Catechism by John Willison should be included as an earlier influential book, not in a spiritual sense but in a biblically factual sense. I am amazed that so few people know about it. It is very good for children with its Yes/No responses and it has a section on biblical facts at the end. I discover many Christians who do not know these basic facts.

Before I was 10-years-old, I learned that Methuselah was the oldest man who lived on earth.  He died aged 969 years, and there is even now a Methuselah Foundation and a Methuselah Project to attempt to increase mankind’s longevity. I was intrigued when British Telecom allocated to me for the Scottish Christian Party the telephone number 796952, which I split into 7-969-52 – seven days of the week, 52 weeks of the year, for the life of the longest man.  This seems an appropriate way to describe the role of Christianity in public life.

The most intriguing answer in this Catechism for me as a youngster was: Why behoved our Redeemer to be both God and man? – the answer is: “He was man to die for us, and God to overcome death.” I could vaguely understand it in these tender years, but not fully till I was much older.

It was my mother, the first love in my life, who introduced me and my three siblings to The Mother’s Catechism, from which she quizzed us each Sabbath afternoon until we knew it perfectly, such was the competition between us. Possibly she got it from her elder brother, John Angus MacLeod, an elder in the Glasgow Free Presbyterian congregation.

The catechism was republished by the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. It included a short Grace Before Meat and Grace After Meat, which I learned and used for years until I began to pray for myself in public. It replaced the grace before meat that my father used, “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful, for Christ’s sake. Amen.” It had other useful additions, which have not been reproduced in the 1994 reprint that I have. It is still in print by Free Presbyterian Publications and it is available from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.

My mother tried to teach us the Westminster Shorter Catechism but we never got beyond Question 4 of the 107 Questions and Answers, so this would not become influential till several years later, which I will explain in due course, God willing.

This is enough material for one blogpost and the remainder of this series will post in due course. I plan to add chronological links here as new posts in the series are made, D.V.

Links:

17 Jun 2017: Biblical mnemonics.

17 Mar 2026: number 2 in this series.

Instead of developing this point, I simply begin a list here to demonstrate it.

1. On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, says absolutely nothing about the origin of species. Rather it informs us about natural selection and the variation which takes place within species. He, and many others since, thought that this was ‘the origin’ of species. The definition of species was once clear enough, but this is now being changed, just as the definition of life and its characteristics are being changed. The origin of species and of life itself are still scientifically insoluble, but God has told us the origin of species and of life itself.
2. The Wikipedia article on the internal consistency of the Bible begins rather with the opinions of people about the inconsistency they think they find in the Bible. It would be helpful to stick to the topic.

I begin with these two examples because they are so fundamental to the current scepticism about biblical Christianity.

‘Speaking beside the point’ is very common in public discussion and I come across many examples; possibly you have noticed the same yourself. However, I will reserve this list for significant examples as I think they are worth publicizing, and I will add to this list as I come across them. It is easier to built it up slowly than to construct enormous lists all at once. I have other blogposts with growing lists, such as academic exegesis and evangelical errors. The point in this blogpost is made briefly at the beginning and, if you do not agree with it, you can read this growing list of examples. This list is simply my opportunity to add significant examples as I come across them. I come across many examples that are not worth recording here.

Links:

2 Feb 2026: Christian debate.

3Feb 2026: an ad hominem argument addresses the person making the argument ‘to the man’, and an ad rem ‘to the matter’ argument addresses the matter in hand directly; ad res is the plural ‘to the matters’ in hand.

Let those who claim to have authority or expertise demonstrate it by their conversation and teaching.

The apostle Paul demonstrated the standard:

“… but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.”

2Corinthians 4:2.

He was following in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ Who cut through the insipid academia of the scribes’ quoting more ancient scribes. Jesus went straight to the exegesis of Scripture. This astonished His audience and at the end of His Sermon on the Mount we read: “And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at His doctrine, because He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” Mat 7:28-29.

In this era of social media, people need to learn to discuss and debate, based upon the truth as they understand it, with a readiness to change their mind.

One of America’s top mathematicians Freeman Dyson complained about this: “The PhD system is the real root of the evil of academic snobbery. People who have PhDs consider themselves a priesthood, and inventors generally don’t have PhDs.”  This is rather similar to my own aphorism: “Intelligent people can be very prejudiced, because they think they can see the answer better than others.”  Such are too intelligent for their own good, failing to make use of all the resources God has put at their disposal Pro 18:1. It reminds me of Bruce Lee who proved and demonstrated excellence for all to see, without appeals to qualifications nor authority.

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7 Feb 2026: the apostle Paul puts “no confidence in the flesh” Php 3:3.