The ‘heart’ of a ‘loving/tolerant ecumenist’

People sympathetic to the aims of ‘Take Heed’ often ask me whether or not I receive much by way of ‘opposition’. The answer is that such ‘opposition’ does manifest itself from time to time but it is far outweighed by the messages of support and encouragement that I receive. Normally I would never consider making such ‘opposition’ known publicly. However, in recent days I have had an exchange of emails that are of such a nature, that to fail to make them public, to serve as an advanced warning for any other faithful, fellow ‘contenders’ unfortunate enough to ‘run across’ Mr Wilkes in his current spiritual frame of mind, would be inexcusable on my part.

On our website for many years now under the ‘Words of Wisdom’ section we have carried an article called ‘When tolerance is sin’ by Bible commentator, William MacDonald. What follows now are extracts from the early part of the article.

Tolerance can be a virtue, but it can also betray an inexcusable weakness of character. We admire the person who tolerates differences where no great issue is at stake. He allows for a variety of preferences, methods and unimportant viewpoints. He would rather be killed for a sheep than for a lamb.

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People sympathetic to the aims of ‘Take Heed’ often ask me whether or not I receive much by way of ‘opposition’. The answer is that such ‘opposition’ does manifest itself from time to time but it is far outweighed by the messages of support and encouragement that I receive. Normally I would never consider making such ‘opposition’ known publicly. However, in recent days I have had an exchange of emails that are of such a nature, that to fail to make them public, to serve as an advanced warning for any other faithful, fellow ‘contenders’ unfortunate enough to ‘run across’ Mr Wilkes in his current spiritual frame of mind, would be inexcusable on my part.

On our website for many years now under the ‘Words of Wisdom’ section we have carried an article called ‘When tolerance is sin’ by Bible commentator, William MacDonald. What follows now are extracts from the early part of the article.

Tolerance can be a virtue, but it can also betray an inexcusable weakness of character. We admire the person who tolerates differences where no great issue is at stake. He allows for a variety of preferences, methods and unimportant viewpoints. He would rather be killed for a sheep than for a lamb.

Continue reading →

In an earlier article posted to our website called “Irish Presbyterianism: Then and Now” I highlighted how some 50 years or so ago The Youth Committee of the General Assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church published a ‘Handbook on Romanism and Evangelical Christianity’ to meet what they described in the preface to their booklet as ‘one of the urgent needs of our Church’. In the article I quoted a number of the Question and Answer contents of the booklet that were set out in ‘catechism’ format and it was evident that those who compiled this booklet were fully versed, not only in the unscriptural errors of Roman Catholicism, but also in the truths of Biblical Evangelical Christianity.

That was the ‘Then’ of Irish Presbyterianism and I contrasted it with the ‘Now’ of Irish Presbyterianism as represented by the invitation issued by the [at the time of the writing of my article] about to be installed Presbyterian Moderator, Ken Newell, to the Roman Catholic Primate of Ireland, Archbishop Sean Brady to be one of his ‘personal guests’ at his installation on 7 June 2004. The contrast was that according to Ken Newell’s journalistic ‘spin-doctor, Alf McCreary of the Belfast Telegraph, there can be ‘joint mission’ with a Roman Catholic system that was clearly identified 50 + years ago by The Youth Committee of the General Assembly as being totally unscriptural when it comes to genuine Christian ‘mission’.

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