KNOX 500 Scotland Tour--the grand virtual tour!

What a wonderful time together in Scotland! It was such a pleasure meeting many of you for the first time and getting reacquainted with others of you on our adventures together in Scotland and England on the Knox 500 Tour. As promised, I am posting this with lots of pictures and reminders of the places we visited and why they were important. Hope you enjoy them--and do keep in touch!

Glasgow Kirk (used to be cathedral) on our very first day together

Fenwick Kirk, 1643, William Guthrie Covenanter first pastor here, Second Reformation in generation after Knox

St John the Baptist Kirk tower, Ayr, where Knox's son-in-law John Welsh ministered and where his daughter Elizabeth is buried. Gavin Beers shared with us so ably here

Westkirk disruption church, built 1845. With the growing apostacy in the Church of Scotland, Thomas Chalmers led the founding of the Free Church in 1843. Westkirk sadly is now a pub where we ate lunch

Aston Hotel Dumfries, Knox installed young pastors in Dumfries

Hadrian's Wall, AD 122-128 (yes, Giles and I did manage to finish all 84 miles of the route, a great time together, especially with our support crew making it happen)

Durham Cathedral (Church of England) where Knox was called to answer charges by the bishop in 1550; where Bede, Cuthbert, and Oswald are buried. Modern error corrupting the gospel is marked here as NT Wright was bishop of Durham for a time

Lindisfarne Priory (Hand of Vengeance, 8th century Anglo-Saxon yarn of mine) center of Celtic Christianity 6th c and beyond

Norham Castle where Knox ministered as chaplain to the garrison while pastoring at nearby Berwick-upon-Tweed and where one of his first converts, Marjory Bowes, was brought to living faith in Christ (and would become his future wife)

St Mary's Collegial Church across the river from where he was born in Haddington, where Knox was likely baptized, where he was ordained, and where he later preached, installed a pastor and suggested they wall off the un needed portion of the large parish church building.

St Giles High Kirk Edinburgh where Knox preached, Grassmarket Covenanter monument, Knox House Museum, The Netherbow Tolbooth Prison now pub where we ate lunch, Magdalen Chapel where went to church, Edinburgh Castle and Grassmarket, our hotel on the Royal Mile: 

St Andrews sites: Where Patrick Hamilton was martyrd, where Rutherford taught and died, St Andrews Cathedral ruins, St Andrews Castle where Knox was taken prisoner by French

Leuchars where Alexander Henderson preached

St Peter's Dundee at M'Cheyne's grave with living pastor David Robertson

St John's Kirk, Perth where Knox preached and iconoclasm commenced

Loch Leven Castle where Mary Queen of Scots was held after she was forced to abdicate

Church of the Holy Rude, Stirling; Knox crowned James VI here and preached; James Guthrie pastored here

Stirling Castle where Mary Queen Regent orchestrated persecution of Knox and Reformation

Bannochburn (1314-2014) Robert the Bruce crushes English army of Edward II

Dunblane Cathedral (Knox ordained by Bishop of Dunblane)

Sir Richard, Knight of Nottingham

HENRY V and Agincourt, France

A language limitation joke resulted from my hashed French conversation with our last host Regis. I was asking him about Agincourt (the French name is Azincourt, hence his confusion about what I was talking about), and I tried to clarify by saying it was a battle site. He laughed and said I would have to be far more specific than that since almost everywhere in France throughout the centuries has been the site of battles.

THE SOMMES WW I, 1916, 1.2 million died in 5 month battle

A language limitation joke resulted from my hashed French conversation with our last host Regis. I was asking him about Agincourt (the French name is Azincourt, hence his confusion about what I was talking about), and I tried to clarify by saying it was a battle site. He laughed and said I would have to be far more specific than that since almost everywhere in France throughout the centuries has been the site of battles.

But the same could be said about most places on the planet. Wars and rumors of wars: it is the history of the world. Greed and ambition of the powerful few results in another generation sacrificing its 19-20 year olds in the field of battle. So it has been and persists in being in a badly broken world regardless of the creative and sophisticated ways we try to tell ourselves to just be nice to one another. 

I'm reflecting on this here in the somber valley of the Sommes in northern France where 100 years ago the "War to end all wars" was waged. It was a Great War, if greatness can be measured by body count and futility: opening day of the battle resulted in a horrific 60,000 casualties, average daily body count for the next five months, 5,600 souls. A Great War, the grand achievement of irreligious modernism, but a war that did not remotely end all wars. 

The scope of destruction and devastation is hard to fathom. Today we explored the twelve mile limestone network of tunnels at Wellington Quarry, dug by New Zeeland troops. 24,000 men were hidden in these tunnels, who then broke out on July 1, 1916, to the astonishment of unsuspecting German troops a few yards from the break out point. Initial victory was followed by a well-supplied reinforced German army; eventually only 800 of the original 24,000 men survived the conflict.

We paused at the St Vaast war cemetery where 44,800 Germans are buried. Then we stopped and gazed at the sea of stone markers at the Cabernet Rouge cemetery where nearly 8,000 allied soldiers are buried, more than half, "Known only to God." That is one of the unique and deeply troubling dimensions of this war, so many men were just obliterated, either their bodies never found in the mud and rubble and chaos of battle or there was no possible way of identifying the mangled human remains. 

After exploring the trenches and more underground passages at Vimy Ridge where Canadian troops took heavy losses valiantly driving back the Hun, we rounded out the day by gazing on 42,000 crosses marking the final earthly resting place of fallen French soldiers at Notre Dame de Lorette, national necropolis of France.

I feel numb. The scale of devistation is too much to take fully in. All this in a war that snuffed out the life of 10 million average age 20 year old young men. When I attempt to envision how many crosses or gravestones that would be my imagination is exhausted. I simply cannot or don't want to get an acurate picture of the loss in my mind. 

Then I am struck by the viralence of the irony. We war and hate, kill and destroy, why? Because we are intractable rebels against the God of love, life, and justice who created us. We think we're far better off on our own and resent his will and way. We think we can handle things better on our own. And then when we are forced to stare at the resulting destruction our devotion to secularism has caused, we cast about for someone else to blame; and so we turn around and point the finger at God and religion. We're certain that if people would just stop being so certain about their beliefs there'd be no more wars like this one--truly we're absolutely certain, beyond a doubt, about it all being God's fault and Those who believe in him. 

Such absolutist conclusions are ironic on many levels, not the least of which is that it was our devout devotion to Modernism that set the stage for this war to end all wars. Modernism said that we human beings could solve our problem by our economic strength, by our technology and scientific knowledge, by education, and by our military might. 

Modernism was a ticking time bomb that exploded in our face 100 years ago, 1914. And arguably nobody paid for the enormous miscalculation more than France. Following our will and way produces a wasteland. The way of the gospel of Jesus Christ alone restores all things to love, beauty, and peace. Come Lord Jesus, Prince of Peace!