In his first address as the new Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, the Right Rev Dr John Lockington said last night that in the Western world "people in general have no interest in God". He was speaking after his formal election as Moderator by approximately 1,200 delegates to the church's General Assembly, which opened in Belfast yesterday.
"In our Western world the church seems to be in retreat. In this island many people are being lost to secularism and materialism. People in general have no interest in God. His day is abused. His house is neglected. His word ignored. We witness faithfully and confront only apathy and even hostility. We expend time, money and energy and seem to make such limited impact on society. We meet frustrations and defeat," he said.
What was to be done? he asked. "Do we give up or do we look up and hear God's challenge to go on and face all that with Him?" He suggested the latter course of action.
He has chosen as his theme for the year, "To Go On With God". It is a recurring theme in Scripture, he noted, sometimes as command, sometimes as a challenge, sometimes as exhortation, sometimes as a personal affirmation.
In the context of the times he reminded his audience last night that the Greek word often translated as "endurance" was originally used of the ability of a plant to live and grow under hard and unfavourable circumstances.
"The essence of endurance is not, to use a Scots expression, to `thole' things, but to live facing every situation in the knowledge that we do so with God," he said.
Addressing his "brothers and sisters in Christ, whether you are Presbyterian or not," he advised them "to go on". It meant not letting the world squeeze us into its mould but living in terms of submission to God's will and obedience to His word.
"We will not be living to fulfil the world's agenda but God's and we know that they are diametrically opposite. [The] World tells us to please ourselves, to advance ourselves, to assert ourselves. God calls us to be humble, self-denying, God-honouring. [The] World declares that God is irrelevant and unnecessary. [The] Truth is that real purpose and meaning to life is only found when God is at the centre of our lives," he said.
