Letter: Are issues like hats in church a dangerous distraction from allowing the Bible to speak for itself?
A letter from James Hardy:
A letter by Rev Ivan Foster (Silly theory for advancing the cause of the gospel, September 3) was a response to John Coulter (Casual fashion could be key to boosting pew numbers, August 23).
Fundamentalist concerns can arise on a host of secondary issues: use of the KJV Bible translation, women wearing hats in church, YEC (Young Earth Creationism).
But it is inevitably far better to follow the witness of the Reformation and let the Bible speak for itself.
Saint Paul says: ‘If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.'
The invitation to salvation and the evidences for the resurrection are spectacularly unmissable.
Our loving Heavenly Father is 'not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance'.
Can hats and the KJV be dangerous distractions?
On a different subject, last weekend's News Letter had two highly thought-provoking articles which might have been very hard to spontaneously find on any random internet search.
A fascinating editorial (Unionists support the Turkish Cypriots yet might have backed the Greeks, August 31) intelligently considered dramatic tensions in partitioned Cyprus.
'Thought for the week' on was by Rev Dr William Morton (Seeking to serve the Lord peacefully, August 31)).
It explored the divine cure to the central problem of the human condition.
The Bible says: 'The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?' Ezekiel summarised the divine antidote to this predicament: 'I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.'
UK and Irish newspaper circulation figures are presently in free fall. But the quality of Saturday's Bible reflection helps me understand why my very wise old uncle still makes a five-mile round trip to pick up his News Letter most weekdays.
James Hardy, Belfast BT5