Pittsburgh pilgrimage

In late February I travelled for work purposes for the first time since the pandemic began three years ago. My travels took me to the Pittsburgh area where I spoke at two Christian institutions of higher education. The first was Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, where a good friend of mine, Bill Witt, teaches. Trinity is an independent Anglican seminary that trains prospective clergy in several jurisdictions, including the largest Anglican provinces in Africa. My first lecture was on ideology and idolatry, in which I drew from my first book.

My second lecture that evening was on “Geneva in England: Singing the Psalms in Metre.” Contemporary Anglicans are unaware that their forebears once sang from two successive collections of metrical psalms. The first was Sternhold & Hopkins’ Psalter, completed in 1562, the same year the full Genevan Psalter appeared. Indeed Thomas Sternhold, an advisor to Kings Henry VIII and Edward VI, used his psalm versifications as a means of instructing the boy king in the ways of justice. The second was Tate & Brady’s Psalter of 1696, which continued to be sung by Episcopalians in the United States into the 19th century.

Common individualism

The following day we drove up to Beaver Falls and Geneva College where I delivered the Byron I. Bitar Memorial Lecture, titled, “It’s All About Me: How Right and Left have masked the dominance of liberalism in North American public life.” North Americans often assume that conservatism and liberalism are polar opposites, while, in reality, those positioning themselves on the right and the left share an adherence to the principles of liberalism. Thus the extreme partisanship in the U.S. hides the two parties’ common commitment to an individualist approach to politics and society.

Meeting across generations

Geneva holds a special place in my heart because members of the sponsoring denomination, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, educated my late father. Between 1943 and 1948 he studied at the RPCNA’s American Academy in Larnaca, Cyprus, where he was mentored by headmaster W. W. Weir and his wife Elizabeth, the latter of whom encouraged his lifelong avocation as a poet. It was here that he came to a deeper faith in Christ. I recall the Weirs visiting us twice at our home near Chicago when I was a boy. My father held them in great reverence.
After I spoke at Geneva, a young female student came up to me and introduced herself as the Weirs’ great-granddaughter. I was so moved to meet a descendant of the couple who had meant so much to my father that I couldn’t hold back the tears and spontaneously embraced her.

I am grateful to God for the opportunity to travel again. I was especially thankful to spend time with two marvellous communities of Christians in the Pittsburgh area.