Day 88: Praying for those who pioneer alternative viewpoints for the Kingdom (1961)

Join with Salvationists of the Wales Division for day 88 of 150 days of prayer.

• ‘But as for me, Lord, I call to you for help. Every morning I pray to you’ (Psalm 88:13, EasyEnglish Bible). 

1961

On 1 October 1961, The Tabernacle Chapel, Cardiff, hosted the first-ever broadcast of the long-running national BBC TV series, Songs of Praise. 

In this decade, television became much more widespread, pop music rather than jazz became centre stage and secularism rather than Christianity increased its influence.

Starting in January this year, the War Cry published a long-running series entitled, ‘Top Note for Jazz Man’. The author was Captain Fred Brown, who eventually left officership due to his publication of a book, Secular Evangelism, in which he wrote: ‘Britain is in the grip of revolution. Not only are unprecedented strides being made in the realms of science and technology, but every fundamental moral and spiritual assumption is being questioned, sometimes drastically modified, and not infrequently discarded altogether. These convulsions of change are be welcomed, not feared, or interpreted as signs of rebellion against God.’

Fred Brown and Secular Evangelism were in good company. Professor CH Dodd and The New English Bible were also met with reticence by some, as the 18 March 1961 War Cry noted:

‘The translation of The New English Bible: New Testament … is the result of thirteen years labour by a group of the most brilliant biblical scholars. According to Professor CH Dodd [born in Wrexham], director of the project, its aim is to present the “content of the original in such a form that it may be read, so far as possible, as if it were the work of an English writer for an English public”… 

‘The affection in which the Authorised Version of the Bible is held by many Christians will mean that the new translation will be greeted in some quarters with reticence. Yet after all, it is the ideas contained in the Bible which are all-important, not the phraseology which has grown precious through long association.’

Prayer

• Pray for those who challenge our thinking and bring us to fresh understanding of what being a Kingdom follower means to our generation of believers.