I’d like to begin by thanking Bro. Peter Hemingray for his thoughtful leadership as Editor of The Tidings for this past decade. Peter rightfully positioned the magazine as a mechanism for edification in our community.

In 1997, I read a fascinating book called, The Death of Distance, by Frances Cairncross. Before the digital revolution really was underway, Ms. Cairncross predicted that life would be significantly altered with Internet technologies. Global, real-time communications would be enabled. Employers would soon be able to look for talent, not only in their own urban area but from a mountaintop far away....

I had big shoes to fill when I somewhat reluctantly agreed to become the new Editor of The Tidings, beginning in May 2010. Bro. George Booker and the late Brethren Don Styles and Bob Lloyd had, between them, been editors since 1957. Four editors in 63 years is not too bad, as we reflect on the changes in society, technology, and the world.

What do you remember? I have probably heard about 3,000 exhortations in my life. Apart from the last few, how many do I remember? Well, frankly, very few. And what are the characteristics of the ones that I do remember?

Back in 2012, Bill Gates declared the book The Better Angels of Our Nature, by Steven Pinker as the most important book he had ever read. In it, Pinker argues that war and violence are declining and that our world is now more peaceful than ever in recorded history. I have read the book, and Pinker marshals an impressive array of statistics in 800+ pages.  His notion has almost become an accepted viewpoint.

Most Christadelphians know about the origin of the name of our denomination: indeed, the name “Christadelphian” has quite a history, as well as great significance. It was coined to provide the small company of believers in USA during the Civil War with a name.

There are indeed many ways of destroying the ecclesia, and unfortunately, we can truly see the prophecy of Paul coming to pass in these last days. Independent of the pressures from the world around us, all too often the problems we encounter within our ecclesias are inflicted from within.

Every time I read this passage in Psalm 38:17, my mind goes back many years to a still, quiet evening in Germany. I was at Bergen-Belsen, almost by accident, as I was in the area on business with a largely free evening. There, in the peaceful surroundings of rural farmland, I came across those verses, engraved on a white limestone slab from Jerusalem, which had been placed there on the occasion of a visit by Chaim Herzog, at the time the President of Israel.

When I was somewhat younger, I really had no idea what a Christadelphian Memorial Service looked like, because I stayed home with everyone except my father on Sunday afternoons (for it was an afternoon service). Indeed, with my father being recording brother, my mother did not get to memorial, except very occasionally, for perhaps decades.

“No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee…”

All too often, our modern communications are seasoned with venom, not salt. Waging war by e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, or any other of the electronic tools spawned by the internet has become routine, even, unfortunately, sometimes within our community. And this is only one of the problems we see today.