In celebration of Christmas we have this short video which looks at Charles Dickens and Christmas. The work of Charles Dickens has become deeply entwined in the way we celebrate and enjoy Christmas, most notably through his work A Christmas Carol but it runs through all his writing. A lot of the Victorian imagery that accompanies so much Christmas celebration probably harks back to DIckens as much as anything else.
This short video makes some use of words by Chales Dickens with images from the Continental Market in Belfast and trumpet playing by Jack Steers:
Click on the video
Botticelli Nativity (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Christmas Prayer
Let us pray that strength and courage abundant be given to all who work for a world of reason and understanding; that the good that lies in every one’s heart may day by day be magnified; that we will come to see more clearly not that which divides us, but that which unites us; that each hour may bring us closer to a final victory, not of nation over nation, but of humans over their evils and weaknesses; that the true spririt of this Christmas Season – its joy, its beauty, its hope, and above all its abiding faith – may live among us; that the blessings of peace be ours – the peace to build and grow, to live in harmony and sympathy with others, and to plan for the future with confidence.
(from Celebrating Christmas An Anthology, ed. Carl Seaburg)
Click on the video for an audio recording of our carol service with pictures from the day
We held our Congregational Carol Service at Dunmurry on Sunday, 22nd December. This was a wonderful occasion that was hugely enjoyable with contributions by the Youth Group and Sunday School. With thanks to Allen Yarr for playing the organ and Jack Steers on the trumpet.
Belfast-born Rowel Friers (1920-1998) was perhaps the most famous cartoonist in Ulster, especially for his work during the ‘Troubles’. He began his working life in the art department of the Belfast printing firm of S. C. Allen and Co and studied at the Belfast College of Art. A keen watercolourist and oil painter he nevertheless was best known for his cartoons, which gently but effectively satirised the political situation in Northern Ireland. Our latest video looks at two cartoons by Rowel Friers, although they illustrate his versatility as a cartoonist and relate to life in the eighteenth century.
We have two fine examples of his work hanging on the walls of the Very Rev William McMillan Library in the First Presbyterian Church, Dunmurry. They were commissioned by the Rev William McMillan for an exhibition celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Presbytery of Antrim in 1975.
They are both immediately recognisable as his work. The faces of the figures convey exactly what is going on. One (above) is an imagined gathering of clergy around a blacksmith and relates to the practice of communion and the use of communion tokens. The other (below) relates to a specific incident in the history of the Comber congregation at the time of creation of the Presbytery of Antrim at the end of the First Subscription controversy when all the Non-Subscribers were separated from the Synod of Ulster and placed together in the Presbytery of Antrim.
It is good to give them special consideration now, as we prepare for the 300th anniversary of the creation of the Presbytery of Antrim. The full story of both pictures can be seen in the short video above.
I was very pleased to be asked to contribute to this book which has just been published by Palgrave Macmillan:
Antitrinitarianism and Unitarianism in the Early Modern World
The publishers describe the volume in these terms:
This collection offers an innovative and fresh interpretation of Antitrinitarian and rational dissent in the early modern world. The central themes focus on the fierce debates surrounding Antitrinitarianism and Unitarianism that emerged from the Reformation and the lived cultures of these dissenting movements. The chapters take an interdisciplinary approach addressing ideas in context, their reception and appropriation, and the diverse and often conflicting visions of Christianity. Drawing on previously unused sources, many from Eastern Europe and often in inaccessible languages, this book challenges our understanding of dissent as marginal and eccentric and places it at the center of contesting convictions about the nature of religious reform.
The contents are as follows:
Introduction
The Porous Boundaries of Dissent
Bruce Gordon
Antitrinitarianism and Its Influence in Italy and Poland
Italian Antitrinitarianism and the Legitimacy of Dissent
Odile Panetta
Scripture, Piety, and Christian Community in the Thought of the Polish Brethren
Sarah Mortimer
Religiosity in the Ethos of Polish Brethren in Light of Funeral and Wedding Speeches from the Seventeenth Century
Maria Barłowska
True Heirs of Jan Łaski: Polish Brethren Church Discipline in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and During Their Exile in Transylvania
Kazimierz Bem
Transylvanian Unitarianism
The Late Confessionalization of the Transylvanian Unitarian Church and the Polish Brethren
Gizella Keserű
Introduction to the Transylvanian Unitarian Disciplina Ecclesiastica
Lehel Molnár
De Disciplina Ecclesiastica: On Ecclesiastical Discipline (1626)
Alexander Batson
The Term, Development, Purpose, and Practice of Church or Canonical Visitation: Unitarians in Háromszék in the Seventeenth Century Between Conventional Rhetoric and Reality
Lehel Molnár
Some Aspects of the Hungarian Unitarian Liturgy in the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries
Sándor Kovács
Engagement and Divorce Cases Before the Unitarian Consistory in Seventeenth-Century Transylvania. Frameworks in Church Law and the Doctrine of Marriage
David Szigeti Molnar
England, Ireland, and New England
The Historical Critique of Heresiology in the Seventeenth Century and the Origins of John Milton’s Arianism
R. Bradley Holden, Samuel J. Loncar
Authority, Reason, and Anti-trinitarianism: John Abernethy and the Competing Pressures Within Irish Presbyterianism in the Early Eighteenth Century
A. D. G. Steers
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer and Its Adaptation in Eighteenth-Century Rational Dissent
Bryan Spinks
New England Congregationalists and Unitarianism in Late Eighteenth Century/Early Nineteenth Century
Peter Field
The editors are:
Kazimierz Bem, Pastor of First Church in Marlborough (UCC), USA and a senior lecturer in Church History at the Evangelical School of Theology in Wrocław, Poland.
Bruce Gordon, Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale Divinity School, USA.
Hardcover ISBN978-3-031-69657-2
Softcover ISBN978-3-031-69660-2
eBook ISBN978-3-031-69658-9
You can find out more about this book via this link.
Our latest video (Number 7) exploring the collection of the Very Rev William McMillan Library at First Dunmurry looks at some Christmas readings. We also have O Come all ye faithful played by Jack Steers on the trumpet.
The video also includes some of the Christmas decoration in the Church including the excellent frieze created by the children of the Youth Group along the rail behind the pulpit, which can be seen in more detail below:
Despite the presence of Storm Darragh on Friday, 6th December we still were able to hold our well-attended service of Carols by Candlelight featuring Harmonic Sounds Concert Band under the direction of Paul Hamilton. It was a great evening and the whole service was livestreamed. You can watch the service here:
Click on the video
The service was conducted by the minister, Rev Dr David Steers, and our readers came from our own Church and our sister churches. They were David Kerr (First Church, Belfast), Kathy Yuille, Sylvia McBride, Adele Johnston, Diana Taggart, Erin Black, Rev Chris Hudson (All Souls’ Church, Belfast), Gilbert Cameron, Rev Chris Carson (Church of Ireland).
Band about to play
The Church was beatifully decorated both outside and in.
And many of those present were able to come over to the Hall for refreshments after the service.
We were delighted to welcome the Choir of Malone College to our Warm Space Coffee Morning at Dunmurry on Thursday morning, 5th December under the direction of their musical director, Mrs Caroline Mitchell.
Click on the video to see Malone College Choir performing at First Dunmurry
The Choir sang a varied programme and were with us for two hours. The video above contains some of their repertoire. We are so glad that Mrs Mitchell, her staff and the Choir are able to take the time out to visit us at the start of the Christmas season, its an occasion that everyone looks forward to and fills us all with a strong sense of the Christmas spirit.
Malone Integrated College Choir at First Dunmurry (NS) Presbyterian Church
velvethummingbee 