Alexander Whyte – truth as its own witness

Alexander Whyte was a saint – I know- those here in Scotland who trace their theology to the Reformation get edgy and nervous when someone is called a saint, their memory honoured, their written or spoken words cherished, their example held up as an inspiration. And anyway, Alexander Whyte would have denied the charge. His congregation loved him, but there were often complaints that he hammered on and on about sin, his own sins and theirs. Whatever he thought about himself was usually framed in a black border of sorrow for his own failings.

He lived in an age of convulsive social and intellectual change, in the nation, on the world stage, within the churches. His mind was generously open to truth wherever it could be found, but well enough anchored in convictions both evangelical and catholic to be both appreciative and critical. At key times in his life, and in the controversies of his Church, he exemplified what Paul calls 'this ministry of reconciliation'. No surprise then to come across words like those quoted below. Like an eminent consultant in moral and spiritual diagnosis, he knows the importance of preventive measures when it comes to controversy, difference the cause and toxic consequences of conflict. Truth is not a battle – but the basis on which peace is to be built – or to put it in Whyte's own words, characterised as usual by impassioned rhetoric verging on overstatement:

For Whyte, the truth of God as revealed in Christ isn't only discovered in ideas and words, but in the extent to which those same ideas and words are embodied in a life truly reflecting the love of God in Christ. For a Christian, to defend truth unlovingly is a failure of discipleship, an invalid dislocation of priorities. Does anyone still read Paul Tournier, the Swiss psychologist much in vogue in the 1950's and into the 1970's? He once said there is a wrongness in those who are always right; that there are wrong ways of being right.

Whyte, according to those who knew and revered him, largely lived up to his non-controversialism as a theological peacemaker. For him truth if lived in obedience to God and held in love will be its own witness – and if it isn't held in love it is neither obedient to God nor, in the deepest moral sense, truth. You have to be a saint to believe that – and live it.