Cambuskenneth Abbey & the Joy of Education

In 1519, the Abbott of Cambuskenneth, an abbey near Stirling, Scotland, sent one of his canons, Robert Richardson, to Paris that he might be better educated. There, he read the Bible and was able to discuss its meaning without the dead hands of medieval commentators holding him back. He returned to his native land and became a Protestant preacher, eventually moving to England when Bible Christians were unwelcomed there.

Education is the gospel’s friend. Many of our schools and universities were founded by Christians. Today, there is a feeling, perpetuated by the atheist lobby, that religious people are ignorant and unbelief is intelligent. That we inhabit a universe which is governed by clear laws of cause and effect, suggests an intelligent, ordered mind behind the cosmos, not a random, chaotic explosion. As English physicist Paul Davies remarked:

“Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient "coincidences" and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if "a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics".

It took one Scottish monk a difficult journey to Paris to discover the truth of salvation. Today, it takes people a far shorter, but more arduous journey to see through the received wisdom of assumed atheism, to behold the God of order, beauty and amazing creativity.