Fort George

The entry was £8, but our English Heritage cards warranted free admission. We were given a map of the site and noted the location of toilets and various exhibitions. We wandered about, admiring the old architecture and general ambience. Yet there were signs that this was no ordinary museum.

In the café, for instance, cigarettes could be purchased with one’s panini. Tattooed young men in fatigues were hovering in the shade, smoking. There were some bagpipers playing to the tourists’ delight, but they were practising for their own purposes, not for a Monday afternoon show. Oh, and a man in a beret armed with an SA80 A2 L85 5.56mm gas-operated assault rifle was patrolling the entrance, along with others walking around the perimeter. We were at Fort George, by Inverness, up in the Highlands. Yes, it is a charming eighteenth-century fortress with antiquated canons and wonderful views, but it is also a fully functioning military base, hosting the Royal Scottish Regiment’s various battalions. Paying visitors may enjoy their time inside, but for hundreds of squaddies, it is both home and place of work. Highland clans may be less a threat to the British state than once they were, but our nation has enemies enough, for whom this base provides suitable deterrent.

I read an online review of Salem Chapel. It commented on how nice the organ was. Others might remark on the old pulpit or admire the pleasant views. Yet all this is peripheral tripe. Salem Chapel is first and foremost a preaching station, a place where Christ is proclaimed, His crucifixion and resurrection declared. It is a place of spiritual warfare, where the devil is made to tremble, and light shines into a dark world. We are no mere museum, a link to yesteryear, a reminder of days gone by. We are no social club, a meeting place for the friendless and awkward. Rather, we are the Church of Jesus Christ. We bear no assault rifles, nor ever shall, but we bear the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God, a far mightier weapon than anything borne by Her Majesty’s forces.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Ephesians 6:12-13