DAILY READINGS WITH GEORGE MACLEOD
Editor RON FERGUSON
Publisher WILD GOOSE PUBLICATIONS
ISBN 1-901557-55-3
George Macleod was born just before the beginning of the 20th century. A man ahead of his time in some ways. He came from a prominent Scottish family that boasted a long line of ministers. He forged ahead in a life of prayer and action in the context of the Scottish Christianity spanning decades when there was much disparity between rich and poor. Having such a family heritage in Christian things meant that he became utterly committed to the Lord’s service but it almost broke him. He needed rest and was in Jerusalem recuperating when he experienced a mighty revelation of Christ raised and alive. This took place during an Easter service and was evidently the significant turning point that sent him on his way renewed and ready. Along with this was the Celtic heritage of long ago that increasingly struck a chord in the thinking and spiritual life of Macleod and he pioneered the rebuilding of Iona Abbey.
He developed steadily in his theology, not only impacted by the Celtic roots but by his experiences when fighting in the first world war and then, through the years of the depression the mystical, cosmic and political elements of the kingdom of God became fused in his thinking into a thoroughly Incarnational Christian life. He was completely set against the Atom Bomb and preached pacifism as fundamental to true Christianity. In ways, he was regarded as something of a rebel but was also a charismatic leader, a gripping preacher a gifted writer. These daily readings are excerpts from some of his sermons and magazine articles. They are inspirational, instructive and enlarging and worthy of pondering. The community he founded at Iona has continued. The editor of these extracts followed Macleod in leading that community. There are elements to the community that were regarded as controversial. Perhaps that is so today. But, these reading breath the Spirit of God and are the kind that can be read day by day by a couple or a family together and then discussed to great profit.
