The Mercy Seat

The Mercy Seat by Neil Labute at the Pleasance Theatre from 30 Aug

Glowbox Productions presents The Mercy Seat , by Neil Labute, directed by Rob Watt, at the Pleasance Theatre, in north London, from 30 Aug to 18 Sep 2011.

In a time of national tragedy, the world changes overnight. On September 12th 2001, Ben Harcourt finds himself in the downtown apartment of his lover, and boss, Abby Prescott. They should have perished in the attack on the Twin Towers, and now Ben contemplates using the tragedy to run away and start a new life. Together they face a terrible choice, and the phone won’t stop ringing...

Former Salvation Army Officers Fellowship: Justice at the Mercy Seat

Several years ago a close friend and I were exchanging our private thoughts on the subject of holiness. I found myself taken aback as he hurled something of a zinger at me. He said that in his opinion, one of the two words for holiness in the Hebrew Testament (qodesh) could almost literally be interpreted as “he who does justice though he knows he’s a sinner.” Wow! If ever a statement packed a wallop, it had to be that one! Since my friend taught preaching and theology for 10 years at a well–known West Coast seminary, I figured he must know what he was talking about. To a non–scholar like me, this simple pre–Wesleyan Hebrew definition of holy living caught me off guard and quite frankly threw me for a loop. Growing up in the Arminian–Wesleyan Christian tradition, I recall that most sermons and discussions on holiness were centered solely on talk about eradicating inbred sin and other heavy theological concepts. So it’s easy to see how this very simple idea of “doing justice” as an integral part of holy living might have sometimes gotten lost in the maze. Yet it shouldn’t have because doing justice has always been right at the heart of Wesleyan theology and Christian faith. I’m reminded of an incident a long time ago that brought this point home to me—though admittedly it took a few years and some maturity before it did so! It was the mid–1960s and I was a corps cadet (student of Salvation Army doctrine and history in a five–year course of study for teens) at the Lawn Corps (church) in Chicago. Our brigade had become known for our theatrical portrayal of Vachel Lindsay’s “General William Booth Enters Into Heaven.” We had performed it at two divisional events and were soon getting gigs at various corps in the area. One night we were guests at a revival service for the Joliet, Ill., Corps. A retired, widowed officer in the corps named Brigadier Margaret Norris had made herself the unofficial “mercy seat” (altar) sergeant at Joliet. Whenever an invitation was given to come to the altar and pray, she was always there—standing guard, walking up and down passing out Kleenex to all the seekers. But some four decades on, I now see what Brigadier Norris did as one of the pivotal moments in my development as a Christian. As a young man, I experienced many mass meetings where droves of people would stream down to the mercy seat.

Mercy Seat

The Mercy Seat, A Novel

The Mercy Seat

The Mercy seat: thoughts suggested by the Lord's prayer

The Mercy Seat, Collected and New Poems 1967-2001