At the Free Church Assembly, Rev. Duncan Macleay of Snizort, Skye, was appointed Moderator. In his opening address he claimed that the Free Church had maintained a sound evangelical and reformed faith. At the same time he admitted that they had cause for grief and shame because of their many failings and their often feeble and imperfect diligence and zeal in bearing testimony to the principles of truth. In referring to present-day church union movements, he said that these did not commend themselves to the Free Church because of the refusal to accept the doctrines of the reformed faith. In a pointed reference to the Church of Scotland he declared: “The continued departure on the part of the national Church from the reformed faith and the fact of her drawing nearer to the Church of Rome, from which we were mercifully delivered by God at the Reformation, makes any prospect of closer co-operation not only undesirable but more and more impossible.”
During a debate on public questions, religion and morals Professor James Fraser spoke of the Roman Catholic Archbishop’s addressing of the Assembly of the Church of Scotland as another nail in the coffin of Protestantism. He also regretted that the Moderator of the Church of Scotland on this occasion was Rev. James Matheson who had been bred, trained and ordained in the Free Church.
In the debate on the Training of the Ministry Rev. Fergus MacDonald warned that Marxism was filling the ideological vacuum that existed in the Western world. He stressed the need for the teaching of theology claiming that many church members were theological illiterates because they had not been taught theology. The challenge of Marxism, he said,
meant that Christian theology had never been more important than today. The Church had to state clearly not only what they believed but also why they believed it.
In his closing address the Moderator also referred to the question of the ministry. He warned that as a Church they had to examine carefully all those who sought to study for the ministry. To this warning of their Moderator the Free Church would do well to take heed as also to the following remarks which he made: “We should,” he said, “at all times seek to deal in a scriptural and Christian manner with those whose conduct brings them and the Church into disrepute and who adversely affect the Church’s witness.” “Let us also guard,” he stated, “against introducing methods which lower the dignity of our message. Let us avoid the unscriptural practices that have become so much a part of present-day evangelism such as decisionism and over-stressed emotionalism. Those are not likely to contribute to a robust Christian witness.”