Scottish Churches stage their ecumenical campaigns
THIS year of 1997 is termed the “Year of Faith” by the ecumenical body, Action of Churches Together in Scotland (ACTS). The leaders of the main participating Churches, Cardinal Thomas Winning of the Church of Rome, Bishop Richard Holloway of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and Rev. John McIndoe, Moderator of the Church of Scotland, met at Dunblane recently to “launch” the “Year of Faith” as the first in a series of ecumenical campaigns leading up to the year 2000. It has to be said that some statements made on the occasion do not indicate faith but rather a further moving away by Protestant Churches from the Reformed faith, and an increase in infidelity.
It is disgraceful that Rev. John McIndoe should say he hopes that the dawning of 2000 will see all churches taking part in communion around “one undivided table”, when he ought to know that this can only happen on Rome’s terms. Cardinal Winning’s statements in the recent past about ultimate authority being vested in the Bishop of Rome, and that the prerequisite for inter-communion must be full unity, should leave his ecumenical fellow-travellers in no doubt that his Church is not for turning, and that it is they who will have to give way.
Sadly, the Church of Scotland has ceased to be stedfastly and distinctly Protestant. Most of the leaders of our national Church appear to be embarrassed by their Protestant heritage and to be more prepared to honour the Roman antichrist than the renowned Reformers of our land. It is high time that they ceased painting Rome in attractive hues and stopped leading their people Romeward. Some years ago our Synod issued a statement “deploring such attempts by Protestant Churches to move closer to the Church of Rome”. The statement continues:
“To justify this closer approach, attempts have been made to present the Church of Rome in a more favourable light than the truth warrants, by suggesting, on the one hand, that there are evidences of a desire for reformation in the Roman Church, or, on the other hand, that it is not such a corrupt Church as Protestants have always contended.
“Like every other professing Church, the Church of Rome must be subject to the testing light of the Word of God with respect to its doctrine, worship, and practice. By adding tradition to Holy Scripture, Rome has tried to vitiate the authority of the Word of God. By making the Church the sole interpreter of revelation, Rome has sought to take the place of the Holy Spirit. By the exaltation of the Virgin Mary, Rome has struck at the mediatorial office of Christ. By its doctrine of the mass, it has dishonoured the divine sacrifice of the Lamb of God. By its teaching on the confessional, it has exalted its priesthood and kept multitudes of the human race in the chains of a most degrading bondage as well as giving them a false hope of the forgiveness of sins. By its delusions of purgatory, it fills its coffers with money and terrifies its people with a vain imagination. By its doctrine of Papal Infallibility, it places beyond all dispute the accurate description of the Pope of Rome given in the Westminster Confession of Faith, which is founded upon Holy Writ. ‘There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ; nor can the Pope of Rome in any sense be head thereof; but is that antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalteth himself against Christ, and all that is called God.’
“These, and a multitude of other errors, for which the Roman Church is notorious, justify the view held by every intelligent student of Scripture that the Church of Rome is the greatest perversion of Christianity which the world has ever seen or which the world is ever likely to see.
“The Synod, therefore, condemns as base treachery to Christ, and inexcusable unfaithfulness to the souls of sinners, the attempts by churchmen of all denominations to seek closer relations with, and eventual union to, the Church of Rome, whose spiritual corruption is so dishonouring to Christ and ruinous to souls.”
We are to pray for the predicted downfall of this great Babylon, the release of the multitudes under its bondage, and the advent of that spiritual, universal unity which is promised in, and based upon, the Word of God. ☐