In this her Silver Jubilee Year Her Majesty the Queen attended the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in person. In her address to the Assembly she said: “Twenty-five years ago I took a solemn oath to preserve and uphold the rights and privileges of the Church of Scotland. That solemn pledge I gladly re-affirm in your presence today.” Her Majesty also said that the greatest strength of any nation is in its human and spiritual resources. Christians everywhere, she further declared, are sustained and inspired by the ideal of the brotherhood of man and the commandment to love one another. She did not go on to state, however, that such an ideal can only be realised through union to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Rev. John R. Gray of Dunblane Cathedral succeeded Professor Torrence as Moderator of the Assembly. Later in the Assembly the role of the Moderator as a “Church Leader” was questioned by Rev. Dr Andrew Herron. He claimed that such a role could equate the Moderator’s position with that of the Archbishop of Canterbury or a Roman Catholic Cardinal. He called for the appointment of an ad hoc committee to consider the present position, powers and responsibilities of the Moderator and, if so advised, to recommend possible changes. After the Assembly divided 229 for and 229 against the proposal, Dr Herron withdrew his proposal. Professor Torrence had been particularly outspoken during his year in office. Indeed the week before the Assembly opened he delivered a very controversial sermon at the Silver Jubilee Thanksgiving service in Glasgow Cathedral to which some Scottish Nationalists took strong exception. There is no doubt that there is a strong tendency to turn the Moderator into a figurehead instead of the office being merely that of a minister presiding over the meetings of the highest Court of the Church. Dr Herron’s warning was not misplaced.
Ecumenism received its usual airing at the Assembly. The retiring Moderator said that on enquiring of non-churchgoers why they did not go to Church, the reason they gave again and again was the division between the Churches and their refusal to be reconciled with one another. We are pushing millions of people away from Christ, he said. Professor Torrence did not give the reason for these divisions, nor did he give any hint that the way these divisions could be healed was by a return to the Word of God. The cause of the divisions must lie squarely on those Churches who, by majorities of their General Assemblies, departed from the faith of the Gospel. Only a real return to the doctrines of the truth and to the practice which is according to godliness can heal the breaches that have been made in the past. The retiring Moderator also stated that there were 3 million outside the Church of Scotland who were hungry for the Spirit and Word of God. If the Moderator was right in this then surely churches where the Gospel is preached would be full. As far as we can see it is the spirit of materialism that is abroad and not that of thirst for the Word of God. Professor Torrence even saw progress in the ecumenical field in a greater willingness on the part of the Free Church and the Free Presbyterian Church to co-operate with the Church of Scotland in certain fields. While it is by no means clear what exactly the Professor had in mind we cannot agree with his assessment of the situation so far as the Free Presbyterian Church is concerned.
The General Assembly agreed to send details of a proposed plan of union between the Church of Scotland and Methodist Church in Scotland to presbyteries for their comment. The issue will come up again at next Assembly in the light of views expressed but a final decision will not be taken before 1979. A proposal by Mr David Maxwell Q.C. to abandon these unity proposals was heavily defeated. It now remains to be seen what the presbyteries will do with the proposals which provide for superintendents to be brought into the Church. Will they see this as a threat to Presbyterianism or succumb to this back door admission of bishops into the Church?
A statement by the Panel on Doctrine setting out the common ground and the differences in belief between the Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church was commended by the Assembly for use in further inter-church study and dialogue. The way things are moving with regard to Roman Catholic-Church of Scotland relations may be gauged from the presence of Roman Catholic Cardinal Gray at this year’s Assembly as an official observer for the Roman Catholic Church. The Cardinal was given the opportunity to address the Assembly which he did in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen. How far the Church of Scotland has gone since the days of the eminent Reformer John Knox when she is prepared to receive a Cardinal of the apostate Church of Rome in this way. The Cardinal’s address while giving nothing away gave the impression that Protestants and Roman Catholics have much in common. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Coggan also addressed the Assembly and commended ecumenism, He said: “I long for the closest possible unity between our two great churches, pre-eminently because I believe this to be the will of the Lord of the Church.” It is obvious that the minds of church leaders are still obsessed with the idea of outward organic unity and not with the true unity of the Spirit and unity in the truth.
The question of second baptisms arose again this year because of a report brought before the Assembly on talks held between the Inter-Church Relations Committee and officers of the Baptist Union. The Baptists declined to agree that they would only baptise a member of the Church of Scotland if his minister consented, but agreed to certain guidelines to be used in such cases. Some in the Assembly seemed to be afraid that a rigid adherence to one baptism might drive some people to the Baptists. The Assembly was appealed to by one speaker to accommodate the undoubted convictions of some of its best members instead of driving them out.
The perennial call for higher givings was heard once more. However, the call will largely go unheeded unless there is a return to the pure preaching of the gospel. This would do more than anything else to open the hearts and purses of men and women to give to the support of the Church of God.
By five votes a motion calling on all members to abstain from gambling was passed in the Assembly. It is gratifying to know that the Assembly declined to make exceptions of certain forms of gambling such as raffles etc. The Assembly also overwhelmingly defeated a motion seeking to condone euthanasia in the case of terminally ill patients. A minister from Shetland who is himself suffering from cancer spoke strongly against the proposal. Other issues such as human rights, unilateral disarmament, building of commercial fast reactors etc., also occupied the Assembly’s attentions.
In his concluding address to the Assembly, the Moderator declared that the Church had to shoulder the blame for the decline in moral standards in the country. He traced the present situation to two faults in the Church, (1) that it had lost hold of the Gospel and (2) that it had withdrawn into a religious ghetto. He went on to say that the dawn of a moral and spiritual renaissance in Britain would commence with the return of our people to the public worship of God on “Sunday” mornings. That the Church has lost hold of the Gospel is true and the Moderator was right to emphasise this, but we can look for no return to the Churches until it is regained. “The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream, and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord” Jer. 23:28.