The new Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland Assembly was Rev. Hector Cameron, Aberdeen.
Rev. Maurice Roberts, Ayr in presenting the Report on Public Questions and Religion and Morals declared that it was imperative for the Churches in the present unsettled age to hold fast to the Apostolic position in terms of doctrine and preaching. He went on to say: “The tragedy is that so many Churches are not holding fast. They are absorbing the spirit of the age. They have virtually stopped preaching the Gospel of Christ altogether. They are going in for the trendy and are ignoring the absolutes of Scripture. To do that is to misread completely the age in which we live.” This warning was not misplaced in view of the readiness even within evangelical circles to water down the Gospel and to resort to very questionable methods of attracting the young. Mr Roberts went on to lay the blame for the sorry state of the nation’s morality on an unconverted ministry and called on the mainstream Churches to repent of their unhappy experiment with error and return to Biblical orthodoxy.
The Assembly decided to appoint a special Committee to examine the desirability and practicability of setting up a Christian school in Scotland either alone or in co-operation with others, for children whose parents wish them to have the privilege of a Christian education. This was proposed by Rev. Murdo MacRitchie, Stornoway. The school would be non-denominational. This notion was passed over against an amendment by Rev. John Murray, Oban seeking to ask the Special Committee on Education to examine ways in which parents rights could be restored. It will be interesting to see to what conclusion the Committee will come in this matter.
An appeal by a security officer from Lewis against loss of church privileges for working on Sabbath aroused considerable interest as the Kirk Session and Synod had found against him while the Presbytery had found in his favour. The Assembly after a private hearing sustained the appeal and reversed the Synod’s judgment on the ground that his work was of the nature of necessity and mercy. The Kirk Session were instructed to restore his privileges. The Principal Clerk to the Assembly stressed that this decision does not represent a resigning from the Biblical authority of the Fourth Commandment. Whatever may be true in the case of this security officer who works with Lewis Offshore at Stornoway, it is certain that the oil production industry is responsible to an alarming degree for many of the inroads that have been made on the sanctity of the Sabbath in Scotland. For this our land shall yet have to pay dearly.
A call for strong opposition to the Abortion laws also came before the Assembly, as well as a call to oppose the squalid industry of pornography. The need to fight for the legal right of parents to ban their children from sex education classes in schools was also stressed. This right, it was stated, was likely to be lost if the Education Bill at present before Parliament was lost.