by Rev. D. M. Boyd.
The June 1991 issue of Evangelical Times carries a column attacking Billy Graham’s Mission Scotland 1991. It states: “It is not at all surprising to discover that great numbers of modern ‘evangelicals’ are involved in this mission, but what is surprising — and profoundly disturbing — is the involvement of many ‘Reformed’ Christians and churches.” It goes on to document Billy Graham’s errors and further states: “For our part, we cannot understand how men claiming to be Protestant and Reformed can support an evangelism which is obviously neither. An unscriptural pragmatism is abroad: ‘Only by involvement can we hope to have young people referred to us.’ This is the pragmatism to which the apostle referred — ‘Let us do evil that good may come’ (Romans 3: 8). Our duty is to ‘separate’ ourselves from Romanism and modernism (Romans 16: 17; 2 Corinthians 6: 14-18) and to ‘withdraw’ from all who walk disorderly (2 Thessalonians 3: 6, 14).”
This is just one example of some evangelicals giving a clear call to have no involvement in evangelical campaigns such as Billy Graham’s. In marked contrast to this is the position of the Aberdeen A.P.C. who registered their congregation with the Billy Graham Mission, while their June 1991 congregational newsletter encourages the congregation to shake one of the elder’s “by the right hand — that’s the one which made physical contact with the most famous evangelist of this century!”
Notice that the quotation from Evangelical Times put the word “Reformed” in inverted commas. The columnist then said that he could not understand how men claiming to be Protestant and Reformed can support an evangelism which is obviously neither. The answer is, of course, in the inverted commas. They are not Protestant, and they are not Reformed.
The same problem is further illustrated on a subsequent page of the Evangelical Times. There is a report on the second annual Scottish Reformed Conference held in Stirling University. It is evident from this report that the Conference has an ecumenical aim for those that are “Reformed”. The report also tells us: “To be ‘Reformed’ was defined by the organizers as holding to the classic expressions of Calvinistic theology as found in the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Baptist Confession of 1689.” A similar statement appears in a report in the June 1991 issue of The Monthly Record: “The aim of the Conference is to recall Christians to the central importance of biblical preaching and to show the contemporary need to recover our largely lost heritage of Reformation theology.”
This is wholly inadequate. It explains the need for the inverted commas around “Reformed” in this modern era. To be Reformed is more than theology. If one turns to the front cover of The Free Presbyterian Magazine one will see that this magazine has been drawing attention to its readership, for decades, that we are Reformed in Doctrine, Worship and Practice. We find it difficult to believe that the committee organising this Reformed Conference did not know that there is more than Reformed theology, that there is also Reformed Worship and Reformed Practice. It may be, however, that if emphasis was placed on this, then the conference would not get off the ground. Hints in this direction are given in the report; e.g. “Those registering received a praise sheet . . .” (maybe there were not enough Psalters); “the committee suggested that a (Scottish) Reformed Fellowship would provide a forum to bring men of like mind into closer and more regular proximity to one another. The forum would . . . evoke in-house discussions on matters dividing the brethren, such as exclusive psalmody” (notice the presumption — it is exclusive psalmody which is divisive; is inclusive hymnody not so?); “the only low point of the day was the undercurrent of tension with regard to Mission Scotland 1991. Yet that is not new.” The house is divided.
The recently published autobiography of Prof. G. N. M. Collins, The Days of the Years of My Pilgrimage, contains two chapters on the rise and fall of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod. We hope that some lessons will be learned for the proper course of Reformed ecumenism.
Another point worth noting is the conjunction of the word Protestant with Reformed. While these words have separate meanings, it is being overlooked that, historically, the word Reformed includes the slightly older concept of Protestantism. People who call themselves Reformed and who are not at the same time Protestant are not Reformed at all. Until the Committee improves its definition and aims, we suggest that inverted commas are appropriate — the Scottish “Reformed” Conference.