After comments in The Free Presbyterian Magazine on the practical outworkings of the false views of liberty held by the Associated Presbyterian Churches, it is possibly only fair to comment on what appears to be an attempt at reining in the bolting steed.
It is common knowledge that the APCs have introduced practices that are very different from the Free Presbyterian Church which they left. One of the obvious areas which needs adjustment, to enable the APC to take up their place alongside current evangelical churches and groupings, is the area of worship. If it were not so tragic, it would be ludicrous to detail in all its farcicality the adjustments being made in the Aberdeen APC public worship: standing in prayer on Sabbath in the church; sitting in prayer in the anteroom during the prayer meeting; at some prayers advising those in danger of standing that they do not need to do so; and much more.
However the latest subject to trouble the brethren, and the sisters, is the question of women wearing a head covering during public worship. Differing views were expressed on this subject at a private meeting of the APC Assembly. Now it appears that the Rev. Alexander Murray has stolen a march upon his colleagues and put forth his view in the September issue of the APC News Update. He inserts two large extracts from commentaries on 1 Corinthians, chapter 11, verses 2 to 16 and 17, which, on balance, support the view that women should wear a head covering. Anticipating the objections which were only too familiar to our ears when the APC’s were once in the Free Presbyterian Church, Mr Murray counters the expediency of skipping over these verses in an age of “equal opportunity”. Countering the charge that the subject is seemingly trivial, he asserts: “I judge the subject to be of such intrinsic importance, as well as being of contemporary concern for the churches, that it is deserving of somewhat expanded treatment.” Well do we remember the insinuation of “triviality” and the supercilious disdain with which APCs treated such subjects when they were once among us. It was a device: they hoped to win their case by default. They are still at it, and Mr Murray is not for it.
It bodes ill for Mr Murray that one of the ministers opposed to his view is the Rev. John Tallach of Aberdeen. Mr Tallach’s congregation contains the APC legal adviser and several others intimately involved in the inner workings of the APC. This congregation, shortly after the split, rejoiced in the fact that a new Church was born, which is unlikely to be the way Mr Murray views matters. Mr Tallach appears to have consulted his Kirk Session and he has decided to counter the point of view put forward in the APC News Update. Mr Murray will be pleased that Mr Tallach does not treat the matter as trivial. It seems to be so important that, in the copies of the APC News Update distributed in the Aberdeen Church, an insert is enclosed. While the Aberdeen Kirk Session “does not wish to increase discussion of an issue which, in their opinion, is unlikely to prove edifying to the church,” Mr Tallach takes the opportunity to bring forward his view. “It seems to me,” he writes, “that we cannot simply transfer what Paul says about the wearing of veils in Corinth to the wearing of hats in another culture and at another time. . . . Because I do not see that Scripture insists on women wearing hats during public worship, I feel unable before God to ask them to do it.”
However, Mr Murray’s stance reminds us of the late Professor John Murray’s ineffectual attempt to prevent the decline from purity of worship in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in America. One of the lessons from the 19th and 20th centuries is that decline in worship goes before the open manifestation of the theological decline which covertly precedes it.
Mr Murray will not be taken in by the charge of triviality, but he may be induced to silence by The Free Presbyterian Magazine turning the spotlight on one of their known differences of opinion. It is possible that this notice will lead to APC closing of ranks and calls to let the issue die — the less public discussion about their changes in practice the better — under cover of the formula that “it is unlikely to prove edifying to the church.” This will work to the advantage of the liberals in their midst who will cast the more conservative members in the rôle of contentious persons. Don’t we know these tactics only too well. Indeed, we know them so well that there may be attempts to turn the fire elsewhere and identify as the trouble-maker the one who is drawing attention to their problems. To forestall the charge of contentiousness and to cool emotions, Mr Murray finishes with a sop on unity: “Meanwhile the rule is: ‘In essentials, unity; in doubtful questions, liberty; in all things, charity’.”
There are a few in the APC who were beguiled into leaving the Free Presbyterian Church and, as time is progressing, they are seeing that they have more in common with the church they left than with the new grouping they find themselves in.
D.M.B.