IN his opening address the new moderator of the Free Church Assembly, Rev. Murdo Alex Macleod, Stornoway, said that the Church is facing a crisis of preaching. In his opinion, the Church had been too ready to admit into its ministry men who had proved totally inadequate to the demands of preaching the Word. He also said that the Free Church College must take its share of the blame, and that the curriculum should lay more emphasis on Biblical interpretation.
He later condemned the Church of Scotland Assembly for inviting Cardinal Winning to address it, saying, “It is shocking and appalling and a sad day for Scotland when a Roman Catholic Cardinal is invited to address the national Church.”
The Cardinal’s appearance in the Free Church Assembly itself was reported to have “happened by accident”, but it was evidently a planned “accident”. He was there at the invitation, and as the guest of, Lady Fraser, Her Majesty’s High Commissioner, when she crossed over from the Church of Scotland Assembly to make the High Commissioner’s traditional visit to the Free Church Assembly.
The Ecumenical relations Committee recommended that the Associated Presbyterian Churches denomination be placed on the list of churches and organisations with whom the Free Church can have exchange of delegates. The Committee did not think that local arrangements for FC and APC congregations to worship together, as in Lochinver, is the way forward. Their Report to Assembly states, “In particular, the Committee feel that it would be difficult for the free Church to make any significant move towards closer relations if there was a prospect that the APC might eventually become part of some loose-knit confederation of churches which do not share the standards of worship and practice inherent in it (and the Free Church’s constitution).” The Committee was also concerned, as well it might be, by the APC saying in its constitution that it adheres to the Westminster Confession of Faith “so far as it is consistent with Holy Scripture”. How the APC can now affirm to the Free Church that these words, carefully chosen and solemnly incorporated in such an important legal document as an ecclesiastical constitution, “did not amount to a qualification in any real sense”, defies belief.
The Editor