SINCE their schismatic departure from the 1989 Synod the APCs have gone out of their way to show just how ecumenical and broad-minded they are. Not for them the pattern of Christian behaviour and worship practised by those from whom they parted company! Insistence on women wearing their hair long and refraining from wearing “that which pertaineth unto a man”, the wearing of hats by women when engaged in the public worship of God, the exclusive use of the Authorised Version and purity of worship became things of the past as far as many of them were concerned as they now exercise their kind of liberty of conscience. One of their aims in 1989 was to
distance themselves from the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland and in that at least they have been very successful. They distance themselves from us in practice and worship while at the same time they continue to occupy some of our churches and manses! Even the world sees the inconsistency of that. Recent times reveal that they have now made it to the avant garde of the popular evangelism brigade.
Prominent, in the first rank, is the Rev Malcolm MacInnes, the APC minister in Inverness. He, it will be remembered, made his exit from the 1989 Synod in a public and dramatic manner, laying his “protest” on the table, refusing to change it to a dissent, and then marching out to speak into a battery of microphones set up ready for his arrival in the car park outside. “The Church,” he said, among many other things derogatory, “has adopted double standards.” We are entitled to ask where Mr MacInnes himself now stands? Are he and other APCs not adopting double standards when they profess to hold “tenaciously” to the Westminster Confession of Faith and at the same time join forces with those who preach and practise Arminianism? The “Scotland for Christ” Gospel Rally, organised by him, was held, as advertised, in an Inverness football stadium on Saturday 5th July. At its conclusion, Mr MacInnes, we are informed, first asked those present to raise one hand and then both hands to indicate the measure of their appreciation of the day’s proceedings and then brought the Rally to a close in a manner, in our view, so irreverent and dishonouring to Christ that even the duty of drawing attention to it is one from which the writer shrinks. Just as a worldly company might be asked to give “three cheers” for someone whom they admire, so the people gathered were called by Mr MacInnes, we are told, to do likewise with regard to the One whose name is “above every name”. We know that some of those present were aghast.
Unholy familiarity and the frequent use of the Divine name are marked features of modern type evangelism. The Saviour’s name and person are treated by those engaged in it as if He were one of themselves and He is addressed accordingly. The Third Commandment enjoins the “holy and reverent use of all of God’s names, titles, attributes, ordinances, word, and works” and it is in that light that we are to judge the conduct of those present in the Inverness stadium. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
The Rev Malcolm MacInnes is the Clerk of the Scottish APC Presbytery? Does that Court, we wonder, condone or condemn his conduct? Or will resorting again to double standards be the way out?
J. McL.