Rev D W B Somerset
All the Lord’s people have a concern for the unity of the Church of Christ. For scriptural and for practical reasons they feel the necessity of maintaining unity as far as possible. The revealed will of Christ is that His people should manifest a visible unity, and every division is liable to weaken the Church and to impair its witness in the eyes of the world. Where divisions have occurred, true Christians yearn for the healing of the breach and continue to feel a love for their brethren presently separated from them. They long for the day when
the “watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion” (Is 52:8).
At the same time, Scripture teaches that there may be a necessity for separation. For instance, Christians are not permitted to sit under false teaching: “Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge” (Prov 19:27). This prohibition would presently apply, for example, to the teaching of many Church of Scotland ministers who do not proclaim the scriptural doctrine of the atonement. It would be sinful, and harmful to one’s soul, to attend their ministry. Equally it would be sinful to listen to the numerous female ministers in the Church of Scotland, whose very lives are a repudiation of the scripture, “I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence” (1 Tim 2:12).
God permits such errors to spring up in the visible Church in order to test His people and to discover whether their attachment is to a building and a denomination, or whether it is to the truth. “There must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you” (1 Cor 11:19). The church at Pergamos was condemned, and warned to repent, for having in it “them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes”, while the Ephesian church was commended for hating the “deeds” of these people (Rev 2:15-16, 6).
In recent years the Free Church and the Church of Scotland have been discussing ecumenical relations, and this year a Joint Statement prepared by their combined Ecumenical Committees was adopted by the two General Assemblies. The ministers representing the Free Church in this matter have included Revs Iver Martin, Fergus Macdonald, Alex MacDonald, James Maciver, David Robertson, and Kenneth Stewart.
The Joint Statement begins with an amazing assertion: “As Churches in the Reformed tradition, Scripture is vital to all we do”. The Church of Scotland is not a Reformed Church in the ordinary use of language. It is not Calvinistic, nor even predominantly Evangelical, although doubtless one could quibble that it is “in the Reformed tradition” because it used to be these things 170 years ago, and because it continues to pay lip-service to the Westminster Confession. But one cannot even pretend that Scripture is “vital” to all that the Church of Scotland does. In what way was Scripture “vital” to the Church of Scotland on May 19, when Rev Sheilagh Kesting was elected as Moderator? This was done in open defiance of Scripture, and it happened three days before the Free Church adopted the Joint Statement. Until March 1 Miss Kesting had been the secretary of the Church of Scotland’s Ecumenical Committee, and possibly even had a hand in drawing up the Joint Statement.
The Statement goes on to cite some passages from the Bible in support of Christian unity. The first passage is John 17:20-3: “That they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me”. These words are quoted endlessly by ecumenists, and in the present document they occur three times in as many pages. The significance of quoting Scripture is not clear, given that many in the Church of Scotland openly reject its authority. Having deliberately ignored other verses, they are not then entitled to appeal to those which happen to suit their purpose. “What hast thou to do to declare My statutes, or that thou shouldst take My covenant in thy mouth? Seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest My words behind thee” (Ps 50:16,17).
Another passage which the Statement cites in support of unity is Galatians 2:11-14, when Paul withstood Peter to his face because he separated himself from the Gentiles. More relevant, however, would have been an earlier verse in the Epistle: “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed” (1:9). If someone comes to us who does not have the doctrine of Christ, John says, “Receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 10-11). And Paul says that Christians are not to be “unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (2 Cor 6:14).
The Statement then goes on to quote sections from the Westminster Confession on the subject of Church unity. But again the question arises, what is the significance of quotations from the Westminster Confession in the mouths of those who reject its principal doctrines? The first chapter, and one of the longest, in the Confession is on the inspiration and authority of Scripture, but many of the Church of Scotland’s public actions declare plainly that the majority in its courts do not believe this chapter. In 2005, the Free Church Ecumenical Relations Committee reported to General Assembly that “the doctrine of Scripture was critically important in defining the differences between the two Churches”. It seems that these differences are now to be forgotten.
Having laid these foundations, the Statement goes on to reflect on the “scandal of divisions” in the Presbyterian Churches, and to suggest a number of practical ways forward. The word “union” is not used, and it is not the immediate intention, but there is nothing in the Statement to suggest that the process is to stop short of union. There is to be a “developing process” with an “expanding framework for dialogue”, and one can only think that some people on the Ecumenical Committees must be considering union. It is little short of astonishing that this Statement should have been adopted by the Free Church, and one can only wonder at the rapid changes that are taking place in the denomination.
In his address to the Assembly, the new Free Church Moderator, Rev John
Ross, took a different line. He at least showed he was aware that the Church of Scotland is grossly liberal, and he noted with dismay that Miss Kesting “rushed to indicate her willingness to lead the Kirk down the road to the acceptance of [homosexual] weddings”. His suggestion was that the “confessional congregations” of the Church of Scotland should come out and form a new denomination with the Free Church. His description of this new denomination, however, was far from reassuring: it was to be confessional, caring and contextual, and it would not be obsessed with doctrine. There would be no place in it for congregations which were “unwilling to change”. One change that might be necessary would be in the nature of “sung worship”.
We do not have space to comment further, but there is clearly a crisis of identity in the Free Church at present. The Special Committee on Worship is preparing a Handbook which should be ready next year and the issues of musical instruments, the role of women in worship, and “scripture songs” are in the air. The Moderator’s dismissive remarks on doctrine contrast with the words of Rev Kenneth MacRae, a former Free Church minister in Stornoway, at the end of his life: “Some think that doctrine is dry, but I love it; I love chunks of doctrine, chunks of it. It is so full of Christ, full of Christ!”
“Till I come,” said Paul to Timothy, “give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. . . . Meditate upon these things, give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee” (1 Tim 4:13,15,16).